For Colin!
This is for Colin, if you're still doing the State Post. Happy Christmas!
Fans of HBO Drama ‘The Wire’ Admit They Have no Idea What the Hell Characters are Talking About.
Fans of the hit and universally acclaimed HBO drama series ‘The Wire’ assumedly about police, crime and politics in Baltimore, admitted that despite their fervor for the show, the dialogue is virtually indiscernible.
“I love the show, it’s amazing,” says 28 year old paralegal Alexander Strong of Washington DC, “I also love the ultra-authentic street-talk that is so brilliant that I usually don’t have a clue what the fuck they’re talking about.”
Executive producer Phyllis Bergman says the frequent use of witty analogies (such as ‘The Chief’ll be walkin’ ‘round here quieter’n a rabbit screwing a pile of cotton’), mixed metaphors (‘If I weren’t the mayor of shitville, would I be holding my nose this tightly!?’) and completely convincing dialogue makes the audience feel like they are witnessing an actual conversation between a corrupt cop and a corrupt politician, in that you have no inkling as to the meaning or purpose of their conversation.
“Instead of saying ‘if we don’t give him the money, he’ll come after us,” says Bergman, “we assume ‘we better buy into his game or he’ll buckle down on ours’ as a more street-authentic term - comprehension be dammed! After winning seven Emmy awards last year, most judges agreed that as the best show on television, The Wire has the right to have mind-bogglingly cryptic dialogue that would drive code breakers into confusion-induced vomiting.
Writers report they utilize pieces of AIM conversations, 1920’s newspaper clippings, CSPAN outtakes and overhead arguments their parents had when they were six as inspiration for the scripts.