Banging the tribal drum

Haven't been watching so many new feature films lately, but for a good reason: I've had my nose in series 1 and 2 of The Wire.

And yes, it lives up to the hype. I've been impressed by many different aspects of the series, including (a) its refusal to submit to standard climax-release genre norms, (b) its sophisticated sound design, and (c) treatment of the city as a series of sometimes competing, sometimes overlapping tribal groups. These groups and sub-groups are themselves complexly riven by factionalism and competing agendas.

These thoughts on tribalism were partly inspired by writer, screenwriting teacher and script editor Billy Marshall Stoneking's ideas about tribal storytelling, which (and here I perhaps overly simplify) require writers to steep themselves in the particular "tribal" (ie social or anthropological) groups they're writing about, either through writing from their life experience or deeply researching the social background of their subjects. (See link to Stoneking's website at the right of the page)

In The Wire series 2 the tribes and sub-tribes include:
1) the dockside union,
2) the Greeks and the Poles,
3) the Eastside and Westside drug crews,
4) the Eastside crew in prison under Avon Barksdale, and outside under Stringer Bell,
5) the various branches of the city police competing over who takes responsibility for 12 dead trafficked women from a shipping container,
6) the FBI and the local police, and
7) two competing sub-tribes within the FBI - the traditional criminal investigation cops, and the post 9-11 anti-terrorism cops.

Rather than simply showing these tribal groups as being in competition, the series further complicates things by showing the need for compromise and pragmatic cross-tribal alliances in order to have at least a hope of achieving anything.

These alliances are built not only between different police sections, but also between the major Baltimore drug gangs, viz. the co-operation Bell sets up between his own Eastside crew and his former rival Proposition's Joe's Westside outfit.

This theme of pragmatism-is-the-best-we-can-hope-for is given especially strong emphasis in the way series 1 asnd 2 resolve - not in complete victory, but partial, compromised successes - the glass is never more than half full.

Good UK blog post here on The Wire written by Gareth James , a PhD student specialising in the history of HBO original programming from 1997 to 2007.