Vade Retro, Vade Ultra ([info]toddius) wrote,
@ 2008-03-07 14:55:00
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The Wire: Seasons 1-4
I finally watched me some Wire. Haven't seen season 5 yet (probably finish up with that very shortly), so if you comment, please don't spoil it. This is sort of a halfbaked notion that only concentrates on certain aspects of the series.



Among other things, I am intrigued by the concept of "good police", and what it means, and what the limitations are of it.

I have an idea that it actually has nothing to with an ethical or moral judgement but more of an estimation of someone's logical, rational, problem solving acumen, and how willing they are to see the world as it really is (as best as possible) than to try to force the world of facts to conform to their own desires and preferences.

anyone want to talk about it? I was trying to write a longer post but it was too dry.

...

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[info]toddius
2008-03-07 09:01 pm UTC (link)
Good Police have "soft eyes" - the ability to passively take in and process everything about a situation without preconceived notions.

Good Teachers also have that. The relationship between acquiring knowledge and imparting it.

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[info]pot80
2008-03-07 09:17 pm UTC (link)
I think you're tapping into something really key to the show, and it comes out of the fact that David Simon is a journalist, and even when he's doing fiction, he's coming at it with the mind of a journalist who is interested in gathering information and relating it. Fiction gives him the opportunity to sex it up a bit and have the chance to editorialize.

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[info]toddius
2008-03-07 09:35 pm UTC (link)
I don't know that's where I was really going with this. I think I was more concerned with how characters in the Wire end up going "bad", and usually it involves an irrational desire to make the World of facts conform to their desires and preferences and how that leads to not only bad police work but personal crises, etc. Obsessiveness is the holy road to bad police.

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[info]pot80
2008-03-07 10:39 pm UTC (link)
I think that's exactly right, and it's a major theme of the final season in particular.

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[info]carrot_rope
2008-03-08 12:47 am UTC (link)
Haha, I was thinking about this the other day and about how "good po-lice" could be mapped on to whatever structure you really want... I always want to to show it to people who become frustrated with the futile hierarchies and politics of their jobs and work, although I think it can go further than that too. As a way of approaching things rationally that gets rejected by the system in which it's supposed to exist even though it makes sense... blah blah blah!

I've watched so much Wire lately it's crazy - me and Phoebe just finished up watching the first four series, while I was watching (and finished watching) the fifth. What really struck them watching them all in close order is just how damn consistent the whole thing is, and how it never forgets a character even if they pop up in the background or have one line or... I dunno. You know what I mean. I really caught so much more a second (and sometimes third) time round, it sort of boggles my mind.

Um, I'm not really saying anything interesting cos I'm tired, and I think because I can't help but think of the series as one big whole now and don't want to spoil, but still! Soft eyes.

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