> So I'm astonished that at this late date I'm standing here and saying we might want to go back for this guy Marx that we were laughing at, if not for his prescriptions, then at least for his depiction of what is possible if you don't mitigate the authority of capitalism, if you don't embrace some other values for human endeavour.
And that's what The Wire was about basically, it was about people who were worth less and who were no longer necessary, as maybe 10 or 15% of my country is no longer necessary to the operation of the economy. It was about them trying to solve, for lack of a better term, an existential crisis. In their irrelevance, their economic irrelevance, they were nonetheless still on the ground occupying this place called Baltimore and they were going to have to endure somehow.
That's the great horror show. What are we going to do with all these people that we've managed to marginalise? It was kind of interesting when it was only race, when you could do this on the basis of people's racial fears and it was just the black and brown people in American cities who had the higher rates of unemployment and the higher rates of addiction and were marginalised and had the shitty school systems and the lack of opportunity.
I still think The Wire is the best TV drama yet made, and that includes Breaking Bad, though I haven't watched Sopranos yet. One of the most amazing things about its achievements is how so un-cop-show-like it is...besides cops being of mixed character, they almost never draw their guns on the show...and yet it's still an addictively entertaining show. Simon and his co-writers were so good at creating characters (and drawing from his deep reporting experience) that even as his show has a strong anti-capitalistic tone, the Wire keeps your attention no matter what your political beliefs. Perhaps Simon could eke out one more grand show...beliefs and opinions can be affected by popular culture as they are by political discourse.