The Wire: What is the Game?

Ok so I’ve said multiple times that I was done making Wire videos. I said everything I have to say about the show in my 4 hour retrospective “All The Pieces”, and I feel like I comprehensively discussed all the important points about the show in that video. But there is always more to cover when it comes to The Wire, and in this video I just want to answer a simple question.

What the hell is this “game” that the character’s keep talking about? All throughout the show, we hear “the game” referenced over and over again.

Now on the surface, the game is a slang term that refers to the drug trade. On one side of the board are the drug dealers and criminals, and on the other side law enforcement. They’re locked in a struggle for control of the board, with rules as to what each side can and can’t do.

And the metaphor of the game also serves as a commentary on the pointless nature of the drug war. No matter what victories any side has, it’s all temporary as new players enter and the game starts all over again.

However as we go through each season, we realize that the term is relevant to many more people than just the cops and the Baltimore drug players. The game encompasses the entirety of society. Omar comes right out and says this in season 2.

Levy, though on the surface a law abiding citizen, is also profiting off the drug trade by way of fees from his drug dealer clients. Now of course it’s later revealed that he is an actual criminal as well, but it’s still a commentary on society. Though we tend to view the white collar world and the streets as two completely separate entities, we learn that they are actually very much a part of the same system.

Now I’m not just talking about the many quote on quote upstanding citizens who actually do use the same drugs they pretend to despise. I’m also talking about the fact that the spoils of the drug trade directly feed into the political machine of the city.

We see that drug lords like Avon and Stringer are not just hoodlums, but are actually involved with local politicians and city officials, donating to political campaigns in exchange for real estate deals that legitimize much of their illegal profits.

Despite the fact that Mayor Royce tries to appear to be tough on crime, he is actually only focused on meaningless street level arrests while at the same time lining his pockets with the money of the real drug pushers of the city. Not to mention giving construction deals with developers who are also working with the very same drug dealers.

But why does he do this? Why does he focus on stats over actually solving the problems of his city? Is he uniquely greedy and corrupt? No, he’s just doing what he has to do to get ahead.

We see the same thing with Carcetti, a supposed reformer. When he gets into office, we see him prioritize short term results that will get him elected to a higher office rather than actually addressing the systemic problems of his city. And again, we’ve followed him since before he became mayor. He wasn’t lying when he said he wanted to fix the city. It’s just his own personal needs got in the way of doing what’s right, and he chose himself over the city.

And that’s what the game really is. It’s the system by which everyone in Baltimore is living their lives. Whether it’s the police juking stats to make the crime rate improve, or the school system teaching the tests, everyone is just trying to do whatever it takes to serve their own best interest, regardless of the greater good.

Now, you could say that the Game is actually capitalism, and that the show therefore is a critique of the capitalist system. In fact, that was the conclusion I was originally going to make when I started this script. There’s a lot of evidence to support this, including statements from David Simon himself. However I read a very good article that broke down how despite Simon’s statements, many of the problems presented in the show are not directly attributable to capitalism, at least according to how capitalism is supposed to operate in principle.

An interesting point made was that The Wire also presents the problems of American bureaucratic systems and politics, which is not the same thing as capitalism. And maybe that is the case. I still believe that capitalism is one of the problems that the show is trying to tackle with the metaphor of the game. However I now think that the Game refers to systems of power in general, and that capitalism is just one facet of that along with all the other institutions we see on the show. And I think this fits with what the creators were going for. David Simon has referred to various institutions of Baltimore as a pantheon of Gods, with capitalism as the chief God among them.

In any case the game is the most central theme of the show. DeAngelo states this outright in the third episode with an explanation of chess and how it relates to the drug trade. In it, he outlines the various rules that govern not only their world, but the entire American system.

By this, DeAngelo means that those in power stay in power, no matter what happens on the board. We see this with the various politicians and power brokers in Baltimore. Even when they lose their offices, they still retain wealth and powerful positions because it benefits the system to keep them cooperative and perpetuate the establishment.

Though this is less true on the streets where death is the usual outcome for losing the game, we see that even defeated and in prison, Avon still commands respect and power. The king stay the king.

On the opposite end, those without power rarely get move up before they are taken out. This is because the game uses them as expendable tools before disposing of them and moving on. We see this with the low level soldiers of the drug trade who take most of the risk standing on the street corner, while their bosses get most of the profit while insulating themselves from any danger.

The same is also true of the cops, who act as tools for their bosses to chase the stats they want so they can get a promotion. They work for a system that will almost never reward them for doing what is right, but instead for what looks good for their bosses.

We even see this with the dock workers of season 2. The blue collar workers of society are being driven out of their livelihoods by the decline of their industry and labor protections like unions. Their desperate attempts to survive are meaningless as the docks are sold off to build condos. Like all the other low level workers they just pawns to be sacrificed by the politicians and developers looking to make money.

Even those in the white collar world aren’t safe from this. The Baltimore Sun is gutted by owners looking to make higher profits at lower costs. The desire for results over anything else leads them to compromise the integrity of the newspaper in order to win awards and sell more stories.

But again, while it’s tempting to blame the bosses and politicians for all the problems of the series, we saw that they are just as beholden to the game as anyone else. Carcetti might have been the mayor, but he had other rivals threatening his position and forcing him to make the decisions he made. Burrell was a terrible commissioner, but he was beholden to mayors who forced him to serve their own interests.

Ultimately what the wire was trying to show wasn’t the struggle between individual characters. It wasn’t about cops and drug dealers, politicians, teachers or even the press. It was about the forces in society that drive and shape us. Even if we don’t realize it, we are all moved by larger forces that we have almost no control over.

The Wire is at its heart about systemic issues. By switching the perspective up each season to different aspects of an American city, it asked us to look at America and society at large. Capitalism, the war on drugs, a society where people have to get ahead no matter the cost. It presented problems that have no easy answer. But examining those issues and putting them in the light not only made it one of the most fascinating shows of all time, but also one of the most important works of art ever made.

Thanks for watching this video. This was actually a planned section of my All The Pieces video that I had to cut for time, but I’m glad that I got to address the topic here. I know I got into a lot of political topics, but it’s because the Wire more than any other show is about real life, and in order to analyze it I have to engage it on that level. Either way though thanks for watching, and stay tuned for more Wire content coming soon!