The Wire and Greek Mythology (II).

Researching the topic of my last post, I stumbled across this really interesting article in the New Yorker (link) where the creator of The Wire, David Simon, mentions how the show is:

"ripped off [from] the Greeks: Sophocles, Aeschylus, Euripides. Not funny boy—not Aristophanes. We’ve basically taken the idea of Greek tragedy and applied it to the modern city-state.” He went on, “What we were trying to do was take the notion of Greek tragedy, of fated and doomed people, and instead of these Olympian gods, indifferent, venal, selfish, hurling lightning bolts and hitting people in the ass for no reason—instead of those guys whipping it on Oedipus or Achilles, it’s the postmodern institutions . . . those are the indifferent gods.”

That's a really wonderful observation. It's not strictly linked to what I was saying below, but it's just as interesting. Greek tragedy has an immense resonance, and The Wire does too.

Interestingly, Omar Little seems to be utterly outside this system. He's something like a Robin Hood character, and I wonder if Simon is trying to paint Omar as the only character that can really survive in the modern city-state - he is subservient to no system, yet he is hardly depicted as a "good guy".

The Greek parallels continue as Omar is gay, and in the first season his younger male lover is murdered (a modern parallel of Alexander?) and the central antagonist of the second season is known simply as "The Greek".

The sheer depth to this show is quite amazing. It's difficult to entirely digest. I'll keep posting with further classically related thoughts as I work my way through the seasons, with something more in depth once I'm all finished.

The Wire and Greek Mythology.

I've been watching the rather superb HBO show The Wire recently (I'll spare you the pretty normal superlatives here and just say that it's great) and another (I'll admit) strange classical connection came to light.

In a scene with Omar Little (an almost supernatural character played by the pretty much amazing Michael K. Williams), a stick-up bandit with a code (a really superficial summary for the depth his character has) he's sitting across from a cop who's doing a crossword puzzle (or other word game) when said officer of the law starts asking (partly to himself) "Greek God of War....????".

Mars is the officers first guess, but Omar corrects him and says Mars was the Roman God of War but the Greek was Aries, explaining that they're the same dude but with different names.

Now Omar is far from stupid (in actual fact he's sharp as a tack) but he comes from an urban culture with little focus on such learning, and so I was a little surprised when he came out with it.

I did some research into the scene (it's in the season two episode "All Prologue) and the creator of the show, David Simon, claims in his book "The Corner: A year in the life of an inner-city neighbourhood" on page 283 that in his experience many children in the schools of Baltimore will pay little attention to most of what they are taught in schools, but they pay particular attention and appreciation to Greek mythology.

For me, that's a pretty interesting notion. Kids from the urban areas of an inner-city area with one of the highest murder and crime rates in the U.S love Greek mythology but care little for most of what's on offer at school. I wonder why?

Perhaps there is something fantastic about the Greek gods that appeals to them (as opposed to their - perhaps - harsh daily lives). Maybe the idea that Gods interfere with our lives gives them some hope that theirs can be changed, or maybe they just like the fun (or gory!) stories. It's hard to say.

Either way, I'm deeply fascinated by why this is the case. Any further musings will be posted here. In the meantime, like almost everyone else, I recommend watching The Wire. It's really as good as everyone says.