the whole point of the wire is that america is rotten and that the people in the show are bad because america is bad. utter nonsense! but that is why liberals love it so much. none of the characters are responsible for anything they do. it's all the white man's fault forcing black people to take drugs and kill each other. that is not my viewpoint. and if you could get most people to tell the truth, at least people who are not black, you would find they agreed with me.

the whole point of the wire is that america is rotten and that the people in the show are bad because america is bad

Uhhh, what? Who said that was the point of The Wire?

Your claim that "none of the characters are responsible for anything they do" flies directly in the face of what Simon himself has said about the show. Do some Googling and read up on his views, or if you are too lazy I can find a couple links for you. Just let me know.

Also, I would not consider myself a liberal, and I love this show. Not only is it an entertaining and artistically intricate novel-for-TV, but it also has something important to say (and not something that is exclusively liberal).

The fact that you boiled down this entire series into "the whole point of the wire is that america is rotten and that the people in the show are bad because america is bad" tells me that you either don't watch the show or you don't understand it.

Fanella, I don't think that's the point of the Wire at all. Especially when you consider season two, which centered on the heartbreaking devastation of the docks, and blue collar workers (who in this case happened to be white.) I think one of the central points of this show was that during a time when every urban center has tried to reinvent itself and become cosmopolitan and cleaned up, there are plenty of cities that are just unviable and left to rot.

As for the white/ black disconnect, it's hard to make a case for many of the white characters as the shows biggest villains. Avon, Marlo, Chris, etc., are psychopathic, cold-blooded killers; Royce and Clay Davis are among the biggest traffickers in misery and deceit. There are black heroes too... Lester, Bubbs, Bunk, etc.

The point isn't that the black and white characters symbolize broader points about America, or the races in general. The point is that they're all caught up in the same clusterf&ck which no-one outside of Baltimore, black or white, cares about at all.

its so much that america is rotten. its more about we're not as great as we think we are. every time i watch a state of the union address and listen to how great we are, "the greatest country in the world" i wonder how our leaders discount all the people w/o healthcare, our standing in high school education, and our neonatal mortality. this country needs to stop tooting its own horn and start trying to not only save the cities, but the people in them. the ones who have few career options.

I am not black, and I could not disagree more with your ridiculous statement. Our Colvins, Reginalds, Cuttys, Sobotkas, all take responsibilities for their actions and suffer consequences of their behaviors. White men and black men in power behave in the same manner, not because they are black or white but because they are a mayor or a commissioner or a major. Actually why am I bothering, you obviously never really watched the show so your statements are ignorant and preposterous.

Actually, the point of the wire is much more that over-simplified "viewpoints" like the dumbass ones you are asserting are at the root of a lot of our problems.

"whole point of the wire is that america is rotten and that the people in the show are bad because america is bad. "

Interesting.

What I took from the show was that there are no black and whites or more precisely, the things that you think are black have shades of grey and white, and the things you think are white have shades grey and black.

I don't think Simon was saying that america is rotten; I think it is more that our institutions are rotting. It's funny that conservatives get so defensive about critiques of 'murica, but have no trouble leveling critiques about the institutions in 'murica that they find wanting. So, for example, Fenella seems to think liberals find america to be rotten. But what do you think Fenella would say about america's government? What do you think Fenella has to say about the Department of Education or the IRS? Does anyone think Fenella will be waving his or her flag and saluting on April 15th? Do you think Fenella is happy when taxes are raised or a state limits his or her gun rights? That's america too Fenella. It's not just the parts that you agree with and like.

none of the characters are responsible for anything they do. it's all the white man's fault forcing black people to take drugs and kill each other.

Aboslutely and demonstrably false. On the contrary, the Wire goes out of its way to show how our personal decisions affect our own lives and the lives of others. Who but McNulty is responsible for his cooking up the false serial murder? Who but Marlo Stansfield is responsible for his actions as a drug kingpin? Who but Bunny Colvin is responsible for legalizing drugs in Hamsterdam?

As for the contention that the Wire tries to show that taking drugs and murder are all the white man's fault: There is one white person at the top of the drug food chain and he is white, but he doesn't force his product on anyone, in fact people have to take extraordinary steps to even be in the same room as the man (see Marlo, Season 5, and all the effort he had to make to meet the kingpin). All of the major drug dealers in the Wire are black. So much so that the opposite of your statement seems true - the Wire paints a picture of it being primarily the black man's fault. No one is forced to take drugs on the show.

I can understand how today's typical conservative would have difficulty swallowing the Wire: the show does counter the conservative trope that if you just stay off drugs and get married and graduate from high school, you can go on to be a millionare! It showed that sometimes that equation can be complicated when your parents are hooked on drugs for example (see the kids in Season 4) or when the elementary school system is unequipped to deal with the number of students it has; or when your entire neighborhood is a drug war zone. But those complications don't absolve the Wire's characters of individual responisbility or the possibility of redemption (see Bubbles).

Anyway, Fennella, I think you should go back and watch the show again. It seems like your conservative viewpoint has clouded your objectivity.

Can't anyone see that Fenella is a troll? Or just incredibly stupid, and probably very young, or, conversely, very old. Fenella, you don't exactly disprove the "america is rotten" meme with your vapid and near incoherent post.