The Wire

Last night HBO aired the season finale of The Wire. There really is no reason to watch TV again until next season.

If you don’t watch The Wire, you are unfortunate.

If you don’t like The Wire, there is something wrong with you.

Calling it “the best show on television” doesn’t do it justice. More novel, than TV Show, The Wire is among the most accomplished art this country has produced since Miles Davis recorded “Kind of Blue” and Marlon Brando did his thing in “On The Waterfront”.

What is often overlooked, is that The Wire presents more positive portrayals of black men than any other show produced by corporate media. Yes, most of the black male characters are drug dealers, addicts, gangsters or compromised cops. However, despite the coincidences of their various occupations, the black men on the show are portrayed as something rarely seen on TV – as human beings. They are ambivalent, complex, subtle, cunning and often principled. The Wire does not patronize the audience with cookie cutter “good guys” and one-dimensional over the top ‘thug for the sake of thug’ bad guys.

At a time when the mass media shoves T.O. down our throats as the prevailing image of the black American man, I’m happy to see Avon Barksdale, Stringer Bell and Marlo Stansfield.

The Wire is critically acclaimed though it typically draws only about 1.5 million viewers a week - a small audience when compared with 15 million for Fox's 24. Marx was right. The masses are basically ignorant.