Abstract
The chapter deals with HBO’s television series The Wire (2002–2008). Following the idea that the series is mainly built around the story of life in the postindustrial city in America, the essay looks at the sociocultural fabrics of the series and explores how it transforms its real-life elements in imaginative ways to create a new urban experience for the viewer. Therefore, we, first of all, outline the narrative space of The Wire, before questioning what it, in turn, tells us about postindustrial/post 9/11-America. A discussion of how city space is narrated in the series by making use of the television medium will round off the analysis.
The work on my presentation of this subject at the interdisciplinary conference “Narrating Space, Reading Urbanity” in Hamburg in September 2012 has, in the meantime, resulted in a much larger study entitled Urban Ecologies: City Space, Material Agency, and Environmental Politics in Contemporary Culture (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015) that fuses ecocriticism, theories of space and place, and the “new materialisms” in close readings of contemporary cultural representations of cities. The essay is therefore concerned with material I also worked with in an extensive chapter on The Wire.
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Notes
- 1.
The Wire: The Complete Series (New York: HBO Video, 2008), season 1, episode 1: “The Target”, dir. Clark Johnson (i.e. 1.01). All subsequent citations from the series in the text refer in the same form to the respective season and episode.
- 2.
David Simon himself has actually referred to The Wire as “televised novel.” On the novelistic nature and approach of the series see, for instance, Lawrence Lanahan, “Secrets of the City—What The Wire Reveals About Urban Journalism,” Columbia Journalism Review 46, no. 5 (2008): 22–31 (24).
- 3.
David Simon, “Introduction,” in The Wire: Truth Be Told, ed. Rafael Alvarez (New York: Grove Press, 2009), 1–31 (3).
- 4.
Nick Hornby, “An Interview with David Simon,” in The Wire: Truth Be Told, ed. Rafael Alvarez (New York: Grove Press, 2009), 382–397 (388).
- 5.
Simon, “Introduction,” 8.
- 6.
Hornby, “Interview,” 388.
- 7.
Anmol Chaddah and William Julius Wilson, “‘Way Down in the Hole’: Systemic Urban Inequality in The Wire,” Critical Inquiry 38, no. 1 (2011): 164–188 (172–173).
- 8.
Lanahan, “Secrets,” 25.
- 9.
Hornby, “Interview,” 386.
- 10.
Hornby, “Interview,” 386.
- 11.
Hornby, “Interview,” 386.
- 12.
Patrick Jagoda, “Wired,” Critical Inquiry 38, no. 1 (2011), 189–199 (191).
- 13.
Marsha Kinder, “Re-Wiring Baltimore: The Emotive Power of Systemics, Seriality, and the City,” Film Quarterly 62, no. 2 (2008): 50–57 (50).
- 14.
Linda Speidel, “‘Thin Line ‘Tween Heaven and Here’ (Bubbles): Real and Imagined Space in The Wire,” Darkmatter 4 (2009): n. pag, http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/wp-content/uploads/pdf/4_Speidel_Thin_Line_tween_heaven_and_here.pdf (accessed March 4, 2013).
- 15.
Elizabeth Bonjean, “After the Towers Fell: Bodie Broadus and the Space of Memory,” in The Wire. Urban Decay and American Television, eds. Tiffany Potter and C. W. Marshall (New York: Continuum, 2009), 162–174 (164).
- 16.
Bonjean, “Space of Memory,” 163.
- 17.
Helena Sheehan and Sheamus Sweeney, “The Wire and the world: narrative and metanarrative,” Jump Cut 51 (2009): n. pag, https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc51.2009/Wire (accessed March 4, 2013).
- 18.
David M. Alff, “Yesterday’s Tomorrow Today: Baltimore and the Promise of Reform,” in The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television, eds. Tiffany Potter and C. W. Marshall (New York: Continuum, 2009), 23–36 (33).
- 19.
Rafael Alvarez, The Wire: Truth Be Told (New York: Grove Press, 2009), 51.
- 20.
Chaddah and Wilson, “Inequality,” 172–173.
- 21.
Alvarez, Wire, 51–52.
- 22.
Peter Clandfield, “‘We Ain’t Got No Yard’: Crime, Development, and Urban Environment,” in The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television, eds. Tiffany Potter and C. W. Marshall (New York: Continuum, 2009). 37–49 (38).
