Author Archives: mdobright

Simon Cellan Jones and Sussana White use  camera distance to communicate the marine’s emotional distance from the hajji people. In most occurrences when Hajji people are killed the slaying occurs from remote locales. The characters further explicate distance in physical means by explaining to Evan Wright that to Americans, Iraq might seem a dangerous place but behind the wheel it is safe. Again Generation Kill exposits the marines yearning for war, by the first combat initiation at 9:00 minutes in. Sergeant Brad attempts to inform the engaged soldiers to cease fire, but the marines appear unable to hear or ignore the order completely. It is tragic because the people the marines are shooting at are believed to be women and children. What is unknown to the marines extends their lack of emotionality. At one moment Chromlie can be seen joyously shooting at camels, culminating in harming a Hajji child civilian. Then there is Captain America who is represented as completely unfit to lead and oblivious to the actualities of the marines climate. He frequently gives his platoons erroneous orders to engage non-combatants and shoot at objects of no purpose. This emotional distance and lack of empathy is articulated in Bravo company’s later debrief. A marine states that his fellow marines must start seeing the hajji people as people. That they are not there to destroy the Hajji way of life. He explains that the variant context does not warrant the taking of their lives. Within this sequence Generation Kill dialogically explicates the bifurcation of Marines and enemies must be obviated. Although on opposing sides, war does necessitate the dehumanization of opposing forces.

The Godfather is deployed as a municipal leader, whose decision is to be followed exactly even at the cost of their lives. I can’t help but laugh at his melodramatic speeches. He refers to himself in third person and silences dissent that may undermine his leadership. Just for the fulfillment of his orders he declares a space of engagement free for all fire. When faced with the boy killed as a result of his order he informs his personnel that he can not treat the boy as he would treat a marine. That there is zero healthcare treatment for the civilians and marine policy is that they should be treated as such. Given that the greater aggregate of marine platoons act according to the Godfather’s orders his reasoning reinforces marine emotional distance. The Godfather’s disposition as an irreconcilable leader renders the marine groups monolithic in their exercise of military duty. The military is exposited devoid of variant delineations of military character with the exception of brief instances of religious remorse and individuated marine sympathy.

In the 2nd episode of Generation Kill the Bravo squad marines are engaged in combat. The soldiers become fixated with killing, insisting since the war provides the opportunity it is their obligation to execute their slayings. The killings are visceral, filled with  blood and dismembered bodies that line the war topography. Even marines are depicted in mutilated positions, at times with blood sprawling the wheels of humvees. The Hajji are frequently vilified and subordinated despite Hajji non-combatants who do not oppose the marines. Generation Kill integrate marine’s usage of the camera, evidencing military authorship practices. One marine comments that footage would easily be sold to CNN, while at another moment his camera  graces the bodies of a fallen victims to the point of revulsion. It is not until the image of a lifeless girl is captured within their recording that men stop filming.

Just because Captain America wants to shoot, he shoots at inoperable and unmoving vehicles and later guns down an unarmed Hajji. He is represented as an incompetent leader, however because of his rank his subordinates rarely oppose his orders. Chromlie, the rookie marine is discontent with being unable to shoot.  He repeatedly protests the fulfillment of his libidinal aspirations without respite. He is often represented accounting how he will engage in combat and assault Hajji people. Soon, the bodies become so common to the desert terrain that Chromlie smiles at devastation wrought upon Hajji citizens.

The marines whimsical affinity for killing Hajji is buttressed by their musical renditions. In transit the marines are seen singing pop culture tunes, however lyrics are rearticulated with lines that call for Hajji death. The violence is representationally heightened by the marines marriage of violence with musical sentiment, insinuating killing is an enjoyable process. A marine attempts to assuage the group’s rancor by stating “if it goes a little different we could have all be killed today”. Upon brief silence from the crowd. the marines resume laughter, gaffing at the notion that Iraqis can kill marines.

