A Crummy Commercial?

In a few days, TBS will kick off its annual A Christmas Story marathon.  That's the movie where the hero, young Ralphie, learns that the secret decoder ring he's waited and waited on for weeks is really just a way to shill for Ovaltine.  In Ralphie's words:

Be sure to drink your Ovaltine. Ovaltine? A crummy commercial? Son of a bitch!

Now, I'd like to think I'm both wiser and more cynical than a 9-year-old kid growing up in the 1930s or 1940s, but it still honks me off when somebody tries to sell me something disguised as anything but.

So say hello to DirecTV, this year's Christmas dipshits.

I was a DirecTV customer for a long time and had no problems with the service.  But when K and I got married and moved, it made more sense to get our TV and Internet pipes from the same land-bound service (which has generated it's own share of issues - how was Stephen Colbert's last show?).  As a result, they send me entreaties to come back in the mail all the time, which is fine, as they're easily identified and chucked in the trash.

On Friday, this came in the mail:

Except with my full address on it, obviously.  Now, I don't think I know anybody in El Segundo, California, but you never know, right?  Maybe some long lost friend is trying to get in touch or something.  Looks like a Christmas card - it's even got a snowflake stamp and Frosty on in, for fuck's sake.  So I open it up, and what do I find inside:

 A crummy commercial!  Naturally, it went right in the trash.

Look, I'm not a person who holds the Christmas (and related holidays) season holy or thinks it's entitled to some kind of inherent respect.  But if you want to sell me something, don't dress it up like it's some personal correspondence.  Call it an ad and be done with it.  I'll at least respect you while I throw the ad away.

How to Get Away With Anything

The breakout hit of the new TV season, to the extent there is such a thing anymore, is How To Get Away With Murder, the latest product of the Shonda Rhimes ratings factory.  It's about a law prof who's also a practicing defense attorney (not completely unheard of), who uses four students every semester as part of her defense team (very much unheard of).  We've already learned that, in addition to helping win murder cases, they're deeply involved in one.  It's fun, in a silly, don't-think-too-much-about-it kind of way.

However, as a friend of mine pointed out on Facebook the night of the premiere, it is deeply deeply unrealistic.  As he noted, there's a handful of glaring ethical failures in just the first episode, so anybody who thought the show's title held the promise of accurate advice, think again.  Come to think of it, if your legal knowledge is gleaned solely from primetime TV, remember the old MST3K mantra: it's only just a show, you should really just relax.

Having said all that, last week's episode entered my playground - the appellate court - and completely shit all over it.  Trust me, neither the Pennsylvania Supreme Court nor any other appeals court is ever going have parties calling witnesses, much less engaging in hyperbolic cross examinations in their courtroom.  Oh, and the guy whose fate their arguing over, the defendant?  Nowhere near the place.  Prisoners don't get transported for oral arguments.  It would have been easy enough to get all this right (move the hearing to a trial court), so one wonders why they don't.

Now . . . where was I . . .

Primary among the ethical slips we've seen so far is how some of the students lie about who they are in schemes to get information to help win their client's freedom.  This might seem bold, or even clever, but it's something you simply cannot do as a defense lawyer.  That's a good thing, but it results in a odd imbalance in the criminal justice systems.

You see, cops can and will lie to you.  This recent Christian Science Monitor article sums up the situation well:

Bluffing is a common – and legal – tool in police interrogation rooms, and the art of artifice in obtaining confessions is a standard part of police training. The parameters for what police can lie about are broad, and lies can range from claiming to have evidence that does not exist to fibbing that a witness was at the scene.

Still, per US Supreme Court rulings, confessions must also be 'voluntary,' introducing a possible point of contention between an officer’s right to lie to a suspect and his or her obligation to serve justice.

'The question is, at what point does the amount of lying make the confession involuntary?' Professor Shanks says. 'There’s just no bright line on it.'

Defense attorneys, and those employed by them (like, say, young eager law students) don't have that luxury.  Rule 4 of the WV Rules of Professional Conduct (which are similar enough to others in the country to serve as an example), is labelled "Transactions With Persons Other Than Clients."  It says:

Rule 4.1.  Truthfulness in statements to others.
In the course of representing a client a lawyer shall not knowingly:
(a) make a false statement of material fact or law to a third person; or
(b) fail to disclose a material fact to a third person when disclosure is necessary to avoid assisting a criminal or fraudulent act by a client, unless disclosure is prohibited by Rule 1.6.

So, where cops can lie about who they are and what information they have, defense attorneys and their investigators can't.  It's a simple as that.

Which leads to cops being involved with all kinds of shenanigans that would get a defense lawyer disbarred, if not locked up.  Like this latest outrage (via) in the War on (Some People's) Drugs:

The Justice Department is claiming, in a little-noticed court filing, that a federal agent had the right to impersonate a young woman online by creating a Facebook page in her name without her knowledge. Government lawyers also are defending the agent’s right to scour the woman’s seized cell phone and to post photographs — including racy pictures of her and even one of her young son and niece — to the phony social media account, which the agent was using to communicate with suspected criminals.

The woman had been arrested and ultimately pleaded guilty to a minor drug charge, for which she received probation.  Her phone was seized as part of her arrest.  She was never told about the fake profile using her information (she learned about it from a friend).

Why would the DEA think they could do such a thing?

The experts also agreed that the case raises novel legal and ethical questions. There is a long tradition of deceptive practices by police that are legal, they noted. For example, officers assume a false identity to go undercover. 'What’s different here,' said Ryan Calo, a professor at the University of Washington School of Law, is that the agent assumed the identity of a real person without her explicit consent.

'The technologies we have now are enabling all sorts of new uses,' said Neil Richards, a professor at the Washington University School of Law. 'There are a whole bunch of new things that are possible, and we don’t have rules for them yet.'

I'd beg to differ only in that the rules are already there and the cops (which includes the DEA) knows they don't need to follow them.  The slow destruction of the Fourth Amendment, combined with the desire to let cops do absolutely anything in the name of the War on (Some People's) Drugs leads precisely to this kind of behavior.

So, while ABC may want to show us how to get away with murder, the way to get away with most anything else is pretty clear - be a cop going after drugs.

If You're Worried About Rosebud, You're Missing the Point

It's his sled. It was his sled from when he was a kid. There, I just saved you two long boobless hours. 

- Peter Griffin, spoiling Citizen Kane

Saw Gone Girl last weekend.  It's really good, particularly if you like the kind of movie that takes place in an air of dread that's perfectly summoned by David Fincher (with able assists from Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross).  I say that even knowing the big twist of the film going into it.  Not because I had read the book on which it's based, but because my wife blurted it out during a TV commercial. She didn't know I wanted to see it.

