“The Bigger the Lie, the More They Believe”: Cinematic Realism and the Anxiety of Representation in David Simon’s The Wire

While a great deal of scholarship has been done on the use of realism in The Wire, most work has focused upon the nineteenth-century novel’s influence on the series, ignoring the influence of cinematic modes of realism. In this article I examine the ways in which the television series The Wire is influenced by various modes of cinematic realism, such as Italian Neorealism and the Third Cinema movement. It is my contention that by analyzing The Wire through its connection with realist cinema that we will be better able to understand the series’ complicated relationship with the representation of marginalized classes; while the series strives for realism both in its narrative and its aesthetic style in order to accurately represent the social totality of a depressed Rust Belt city, the series also illustrates concern that such modes of representation may be appropriated as a product of entertainment for the privileged classes rather than as a critical examination of complex institutional problems. Specifically, I argue that The Wire adopts a self-reflexive, occasionally antagonistic stance towards its audience in order to train a critical, active viewer rather than a passive spectator.