The show nears end with the godfather’s soliloquy affirming marine’s military expertise. His stature is backed by the radiance of the sun. In this scene the glorification of the military is so gratuitous that it conversely bolsters the war’s absurdity. By taking the Hajji lives the characters are unabashedly self glorifying themselves. Additionally accentuating this episode’s conveyance of marine disillusionment is the Sergeant Major who comes demands the marines shave. His insistence on adherence to grooming policy amidst violence and moral deprivation further demonstrates the marine total incomprehension and coping strategies for the tasks of war.

Generation Kill renders a military dialectic. Within military protocol amorality seems mandated for marine performance. The vilification and sexualization of Hajji people is necessitated by Marines inability to properly cope with the war environment. Although there are glimpses of sympathy towards the Hajji people and amongst themselves, such instances lapse into demeaning rhetoric and hetero-erotic and homo-erotic espousals. Within the text the actuality of killing, dismembering, and subjugating another people is never named, but rather posited as a subtext that affects Marine psyche, military practice, and emotional stability.

In “Across Racial Lines” Nelson George explains the profundity of The Wire individual and systemic analysis. The Wire dismantles monolithic and unitary articulations of historicized black tropes and archetypes by complicating character representations and nuancing character construction. George goes on to cite that the show is written by a predominantly white male writing staff, yet is able to represent complicated portrayals of African-American life. Nelson goes on to contend that despite the phenomenal acting of the African-American actors and the ephemeral existence of a show that articulates African-American complexities, The Wire did not receive much acclaim amongst African-American constituents and did not receive acknowledgement at the NAACP awards.

While I agree with Nelson on The Wire’s complicated elucidation of African-American constituents I incite criticism of the show’s construction, its space of representation, and history. The Wire takes place within the Baltimore, Maryland locale. More specifically the show transpires within an economically desolate and morally conflictive space. The affluent space and constituents of Baltimore are absent from The Wire’s representation. Although white constituents are exposited within the dock institution their character construction does not coalesce with the historicized ascription of whiteness. Their bodies are reconfigured within The Wire’s context, which although contains different representations of blackness, forefronts impoverished African-Americans within a specific locale of Baltimore, Maryland. It is imperative to interrogate The Wire’s construction because The Wire performs a particular work. It does not destabilize all historic archetypes of blackness, and by its reification of systemic inevitably it reinscribes perpetual black criminal participation within the city.

In “All in the Game: The Wire, Serial Storytelling and Procedural Logic”, Professor Jason Mittell negates the authorial espousal of David Simon and televisual scholars who promulgate The Wire as a televisual novel. Mittell cites the hierarchization of the televisual and literary mediums, which renders the novel as the pantheon of cultural diegesis. At one historical moment the novel was deemed cultural fodder however since the introduction of television it has signified cultural elitism. During its initial television run The Wire had a low spectator rate, however within social and internet collectives it is highly acclaimed. The talk of The Wire outside its immediate audience demonstrates how the text transverses television parameters and moves beyond spectatorial parameters. Within the article Mittell delineates terming The Wire a televisual novel attempts to legitimize the work with outside its medium. As The Wire is named a televisual novel, it implies television as a medium does not suffice as a site for the exposition of The Wire’s systemic analysis.

Mittell goes on to explicate The Wire functions similarly to a video game, citing the characters instances of configuring drug trafficking and their participation as a game. Mittell goes on to articulate the participatory involvement of the spectator, who does not generate or actively move the narrative forward, however by oratory rearticulation the viewer/fan generates The Wire narrative outside televisual demarcations. After explicating how The Wire functions as a game, codified and simulative of practices in reality, Mittell subsequently asserts The Wire must be situated within the medium it is presented.

