Hot Topic: The Wire

Recently, Time, published an article written by the writers of HBO's hit television show The Wire. Entitled, The Wire's War on Drugs, the article discusses how the writers view the governments "War on Drugs" as a failure and they charge us to end it. The following is an excerpt:

"We write a television show. Measured against more thoughtful and meaningful occupations, this is not the best seat from which to argue public policy or social justice. Still, those viewers who followed The Wire — our HBO drama that tried to portray all sides of inner-city collapse, including the drug war, with as much detail and as little judgment as we could muster — tell us they’ve invested in the fates of our characters. They worry or grieve for Bubbles, Bodie or Wallace, certain that these characters are fictional yet knowing they are rooted in the reality of the other America, the one rarely acknowledged by anything so overt as a TV drama.

These viewers, admittedly a small shard of the TV universe, deluge us with one question: What can we do? If there are two Americas — separate and unequal — and if the drug war has helped produce a psychic chasm between them, how can well-meaning, well-intentioned people begin to bridge those worlds?

And for five seasons, we answered lamely, offering arguments about economic priorities or drug policy, debating theoreticals within our tangled little drama. We were storytellers, not advocates; we ducked the question as best we could."

Click here to read the rest of the article.

As The Wire comes to a close, what will viewers take from this real-life drama. Will people view it as entertainment or as a look into the lives of inner city youths? And if they do choose the latter, will people be moved to change anything?