Food and The Wire: More

I missed last night's episode - I went to bed early, so we'll watch it tonight. But over the weekend, I had a long conversation with my brother's girlfriend, Cail, about the role of food in The Wire. (earlier posts here, here, and here)

Cooper and I have Directv, so we don't get the "on-demand" episodes, so I haven't seen the older episodes in a few years. Tom and Cail, on the other hand, refreshed themselves by watching the whole series over the past few months. As a result, Cail has a much better recollection than I do of every time food plays a role in the show.

Over dinner on Saturday night, she listed several - from the contest-winning kids going to the fancy restaurant last season to a Brodie/McNulty exchange over takeout lake trout. There was a common thread between all the instances, and it's not a surprising one: they all highlight the class tension that is one of the show's underlying themes.

Not surprising at all, and this still demonstrates the core tonal difference between The Sopranos and The Wire. Especially since, as I mentioned last week, for as segregated as this city is, you could easily tell a Baltimore food story that highlights commonalities rather than differences.

But that would be a very, very different show...

Two More Things about The Wire

1. Vindication. I'm kind of embarrassed to say that I watched Sunday night's premiere episode while holding my breath just a little bit. I was really, really, really hoping not to see any major meals, as they would render my Sunday morning post completely irrelevant. So now I stand by my position: they don't, and shouldn't, eat. But they drink.

2. On a more interesting note, Freakonomics contributor and serious gang expert Sudhir Venkatesh watched the episode with some of his higher level, older gang contacts in New York. Today, he summarizes their reaction to the show. Fascinating stuff, and I should note that, while Cooper does not (to my knowledge) have any gang ties, he did call out the meeting in the Holiday Inn as more than a little suspicious.

Also, to the questions about whether the writers don't understand the relationship between the mayor and the feds or whether they're just painting Carcetti as incompetent: my money's on the latter. Simon and Burns know this scene - they wouldn't have gotten this far if they didn't.

The Wire vs. The Sopranos: Food & Evil

Back in June, just after the final episode of The Sopranos aired, I wrote:

The role of food in The Sopranos is so enormous that it's overwhelming. It would take someone with way more patience and time than I have to do a comprehensive analysis of food in the whole series.

The same cannot be said for The Wire.

It's difficult not to compare the two shows just because of proximity - both occupy the same HBO Sunday night timeslot, both are widely acclaimed, both deal with the complexities of the underworld, and they're ending within a year of each other. Superficially, they have much in common. But just a cursory look at food starts to reveal their differences.

Now, I haven't rewatched the first four seasons as a refresher course, so I might be forgetting something. But even with only one viewing of The Sopranos, the food was memorable, an important part of the story, offering metaphors for relationships and conduits for conversations.

Which makes sense, because at it's core, The Sopranos was a story about one family. A family involved in a crazy, horrible lifestyle, but a family nonetheless.

The Wire, on the other hand, is a story about society. It involves families, because societies do. It includes relationships - they're integral to society. Like The Sopranos, The Wire humanizes everyone - even the most evil characters - through context and language and imagery. But as respectfully as it treats its characters, at its core, The Wire is bigger than its cast.

People create a society, create cultures. But cultures and society take on a life of their own -they're bigger than the sum of the individuals that make up their parts. And they're colder.

As I said earlier this morning, food brings warmth. The Sopranos, for all of its bluster and evil and death - it was warm because it was about family. You could feel the love, and you could feel the blood.

There's love present in The Wire, and there's certainly blood, but that's not what the story is about. The story is about the loss and the decay. About the cold. It hurts to watch. More food in the story might make it easier, more approachable. But less powerful.

The Wire is not The Sopranos (not that anyone's claiming it is).

But we care at least as much.

The Wire Is Back. But Do They Ever Eat?

The Wire is the best show ever to be on television in the history of television and the future of television. Best best best. Ever ever ever.

Could there be a less controversial statement? Or an insight shared by more members of the media and commenters on even slightly intellectual TV sites? Mind you, I'm not disagreeing - I think the show is amazing and powerful and sometimes too much for me to even watch. Occasionally, and especially during season four, I've had to take a break mid-show to read Best Week Ever or something, relying on Cooper to catch me up on the action once the show's over.

Living in Baltimore certainly doesn't make the show's message any less powerful. Scenes are shot outside my old office building downtown - one day on my way to lunch, I ripped my skirt on a generator and the production manager immediately rectified the situation. Baltimore is a complicated and still very segregated city, and the Baltimore I live in mostly feels very far away from what I see on TV. But it's really not.

I recognize not only the street names, but also thinly veiled characters (it surprises me that I haven't read more national media comparisons between Carcetti and O'Malley). I've met someone who has a character on the show (as in, I met the real person the character is based on - they use her real name and everything). My only real gripe with the show is that there's only been one cop character (season two's Major Valchek) with a dead-on Baltimore accent.

Apparently, at last night's Baltimore premiere, held at the Senator Theater (maybe 10 minutes from my house), creator David Simon vaguely reassured Mayor Sheila Dixon that she shouldn't be offended by any of the shows characters, saying, "this season is no less fictional than anything else we've ever done." Call me cynical, but I'm pretty sure he was hedging. The show defies the traditional break between fiction and non. Simon knows that.

This week, both the internet and traditional media have been overflowing with praise for the show. In the Washington Post, Tom Shales paints a glowing, if gritty, picture of what's to come in this final season (with one comment that skates a little close to a spoiler for me. I'm not 100% sure I know who he says dies, but I have a really good guess. I'd rather not know if I'm right.) Slate reprints Jacob Weisberg's early season four analysis of the show, as well as an interview with David Simon from the end of the last season. On The House Next Door, Josh Shelov extolls The Wire's oft-praised literary qualities. Alan Sepinwall focuses on the show's black humor - necessary to counteract Baltimore's bleak landscape. At Pajiba, reviewers and commenters alike are gushing with praise for season four (and offering a nice summary for those who want to get back up to speed) and pretty much foaming at the mouth for season five.

The Baltimore Sun, featured prominently in season five and David Simon's old workplace, plays it safe by focusing coverage on the event of the premiere, rather than the show itself. Interesting and a little disappointing, but I'll hold out hope that the coverage improves.

So...best show on television, capable of inspiring breathless middle school-style gushing from respectable veteran TV journalists. But this is a food blog. Really.

So, on the show, where is the food?

Baltimore is a food city. We eat. A lot. We all do - food knows no class in this city (unlike, well, pretty much everything else). We all love crabs.

But in The Wire...no food. Beer, definitely - the bar is as much a player in some scenes as the corner is in others. And occasionally there's a diner or an awkward evening meal at home, but it's really never about the food. Only the setting.

I'm not complaining, though. Just because I'm into food doesn't mean I think it has to be shoved into every movie and TV show I watch. In fact, I think it's lack of inclusion is just as telling as any focus on food would be.

The characters of The Wire are humanized, and we see them in relationships. But the show -the circumstances, the relationships, the setting, the people - it's not warm. Food would make it warmer. And that would be wrong.

Is a post about the absence of food still actually a post about food?

I don't know, but regardless, I wanted to post about the show. After all, it is the Best. Show. EVERRRRRR.

UPDATE: I'm verbose this morning. I take this a little further with a Wire/Sopranos comparison.