Point is, she didn't really "spoil" the movie for me, in the true sense of the word.  That's because the flick is good enough that it doesn't rise or fall on the big "twist" (which, for what it's worth, happens about halfway through - this isn't The Sixth Sense we're talking about).  In my opinion, any movie/book/TV show that rises and falls on that twist isn't really worth watching.

What's more, people seem to enjoy things more once they know how it turns out.  At least that's what some research says.

Back in 2011, as The Atlantic reports, a study was published that sounds pretty neat:

Scientists asked 900 college students from the University of California, San Diego, to read mysteries and other short stories by writers like John Updike, Roald Dahl, Agatha Christie, and Raymond Carver. Each student got three stories, some with "spoiler paragraphs" revealing the twist, and some without any spoilers. Finally, the students rated their stories on a 10-point scale..

The results?  Readers preferred the spoiled stories.  But why would we want to know how it ends ahead of time?

One theory is that our anticipation of surprises actually takes away from our appreciation for the 99 percent of the movie that isn't a monster twist. 'The second viewing is always more satisfying than the first,' Sternbergh said, 'because you notice all the things you missed while you were busy waiting for the twist.' Psychologists have observed that when we consume movies and songs for a second (or third, or hundredth time), the stories become easier to process, and we associate this ease of processing with aesthetic pleasure.

Think about this for a second.  Most of us have some piece of culture that we go back to again and again.  I know that the big escape at the end of Brazil takes place all inside Sam's head, but I still watch it.  I know that Arthur and Ford wind up on a primitive Earth populated by a bunch of idiots expelled from a better planet, but I'll still reconsume Hitchiker's Guide . . . again (in its many forms).  And I know Tommy goes back to being blind, deaf, and dumb at the end, but that doesn't make "Pinball Wizard" kick any less ass.

Of course, there might be other reasons why spoilers really aren't, including the uncomfortable recognition that we really like predictability more than we let on.  But, in this area at least, I'd like to not be completely cynical* and think that, deep down, we realize that works built on the big twist only are, as someone else put it in the Atlantic piece:

like artistic flash paper: It excites for a moment but offers little lasting wonder.

After all, we want to be better than Peter Griffin.  Right?

* I know, you're shocked, right?  How's that for a twist!

Keeping Copyright Meaningful

Over the weekend, Scott Turow had a column in the New York Times about the “death of the American author.” Although it begins with a jab at the Supreme Court for its recent decision strengthening the first sale doctrine (link), his broader point is that various forces – illegal downloaders and pirates, in particular – are weakening the real value of copyright. In baser terms, the situation is making it harder and harder for authors to get paid.

I’m sympathetic to Turow’s larger point. I dream, someday, of actually getting paid for writing fiction, so I’d like to think the legal apparatus to ensure those (equally fictional, at this point) payments will roll in. But I’m not sure the targets of Turow’s ire are quite correct. He points to various search engines that, when you search for an author or book title, will pull up numerous places to illegally download said titles. That’s troubling, but what else do you expect search engines to do?

The bigger problem is that there’s a market out there for people who want to access books (or other copyrighted materials) without paying for them. Putting aside cheap bastards who will always take a free version of something rather than paying for it (and who will always find a way to do it), why are people willing to go through the hassle (not to mention the legal exposure) or downloading something illegally from the Web rather than pay for it?

One reason might be that when the general public hears the word “copyright” they don’t think of the authors or other creative types whose income is tied to the protection of their intellectual property. More likely, they think of huge faceless corporations who wield copyright as a sword, not to protect the creative types, but to boost their own bottom line. Think of the old Napster lawsuits by the RIAA, bringing down the full force of the law and the Lord God on teenagers and college students who downloaded a few songs.

Or, consider the tale of Jayne’s hat.

Even in the world of sci-fi fandom, Firefly – a show that only produced 13 episodes, only nine of which were ever broadcast – has developed a fierce, loyal following.* That following has never particularly liked Fox, the network that originally aired it and, in the eyes of most, handled it in a way to ensure its early death. That the show is even talked about today, 11 years after broadcast, has nothing to do with Fox’s bungling and everything to do with the cast and crew that produced the show.

In one episode, Jayne – a gun thug with a heart of tin – gets a package from his mom. It’s not the most interesting package in the episode (two other character are gifted with what appears to be a dead body), but it’s a nice character moment. Jayne’s mom made him a hat:

Nice hat, yes? Many fans of the show thought so. As a result, after the show went off the air and the film sequel Serenity came and went, various crafty people made some and sold them on the Net (for a very detailed explanation of all this, see here). Everything’s good, right?

Except that Fox, after years of doing nothing, has allowed a company to license the hats and sell them. As a result, the DIYers have gotten nasty letters from Fox lawyers:

Turns out in the last few weeks many of them have received cease-and-desist letters or have simply been banned from Etsy for producing DIY Jayne Hats. This communal endeavor, it seems, is coming to a close, and fans of the show are asking themselves why. Isn't the whole point of the Jayne hat that it be homemade? Doesn't it mean anything that the hats are often auctioned off at charity events? After 10 years of nothing, isn't it unfair for Fox to suddenly force lifelong fans to cease production of something they love?

It’s all perfectly legal, of course:

And the answer, for now, is that Fox owns the license and that's that. The fans who are mad that the hat was licensed for mass production are the ones who are closest to hitting the nail on the head. The fact is, Fox now has a legal obligation to its shareholders -- they have to chase down anyone producing and selling a licensed product without permission. Ripple Junction holds the license, the fans do not.

But isn’t it kind of a dick move? Here’s the megacorp that killed the show in the first place, showing up a decade after the fact to capitalize not on its own success, but on the cult that thrived in spite of Fox’s neglect.

For most people, most fans, most consumers of entertainment products, that’s the face of modern copyright law. It’s not about authors, musicians, or artists trying to get paid for their work. It’s about corporations like Fox cracking down on fans and Disney lobbying Congress to extend copyright terms every time Mickey Mouse nears the border of the public domain. Is it any wonder that they see finger wagging about illegal downloads as more of the same?

One of the things I learned in laws school – I assume Turow did, too – is that sometimes the best advice a lawyer can give his client is to not fully pursue their legal rights. Sometimes there are other concerns – public relations, long-term planning, just plain doing good – that weigh against treating every problem like a hammer that needs to be relentlessly pounded.

Maybe Fox and the other corporate copyright holders should play a longer game and worry about what they’re actions do to the public’s perception of copyright. Ultimately, that may do more good than inveighing mightily against overseas pirates and the potential customers who frequent them.

* That’s because it’s fucking awesome!

