Is The Wire a type of greek tragedy?

“It's Baltimore gentlemen. The gods will not save you.” In DVD commentary, David Simon says that he is influenced by Greek tragedies, but you can't say that The Wire is mimicking a plot from Aeschylus or anything like that. read more

As a whole, the Wire is about Baltimore and its institutions. While one theme is the cyclical nature of these institutions, one of the reasons the Wire is called the "cure for cynicism" is that we get just a few rays of hope. So no - as a whole I wouldn't really call the Wire a "Greek tragedy", as it evades being doomed by its own character. read more

During the entire filming of The Wire's first two seasons, and as he wrote the remaining three, Simon read through the entire canon of ancient Greek tragedy, starting with Aeschylus and continuing on through Sophocles and Euripides. 4 Simon's notion of a "rigged game" echoes the [End Page 487] articulated concerns and observations of the show's characters, who comprehend the fact, if not the implication, of its deistic fatalism. read more