Marshall 1
Paper 1
The Wire and Foucault
CMC300
Justin Marshall
Marshall 2
Abstract:
Surveillance is a concept that people are consciously and unconsciously aware of in their
everyday life. Drawing from the theories of Michel Foucault, I textually analyze the pilot
episode of The Wire and connect its use of surveillance as a subtle way of changing the thesis of
the show. The Wire appears on the surface level as a show about drug and racial problems, but
the surveillance aspect suggests that the problems within the show lie more on institutional
problems rather than the war on drugs story arc that is presented on the ground level.
Surveillance is a concept that people are consciously and unconsciously aware of in their
everyday life. Most, if not every store or establishment has surveillance cameras or security
guards keeping watch. This is an interesting phenomenon because with the rise of technology,
comes the rise of increased surveillance in our lives. Many popular films have embraced this
topic including: The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). There is even a
new show on CBS called Person of Interest (2011) that deals with surveillance. This paper,
however, investigates an episode of the HBO show called The Wire (2002). Through the lens of
French philosopher and theorist Michel Foucault, I will analyze and investigate why Baltimore is
portrayed as an institutionally dysfunctional city through filming techniques and character
analysis in the pilot of The Wire by stemming from Foucault’s concepts on the panopticon1.
The Wire is a fictional crime show broadcast by HBO in 2002 that, on the surface, deals
with the war on drugs in Baltimore. Each season of the show features a different institution that
the police (and the show) investigate. The first season deals with the “streets,” a family drug
organization while later seasons deal with different institutions within Baltimore. Each of these
institutions in some way connects back to the main “idea” of the show, which initially is
implicated as the drug problems in Baltimore. I chose the pilot episode because first episodes of
many series generally provide a self contained story while at the same time beginning the story
arc of the show.
1
From Discipline and Punish
The pilot episode, “The Target,” is set in a post-9/112 Baltimore and general plot of the
episode follows the release of a member of the drug family called the Barksdales. The episode
portrays the Baltimore police department initially as a dysfunctional and undisciplined. The
“protagonist,” Jimmy Mcnulty, talks behind the departments back to a judge, drinks heavily,
and cheats on his wife during the show. Many of the side characters in the police department
have their own personal problems as well, including Carver and Herk, which use excessive
police brutality among other unethical policing practices. Many of the so called “hero”
characters of the show are about the same if not worse off than the “streets.” Most of the
characters in this show could be considered anti-heroes. The show provides a post-modernistic
look into these institutions, mostly because of how the show is physically structured3 and how
it breaks the cultural ideology of the representation of a police force. Foucault denies being a
post-modernist, but his concepts do associate with post-modernism and connect seamlessly
with the surveillance aspects of The Wire.
Michel Foucault was born in Poitiers, France in 1926, and he is considered one of the
most influential European writers and thinkers of the second half of the twentieth century. In
literary studies, Foucault stands as a major source of post-structuralism, cultural studies, and
the examination of the institutional bases from which writers and critics operate (Leitch 1469).
Those aspects fit within this episode of The Wire, but one of the more important concepts
regarding these theories is Foucault’s idea of the Panopticon. Literally it is a prison watchtower
design that was meant to be all-seeing and able to keep watch on all the prisoners and just as
2
3
This is even referenced by an FBI agent near the end.
Metanarrative: It is a narrative about other narratives
equally not keep watch because just the thought of having this structure there is enough to
make prisoners “feel” as if they are being watched. A panoptic is something that is in power
and keeps subjects under constant surveillance, Foucault took this term from English reformer
Jeremy Bentham, who actually designed the prison system associated with the term (Leitch
1471). The concept of the panopticon is mostly used in the show as its general meaning of the
particular institution doing surveillance.4
The first area of interest is the opening credits of the episode5. It is comprised of various
fast cuts of computer monitors, drug imagery, picture taking, and phone talking. The
introduction of the show implicates more of the surveillance part of the show, which is a little
harder to acknowledge during the episode without thinking too much about it, similar to
surveillance in real life. One important facet of the intro is when the character of the “streets”
throws a rock at the CCTV camera. This suggests that the “streets” acknowledge there are
subjected to this surveillance and being watched not only by cameras, but by rooftop
photography units and wire taps. The opening credits sequence is vastly different than the style
of the rest of the episode. The majority of episodes contain no music and the scenes are not
shot with fast cuts and close ups. This is important as the introduction is supposed to set the
themes and tone of the show, which heavily goes into the idea of surveillance. The show
suggests that the panoptic is the police6, but various subtle filming techniques from the pilot
suggest otherwise.
4
The prison system was explored briefly in Season two, but just showed the general corrupted nature of the prison
institution in America, not necessarily the panopticon ideologies.
5
Starts: 2 min. 53 sec.
