this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2025
82 points (100.0% liked)
chat
8381 readers
253 users here now
Chat is a text only community for casual conversation, please keep shitposting to the absolute minimum. This is intended to be a separate space from c/chapotraphouse or the daily megathread. Chat does this by being a long-form community where topics will remain from day to day unlike the megathread, and it is distinct from c/chapotraphouse in that we ask you to engage in this community in a genuine way. Please keep shitposting, bits, and irony to a minimum.
As with all communities posts need to abide by the code of conduct, additionally moderators will remove any posts or comments deemed to be inappropriate.
Thank you and happy chatting!
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
years ago I remember getting into a twitter argument with David Simon about this when he came out against local “defund the police” efforts. he insisted that his intent in making The Wire was not to show that police were systematically racist or incapable of reform. his position was basically that The Wire shows the negative outcomes of American police being underresourced and hamstrung by excessive red tape from out of touch bureaucrats. I still think the show is generally great, but I’ve never quite gotten over how Simon was able to make something so completely at odds with his stated real-life politics. My takeaway was mostly that the things I think work best about The Wire may have been totally accidental, which in a way almost makes it more impressive.
That is very interesting, I didn't follow that little saga.
That said, I will say that from his other works, Simon suffers from liberal blinders from having spent too much time with cops and journalists. But like chuds who are telling on themselves when they make movies, David Simon also tells on himself by literally seeing things from the cops point of view, including their bad behavior. In that way, his blinders actually work in his favor because he literally can't see it as 'consistent negligence and bad behavior'. A more self-aware propagandist would either hide the behavior so it doesn't exist or highlight the behavior so much that it would never get past the censors of production funding.