'The Game the Same. Just Got More Fierce.'

An Interpretative Analysis of the Stereotypical Representation of African Americans on the US Television Program 'The Wire'

Master's Thesis from the year 2014 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,1, University of Duisburg-Essen (Fakultät für Geisteswissenschaften), language: English, abstract: The Wire, David Simon's and Ed Burns' HBO show about the war on drugs in Baltimore and the de-industrialized American economy, has been praised by critics, authors and scholars. It was called the 'best show since the invention of radio' (Brooker as quoted by Toscano) and compared to 19th century classical literature of Balzac, Dickens and others, and even Barack Obama named the show to be his favorite. The Wire was broadcast between 2002 and 2008 and thus is part of the cultural representation of the years before Obama became the first African American president of the United States of America. That might seem to be just a chronological fact on the sideline, but can be considered quite important instead. That is, because media mirrors a society's development and its recent state of mind. With Obama in office, it might seem that America has had a significant change of mind in terms of its conduct toward African Americans. The Wire was widely praised to be a multicultural show, if not even a post-ethnic show, that avoided all forms of negative, stereotypical depictions of Blacks and included Blacks in numbers never seen before on TV. Until today, the representation of Blacks in the media is something academics and journalists, political activists and authors write and discuss about. It is stained by the American past of slavery and segregation. Certain stereotypes and prejudices about Blacks have endured time and can be found in American society, among all races and all classes. However, The Wire with its huge number of Black characters along with their quality and depth, is seen as an exception from the usual TV program. The show was praised for its politics of representation, for putting Black characters in a drama, for including them in all depicted classes, all levels of hierarchies - Blacks are part of the street, the law, politics, the harbor, the media (Buehler 55) - and for the sheer range of Black roles that was said to make stereotyping nearly impossible (Morsch 216). [...] However, this thesis will prove that David Simon's monumental 60-hour-long show may be an exceptional TV show but nevertheless works with long-known and well-established schemes of representation and stereotypes of African Americans. The praise it has received will be made understandable on one hand, but will be shown as incomplete and ignorant on the other.