On Sun, Jan 6, 2013 at 5:45 PM, Angelus Novus
<[email protected]>wrote:

> raghu wrote:
> > I tried to learn more about Reed and I was really surprised to see an
> > article where he criticizes the HBO-show 'The Wire' as neo-Nazi. This
> seems
> > way over-the-top to me.
>
> Yeah, Reed's assessment is totally over-the-top.
>

Thanks. It is good to know it is not just me!




> It's hard to put my finger on it exactly, but there's a sense that it's
> almost got a sort of romanticized touch to it.  Like, characters like Omar
> Little and Brother Mouzone seem like highly improbable, larger-than-life
> characters, that are intended to provide an object of identification for
> the audience, outside of the cops or the drug gangs.


Oh absolutely! The Omar character in particular is very much glamorized,
though the last season somewhat makes up for this.

I don't think this is necessarily a weakness of the show. Without these
larger-than-life characters, it'd be downright depressing rather than the
highly entertaining show that it is.




> Also, one thing that frustrates me when following Internet discussions
> about the series, the general consensus among the fans of the series is
> that Season 2 is the "weakest" season.


I didn't realize this. I personally thought Season 2 was the best of all!
Great story, some very well-developed characters and the bad guys were
truly menacing. And I loved the angle about how the gangsters manipulate
the "war on terror" obsession to their own benefit. And it doesn't
romanticize unions at all!




> BTW, is anyone a fan of Boardwalk Empire at all?  That's another one I've
> been following pretty intensely, although to be honest, I think my
> enthusiasm for it is rather uncritical.  I'm a sucker for that kind of
> painstaking period setting, and I love the architecture, design, music, and
> clothing of the early-20th Century, so I can't decide if Boardwalk Empire
> is really a brilliant revisionist critical history of US machine politics
> in the form of a crime drama, or if it's just eye candy for middlebrows
> like me.
>

I haven't seen this one, but it sounds promising.
-raghu.
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