Nancy Grace Claims Another Victim

I try not to hate people, I really do. It’s not good for the “soul,” whatever you mean by that, and it’s inherently irrational. But most of all, it doesn’t do any good. Your hate doesn’t reach out like some kind of apparition and stifle the good life of your enemies. So, really, what’s the point?

That being said, I really ha . . . I mean loathe Nancy Grace. To be fair, she started it. If I have a right to hate anybody, it’s people who compare me and my colleagues to concentration camp guards. Still, it’s better just to avoid her and her act, stay away from HLN, and get on with my life.

Alas, Grace tends to take others down with her. Over at TalkLeft, Jeralyn tells the sad story of Toni Medrano, a 29-year old mother who was charged with killing her infant son by accidentally smothering him. She had allegedly fallen asleep on him while drunk. Although Medrano was charged with manslaughter, that wasn’t enough for Grace, who dubbed her “Vodka Mom.” In a ludicrously over the top segment, she howled for murder one charges:

Now, one would assume that, given her past as a real live prosecutor, Grace knows that first degree murder requires something along the lines of malice and premeditation, neither of which would be easy to prove (if they could be proven at all) in the case of an accidental death where the defendant was passed out drunk. But that kind of analysis doesn’t make for good TV, so that’s not important. Much easier, and more psychological satisfying, to get all big eyed and rant and rail about a witch who needs burnt at the stake immediately.

Medrano was aware of Grace’s performance. Afterward, she killed herself by setting herself on fire. Now, obviously, Medrano had other issues in her life – from alcohol problems to the fact that she did kill her son, even if accidentally – but being pilloried on national TV surely didn’t help things.

And it’s not as if Grace doesn’t have a history with this sort of thing. In 2006, Grace was on the case of Melinda Duckett, whose son had been missing for two weeks. As I put it at the time:

Grace knew, with her innate sense of right and more right, that Duckett killed her son and proceeded to grill the bereaved mother.

But before the interview could air, Duckett shot and killed herself. If I remember correctly, Duckett was never even charged with anything in relation to her son’s disappearance, so Grace didn’t even have the smug satisfaction of thinking she hustled a killer off the planet as part of her TV show.

Oh, who the fuck am I kidding? Grace runs on smug satisfaction. I’m certain she’s pretty satisfied about this latest incident, since the guilty party was punished in Biblical fashion after Grace’s harangue. And part of me, try as I might, really hates her for it.

Friday Review: Redshirts

As the saying goes about film or TV, there are no small parts, only small actors. That is, of course, horseshit. Every story has its bit players, those characters who do little more than fill in the shot, offer a terse, short line of dialogue in response to one the main characters, and generally get used at all because the plot needs them. There’s no shame in this. After all, everybody’s a bit player in somebody else’s life, right?

In the sci-fi realm, there are no more popular bit players than the usually nameless, and certainly never before seen, schmucks who accompanied Kirk, Spock, and such on away missions on Star Trek. They died at an alarming rate, you see. Given that they were usually security personnel and dressed in red, they’ve given a name to the whole enterprise (so to speak) – redshirts.

If Redshirts was just a Trek-like tale told from the perspective of the small folk, it wouldn’t be much to write home about. It’s been done, after all, from the classics (think Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead) to sci-fi TV (Babylon 5’s “A View From the Gallery,” among others). What Scalzi does is both more fun and more interesting.

Yes, the main characters of Redshirts are the small folk, in this case new crew members on a starship called the Intrepid. And, yes, their lives sound suspiciously like what you’d imagine the lives of Trek’s small folk to be like. But here’s the twist – Scalzi’s characters are smart enough to figure out that something’s up. They notice the terminal stupidity of the command staff and how the more senior members of the crew avoid them at all cost. They notice that things happen conveniently and for no explainable reason (there’s even a magic box that helps solve problems).

What they realize is that they are slaves to the Narrative, which appears to literally seize control of the actions of those around them when it suits it. It all leads to only one conclusion – that they are, in fact, living in a sci-fi TV show. Worse, it’s a bad one. Put another way, the Narrative is like God and God is a hack. Armed with that knowledge, they try to do something about their inevitable fates as mission-of-the-week cannon fodder.

And then things get really interesting. Using a hoary sci-fi trope, time travel, the real crew returns to our time to interact with the creators of the show and the actors who play them. This shifts the story from one of simple parody/homage, to a deeper and more thoughtful meditation on the creative process and how it impacts people. In the end, Scalzi writes more about writing than about spaceships, pulse guns, and ice sharks.

In other hands, the lane change into meta discussions about creativity would leaden and die, but Scalzi’s breezy and direct style lets him cut to the quick, most of the time. It helps that the book is funny, too, and will have any sci-fi geek nodding her head (or shaking it in exasperation) as things move along.

This is not to say it’s perfect. In my opinion, Scalzi is at his best when he’s being light and snarky. I became a fan of his blog before I even read one of his novels and prefer the funnier stuff to the hard-core military sci-fi that’s made his reputation. There’s a point in the last third of Redshirts where Scalzi adds a serious thread to the proceedings that bogs things down a bit. He revisits this more maudlin side of things in two of the three codas (codae?) at the end of the book. I just don’t think they work as well as the rest of the book.

But speaking of codae, the first one kicks major league ass.

In the end, Redshirts is terrifically fun, entertaining, and goes just deep enough to provoke a little thought. What more can you ask for? If you’re any kind of sci-fi geek, go grab yourself a copy right the hell now. Or else the ice shark will get you!

The Details
------------------------
Redshirts: A Novel With Three Codas
By John Sclazi
Published 2012

Nobody Tell Nancy Grace About This

There are times when the whole media circus that surrounds the criminal justice system in this country, particularly in high-profile death penalty cases, makes me want to puke (to borrow a phrase from Rick Santorum). It is worth it, however, to remember that however deprave we may be when we come to this kind of thing, it’s worse elsewhere.

Consider one of China’s most popular Sunday night TV programs (via). It’s called Interviews Before Execution. Give it credit for one thing – it’s not false advertising:

The glamorous Ms Ding conducts face-to-face interviews with the prisoners, who have often committed especially gruesome crimes. Her subjects sit in handcuffs and leg chains, guarded by warders. She warms up with anodyne questions about favourite films or music, but then hectors the prisoners about the violent details of their crimes and eventually wrings apologies out of them.

She promises to relay final messages to family members, who are usually not allowed to visit them on death row. The cameras keep rolling as the condemned say a farewell message and are led away to be killed by firing squad or lethal injection.

China executes more people than any other place on the planet, even Texas. Interviews Before Execution regularly garners 40 million viewers, a number that most American networks would kill for. Of course, this isn’t just the free market at work:

Officials in the ruling Communist Party regard the series as a propaganda tool to warn citizens of the consequences of crime.

