> This is not an example of art being smarter than the artist. He is plenty smart, and plenty seasoned, and his instincts about using the arts to articulate his vision are excellent.
No doubt he's smart. From what I've read of him, I think Eric's intuition is right, that his politics are liberal, but he is extremely sociologically astute. The Wire transcends that politics because it dramatises its problems. Season after season it shows that things are at a terrible pass not because of bad people but for systemic reasons, and that the political infrastructure is incapable of changing the system. The Carcetti arc over the last three seasons gets the essence of Obamaism - all the more impressive that it was on TV in the Bush years when the Democrats were the way out. It would have been so easy to base the political sub-plot around his thwarting by nasty conservatives.
It's a very pessimistic show because Simon can see that liberal politics has no viable solution. And I'm not sure how a more radical politics could have been dramatised and it remain a realist show. In Season 6 the Socialist Equality Party comes to town to urge workers throughout the Baltimore area to take up the fight for a new political movement of the working class? The Wire is an entirely negative vision. It's leavened with traditional glimmers of heroism around individuals getting the job done and retaining their humanity in spite of the system, but it doesn't suggest that heroism makes any difference.
Mike Beggs