| Image by HBO
Now that
The Wire
has once again earned a place in many critic's and
year-end
lists and
,
shout outs, and even a spot in the American Film Institute's official list of
, 2008 ends with a bit of interesting online chatter about the venerable HBO drama-qua-televisual essay about the American city with which our fair city has become intrinsically intertwined, so much so that its fictional Baltimore--and
The Wire
was
always
a fictional world--was often viewed to be the real Baltimore in which we live and work. Two of the more compelling examples of that idea appear in
about the show's Baltimore and this
that asked: THE WIRE: IS IT REALLY LIKE THAT IN B-MORE?
The consideration from Blake, who writes that he grew up in West Baltimore, is the more poignant of the two, but both come from a place that presumes a certain real-world veracity to the show's dramatic universe. And while, yes,
The Wire
did aspire to depict a urban environment that is closer to the one in which we observe on a daily basis than, say, the likes of
NYPD Blue
and
C.S.I.
, it's still a television show. We TV viewers have never made the same authenticity demands of, say, any of the
Law & Order
enterprises even though they advertise their plots as "ripped from the headlines."
And now, it appears, the fictional Baltimore being good/bad for real Baltimore has entered city marketing, at least as evidenced in this AP report that states that the city of Oakland's film coordinator claiming
The Wire
had a
. The economy yes--but do you remember any reports claiming the show had a positive impact on Baltimore
tourism
Latest Baltimore City Paper
?
