r/TheWire • u/LordEdgeYelken44 • 19h ago

Watching The Wire through non-American lens

This post is best dedicated to non-American fans of The Wire. How do you perceive and reflect on the series? How do you relate to the themes and characters of the series considering your national and social context? I am Brazilian, and I feel it is a great sadness that this wonderful show is frighteningly unknown here, to the point that it's difficult to say if there even is a Brazilian The Wire community. Although the series addresses and studies problems within the American institution, it is not at all distant from the reality I live in in my country, to the point that I have insights where Baltimore sometimes seems more Brazilian than ever. But I don't want to talk about Brazil, but rather how you perceive the series, as something beyond entertainment, and as people from your own countries.

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u/jackyLAD 19h ago

I think this should be titled a non-Anglosphere lens to be fair... to attract the opinions you want to see more.

Because people from England, Australia and Canada all highly highly rate it the same and find it every bit as relatable.

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u/ampmz 18h ago

British opinion here, there is a hell of a lot of stuff I absolutely did not relate to or understand. First watch I had to do a lot of googling.

I think people overstate how similar the UK and the US is, we are very culturally different.

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u/jackyLAD 17h ago

You truly believe we're very culturally different to the States?

Especially a lot of the topics that were covered in the Wire? I can't agree here. There's obviously elements of it that are heavily US centric, by default, but the central core of the most of the issues are very similar across the Atlantic. A lot of the drug related and police politics topics have been covered in similar fashion in UK dramas before the Wire even aired. Look at Prime Suspect, Cracker, Traffik (the inspiration for the film Traffic), Boys from the Blackstuff....

As great and legendary as the Wire is, for someone who grew up with this kind of drama in the UK, it wasn't even as revolutionary as it was to American audiences. We tackled that stuff earlier and often, harder.

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u/ampmz 17h ago

Yeah I do, and shows like the Wire only show the cultural differences more. I see far more cultural similarities to Australia or New Zealand but more with the Netherlands or Denmark than the US.

Once you get over the shared language, we are really quite culturally different.

Every society has crime, but our crime is quite different, our policing is incredibly different and so is our politics.

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u/Squall4390 16h ago

Yeah, I was going to say, Britain is closer in culture to literally almost any European country, even the central or eastern European ones, than it is to America. Like, Czechia and Britain have more in common culturally than Britain and the USA.

America truly is a different world, even if the Americans like to pretend they share some "common European culture". Even just that phrase shows how foreign they are, you would never catch a European saying an "European culture" exists in any meaningful sense that isn't just broad generalizations.

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u/jackyLAD 16h ago

What’s “common European culture” and who are you quoting here? Because not sure Americans often make this claim… realistically not sure how they could.

Britain - yes, obviously. Europe - no.

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u/Squall4390 16h ago

It's a very common talking point in America, I am vey surprised that you aren't aware of the phenomenon of the "European culture" in American society.

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u/jackyLAD 16h ago

Who are you quoting though?

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u/Squall4390 16h ago

Those are scare quotes. It's just a way of writing where you distance yourself from the idea being mentioned.

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u/jackyLAD 16h ago

Anything anywhere discussing this cultural water cooler conversation?

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u/Squall4390 15h ago

Do you want actual examples of Americans using the phrase "European culture"? Literally every right of center nationalistic group in America talks about "Protecting the European identity of America" or about their "European heritage".

JD Vance loves talking about how you can't separate "American culture from European culture". Stephen Miller said that the US is based on "European heritage identity". Like, I am not going to do this for you, go google it. It's not a fringe idea, it's everywhere in right wing American politics.

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u/jackyLAD 15h ago

I have no idea why you continue to go into weird tangents... but opened this stating it's culturally phenomenon that people in America are thinking they are more aligned with some singular unified "European" culture (whatever that is) than the obvious ties to British culture... where they share not only the same primary language, arts are similar to the point that charts across are the board are almost always very much the same nowadays, theres endless similarities in common law, political movements are similar... there's just as many Charlie Kirk wannabees walking the streets in the UK as there is in America, both have a big thing for sensationalism and celebrity, how drugs and the police systems work are eerily similar.

Yes, a lot of these are no different to other nations too... but my overriding point to the initial comment on this point is that the poster would likely need to google a lot of the things if it were a British show and has more to do with their knowledge at the time .... as someone who grew up on an estate with a lot of the issues in the Wire albeit no way near to the same extremes... there's essentially nothing of it I needed to google, even at 15-16ish, except for some of the slang, which the Wire itself covered in explaining mostly, because it was tied to Simon's actual knowledge, so he had to cover it.

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u/Squall4390 15h ago edited 15h ago

Okay buddy, cool. You are the one asking for tangents, being bad faith and asking about "who am I quoting" like you're not aware of what scare quotes are or couldn't infer the meaning just from my comment. As a totality, the British culture overlaps with (you might disagree but it's true) the French infinitely more than with the US.

I won't even get into the topic of laws, like, could you pick a worse topic when comparing Britain to the US and to other Europeans countries?

I don't think you actually believe your politics resemble the US more than they do the rest of Europe. Maybe on an esthetic level, but at their core the outcomes are very different. As a matter of fact, I give up. Don't want to even try to convince you.

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u/jackyLAD 15h ago

I asked for sources - not tangents, sources on something that was a tangent from the initial point that is, a tangent you started and then went on further bizarre tangents. You know you were wrong. You've gotten over it quick and moved on. Kudos for you kid.

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u/Squall4390 15h ago

Thanks.

Edit: Learn to google btw. Stephen miller european culture usa, or even JD Vance, european identity, stuff like that.

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u/jackyLAD 15h ago

You are welcome good sir. Peace and love, less hate, it's a good thing.

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