Inmates are selected for Ms Ding by judiciary officials who pick out what they consider suitable cases to ‘educate the public’.

As popular, and useful, as the show may be, it has it limits, apparently. It is coming to light thanks to a BBC documentary, which may have gotten a little too close for comfort, according to one Chinese TV official:

It’s fair to say the BBC programme has created a problem for us. Officials here do not want the foreign media saying there are no human rights in China, particularly at this sensitive time politically.

According to the story, only five inmates who have been offered a chance to be on the show have refused. That shouldn’t come as a great shock. Given how cut off they are from the outside world, unable in some instances to even see their family members, it makes sense that they might jump at any chance to talk with someone. I do wonder how many of them actually know what they’re signing up for. Maybe they do – self-righteous twits still do interviews with The Daily Show, for some reason – although I have my doubts.

Which is why, if some enterprising producer in this country decided to import the Interviews Before Execution Format – we’re famous for not being swift enough to come up with our own cheap trashy reality shows, of course – I could see it happening. So, please, I beg of you, keep this post away from Nancy Grace! Although, if she heard about it, the mere idea might drive her mad with ecstasy. And I’m sure that’d get on TV, too.

Friday Review: Mad Men (Season One)

Yes, yes, I know. I’m late to the Mad Men party. A booze drenched party conducted in a haze of cigarette smoke, from the look of it. Consider me properly scolded. So, have I missed out on the greatest TV thing since sliced bread?

It’s hard to tell. The show is brilliantly put together, in terms of writing, acting, and visuals. But is that enough? The last time I came this late to a critically praised TV series it was with The Wire. By the end of its first season, I was hooked. Partly, I figure, it was due to the subject matter. The futility of the war on drugs, police corruption, and the like is right up my alley, after all.

I haven’t had the same reaction to Mad Men. For one thing, other than anthropological curiosity, I don’t really care that much about the ad business in the 1960s. The tricks of the trade are interesting, yes, but they’re largely the same today. As a result, I think what I really need is a deep hook into the characters to be completely pulled in to the show. That didn’t happen. With a couple of exceptions, I find the characters interesting to observe (in their natural habitats, so to speak), but I don’t really care about them. Yes, Don Draper is a suave motherfucker with a dark side (he looks so good with a smoke I nearly went out to find a pack of Lucky Strikes), but I don’t really have any interest in where he’s going as a character.

The only character who I really cared about, in the sense that I wanted to see her succeed in some way during the first season, was Peggy, perhaps because she is the character most at odds with the world she inhabits. I’ll go ahead and I admit I “care” about Pete Campbell, to the extent that I enjoyed seeing him getting smacked around by Don. I particularly enjoyed when Pete, who I call “Conner” (because, to me, Vincent Kartheiser will always been Angel’s douchebag son once Hotlz brings him back from hell) tries to undermine Don to the boss about Don’s shady past, only to be told that nobody gives a fuck about that kind of thing.

What is more fascinating to me about Mad Men is the world these characters live in. When people talk about “world building” they usually are talking about sci-fi or fantasy writers, who build new universes and worlds from the ground up. But the truth is, every writer of fiction (whether on the page or screen) has to pay attention to world building. Thus, just because Mad Men is set in a real time and place from our recent past doesn’t mean the creators can shirk on the details that lend the world depth and credibility.

And boy, do they ever paint a vivid picture. It’s not pretty, mind you, but it really does draw you in. Keeping in mind that I was born a decade after the period depicted in Mad Men, most of it is as foreign to me as a world as anything out of Asimov or George R.R. Martin books. Seriously, in this recent past alcohol flowed freely in the workplace. Everybody smoked pretty much all the time (except for Conner, bless him). Sexual harassment didn’t just exist in the workplace, it was a way of life. Home life wasn’t much better (especially if you’re a divorced woman who dares to move into the neighborhood). Don’t forget the casual racism, anti-Semitism, and sexism. Speaking of Martin, the world of Mad Men isn’t a whole lot better from an equity standpoint than Westeros!

And yet, it’s a very compelling world to observe (just like Westeros, as it happens). Which is why, for all I said about the characters above, I’m pretty much on the Mad Men train. I’ll definitely queue up season two. I do have a nagging fear that after the whole thing is over I’ll feel a bit more like this, but time will tell.

The Details
-------------------
Mad Men (Season One)
Released 2007
Created by Mathew Weiner
Starring Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheiser, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, et. al.

Another Round for Fleeing Fucks

There is little doubt that no off the cuff utterance has lived as long in the American legal system as Bono’s remark, in 2002, during the Billboard Music Awards on Fox, about winning a particular award:

[t]his is really, really fucking brilliant.

That statement, along with similar deployment of “fleeting expletives” by Cher and Paris Hilton around the same time, launched a legal battle that’s about to be taken up by the Supreme Court for the second time in three years. When the Court hears oral arguments today in FCC v. Fox Television Stations, the court may dive headlong into an issue they were able to avoid in 2009.

At one time, such isolated utterances of one of Carlin’s seven dirty words weren’t enough to drive the fellas at the freakin’ FCC up the wall. That all changed, as they went after Fox and a couple other networks for the fleeting fucks. In its 2009 decision, a sharply divided Court held that the change in policy was not “arbitrary and capricious” and thus didn’t violate any administrative law provisions. The Court punted on the issue of whether the FCC’s policy actually violated the First Amendment.

On remand, the Second Circuit found that the policy violated the First Amendment because it was too vague. It’s hard to argue otherwise if read the disparate treatment of the same language in similar televised presentations. Saving Private Ryan with all its bad words (and, of course, violence, which bothers nobody) was just fine, but Martin Scorcese’s epic PBS documentary The Blues, in which real people spouted a few real expletives, was not. It’s impossible to make rhyme or reason of the FCC’s rulings in this area.

But that’s not all that is at stake tomorrow. Fox , and some of their amici, argue that the Court should strike down the foundation of any FCC regulation of naughty words on TV, the Pacifica case from 1978. That was the case in which the court held that the FCC could ban Carlin’s routine (which had been broadcast on radio), because of the pervasive nature of the broadcast medium. As the Fox brief makes clear, broadcast TV, while it was once pervasive, today is only a sliver of the media available to 21st-century eyes and ears. Given that reality, Fox argues that the FCC should have the same authority to regulate broadcast TV as to, say, the Internet or cable/satellite TV – which is to say none at all.

It will be interesting to see whether the Court goes that far, or simply smacks down the FCC’s policy on vagueness grounds. I’d like to see them go whole hog, but we’ll see.

For a much more in depth preview of the case, see Lyle Denniston’s write up over at SCOTUSBlog.

