Brits fail to understand "The Wire"

This is a pretty funny news item considering half the damn cast on The Wire is English or some type of Great Brit.

The series may have garnered critical recognition for its unflinching realism and searing dialogue, but the street argot spoken by its characters – most of whom are black American drug dealers and street-wise detectives – has left many viewers straining to make sense of the dialogue.

Now, one of the central writers of the show has lashed out at those who turn on the subtitles, rendering the show a "comedy" rather than the gritty, intelligent drama he intended it to be.

George Pelecanos, writer of some of the series' greatest episodes ("Hamsterdam", "Middle Ground", "That's Got His Own" - to self: need to get up on his novel stuff) is the writer who is getting a little out of shape, which is his right to, I just think this whole issue comes down simply to smart niggas and smart-dumb niggas (c) Ghostface. You got to be in a certain place mentally and emotionally to watch The Wire, it can come from some experience with the kind of world it is portraying or it could come from just having and open mind and the kind of mind that picks up on the subtleties that can make a piece of storytelling like the whole of "The Wire" the great pieces of storytelling they are. There are plenty of smart-dumb cats in America who never got the show or who thought they got it and went on to under appreciate it. This comment on the story page basically sums it up.

theelectrician wrote:
Monday, 17 August 2009 at 07:15 am (UTC)
I am a 52 year old British man who's spent his entire life in Britain (except for a couple of package holidays) and I had no problems watching, enjoying and understanding The Wire. I watched it about a year ago (via second hand DVDs) and I had to make the effort to ration my viewing or I'd have been up beyond midnight every night for many days.

Watching The Wire is an intellectual challenge at first because of the slang the different accents and the different culture that it presents. If you have at least an ounce of brains and any kind of willingness to make some intellectual effort then you can 'get into it' after a couple of episodes. It is one of the best TV series I have ever seen and is totally compelling.

The example glossary provided at the end of this article makes me laugh. If you can't work out what a 'Stash house' is (without even seeing the programme) and you can't figure out that 'Walk-around money' is used by corrupt politicians for bribes - when you are watching them using it and talking about it - then you really should stick to reality tv and games shows; that would be your natural limit."

Used subtitles to watch The Wire? The writer says that's just criminal (The Independant)