For me, this is when the series starts to transcend television. (Not that there’s anything wrong with television…)
Episode #33: “Moral Midgetry”
“Crawl, walk, and then run.” – Clay Davis
Carcetti flaunts his advisors counsel and pressures Burrell over witness protection. The Major Case Unit track the buyer of phones for the Barksdale Organization. Brianna and McNulty sit down for a heart-to-heart. Avon dispatches the troops to track Omar and tries to ensnare Marlo in a trap. Avon is wounded when Marlo senses the trap and then wrestles with a revelation by Stringer. A local deacon helps Cutty to plan a new life and is dismayed at the standard of life for drug users in Colvin’s tolerant zones.
New Characters:
Roman (community organizer with The Deacon, played by Clarence Clemons!
Dee-Dee (drug customer in the car, played by Richard Price’s daughter Genevieve)
Deceased:
Tater (Barksdale soldier)
Though no more related to today’s episode than to any other, our discussion of family and poverty in class today immediately called to mind the discussion of DeAndre’s sexual behavior in The Corner. Simon and Burns write on teenage pregnancy in the underclass:
“Most of these babies are very much wanted by the mothers and fathers alike. What better legacy for a sixteen-year-old slinger who expects to be dead or in prison by age twenty? What greater personal justification for a teenaged girl thirsting for the unequivocal love of another being? … Poverty and failure is what they know; it’s what they accept for themselves every day and, by extension, wheat they accept for their children as well. For the child-fathers, the futures is guns and vials and broken pavement; for the child-mothers, it is life as a twenty-two-year-old welfare mother, barefoot on the rowhouse steps with toddlers stumbling around her” (233).
This part of the book struck me as particularly tragic. It’s difficult to absorb the idea of actively doing something that is sure to make an already difficult life much harder and ultimately perpetuate existing problems, particularly from a position of privilege where an future of nearly infinite possibility is assumed. The thought of a teenage girl willfully enduring pregnancy, birth, and single-motherhood just to have someone in the world that must love them—that there no other accessible means of satisfaction—is sickening. Nonetheless, Simon and Burns offer a compelling explanation of the attitudes that underlie DeAndre and Tyreeka’s irresponsible sexual behavior. What he doesn’t offer is a solution to a problem that is deeply entrenched in a community’s collective thinking, a realm inaccessible to agents of reform. How can you legislate for these attitudes? Can they be changed?
Yet again this brings us to this notion of hopelessness about the future that we have discussed with respect to the game—the assumption of death or prison by age twenty (give or take) obviously has a profound impact on someone’s behavior. It breeds recklessness that heightens the impact of a number of problems. This passage supports the idea that poverty and despair destroy families (or inhibit their establishment), rather than poverty following an absence of a solid family unit, though obviously there’s something of a cyclical relationship here.
A simple image that struck me as incredibly powerful: in Hamsterdam, as the chaos rages and the cops try to figure out how to deal with the problems they may have exacerbated, we see a child, no older than twelve, standing in a doorway, drinking from a bottle in a brown paper bag. As Hamsterdam was designed as “the paper bag for drugs,” I found the image profoundly disturbing, and the best example yet of how Colvin’s good intentions and attempts at reform have bred as many negative real-world consequences as positive statistics.
One of the things that I admire about “The Wire” is that the creators understand the concept of unintended consequences. I can’t think of another program that has addressed the drug issue so comprehensively, and I appreciate that rather than taking the naive “drug legalization would solve our problems,” or “enforcement is the only way” positions, Simon and Burns instead chose to delve deeply into what the actual consequences of such policy changes would be. It’s that willingness to address consequences such as the actual goings-on in Hamsterdam that sets the program apart.
I absolutely agree. I was so glad when the Deacon stepped in and called Hamsterdam what it really is (particularly for the addicts)- hell. As an abstract idea it makes some sense to contain problems and people talk about the legalization of drugs as the ultimate solution but Hamsterdam exposes the pain and sadness and irresponsibility involved in simply writing people off. This situation might be ideal to eliminating the violence that surrounds turf wars and useless street arrests but it consumes addicts. When Bubs sees Johnny in Hamsterdamn he has lost his former spark. Reading The Corner has been eye opening in its narration from the point of view of addicts. Addiction is such a sad overpowering thing that steals peoples agency.
I am glad that they have brought public health officials in and are trying to do some outreach to the young kids- I am curious as to whether these solutions will improve the situation. When Carver tried to step in to help the unemployed kids with the basketball hoop it was not effective.
I do not know what the solution is and I am glad that the show is making it clear how complicated this issue is. I think that decriminalization of small amounts of drug possession for drug users makes sense- these people aren’t criminals they are addicts and should be put in rehab not jail- but I am thus far not convinced that legalization is the solution.
Did you really mean sickening? I think it is sadder than anything else that young teens have children just to have someone in the world to love them. It is sad that they do not have a family structure to provide them that love. It is sad that they don’t receive an education the gives them role models or a teacher who cares about their future. It is sad not sickening that they can’t see other ways of fulfillment or that there are other possibilities. I guess for me it these teenage girls who have children are in the depths of despair and they turn to unfortunate solutions but it is important to ask yourself what pushed them there and have some sympathy that they resort to what they’ve resorted to don’t you think?
