The Wire Episode 59: Killer of Sheep
led to slaughter or redemption?
2008-03-03
By DeAngelo Starnes
After reading ebonyjet.com articles by Jacquie Jones and Sergio, I was inspired to order Charles Burnett’s underviewed classic, Killer of Sheep. Filmed in black and white on a low budget, I found myself baffled but ultimately extremely satisfied by the end of the movie.
I bring the film up because after viewing this season’s Wire, I found myself drawing comparisons between them for two reasons.
First, there are striking montages of sheep being led to slaughter and then being skinned. I had to wonder if that’s us as a society. Are we sheep collectively being led to slaughter? As I noted in earlier articles, the Ninety-Nine Percent have it coming at them from all angles. Massive job and home loss; sudden tightening of credit extensions; constant manipulation by the media and politicians; and now I just read it’s going to be harder for our kids to obtain government-backed student loans. (It used to be that a student loan was a last resort, after grants, scholarships and work/study, for college financial aid. Now, it’s going to be hard to obtain a post-graduate ball-and-chain loan?) So what do you do with your life where there are no good options? Prey on each other? Get high? Go fight a war against unknown, underdefined, and unseen terrorists?
The second thing that struck me about the movie was that it was a collage of scenes with no linear story line, no climactic punchline, and no neat bow to tie everything together at the end. Just powerful vignettes carried, in many instances, by non-professional actors.
So how does this compare to The Wire? This season had a lot of storylines that may or may not play out in a neatly tied bow at the end of the series. However, while we may be baffled by the reason it was necessary to include Omar if he wasn’t going to make a meaningful impact, or wonder how the newspaper story ties into the political story and how either of those tie into the street-police story, or try to figure out why Bubs’ story still gets significant screen time, we know we’ve been treated to some powerful small-screen cinema.
You can’t always predict satisfaction. It’s always best when you don’t expect it. But if you go looking for and anticipating it, you might come away disappointed. So then you might try to figure out why you couldn’t duplicate the experience. Wisdom dictates that sometimes satisfaction comes not when you can dissect the reason for it. Often, it comes when you place your hands behind your head, lean back, and to yourself, simply say …“Yeah.” Recap:
- I’m a big fan of the quotes that come after the show’s opening theme song. “Deserve ain’t got nothing to do with it” is my second favorite quote of the season. (I might rank them in my season concluding essay). When things go awry, don’t we ask as we pray, “What did I do to deserve this?” only to be confronted by silence from the sky. For weeks, we get no burning bush answer until we move on and surmount the obstacle. Maybe that’s the Creator’s way of telling us, “Deserve ain’t got nothing to do with it.” Maybe the lesson is we should cease stopping our lives with such a self-pitying prayer and do what we can to complete the character-building exercise.
- The bust left me a little disappointed. Not in its execution but with its occurrence. I’ve always been one who roots for the so-called bad guy. Cuz after the bad guy’s caught, what’s left? While I didn’t necessarily cheer for Marlo, I dug the chase. Like Lester told McNulty, “It’s the journey, not the destination.” The thrill is in the journey. You always want to test your theories and strategies to determine a result, which makes the destination the reward, satisfaction, or disappointment. The lessons are learned from how you got to the end result. But once you get to the destination, what’s next? Hopefully, another chase or journey lest you risk permanent residence in a pastime paradise or hell.
- While in the holding cell, Marlo displayed a rare expression of emotion. He became peeved that no one told him that Omar called him out in the street. Some might think that is a minor thing to become upset about. I disagree because he had a point. Reputation is currency, and not just in the street. Unless you have friends who can cushion a fall and help with a bounce-back, you must protect your reputation at all costs. Perception is reality. Your reputation has a wider audience for what represents you than your actual personality and deeds. Reputation restoration is pushing a boulder up a hill difficult. It’s just like losing trust. You can’t grab that genie and shove it back in the bottle.
- I loved the juxtaposition between Michael and Wee-Bay’s son who has since been adopted by Bunny Colvin, Namond. Both showed they’ve learned their lessons well from their respective mentors. Namond by dropping science about AIDS in Africa and Michael by dropping Snoop.
- The Washington Post’s expose of the neglect of wounded veterans in Walter Reed Hospital was a bombshell that came and went. Kudos to The Wire for doing what most mainstream news outlets, and virtually no fictional television, touched on: a visualization of the consequences of war. Even given the number of high fatalities, it’s the walking wounded that serve as a painful day-to-day reminder of that asinine exercise in Iraq.
- I got a little pissed at the writers with the sista hollering at Bubs during his confession before the congregation. Another Black woman as ‘ho stereotype bulls**t.
- Hated to see Dookie and Michael part ways. I ached to see Dookie trying to hang onto the brief piece of peace and luxury Michael’s street life produced for him.
In Killer of Sheep, there were many scenes where we saw kids doing what we believe kids should do: finding the joy in life even when it resulted in a cruel act. By contrast, in The Wire, we often saw children assuming adult roles before they’re actually ready to do so.
The final image of Killer of Sheep was the sheep walking to their inevitable slaughter. No dialogue or background music. I hope the last image of this week’s episode with Dookie walking into his new world isn’t the same thing.
DeAngelo Starnes is a freelance writer and attorney who resides with his wife and son in Denver, CO. He welcomes direct constructive feedback at deangelo_starnes@hotmail.com.