The Seductive Nihilism of "The Wire"

Like many, when exposed to the TV series, The Wire, I became fascinated, obsessed,addicted...watching 2 or 3 episodes, recklessly, late in to the night, well past my bedtime. Just thinking about the next episode made me high...But, I wondered: Why the vague guilt and quiet sadness? Everyone agrees: "The writing is excellent; the acting superb; the characters are fascinating as each is a mixture of good and bad; and it is so realistic!" The problem with the series is precisely the unrelenting moral ambiguity of the characters and a fundamental unreality about the show's world view. The series prides itself on its realism about dysfunctional urban cultures and there is a certainly a powerful taste of reality to the show. But The Universe of The Wire is relentlessly, fundamentally dismal, hopeless, closed and nihilistic. More specifically, this world is devoid of the three fundamental realities of the world I know: the presence of strong, good women; the possibility of moral heroism; and an openness to a transcendent, supernatural realm. First: the absence of the feminine: as presented, the world of the Baltimore projects, police and docks is harshly, stereotypically macho in the worst fashion. It is all men...and brutalized women. No one (with the exception of Omar and his grandmother) seems to have a good wife, an admirable sister, a dear daughter, or an inspiring girlfriend! No one! Consider by contrast the classic femme fatale of film noir in which the woman is fascinatingly and ambiguously femme (her beauty intimating consolation, happiness, satisfaction) and fatale and oftentimes one must wait for the final scene to see if the femme or the fatale prevails. In The Wire, there are no genuinely womanly characters...seductive or inspirational. Kima, the endearing lesbian policewoman, is distinguished by her aggressiveness. In one scene, a young black thug punches an older policeman and the other cops pile on to give him the beating of his life. Kima stops what she is doing to jump into the action. I expected that her black identity and maternal instinct drove her to protect the young man; but she jumped in to pummel him further! Rhonda, the bright and beautiful prosecuting attorney, casts herself from one adulterous relationship to another, seemingly oblivious of her own dignity or that of marriage. DeAngelo's mother (Avon's sister) absolutely entrusts her family to a life of crime and talks her own son out of seeking a new path. Any thriving, vibrant culture rotates around the strong mother: you name it...Irish Catholic, Jewish and most of all Afro-American. The demise of the maternal, the resilient, the nourishing, the womanly...is a harbinger of cultural catastrophe. The Wire portrays just such a world-without-women. Secondly, The Wire is absolutely cynical about the possibility of genuine, consistent moral goodness. Every character is enclosed in a narrow world and enslaved to personal vices and none have a possibility of escape. This is especially heart-breaking in regard to the young drug dealers; but no less true of the cops, who are entrapped more by interior than external shackles. McNulty is the epitome of this: charming, handsome, intelligent, and zealous about his work, he is also a bad drunk, a compulsive adulterer, a workaholic, an irresponsible father-husband. He is a man without a center; a moral catastrophe! He shows not an iota of contrition or awareness of his desperate conditions(s) or a hope for a better way. At least DeAngelo and Striker are seeking a new life...albeit futilely. Indeed, it is this sense of futility, of despair, of a closed, imprisoning universe that hangs over the series like one of Bunk or Jimmy's hangovers. To use classic Catholic terms: the world and the flesh are invincible...the devil is in hiding but in control...there is no hope of escape. This is the third and final and fatal aspect of the series: there is no Hope and no real hope...whether you are a Polish dock worker, an Irish cop, or a black drug dealer. There seems to be a dark, voyeuristic appeal to this world. It is not real except perhaps in the sense that it accurately portrays the 1% of the worst of the worst. It presents a Gotham-type, Jungian or Gnostic world in which good and evil are evenly matched so that the good never triumphs and evil, by default, wins by a tie. Having spent my adult life in Jersey City, a city not unlike Baltimore, I am certain that every police department, housing project and blue-collar workplace is teaming with good, even heroic women and men. There are strong, generous, resilient women; there is the possibility of heroism for us men; our world does open up and is enclosed in a greater, better reality. The Wire is NOT realistic!