Oops, my reply was meant for Stefan’s post, my bad. Sorry Brett.
Perhaps this is the naïve and hopeful part of me but the fact that Dennis formally known on the streets as Cutty is getting a second chance is a reminder that perhaps some people can escape the game. I guess it is unclear what necessarily earned Cutty his stripes enough so that he can walk away from the game without being killed but we see him trying out a new life, doing honest work and staying away from the streets. I know it was brief but the scene where I believe it was the deacon and someone else taking Cutty to the boxing school as a means to channel his aggression or build up energy inside him. I guess it is just refreshing to know there are people out there be them from the church or from community organizations that try to help others by finding positive outlets for their energies. I know it is not as simple as bringing all gang bangers to a boxing school and that will bring crime rate down but if you start at a young age and provide children and teens with positive ways to channel their energy and even their anger perhaps they will be less prone and it will be less desirable to turn to real violence.
Another thing that struck me about this episode but also about the series thus far is that we have not really seen that many street level drug dealers and an inside to the extreme poverty that they live in. Yes, we did see Wallace living in the abandoned apartment taking care of those children briefly. And there was also Nicky but he was not on the street really, he was higher up in terms of buying and selling the packages. But Nicky was in the drug game trying to save some money to buy a home for his family but still he was not in serious poverty. I guess to me what is missing is the inside look to people who involve themselves in this game not to drive a Benz or buy real estate but rather to get by day to day. I mean Stringer and Avon live very well, Bodie we don’t really see him complaining about paying bills or putting food on the table or any of the other people in the game, most of them dress relatively well. I guess for me the desperation is sort of missing of the drug game that some people join this underground economy in the hopes of being able to survive, to put food on the table by making quick and in some respects easy money. Or also the people who turn to drugs because of the bleak prospects. We don’t really get the user side of the story as much, like sure we follow Bubbles and Johnny but we don’t get much of a back story at least not to my recollection about what turned them to a life of drugs. I mean please correct me if I am wrong but I guess I am just looking for a more insider view to the people who get jobs in the game just to get by and also the user who turns to drugs as a last resort because users don’t have to think about their grim reality because their high. Perhaps we will get more of a view of the life of people who live in poverty from season 4 when the show deals with education.
Your response seems to apply to my post, though I think your objection comes from my poor word choice and sentence structure more than underlying ideas. What I meant is that the situation is sickening, it makes me sick that there are not other modes of self-fulfillment available to these girls. I am not judging the girls themselves, or even their choices, necessarily, since their logic makes a lot of sense given their position. My point was largely to commend Simon and Burns for illuminating the context behind a choice that seems absurd from an outsider’s perspective, thereby providing for sympathy and understanding.
Yeah, sorry about the mix-up so yeah we are on the same page 🙂
Stefan, I am very glad that you are noticing the focusing on the role of children, particularly in these last few episodes in the Hamsterdam scenes. For me (and as Brett points out), the most heartbreaking quality of life in “The Wire” is its incredibly realistic portrayal of children and the circumstances they face growing up in places like West Baltimore. From Wallace all the way to this most recent scene in Hamsterdam, the directors seem to be making a point of showing how devastating the transition can be from young child to a member of the game.
One scene in this episode stands out to me as a direct portrayal of this and it is done in quite a clever way. At the take-out place, Marlo essentially has a young girl stationed inside to see if the Barksdale crew plans on ambushing him there. When she spots the Barksdale crew member and leaves to go tell Marlo, the camera cleverly follows her but keeps its pov from inside the restaurant, largely so that it can maintain its proximity to the diagetic music coming from inside the building. The song playing is Buffalo Soldier, a Bob Marley song that refers to African-American soldiers who fought bravely for the “whites” during the American Indian war and Civil War. While the song glorifies the idea of soldier, at the same time the term also refers to somebody who is fighting a war that is either useless, endless or not something they have anything to do with. These kids, at times, are Buffalo Soldiers in “the game.”
As sad as I know I will undoubtedly be when we delve into the fourth season, I really look forward to the portrayal of kids in the schools. Right now I sort of only see these kids as buffalo soldiers when they clearly have more dimensions to them. However in the meantime, I enjoyed seeing a little tribute to Bob Marley in this way while simultaneously noticing a much larger statement about the role of children in “the game.”
Also, on the subject of Buffalo soldiers (but not on The Wire), there is a fantastic film called Buffalo Soldiers that came out in 2001 about a US military base in Europe that doubles as a meth lab. Unfortunately for the movie’s director the film was slated to come out in October of 2001, at a time when any sort of anti-american sentiment was not a marketable item, so the film financially didn’t do too well. However, its still a great movie and an incredibly interesting take on the American military and the concept of “America” seen from abroad.
