Marshall 1
Paper 1
The Wire and Foucault
CMC300
Justin Marshall
Marshall 2
Abstract:
People are both consciously and unconsciously aware of surveillance in their everyday
lives. Drawing from the theories of Michel Foucault, I textually analyze the pilot episode of The
Wire in order to connect its use of surveillance as a subtle way of changing the “thesis” of the
show from an investigation on drug and racial problems to an attack on the political aspects of
contemporary U.S. cities and their institutional problems, mostly through the use of
surveillance.
Surveillance is a concept that people encounter in everyday situations, whether they are
consciously or unconsciously aware of its presence. 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, and increasingly hidden
surveillance. Many popular films have embraced this topic, from hit blockbuster- The Matrix
Reloaded (2003) to the classic 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
the first episode of the award winning HBO show 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 this episode through surveillance (particularly from Foucault’s concepts on the
panopticon1) rather than the surface level implications of the “drug war.”
The Wire is a fictional crime show broadcast by HBO in 2002 that, on the surface, deals
with the war on drugs in Baltimore. Many of the characters are based on individuals involved in
Baltimore’s drug problems in the 1990s, so it is partially based on true events from Baltimore’s
history. 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, including dock workers, politicians,
school systems, and the city newspaper, respectively. 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
1
From Discipline and Punish
self-contained story while at the same time beginning the story arc of the show. Institutional
surveillance is a defining aspect of the series and this particular episode highlights that to a
greater degree than many other episodes, most likely to establish a tone early on about its
critique of bureaucracy and established power.
The pilot episode, “The Target,” is set in a post-9/112 Baltimore, and the general plot of
the episode follows the release of a member of a drug family called the Barksdales. The
episode portrays the Baltimore police department initially as a dysfunctional and undisciplined.
The implied -“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-” (i.e.,
Stringer Bell and Avon Barksdale)3 Most of the characters in this show could be considered antiheroes. The show provides a post-modernist look into these institutions, mostly because of how
the show is physically structured4 and how it breaks down the cultural ideology of the
representation of a police force as a good vs. bad institution, which adds in the “third term” of
bureaucracy and institutionalization of control and power through surveillance. Foucault denies
being a post-modernist, but his concepts do associate with post-modernism and connect
seamlessly with the surveillance aspects of The Wire.
2
This is even referenced by an FBI agent near the end.
These high ranking individuals within this crime family have luxurious houses and for a while are living the best
“life” out of many of the main characters.
4
Metanarrative: Which is a narrative about other narratives, many films and shows use this, these can be rather
complex to follow (i.e. Lost, 24, Millennium Actress)
3
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, formed in the book Discipline and
Punish. Literally the panopticon is a prison watchtower design that was meant to be all-seeing
and able to keep watch on all the prisoners, and just as 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 therefore 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.5
The first area of interest is the opening credits of the episode.6 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 they are
5
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.
6
Starts: 2 min. 53 sec.
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 while it suggests that the panoptic is the police7, various
subtle filming techniques even from the pilot reveal otherwise.
Directly after the introduction credits we view a CCTV monitor of two main characters
from the police8 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
recorded9. 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 elevator10. 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
7
They regularly snap photos from roof tops, use wiretaps etc. to investigate drug operations from the “streets.”
Start: 4 min. 30 sec.
9
Start: 6 min 30 sec.
10
Start: 34:19, also notice how they do not continue their conversation under the gaze of the CCTV camera.
8
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.)11
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.
Only one scene in the episode however, breaks the panopticon theory completely. It is
the scene where Bubbles and his protégé Johnny inject drugs12. 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. He can be interpreted as the
moral center of the show. He is used by both powerful institutions to gain advantage through
surveillance. He is “free” in a sense, but still locked to the control of both institutions from
personal decisions13. 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”14 into a set institution.15
11
Interestingly enough, The Wire explores these institutions in later seasons, which provides interesting results.
Start: 39 min 41 sec.
13
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.
14
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
12
After watching the episode and reviewing these two different aspects of panoptocism16,
the actual, definitive thesis of the show still cannot be set into stone but at the same time that
is why The Wire was so successful because it transgressed crime television through its use of
realism and institutional dysfunctionalism. A great summary could view the show as a
(panoptic) look 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.
the series shows him finally conforming to “normalization” as he sits up with his family in a middle class
neighborhood.
15
The police try to normalize him with the current, but Bubbles always lives as a vagrant throughout most of the
show.
16
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