Friday Review Year In Review

Nothing special to mark the end of the year, just a easy to navigate list of Feeding the Silence's accidental regular feature, the Friday Reviews.  Sorted helpfully by review type, just because I'm that kind of guy:

Music

• Snowtorch (2011)
• ROSFest 2011
• If (2010)
• Hybris (1992)
• The Wake (1985)
• Depois Do Fim (1983)
• Triskaidekaphobie/Le Poison Qui Rend Fou (1980/1985)
• Ammerland (1978)

Movies & TV

• Contagion (2011)
• Garrow's Law (2009)
• Anvil!  The Story of Anvil (2008)
• Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1986)
• I, Claudius (1976)
• The Wicker Man (1973/2006)
• Paths of Glory (1957)

Books

• A Dance With Dragons (2011)
• The Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine, and the Murder of a President (2011)
• The Magicians (2009)
• "Why I Left Harry's All-Night Hamburgers" (1987)
• The Man in the High Castle (1962)
• Brave New World (1932)

More to come next year!

Beware the Flying Snowman

There’s a scene in Dogma, Kevin Smith’s religious satire, where Rufus, the overlooked thirteenth apostle, explains to Brittany, the film’s heroine, that she is the last descendent of Christ. She objects:

Bethany: Jesus didn’t have any brothers or sisters. Mary was a virgin.

Rufus: Mary gave birth to Christ without having known a man's touch, that’s true. But she did have a husband. And do you really think he'd have stayed married to her all those years if he wasn’t getting laid? The nature of God and the Virgin birth, those are leaps of faith. But to believe a married couple never got down? Well, that’s just plain gullibility.

That’s the first thing that popped into my head when I read this post by John Scalzi. It stems from the kind of argument only a geek could love – whether the way Gollum dies in The Return of the King lacks realism because the lava that consumes him doesn’t work the way physics says it should. Scalzi makes the reasonable objection that, in a movie filled with fantastic elements that don’t exist in our world, what is it about lava that goes too far? He calls such moments The Flying Snowman (for reasons you’ll have to read the post to understand).

Scalzi is not arguing that just because a story is fantasy (or science fiction, for that matter) that you just switch off your brain and ignore things that don’t seem quite right. Rather:

if you’re going to complain about one specific element as being unrealistic, you should consider the work in its totality and ask whether in the context of the work, this specific thing is inconsistent with the worldbuilding.

I think that’s a fair demand, so I’ll deploy it to analyze one of my personal Flying Snowmen – vampire sex. Regardless of whether we’re talking about the dark brooding Angel type vampire or the sparkly douchebag variety, everybody agrees that vamps are dead. Or the “undead,” whatever the hell that means. As a result they have no pulse. Blood does not circulate through their veins. Yet this seems to not put a damper on their sex life (other things do, but that’s not relevant to the point). So my question is, how they hell do undead beings with no pulse or circulation manage to get erections? It just doesn’t make sense.

Until you apply Scalzi’s analysis. After all, by digging into a story about vampires, you’re already buying into a lot of stuff that’s simply explained by some magical hand waiving. If they’re dead, how do they move at all? How does an inert digestive system evolved to subsist on regular food make energy out of blood? What’s with the no reflections in the mirrors and such? By the time you get to undead boners, “magical Viagra” really isn’t that much of a stretch.

Everybody, I suspect, has their own Flying Snowmen when it comes to fiction. The question becomes whether it’s something that just makes you snicker or completely throws you out of the suspension of disbelief needed to enjoy speculative fiction. It also asks broader question about how readers should approach fictional worlds that are clearly not our own.

One approach is to assume the world is like our own, except when specifically shown otherwise. That’s easier said than down when dealing with modern urban fantasies (like the aforementioned Angel) than heroic or high fantasy, since we know how the world around us operates, but it’s possible. For example, the medieval world into which the heroine of Doomsday Book is dropped behaves just like our own, although she got their via time travel. With such an approach you wind up looking for oddities and things unexplained by the narrative.

The other approach is to say that since we’re in a fantasy world all the rules are off the table, unless otherwise demonstrated. Assume you have a world populated by non-human sentient creatures. One gets hurt, maybe thrown from a great height onto solid ground, in a way that would render a human out of commission for a long time. This creature recovers quickly, however. There’s nothing “wrong” with that, assuming we haven’t learned somewhere else in the story that these creatures are as frail and breakable as humans. Maybe that story element doesn’t work on its own merits, but that’s a different issue.

Which approach works best? It depends on the story, of course. I’ve got one epic fantasy kind of thing with no humans at all (ready for a second draft in 2012!).  It’s a completely alien world.  I’ve got another one percolating that will have exclusively humans involved.  It’s different, but it looks a lot like what we know of the world. I’ll think about those differently as a writer. I’d expect a reader to do the same.

In the end, everybody’s Flying Snowmen moment is different. It’s impossible for authors or directors to be able to anticipate every area of expertise that a reader/viewing might be able to bring to bear on a story. Difficult as it can be, perhaps it’s best to heed the words of the MST3K theme song

repeat to yourself it’s just a show / you should really just relax

Although, in the case of Gollum’s fiery demise, I suspect it has less to do with worldbuilding or the mystical nature of Mount Doom than it does with a very real phenomenon: artistic license. Sometimes, you don’t let the real world get in the way of a good story.

Spoilers Are Good for You!

All right, well, maybe not "good," but not nearly as bad as some people make them out to be.

A couple of years ago, over on the old blog, I took aim at people who bitch and complain about "spoilers," information that discloses crucial plot twists or endings of movies, TV shows, or books.  As I said at the time:

if the only thing that moves you about a movie or TV show is the mechanics of the plot, you're pretty much beyond hope.

Or maybe it says more about what you're watching/reading.  But, honestly, if this is your impression of Citizen Kane once you know the big secret:



I'm afraid I can't help you.

But not to fear! New research from UC San Diego shows that the presence of spoilers doesn't really impact a reader's enjoyment of a particular story.  Researchers took several short stories with "twist" kind of endings and had some people read the original and others read a version with spoilers in the introductory paragraph.  The results:

Subjects significantly preferred the spoiled versions of ironic-twist stories, where, for example, it was revealed before reading that a condemned man’s daring escape is all a fantasy before the noose snaps tight around his neck.

The same held true for mysteries. Knowing ahead of time that Poirot will discover that the apparent target of attempted murder is, in fact, the perpetrator not only didn’t hurt enjoyment of the story but actually improved it.

Subjects liked the literary, evocative stories least overall, but still preferred the spoiled versions over the unspoiled ones.

A brief aside as the genre writer in my notes that even when they know the ending, people still don't like the high-brow stuff as much. Ha!