I want to expand on some of the ideas that Antoinette touches on regarding Cutty. I think Simon and Burns’ narrative decision to diverge from the main institutions and focus on one character’s path to “salvation” is an extremely interesting one. Cutty’s role in the show is a very unique one. We are seeing Cutty’s personal development story in an isolated manner, much differently than the way we have seen other characters grow and wrestle with personal conflicts. I think the lead quote for the episode by Clay Davis, “Crawl, walk, and then run,” is actually very pertinent to Cutty’s story as well as Stringer’s business ambitions. We have seen the crawling portion thus far, as Cutty resigns himself to landscaping and searches for another outlet. In this past episode, his new found project of resurrecting the abandoned building and transforming it into a boxing training venue may be the beginning of his walking stage.
Another strategy that Cutty employs in his personal transformation is re-branding, a recurring theme in the show. He has started to introduce himself as Dennis, which may be the most explicit evidence of his yearning to move on. We have seen re-branding fail before, particularly in regards to poor product, so it will be interesting to track the development of Dennis’ personal quest.
Hamsterdam is terribly interesting… It’s definitely my favorite part of the Season 3 so far, and I find myself thinking about it and talking about it a lot. What makes it so fascinating is that the idea, especially as it’s been framed in the show, makes a lot of sense and can be seen as a pretty balanced interim solution between legalization and enforcement. I’ve been telling my friends about it in my daily Wire trivia update (that has turned many non-believers into fans) and we’ve been discussing what a fascinating concept it is. Like Stefan aptly points out, The Wire is indeed excellent at exploring the unintended consequences of actions and policies, and I’m glad they gave the Hamsterdam storyline the seriousness and complexity it deserves, beginning with the dealers’ incredulous reaction to the idea. I mean, of course they will be skeptical and of course they will think it’s a trick – how could they not? In this light, it is also interesting to consider the relationship between the dealers and the police, and how it’s changed since the introduction of the “free zone” policy. I feel that there’s a lot more trust and respect there, and that both sides understand each others’ raison d’etre in a way that transcends black and white questions of legal versus illegal. The scene with the police van dropping off the dope fiends in Hamsterdam was also brilliant (and brilliantly hilarious), and from a strictly economic perspective, it showed how Hamsterdam is an economic microcosm (as in, delineate the market, bring in the supply, then the demand) that should be abstract, but it’s not.
Also, the social ramifications of the experiment that is Hamsterdam have been portrayed by the show’s creators in such a profound and comprehensive fashion, that it’s hard to see the line between fiction and true, hard sociology. Carver demanding $100 tax from the dealers, the Deacon starting his social programs there, the distribution of syringes and condoms – all of these are such inspired details, such fascinating aspects, that one cannot help but give Hamsterdam the thought and consideration it deserves. As a social experiment, and as a fictional storyline.
Furthermore, the concept of Hamsterdam fits very well at this point of the show, given the clear stance on the drug war that the series’ creators have overtly taken. Even without having that paratextual knowledge about Simon and Burns’ interviews in the press, and the interview with Melvin Williams, and so on – it’s clear that they believe that the war on drugs cannot be won (and therefore it might even be faulty to call it a war at all) and in this context, I consider their conceptual exploration of Hamsterdam – as an alternative, albeit unconventional solution – all the more stimulating and valuable. We can’t win the war against drugs, but we can’t close our eyes or push it to the limits of “respectable” society either; but in the same time, continuing to believe it’s a winnable battle and is wrong as well and people will only get hurt in the process. Looking at these two options, an unsettling conclusion emerges: the first scenario – pushing the drug trade to the edge of society and abstaining from any kind of enforcement there – is a ticket to doom for the addict population, while the second option of continuing street-level enforcement and letting them operate on their usual corners also creates casualties among decent dwellers not involved in the drug trade – does it all come down to who matters most then? And whether it’s the addicts or the “respectable” citizens that we’re trying to save?
P.S. How could I forget to mention this? You might have noticed this was an exceptional episode and might have wondered why… Well the director is… finally… a WOMAN! Ha.
The role of children throughout “The Wire” is definitely an interesting aspect of this entire series but along those lines we can see how the education system has failed many of these children. The fact that so many children are involved in the game demonstrates how the system has failed a lot of these children. But this not only deals with the education system but also the lack of influence that the parents have on their children in these areas. The first scene that we see in an a school area is when Colvin is trying to get all the drug dealers to move in to these designated free zones where they will be able to sell drugs freely. The majority of the people that were brought to the meeting were children and the principal knew most of them. This really demonstrated the fact that the education system has failed so many of these kids and lets them slip through the cracks. The one child that was yelled at by the principal seemed to have a better home life than most of the other children based on the fear that the kid had for her mother finding out she missed school.
There is another scene that demonstrates the success and failure of the education system at the same time. The conversation that we see between Bunk and Omar about what has happened to their city over the past couple years. These two went to the same school but they each took completely different paths in their life. Omar represents the failure of the education system and how children end up on the streets being a part of the game. These people in the game consider it lucky that they would be able to make it to Omar’s age of 29. While Bunk on the other hand, made it through the education system successfully and is now attempting to right the wrongs that are in Baltimore by being a murder police. As we know “The Wire” will delve more into the education system and the lives of children in the next season.
Not to nit-pick, but there have been earlier female directors: Gloria Muzio in season 1, Elodie Keene in season 2, and Leslie Libman earlier in season 3.