The Wire absences hyper-sensational camera techniques, editing mechanics, and visual and dialogic flashbacks to centralize the contemporary moment within the show. The Wire augments procedural precedents by taking in depth analysis at various institutional stems, citing their interconnections and collective performances. However, as Mittell explains the function of The Wire in televisual space as a mean or reifying and asserting why televisual space licenses The Wire’s efficacy, Mittell reproduces the work he accuses Simon and other scholars of. He situates video games as the explanatory reference for the elucidation of The Wire’s form. By positing The Wire as a televisual video game Mittell reasserts television’s illegitimacy, absenting the interactive and novel mediums are referents that inform rather than assert The Wire’s construction.

In “All in the Game: The Wire, Serial Storytelling and Procedural Logic”, Professor Jason Mittell negates the authorial espousal of David Simon and televisual scholars who promulgate The Wire as a televisual novel. Mittell cites the hierarchization of the televisual and literary mediums, which renders the novel as the pantheon of cultural diegesis. At one historical moment the novel was deemed cultural fodder however since the introduction of television it has signified cultural elitism. During its initial television run The Wire had a low spectator rate, however within social and internet collectives it is highly acclaimed. The talk of The Wire outside its immediate audience demonstrates how the text transverses television parameters and moves beyond spectatorial parameters. Within the article Mittell delineates terming The Wire a televisual novel attempts to legitimize the work with outside its medium. As The Wire is named a televisual novel, it implies television as a medium does not suffice as a site for the exposition of The Wire’s systemic analysis.

Mittell goes on to explicate The Wire functions similarly to a video game, citing the characters instances of configuring drug trafficking and their participation as a game. Mittell goes on to articulate the participatory involvement of the spectator, who does not generate or actively move the narrative forward, however by oratory rearticulation the viewer/fan generates The Wire narrative outside televisual demarcations. After explicating how The Wire functions as a game, codified and simulative of practices in reality, Mittell subsequently asserts The Wire must be situated within the medium it is presented.

The Wire absences hyper-sensational camera techniques, editing mechanics, and visual and dialogic flashbacks to centralize the contemporary moment within the show. The Wire augments procedural precedents by taking in depth analysis at various institutional stems, citing their interconnections and collective performances. However, as Mittell explains the function of The Wire in televisual space as a mean or reifying and asserting why televisual space licenses The Wire’s efficacy, Mittell reproduces the work he accuses Simon and other scholars of. He situates video games as the explanatory reference for the elucidation of The Wire’s form. By positing The Wire as a televisual video game Mittell reasserts television’s illegitimacy, absenting the interactive and novel mediums are referents that inform rather than assert The Wire’s construction.

In “The Lost Boys of the Baltimore: Beauty and Desire in the Hood”, James S. Williams explicates the aesthetic rhetoric of The Wire. Within the text black male bodies are exposited in homoerotic spaces in the context of televisual voyeurism. The project and urban locales in which the black male bodies are deposited in are operationalized as panoptic surveillance centers for black male activity. Even within the bureaucratic space of the police institution homoerotic discourse is always present and dually deployed for derision and comradery.

As Williams cites varied accounts of black male representation within The Wire display the body in aesthetic relations to the camera. The black male bodies are not merely deployed to continue the narrative but to equivocate a scopophilic pleasure in looking in at an urban locale through the lens of an oppositional text. Although somewhat paradoxical, although The Wire propagates and reaffirms the historical hyper-eroticism of the black male body, this discourse concomitantly functions with The Wire’s subversion of institutional practices that subjugate the blackness and holistically constituent citizenry. Williams incisively asserts the representation of the black body and its consequential eroticism occurs in coalescence with camera mechanics. As Williams cites, the centrifugal movement of the camera, despite moments of inertia, depicts the black male body in constant motion. Camera tracking, panning, zooming, and composite shots effectively intrude in the space of The Wire’s black male televisual referents. Characters such as Marlo, Michael, Bubbles, and Dookie are televisual referents for spectator insertion within a privatize locale. Thus the private is always eroticized and rendered public space for the spectator and other characters that enter hood space. As Williams delineates, the black male cameras are never exposited in their own private space, or habitual activities outside their criminal occupation. Their criminality is rendered ubiquitous, and although complex within the workings of the corner, The Wire does not exhibit character complexities outside criminal activity.