Why, exactly, would people prefer the spoiled stories?  That's beyond the reach off the study itself, but one researcher speculates that:

'Plots are just excuses for great writing. What the plot is is (almost) irrelevant. The pleasure is in the writing,' said Christenfeld, a UC San Diego professor of social psychology.

'Monet’s paintings aren’t really about water lilies,' he said.

I wouldn't go quite that far.  Plot surely isn't nearly irrelevant, but perhaps the brutal outline of the story - the Joe Friday version, if you will - is.  It's really only an excuse to get characters moving, talking, and thinking about things.  In other words, coming up with a story isn't the hard part.  Telling it is.

*gulp*

Friday Review: I, Claudius

When modern TV critics write wistfully of the good ol' days, when high-class miniseries produced for broadcast networks roamed the Earth, they'll inevitably cite Roots and I, Claudius as touchstones. After spending a few days working my way through the 13-episode British tour of the early Roman Empire, I can see why.

Produced by the BBC in 1976, and brought to the US by PBS a year later, I, Claudius roams well beyond the life and times of Rome's fourth emperor. In fact, were it not for a clever framing device lifted from the novels upon which it's based, we wouldn't even see Claudius until the third or fourth episode. Instead, the run covers Rome's first four emperors, including the illustrious founder Augustus and that batshit star of 1970s high-form porn, Caligula.

The frame device that allows Claudius, and Derek Jacobi (in a career making role), to show up from word one is that the story that follows is a history of his family that Claudius himself wrote. He cleverly buried a copy to avoid the destructive fires of other (his successor, Nero - you know what happened to him) so that the truth can be known to posterity. That device also allows a clever out for anything presented that might not be faithful to the historical record - it's only the word of Claudius, who might not be the most reliable of narrators.

And what a story Claudius tells. Over the first six episodes, things are driven by Livia, wife of Augustus and grandmother to Claudius. She has but one goal in life - to see her son, Tiberius, follow Augustus as emperor, preferably to exercise unquestioned authority (whether Rome's lost republic will rise from the ashes hangs over the entire series. She lets nothings stand in her way and gets her hands pretty bloody (metaphorically - she's a champion poisoner). Livia, at least as presented here, makes Cersei Lannister look like the MILF who brings the orange slices to soccer practice.

Those first several episodes set the tone for all that comes after. Alliances wax and wane, the inconvenient are killed for that sin, and occasionally there are orgies. History, as we generally learn it, goes on off set, but usually only mentioned in passing. The scheming lives of the imperials is the focus here. Unfortunately, that means that once Livia dies (Claudius later makes her a goddess), things get a little repetitive. Nobody who comes after is as compelling a focus.

What saves the series is an unholy collection of British acting talent, many of whom would go on to prominence in the sci-fi/fantasy world:

Sian Phillips - Clash of the Titans, Dune
Brian Blessed - Flash Gordon, Dr. Who
John Hurt - Alien, 1984
Patrick Stewart - Star Trek: The Next Generation
George Baker - Dr. Who
John Rhys-Davies - Lord of the Rings, Sliders

Even Derek Jacobi himself wound up on Dr. Who (there may be a BAFTA bylaw requiring every actor in Britain to be on that show, or a spin off, at one point). Watching Vultan and Picard plot and scheme is just fun on a bun.

That being said, the series shows some signs of age. Aside from technical issues (it looks pretty good, but the sound needs remixed), the biggest drawback is that the whole spectacle is obviously playing out on sound stages. It works, most of the time, but it leads to scenes where we only know the characters are (say) at a gladiatorial contest because they're in the stands reacting to what they're seeing. There's no outside location shots and no real attempt and creating a "realistic" feel. The result is more like an extended theater piece than modern historical series like (obviously) Rome or even Game of Thrones. That staginess sometimes carries over to the performances, which can go overboard at times.

In fact, given the juiciness of the material, I'm surprised HBO or even the BBC hasn't made a remake yet. The script lends itself to the type of stylized debauchery that's so in vogue today. This version isn't even the first attempt to put this story on the screen. In 1937, Alexander Korda started production on an epic movie version (with Charles Loughton as Claudius), but it fell apart only a month into shooting.

Thankfully, the original is still eminently watchable. It lacks the spectacle of its 21st-century decedents, but, at bottom, it tells a simple story. In the end, it's all about power, what people will do to get it, and what it does to them. You don't need a big effects budget to pull that off.

Details
------------------
I, Claudius
Originally broadcast 1976
Written by Jack Pulman
Based on I, Claudius and Claudius the God, by Robert Graves
Starring Derek Jacobi, Sian Phillips, John Hurt, et. al

David Simon Doubles Down

One thing’s for certain about David Simon, creator of (among other things) the now departed The Wire and the very much still with us Treme: he doesn’t mince words (via).

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder appeared with several actors from The Wire on a panel devoted to dealing with the effects of drugs on children. Along the way, Holder had this to say:

I want to speak directly to Mr. Burns and Mr. Simon: Do another season of The Wire. That’s actually at a minimum.… If you don’t do a season, do a movie. We’ve done HBO movies. This is a series that deserves a movie. I want another season or I want a movie. I have a lot of power Mr. Burns and Mr. Simon.

It’s hard to tell from the article if Holder was serious (a lot of people would welcome more of The Wire, after all), joking, or just kissing entertainment-industry ass. Regardless, Simon responded to Holder’s request with one of his own:

The Attorney-General's kind remarks are noted and appreciated. I've spoken to Ed Burns and we are prepared to go to work on season six of The Wire if the Department of Justice is equally ready to reconsider and address its continuing prosecution of our misguided, destructive and dehumanising drug prohibition.

In other words, The Wire is as dead as Omar. Expect a new season about the same time Hell freezes over.

Friday Review: Garrow's Law

Before a couple of weeks ago, I had never heard of William Garrow.  Why should I be familiar with an English barrister who got his start while the Revolutionary War raged on?  Thanks to a highlighted Wikipedia entry, now I know.  He was, in many ways, the forefather of modern criminal defense attorneys, so much so that he is credited with introducing the phrase "innocent until proven guilty" into the vernacular.  Surely such a trailblazer deserves a modern pop culture gloss, right?

Enter the BBC and Garrow's Law, a short series (8 episodes in total spread across two seasons) based on the young Garrow's fledgling practice in the Old Bailey, which started in 1783.  When I found out that the first season was available on Netflix, I shipped it straight to the top of the queue.  The result is a suprisingly rousing and entertaining few hours, especially if you do what I do for a living.

