A white police officer leaves the station to pick up takeout for his unit when a call comes in over the radio that an armed black suspect is in his vicinity. Moments later, the cop thinks he spots the suspect and shoots him dead. But it turns out the man he shot was another officer, a black undercover cop. Immediately there is public outcry that the shooting was racially motivated.
The scenario could be ripped from the headlines. Instead, it comes from a fictional television show that, despite going off the air eight years ago, is proving its relevance today in classrooms around the country, including at St. Olaf College. "The Wire," which ran on HBO from 2002-2008, is the subject of a weighty winter class at the Northfield college that explores race and politics in America.
Television has for decades been a tool for examining real life in an academic setting. In the current golden age of television, premium cable and streaming services in particular are offering more shows that challenge viewers with realistic takes on the issues of the day.
In the case of "The Wire," considered by many critics to be one of television's best dramas, its fictional world offers a safe zone and a starting point for students to explore topics that are sensitive and sometimes painful.
"The ever-presence of police brutality in 'The Wire' gives some very timely and very realistic material for thinking about problems of policing in the United States," said Joshua Anderson, the political science professor who created the St. Olaf course. "But what I like about 'The Wire' is that it is fictional, and I think that takes some of the emotional stakes out of the conversation about race."
Watching scenes like the one described above gives students an opportunity to delve into complex topics without getting personal. They become invested in characters enough to see their points of view, ones they may not have always shared.
"Because you're working in this fictional world, you can both provide an experience for people who don't feel like race is directly related to their experience, but you can also divorce the conversation from people's real-life experiences in a way that lowers the emotional stakes," Anderson said.
Hard and haunting
Created by a former crime reporter at the Baltimore Sun, "The Wire" dives deep into urban life, focusing on drugs and gangs, education and media, and, most centrally, law enforcement. It exposes the gritty and often corrupt interplay between a city and its institutions. Since the series wrapped, it has become a companion piece to courses on everything from poverty to ethics, in classrooms from Harvard to the University of California, Berkeley.