U.S. ATTORNEY General Eric Holder took a break from serious business recently to call on the creators of hit TV show The Wire to revive the show.
At a panel organized by the Justice Department about the effects of drug abuse on children. Holder told the audience, "I want to speak directly to [Ed] Burns and [David] Simon," referring to the show's creators.
"Do another season of The Wire," he said, adding, "I'm reminded of how great the series was. I want another season or I want a movie. I have a lot of power, Mr. Burns and Mr. Simon."
David Simon wasn't laughing, especially since the show consistently made the case that the government's "war on drugs"--a war Holder is now the chief officer of--punished the poor and vulnerable in society.
According to the Times of London:
Though the threat was light-hearted, it seemed an odd appeal from a man whose department was portrayed so unflatteringly in the show, almost akin to Stalin requesting a sequel to George Orwell's 1984.
Simon recognized the incongruity. "The attorney general's kind remarks are noted and appreciated," he said, in a sarcastic email to The Times.
"I've spoken to Ed Burns and we are prepared to go to work on season six of The Wire if the Department of Justice is equally ready to reconsider and address its continuing prosecution of our misguided, destructive and dehumanizing drug prohibition."
The department has not been deaf to some issues raised by the show, particularly the portrayal of gangs employing children as dealers and killers. Gil Kerlikowske, the director of national drug enforcement control policy (who took along his box set of The Wire for the actors to sign), said that episodes of the show were used as an educational tool for officials and legislators.
However, Simon described the government's fight against drugs as "nothing more or less than a war on our underclass, succeeding only in transforming our democracy into the jailingest nation on the planet. This is The Wire's argument. So if we are being urged by the nation's leading law enforcement officer to write more of the same, it seems appropriate to make some mention of the fact."
The show concluded in 2008 with a rattling finale that plotted fraud and incompetence in the police and backroom deals in U.S. courthouses, allowing murderous drug barons to walk the streets.
Since then Simon and Burns have been busy rejecting calls for an encore from fans who felt bereft without updates on the exploits of Detective Jimmy McNulty, and from TV executives who missed the giant revenues the show generated.
Whatever his motivation, Mr. Holder clearly did not expect the writers to turn their pens on him as he attempted to praise their work.