Although there are dramas that play out elsewhere from the Old Bailey, that's where the action really is, as young Garrow finds his feet and butts heads with his regular adversary, Silvester (not a cat, but a prosecutor - and crack shot).  Court itself is a much livlier affair that we're used to these days, even on Law & Order.  It's sort of like a state magistrate court affair, played out before an audience borrowed from Jerry Springer.  Except the stakes are much higher - the drop or, at the least, transportation to one of the colonies.  I have no idea how realistic the depiction is (the records of the Old Bailey were used as inspiration, we're told), but it sure is fun.

In court, we see Garrow grapple with the same issues his progeny still wrestle with today.  It's one thing to be a zealous advocate for someone who's really innocent, but what of the guilty?  Does every accused deserve the best defense?  Plus, we see an early deployment of the "lying slut defense," which works like a charm.  One thing that's never fully developed is just how Garrow changed the system in which he worked.  You just don't show up one day and say, "today, m'lud, I'm going to defense these accused."  Some better foundations would be nice.

But, at the end of the day, Garrow's Law is a courtroom drama, like any other.  Save for the period costumes and the lack of CSI-style forensics, of course.  And a solidly entertaining one, at that.

The Details
---------------
Garrow's Law, season one
Released 2009
Created by Tony Marchant
Starring Andrew Buchan, Alun Armstrong, Lyndsey Marshal, Rupert Graves, Aidan McArdle, Michael Culkin, et. al.

Two Thoughts

I’ve had a couple of things rattling round my brain the past few days, in the wake of the premiere of Game of Thrones Sunday night. HBO’s already in for a second season, by the way.  With that said . . .

Must we politicize everything?

For a long time, I’ve been more interested in what “regular” folks think about things than professionals. I always read the letters to the editors in the newspaper. Ditto for the letters sections of magazines, be it Keyboard or Four Four Two. So, as you’d expect, I love sifting through blog comments, if only for the entertainment value.

One of the things that depresses me about blog comments, though, is how any discussion can turn political. I’ve seen sports stories on USA Today followed by a lengthy set of comments that winds up as a shouting match between those who think Obama is a Muslim atheist Kenyan from outer space and those who think the Koch Brothers run the world from Dr. Evil’s old mountain hideout. What the fuck does any of that do with who won the NCAA tournament?!?

So it disappoints me to see folks try to dragoon Game of Thrones into the political realm, as Adam Serwer did at The American Prospect (via). He argues that Game of Thrones and the books on which it is based is a “liberal” version of fantasy because it deal in shades of grey and the heavy consequences of one’s actions. By comparison, the “conservative” Lord of the Rings films (which National Review put on an equally stupid list of best “conservative movies”) is all about the struggle between good and evil, it’s easy to tell which side is which, and the good guys prevail in the end.

I don’t know if that’s an accurate description of Lord of the Rings – I’ve never been a huge Tolkien fan and only recall bits of the films – but even if it is, so what? Does everything have to be read through a lens of politics? Outside of something like Atlas Shrugged or Animal Farm I’m loathe to try and line up works of fiction on a political map. It seems like a pointless exercise in trying to claim what you like best for your “team.”

I’m all for discussing subtext and analyzing the political or philosophical underpinnings of fiction, but can we all agree that few authors or filmmakers spend that much time figuring out whether Gandalf would have voted for Ronald Reagan or Jimmy Carter? Please.

The “Read the Book” Defense

Speaking of Atlas Shrugged . . . Game of Thrones wasn’t the only grim fantasy to hit screens this weekend. The first of a threatened three-part adaptation of Rand’s prized doorstop hit screens last Friday with a dreadful thud. As of right now, only 8% of critics gave the movie a positive review, with most top critics completely savaging it (see, e.g.).

But, according to the same source, 85% of viewers like it. A huge disconnect caused by the bias of them liberal elite media critic folk? Not really. More likely that the film opened wide enough to attract critical attention, but without sufficient advertising to attract any but devoted Rand fans to see it. I only knew about it because I skim the libertarian blogosphere on a regular basis. A comment on the Volokh Conspiracy post about the movie illustrated things perfectly:

I just saw the movie at the Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge, Mass. I thought the movie was better than was suggested by any of the reviews I’ve yet seen, with the caveat that it will seem incoherent and overwrought to anyone unfamiliar with the general plot of Atlas Shrugged.

In other words, if you’ve read the book, the movie will work. Talk about damning with faint praise.

Oddly enough, I’ve seen similar statements about Game of Thrones, particularly in response to one recurring criticism of the opening episode, that the women involve are little more than pawns and objects of sex or abuse (sometimes both). Those critics aren’t wrong. But fans of the books also correctly point out that lots of the women in the Thrones world grown into rich, interesting, and (at times) maddening characters in spite of the misogynistic world around them. In other words, it gets better on that score.

But that’s not much of a defense. Just as Atlas Shrugged, Part 1 has to stand on its own, without support from Rand’s novel, so too must Game of Thrones work its own way into the world (although, to be fair, one episode does not a season make). If the your best defense of something on screen starts off “well, if you’ve read the book . . .,” that’s pretty telling.

Winter Is Coming

Growing up I read a little bit of fantasy. Lloyd Alexander’s The Chronicles of Prydain were a favorite. But I was more drawn towards science fiction. I completely skipped out on Tolkien (the most important Tolkien-related think in my life is Marillion, for crying out loud), for example. Even Dune, which reads more as fantasy than sci-fi to me, didn’t make much of an impact. I don’t know if it was that I perceived sci-fi as being more “realistic” or if I just had an aversion to magic and tales of great quests.

That’s change over the past few years, as I’ve dug into the work of a couple of writers who made me rethink what fantasy was and what a writer could do with it. One of them is Neil Gaiman, a name I knew of (he wrote the best season five episode of Babylon 5, for instance), but whose stuff I hadn’t really read until the girlfriend gave me a volume of Sandman for my birthday. He’s brilliant, interesting, and usually funny (although often in dark ways). But that’s not who I want to focus on.

The other writer is George R.R. Martin, a prolific guy most well known for his expansive (and ongoing) series A Song of Ice and Fire. It’s epic fantasy, all right, but not the kind Disney makes cartoons out of. As Andrew Leonard put it at Salon:

Martin's fantasy saga demands a literary classification almost all its own -- call it, for better or worse, realist fantasy.

'A Song of Ice And Fire' is to normal fantasy what 'The Wire' was to typical cops-and-robbers drama, packed with grit, complexity and flawed human beings making their way through a corrupt and intimidating world. Heroes die, villains triumph, peasants and slaves suffer horribly and knights are as likely to be plate-metal-encased thugs and hoodlums as they are noble icons of chivalry. Loosely modeled on a medieval-era England ravaged by the Wars of the Roses, Martin's world does not gloss over the starvation, rape and murder that follow in the wake of war. The class stratification and brute injustice of feudal society screams out of nearly every page.