6
They regularly snap photos from roof tops, use wiretaps etc. to investigate drug operations from the “streets.”
Directly after the introduction credits we view a CCTV monitor of two main characters
from the police7 walking through a courthouse. The camera then pans up and we see the same
two characters walking by. A few minutes later inside the courtroom the same style of shot is
shown, the camera is pointed at the monitor and then pans up to the real person being
recorded8. During that scene the woman on stand was being asked if she had seen a Barksdale
member at the scene of a crime. It is inferred that this woman was paid off by this drug
organization to keep her mouth shut. She is also a security guard so this scene implicates that
even though someone is of an authoritative role, the power of capital gain goes farther than
what someone’s role is in an institution.
There a few other shots in the episode that follow this technique, one of which is in the
police headquarter elevator9. This filming technique suggests that we as the viewer are the one
surveying this footage and we are in the shoes of a hegemonic power keeping watch over the
events of the show. Most movies or television shows assume that the viewer is just abstractly
part of the scene but The Wire implicates that we are allowed (as a viewer) to watch the events
of the show only through the eyes of a CCTV monitor. Foucault talks about how the institutions
that employ these styles of control (schools, factories, hegemonic institutions etc.)10 are the
same strategies of control that prison systems employ. Ironically, the police that use their
panoptic capabilities against the “streets” are actually part of another panopticon.
7
Start: 4 min. 30 sec.
Start: 6 min 30 sec.
9
Start: 34:19, also notice how they do not continue their conversation under the gaze of the CCTV camera.
10
Interestingly enough, The Wire explores these institutions in later seasons, which provides interesting results.
8
Only one scene in the episode however, breaks the panopticon theory completely. It is
the scene where Bubbles and his protégé Johnny inject drugs11. Every other scene in the pilot
could be artificially viewed or by other hegemonic means of surveying. But this scene takes
place in a run down, shabby apartment room that has no conceivable way of containing a
panoptic power. The Wire explores the war on drugs, but this scene suggests that the
institutions in control are not using their power in a meaningful way. Drug use still goes on, and
there are no institutions to observe one of the more deadly aspects of the war on drugs in
Baltimore. This scene also sticks out because of Bubbles himself. Bubbles can be interpreted as
the moral center of the show based on later plot developments. He is used by both powerful
institutions (police, “streets”) to gain advantage through surveillance. He is “free” in a sense,
but still locked to the control of both institutions from personal decisions12. Bubbles though
could correlate with Foucault’s ideas on the pre-modern throughout most of the series. Bubbles
is suggested as being pre-modern because he is not “normalized”13 into a set institution14 and
he is generally goes unnoticed as far as major plot developments go.
Other areas of modernity fit well within the show, the social constructs of the show
themselves are inheriiently post-modern, the implications of the police and the “streets” all are
constructed, pure modernism is difficult to find in this show because of the arguments it makes
11
Start: 39 min 41 sec.
He is a drug addict, and in order to feed that habit, he regularly does surveillance for the police. It appears to be
an endless cycle.
13
One scene in Season 4 dealt with him dressing up to take another protégé to school, it was humorous because
imagining Bubbles as “normalized” is interesting. On a side note, throughout the series, he attempts to conform to
middle class modernity, and generally reverts back to his pre-modern status through drug use. The final episode of
the series shows him finally conforming to “normalization” as he sits up with his family in a middle class
neighborhood.
14
The police try to normalize him with the current, but Bubbles always lives as a vagrant throughout most of the
show.
12
and how its use of surveillance subtly interferes when defining a definitive “theme” of the
show. This is not a show about cops, or gangs, or law and order. The show seemingly goes
beyond the modern ideologies of television and uses many elements of cultural theory to
develop the message and plot to the audience.
After watching the episode and reviewing these two conflicting aspects of
panoptocism15, the actual, definitive thesis of the show is still unable to be fully brought to light
but at the same time that is what makes the show post-modern. The closest answer could be a
viewing into the dysfunctional nature of Baltimore and the implications associated with it. The
pilot is important because it establishes the initial “themes” of the show, and one of the main
themes, surveillance, is important to analyze because it allows us to take a step back from the
action and be able to associate some developments of the show with theories stemming from
Foucault. The Bubbles scene throws the theories in a loop as he is a pre-modern character in
this post-modern show, but this is what makes The Wire a fascinating watch and an interesting
look into societal problems based on many concepts of theory.
15
The CCTV scenes, and the Bubbles scene.
Work Cited
Leitch, Vincent B. The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton &,
2010. Print.
Note: For some reason it won’t let me put “Marshall 1” or “Marshall 2” headings, so I
apologize for the inconvenience.
On my honor, I have not given, nor received, nor
witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this work.
Justin Marshall