I've been reading so much about how brilliant "The Wire" is lately that I asked a colleague if he had ever seen it. "Best show on TV," he said, and brought in the first season on DVD for me to see. Julie was curious about it too.
We lasted about 20 minutes with it. Couldn't take all the foul language. We laughed at ourselves for turning into codgers, but I tell you, it was all up in our faces, and it became impossible to pay attention to the action because of the profanity and the general filthiness of the language. Now, I don't doubt that cops talk like that. I don't doubt the realism of the show. But what did surprise me was how visceral my reaction against it was. I'm not moralistic about profanity, usually, and I confess that I drop the f-bomb in the newsroom once every day or two. Reporters aren't prissy about language either. But this ... well, it was something else.
After 20 minutes or so, after an exceedingly ripe exchange about piss and s**t, I looked over at Julie and said, "I'm not enjoying this."
"Nope, me neither."
So we turned it off. I'm trying to sort through how I feel about this. I mean, it was just ugly and depressing to listen to. Yet a lot of smart people whose tastes I respect love this show. Presumably the incredibly foul dialogue adds to the scabrous verisimilitude, but for me, its relentlessness made it impossible to approach the show's artistry. Does that make "The Wire" less of a work of art? Yes, I'd say so. But my critical tastes in that regard are obviously far from the mainstream's.
Too bad. I really wanted to like this show.
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I know how you feel, Rod. My wife and I had the same reaction when we tried to watch Vin Diesel's "Find Me Guilty" a while back. We didn't even get to a single courtroom scene; the profanity was so aggressive that we turned it off after about ten minutes.
I'm reminded of something I've heard Michael Medved say: nobody leaves a theater saying "The movie was OK, I guess, but it didn't have enough profanity in it."
Steve writes:
When he counters that "These things are part of life", she responds;
"Young man; so, too, is diarrhea. It is not therefore entertainment."
Perfect! Deadwood is another HBO series that was full of "f-speak". The creator even saw fit to add a segment to the DVD that explained why he thought it necessary. "Reality" was one of the reasons. Whatever, bud -- I watch fictional series for entertainment, not for "reality".
I blame the religious right for all the swearing. ;)
No, actually, I'm only halfway serious, but a lot of the swearing on cable shows is an overreaction to the straitjacket that broadcast media has been in forever.(1)
Sometimes you watch certain shows and you know someone just 'really' swore there and the fact they didn't throws you out of the moment. I remember watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 'knowing' that Faith just swore, because that's who she is.
So the lack of profanity, being something that has removed 'realism' from quite a lot of characters, was, and is, seen as realism. The more the better.
As TV shows become more and more disconnected from broadcast in the first place, this will probably 'self-correct' over the next decade.
In fact, it really already has. There are plenty of shows on cable where swearing is used sanely. Look at The Daily Show. (Which they beep for some reason.) Or the only Showtime series I've ever really gotten into, 'Dead Like Me', where you had maybe two or three instances of swearing an episode.
1) Incidentally, current regulations are absurd. The airwaves are supposed to be regulated for our benefit, not regulated to 'protect' us. The FCC should spend more time going after infomercials and less time going after profanity and nudity. It shouldn't care about the content of the show, only that people enjoyed them or were educated by them. It is not the job of the government to tell us what content we're allowed to see over 'our' airwaves.
I was more offended by the two or three words dropped into ET to avoid a G-rating than by GOODFELLAS, THE ARISTOCRATS and GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS combined.
The Wire is my favorite show. Ever. It seems that every episode has enough twisting plot lines to fill three episodes of another show.
I come from a family of cops and inner city school teachers and they swear by it, too.
But I can understand how the swearing would turn you off. I wouldn't encourage you to watch it; there's too much you couldn't handle...
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