The actors seemed a bit taken aback by the lofty praise. “I don’t think any one of us realized even while we were shooting that it was going to have this kind of impact," Royo said. “It was work. I look out and see all of you people here—I told my people I wouldn’t curse at Harvard—but what the fuck are you guys doing here?” Williams, his eyes welling with tears, said, “I can’t tell you how humbling it is to be here. I don’t know what I’m doing here, but I’m hoping y’all figure out.”... But the actors noted that students could do more to change the world that The Wire presented than just learn about it in a classroom. Williams read aloud from a letter Sohn had received from a 22-year-old woman who was raped at 13 and again, repeatedly, at 18 by her abusive husband, who would also encourage his friends to rape her. “This is the real Wire,” he declared, “This show was built on the sweat and blood of people who couldn’t make it here. We don’t need no more Wires.”
Reflecting The Real
I meant to link to this great piece Dylan Matthews did for Campus Progress last week about the real-world impact of The Wire, which will be the subject of a Harvard course next semester. His argument is that by accurately reflecting the real world, The Wire has been tremendously meaningful for thousands of people who don't see their lives adequately depicted in mass media, whether in theoretically-edgy mainstream cop shows or in the reality miasma. But The Wire is also a spur to action. Sonja Sohn, whose astonishing performance as Det. Kim Greggs is probably my favorite part of the show, is literally two months behind on her mortgage because she's been doing so much volunteer work she isn't making a living (which says reams about how talented actors in amazing by small-viewer shows are compensated in comparison to their big box-office peers). And it sounds like the forum Dylan covered also got at some of the limits of media studies and media criticism--and the dangers of fetishizing other people's suffering as art.