* * *

His characters -- male and female -- are among the most fully realized in all fantasy. Heroes may die -- major protagonists, even! -- but there's still plenty of heroism. There are also moments of great drama and magic -- as well as horror -- that require entire volumes to set up, and unload upon the reader with all the power of two tournament mail-clad lancers crashing into each other.

I love the comparison with The Wire. As odd as it sounds, “realist” and “fantasy” can work together. Martin’s example has encouraged me to try and work in a similar realm (so to speak), but we’ll have to see how those efforts pay off down the road.

The point of all this is not just to pimp Martin – although that’s OK – but to point out that the HBO series based upon Martin’s series, Game of Thrones, kicks off this Sunday (previews and much else here).

If you’ve ever thought that fantasy is just silly fairy tales fit mostly for kids and those stuck in permanent adolescence, I urge you to give it a shot. It’s only an hour (and five minutes, apparently) of your life. The only danger is you’ll get hooked!

Facing Reality

When I took the SAT, back in the last millennium, it was all bubble filling and multiple choice questions, just as Xenu intended. A few years ago they added an essay, which seems like a good idea to me. Being able to write well is a critical skill (says the guy who writes for a living - winning!) and one that we should focus on more. Besides, in my reading, the purpose of these essays isn't to determine a test taker's scope of knowledge, but just give him or her a jumping off point for the essay. It's about the writing, not the substance, in other words.

So, unless I'm really mistaken about something, I just don't get the kerfuffle over a prompt on this past week's SAT that *shock horror* referenced reality TV. Via the New York Times college blog, here's the full prompt:

Reality television programs, which feature real people engaged in real activities rather than professional actors performing scripted scenes, are increasingly popular.

These shows depict ordinary people competing in everything from singing and dancing to losing weight, or just living their everyday lives. Most people believe that the reality these shows portray is authentic, but they are being misled.

How authentic can these shows be when producers design challenges for the participants and then editors alter filmed scenes?

Do people benefit from forms of entertainment that show so-called reality, or are such forms of entertainment harmful?

It makes perfect sense to me. It’s a pair of semi-philosophical questions asked against the background of reality TV. It’s not looking for a summary of the last season of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. It’s not asking for a compare and contrast on the metaphysics of Snooki versus The Situation. Anybody should be able to write something based on what’s provided in the prompt.

It amuses me the number of people who object that the use of reality TV as a topic on the SAT because it somehow debases a standardized test. More amusing are the people who complain that, since they never watch anything as stupid as reality TV, how can they write an essay about it?

Look, I’m no fan of the reality TV boom. If it all disappeared tomorrow, I’d not miss it. And I know next to nothing about who’s on what show and doing what to whom. But I know what a force reality TV has been in the culture and the entertainment industry over the past decade or more. If someone is so out of touch that they aren’t aware of the entire genre, then writing a good essay for the SAT seems like that least of their problems.

But if you’re really that sheltered, that out to lunch, here’s everything you really need to know about reality TV, courtesy of Dave Chappelle:

Chappelles Show
The Mad Real World - Introduction
www.comedycentral.com
Buy Chappelle's Show DVDs Black Comedy True Hollywood Story

Chappelles Show
The Mad Real World - Katie
www.comedycentral.com
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Chappelles Show
The Mad Real World - Sleeper Hold
www.comedycentral.com
Buy Chappelle's Show DVDs Black Comedy True Hollywood Story

Chappelles Show
The Mad Real World - End
www.comedycentral.com
Buy Chappelle's Show DVDs Black Comedy True Hollywood Story

Go to the Mirror, Boy

I'm certainly not going to argue that fiction always serves as some sort of deep comment on society.  Sometimes you just want to tell a good story.  Lord knows, that's all I aspire to at this point!  But other times, great fiction really does have the ability to hold a mirror up to the world and say, "holy shit, look how fucked up we are."

I've come late to the epic that is The Wire.  I didn't have HBO when it started and only got around to it when they all showed up on Netflix.  I'm through season four and it's a brilliant piece of TV, although perhaps not as orgasmic as its reputation would have it (granted, I have a soft spot in my heart for its spiritual predecessor, Homicide: Life on the Street that might color my opinion).

Above all, The Wire is gritty and realistic.  The pathetic game of cops and drug dealers around which the series spirals rings very true to my ears.  I can only assume that the equally pathetic excuses of politics and education that the show explores are equally on the nose.  It's rivetting, addictive, and deep, but not exactly joyous and fun.

Like Homicide, The Wire uses its setting of Baltimore as an additional character.  I suppose it should surprise nobody that the powers that be in Charm City might not be fond of how the city comes off:

Asked to comment on the show during last week’s Amplify Baltimore event, [Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H.] Bealefeld called The Wire a 'smear on this city that will take decades to overcome,' saying, 'You know what Miami gets in their crime show? They get detectives that look like models, and they drive around in sports cars. And you know what New York gets? They get these incredibly tough prosecutors, competent cops that solve the most crazy, complicated cases.' Yet on The Wire, Bealefeld says, 'What Baltimore gets is this reinforced notion that it's a city full of hopelessness, despair and dysfunction. There was very little effort—beyond self-serving—to highlight the great and wonderful things happening here, and to indict the whole population, the criminal justice system, the school system.'

Ironically, that kind of statement from a politician sounds exactly like something one of them would say on The Wire.  Forget the reality of the situation and complain that someone hasn't signed on to give your city the Chamber of Commerce treatment.  Besides, if we're going to judge Miami by its TV cops, I'm surprised anybody ever gets caught for anything down there,  if Dexter is any kind of accurate.

Natrually, series creator David Simon has fired back:

Others might reasonably argue, however that it is not sixty hours of The Wire that will require decades for our city to overcome, as the commissioner claims. A more lingering problem might be two decades of bad performance by a police agency more obsessed with statistics than substance, with appeasing political leadership rather than seriously addressing the roots of city violence, with shifting blame rather than taking responsibility.  That is the police department we depicted in The Wire, give or take our depiction of some conscientious officers and supervisors. And that is an accurate depiction of the Baltimore department for much of the last twenty years, from the late 1980s, when cocaine hit and the drug corners blossomed, until recently, when Mr. O'Malley became governor and the pressure to clear those corners without regard to legality and to make crime disappear on paper finally gave way to some normalcy and, perhaps, some police work. Commissioner Bealefeld, who was present for much of that history, knows it as well as anyone associated with The Wire.

Free advice to the chief - don't pick fights with a critically aclaimed writer.  You will not get the last word.

Free advice to everybody else - if somebody holds a mirror up to your world and it looks fucked up, don't blame the guy with the mirror.  Do something about what you see.