HBO's "The Wire"

It was "the point" to have one of the most annoying characters in television history? lol, please explain. What point did he serve besides bad television?

He wasn't even annoying in the "root against this guy" sense, he was cartoonishly annoying to the point it brought down the show.
You weren't supposed to root against him. He is very difficult to understand, and that's the point. It's hard to sympathize with him, but ultimately that is what the show asks you to do. It forces you to share a space with his frustration.
He was a tragic character who embodied another facet of working class anger manifested through the lack of greater economic opportunity.

He wasn't someone who was made of the right stuff to be a dock worker, or to endure the increasingly hostile world collapsing in around that class of whites while urban decay spread outward from a burgeoning drug trade that got its footing in the projects; a social idea that concentrated blacks in the most impoverished areas of a city where ex-cons lived side by side with the innocent resulting in an environment of abject hopelessness that allowed these wolves to quickly dominate the landscape and ethnic culture by exploitation of the weak in the only truly successful business there-- the drug trade-- while the most decent people like Wallace were swallowed up by the ruthlessness of these most predatory individuals, or those determined to survive like Bodie.

Ziggy showed that ideas transcending money like "respect" aren't unique to African-American or gangland culture. It's philosophically Platonic: a person needs to feel like he has a function-- a meaningful role to play in his community and his world. A city with harpists, but no harps, is not a happy city. Everything in its right place. All of the Sobotka men reveal this desperation in a different way, and it dooms them:
  • Because work is scarce, Ziggy is deprived of respect, as men tend to be vicious to the weakest rung on the ladder, and that viciousness is proportional to the scarcity of resources. He's stuck in a blue-collar job when he's not a blue-collar guy. More importantly, because of this, he's also deprived of the means to get the hell out of there. He doesn't have a support network outside that world. He's kind of a fuckup, but that is where the cracks first start to show.
  • Nicky is deprived of a family. He is made for the docks, but he is unable to move out of his parent's house. He can't start his family the way it needs to be started, and it strains his most important relationship (with the mother of his child).
  • Frank is deprived of the ability to feed his people, and to do his work. He is made for the docks, but the docks aren't running.
When faced with the impossible adversity of the disappearing working class (due to growing wealth disparity where the wealthy outsource labor) every single one of them is ultimately destroyed by resorting to desperate measures...desperate measures connected to the spreading cancer from the projects nearby in Baltimore. The opportunity only existed because of the massive demand for the drugs, and the fact that incompetent, political policing wasn't adequately dealing with more organized operations. The only officer with any presence (outside our noble unit) is a low-level female cop who is meant to be a glorified security guard.
Nothing compares.


Nothing.
 
You weren't supposed to root against him. He is very difficult to understand, and that's the point. It's hard to sympathize with him, but ultimately that is what the show asks you to do. It forces you to share a space with his frustration.
He was a tragic character who embodied another facet of working class anger manifested through the lack of greater economic opportunity.

He wasn't someone who was made of the right stuff to be a dock worker, or to endure the increasingly hostile world collapsing in around that class of whites while urban decay spread outward from a burgeoning drug trade that got its footing in the projects; a social idea that concentrated blacks in the most impoverished areas of a city where ex-cons lived side by side with the innocent resulting in an environment of abject hopelessness that allowed these wolves to quickly dominate the landscape and ethnic culture by exploitation of the weak in the only truly successful business there-- the drug trade-- while the most decent people like Wallace were swallowed up by the ruthlessness of these most predatory individuals, or those determined to survive like Bodie.

Ziggy showed that ideas transcending money like "respect" aren't unique to African-American or gangland culture. It's philosophically Platonic: a person needs to feel like he has a function-- a meaningful role to play in his community and his world. A city with harpists, but no harps, is not a happy city. Everything in its right place. All of the Sobotka men reveal this desperation in a different way, and it dooms them:
  • Because work is scarce, Ziggy is deprived of respect, as men tend to be vicious to the weakest rung on the ladder, and that viciousness is proportional to the scarcity of resources. He's stuck in a blue-collar job when he's not a blue-collar guy. More importantly, because of this, he's also deprived of the means to get the hell out of there. He doesn't have a support network outside that world. He's kind of a fuckup, but that is where the cracks first start to show.
  • Nicky is deprived of a family. He is made for the docks, but he is unable to move out of his parent's house. He can't start his family the way it needs to be started, and it strains his most important relationship (with the mother of his child).
  • Frank is deprived of the ability to feed his people, and to do his work. He is made for the docks, but the docks aren't running.
When faced with the impossible adversity of the disappearing working class (due to growing wealth disparity where the wealthy outsource labor) every single one of them is ultimately destroyed by resorting to desperate measures...desperate measures connected to the spreading cancer from the projects nearby in Baltimore. The opportunity only existed because of the massive demand for the drugs, and the fact that incompetent, political policing wasn't adequately dealing with more organized operations. The only officer with any presence (outside our noble unit) is a low-level female cop who is meant to be a glorified security guard.
Nothing compares.


Nothing.
really cool analysis
 
I just finished this show, i didn't want to make a new thread about it, so i'll just post about it here.

I agree that the show is very well written. And it was awesome seeing the root of all the gifs that have been posted here since i joined. It does start out slow and took me a very long time to get through season one. But it does get better. I have to say that i absolutely hated the ending to this show.

i think this show has the p4p most unlikeable characters of any show ever made.
 
A lot of people on here say The Wire is a really good show. Prob as good as The Walking Dead. I'd give it a shot!
ban for trolling.
Walking Dead is zombie filler for the dumb masses.
Breaking Bad is childs play compared to The Wire.
The Wire is the GOAT.
 
It’s not as good as Breaking Bad.
 
Well, the ratio of 10's and 1's is telling. Paradigm shift. It isn't an accident. Dexter terminated in an agonizing poverty of craftmanship and good writing. It was so confused. They had no idea what to do. Terrible. Just trbl.

And you know, as bad as it ended, the books were worse.

So much worse.

His "dark passenger" was actually a demon. It left him in one book, and he was so lonely, miserable and pathetic by himself he begged it to come back.

This isn't hyperbole or symbolism. It was a literal demon.
 
Jesus how many times do we have to make this thread?
 
Jesus how many times do we have to make this thread?

All the times.

It's never the wrong time to talk about The Wire.

For every Breaking Bad thread there ever was, there should be at least a thousand Wire threads.

So let it be written, so let it be done.
 
I just finished rewatching for the 4th time.

It never gets bad
 
I'm not huge on TV, but I watched Dexter seasons 1-4 a while back and am about to start watching The Wire. Or am I wasting my time and should be watching something else?
Thank goodness you didn't watch passed season four!!
 
I have watched the 1st six / 7 episodes of The Wire and I had to stop. It felt like too much of a choir to keep going.

Breaking bad on the other hand is gripping right from the start!
 
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