- 23.
Alff, “Reform,” 26.
- 24.
Speidel, “Real and Imagined Space.”
- 25.
Clandfield, “Crime, Development, and Urban Environment,” 45.
- 26.
See on “Hamsterdam” also Clandfield, “Crime, Development, and Urban Environment,” 43.
- 27.
Kevin McNeilly, “Dislocating America: Agnieszka Holland Directs ‘Moral Midgetry’,” in The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television, eds. Tiffany Potter and C. W. Marshall (New York: Continuum, 2009), 203–216 (207).
- 28.
Alvarez, Wire, 50.
- 29.
Mark Bowden, “The Angriest Man in Television,” Atlantic Monthly January–February 2008, 50–57 (54).
- 30.
Bowden “The Angriest Man in Television,” 51.
- 31.
Quoted in Alvarez, Wire, 176.
- 32.
Speidel, “Real and Imagined Space.”
- 33.
Speidel, “Real and Imagined Space.”
- 34.
Speidel, “Real and Imagined Space.”
- 35.
Speidel, “Real and Imagined Space.”
- 36.
Speidel, “Real and Imagined Space.”
Works Cited
Alff, David M. “Yesterday’s Tomorrow Today: Baltimore and the Promise of Reform.” In The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television, edited by Tiffany Potter and C. W. Marshall. New York: Continuum, 2009. 23–36.
Alvarez, Rafael. The Wire: Truth Be Told. New York: Grove, 2009.
Bonjean, Elizabeth. “After the Towers Fell: Bodie Broadus and the Space of Memory.” In The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television, edited by Tiffany Potter and C. W. Marshall. New York: Continuum, 2009. 162–174.
Bowden, Mark. “The Angriest Man in Television.” Atlantic Monthly. January–February 2008. 50–57.
Chaddah, Anmol, and William Julius Wilson. “‘Way Down in the Hole’: Systemic Urban Inequality in The Wire.” Critical Inquiry 38, no. 1 (2011): 164–188.
Clandfield, Peter. “‘We Ain’t Got No Yard’: Crime, Development, and Urban Environment.” In The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television, edited by Tiffany Potter and C. W. Marshall. New York: Continuum, 2009. 37–49.
Hornby, Nick. “An Interview with David Simon.” In Rafael Alvarez. The Wire: Truth Be Told. New York: Grove, 2009. 382–397.
Jagoda, Patrick. “Wired.” Critical Inquiry 38, no. 1 (2011): 189–199.
Kinder, Marsha. “Re-Wiring Baltimore: The Emotive Power of Systemics, Seriality, and the City.” Film Quarterly 62, no. 2 (2008): 50–57.
Lanahan, Lawrence. “Secrets of the City—What The Wire Reveals About Urban Journalism.” Columbia Journalism Review 46, no. 5 (2008): 22–31.
McNeilly, Kevin. “Dislocating America: Agnieszka Holland Directs ‘Moral Midgetry’.” In The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television, edited by Tiffany Potter and C. W. Marshall. New York: Continuum, 2009. 203–216.
Schliephake, Christopher. Urban Ecologies: City Space, Material Agency, and Environmental Politics in Contemporary Culture. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2015.
Sheehan, Helena and Sheamus Sweeney. “The Wire and the World: Narrative and Metanarrative.” Jump Cut 51 (2009): n. pag. https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/jc51.2009/Wire (accessed March 4, 2013).
Simon, David. “Introduction.” In Rafael Alvarez. The Wire: Truth Be Told. New York: Grove Press, 2009. 1–31.
Speidel, Linda. “‘Thin Line ‘Tween Heaven and Here’ (Bubbles): Real and Imagined Space in The Wire.” Darkmatter 4 (2009): n. pag. http://www.darkmatter101.org/site/wp-content/uploads/pdf/4_Speidel_Thin_Line_tween_heaven_and_here.pdf (accessed March 4, 2013).
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Schliephake, C. (2020). “This America, Man.” Narrating and Reading Urban Space in The Wire. In: Kindermann, M., Rohleder, R. (eds) Exploring the Spatiality of the City across Cultural Texts. Geocriticism and Spatial Literary Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55269-5_5
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