Although alluded to, Williams fails to cite the incrimination of the viewer in gazing at the black male body and a space not familiarized within televisual discourse. In the article Williams uses “we” to infer the viewing practices of the collective. Although we all participate in the practice of looking, race, gender, age, and class dispositions alter the practices. Isolation and inclusion within the text is interdependent with spectator disposition. Although The Wire can never be entered, it does elicit varied responses because of its intertextuality. Williams most insightfully argues The Wire is constructed by a team of predominantly white authors, which alters the text and demonstrates the aesthetic collusiveness with the historicized eroticism of the black male body and the homoerotic subtext. Within the construction of the text, while women are present they are consigned to residual space within The Wire’s sexual discourse. Griggs, the representational referent is represented as an occupationally motivated woman with a predilection for different partners. When her body is viewed in a sexual context it is bereft of camera intimacy. Conversely the shows occupation with the black male body is reasserted 

The first episode of “Generation Kill” places the spectator in a televisual milieu of social perversion. The patriotic narrative that is predominantly purported within political discourse is rendered an enterprise where disgruntled marines kill for emotional release. At one point marines are represented in a tent where some groups engage in combat and others in perverse slurs, yet other marines pass through the organized chaos uninhibited. The marines are overwhelmingly quick to racial, sexual, and gender derogation, almost as if necessary formalities of war. They are conscious of their devalued disposition, citing the army receives abundant funding, but the marines make do with what they have. It is almost paradoxical given the marines are hierarchically configured as the pantheon of military organizations. The soldiers are recurrently castigated for slight infringement of grooming policies adhering to codes that offer no room for individuation. They are aware that the war is filled with conflictions and contradictions, situating them as heroic and at times villainous enactors. Their derogative espousals and homoerotic interactions are  thus rendered coping mechanism for their egregiously violent and repressive environment. They are  “Generation Kill” requiring such villainy to be ubiquitous amongst all soldiers. Soldiers elucidate white capitalist supremacist  undertones that undergird their enterprise but find they can do nothing but adhere to the imperialistic agenda.

Along with marine decorum, Simon and Burns interpolate visuals of capitalist interest within the military. Although lightly, the insertion of skittles, pizza hut, subway allude to the military industrial complex, and corporate profit garnered from war. Additionally cultural references to film and music are often made, even positing the head commander as “The Godfather” of the military ranks. Interestingly, the journalistic component which informs “Generation Kill’s” televisual construction is lessened. More so, journalism is apparent in dialogues of military vernacular and character monologues. Conclusively, this first episode Simon and Burns represent that in war everything is warranted, at times conflictive, and oft devoid of normalized social morals and ethics.

Newman elucidates how writers articulate PTS programming to be reflective of Networks promulgation of advertisements for spectator consumption. The regimented insertion of commercials into programs provides writers with a formal structure for instituting methods that will keep the program organized and maintain spectator attention. Newman argues that it does not detract from the pleasure of the program but rather licenses augmented creativity by the writers to succinctly produce scenes (beats) and, episodic and seasonal arcs. During discussion we deliberated whether or not this structure disturbed viewing pleasure as well as programming construction. I contend that it does not obstruct viewing pleasure or construction, but as with most systematic frameworks provide a locus from which spectators and writers may defer from. Evidential from contemporary PTS, writers have the proclivity to augment and or modify the programming format. Spectators knowledgeable of the program structure, acquire information that facilitates their deconstruction of the program if they chose to do so. All constituents involved in the text from its construction, viewing, and deconstruction actively perform their own work with the text utilizing adherent or divergent practices. This is not to disavow institutional mechanisms such as network and advertisement pressure for programming, as well as cultural and societal conceptualization of appropriate programming but constituents operate within the confines or extend demarcations.