Why they teach ‘The Wire’ at Harvard
The Harvard Kennedy School is teaching a course about HBO’s The Wire:
“The Wire,” which depicted inner-city Baltimore over five seasons on HBO, shows ordinary people making sense of their world. Its complex characters on both sides of the law defy simplistic moral distinctions. Critics loved it. Its fans hung on every episode. We think it is more than just excellent television. Impressed by its treatment of complex issues, we developed a course at Harvard drawing on the show’s portrayal of fundamental sociological principles connected to urban inequality. Our seminar was designed for 30 students; four times that many showed up for the first class last week.
Of course, our undergraduate students will read rigorous academic studies of the urban job market, education and the drug war. But the HBO series does what these texts can’t. More than simply telling a gripping story, “The Wire” shows how the deep inequality in inner-city America results from the web of lost jobs, bad schools, drugs, imprisonment, and how the situation feeds on itself.The show caused me to see my city in a profoundly different light. The sixty hours I spent on it were more brainfood than perhaps all but three classes I took in college.
Jetez vous sur cette série si vous ne l’avez pas encore fait. Au-delà de la qualité du scénario, de la façon de réaliser et des acteurs, c’est un aperçu de la ville américaine et de ses habitants qui vaut bien quelques livres. Chaque saison traite d’un grand sujet comme l’éducation ou la politique, au travers des histoires de ces personnes de tous les jours.
