We had that fight again. We keep having that fight, and so we had it again, because we can’t not have that fight. Yup, it’s time for another edition of: How can David possibly think that people don’t know this piece of pop culture history?
In previous installments, David tried to insist that people wouldn’t get a freakin’ South Park reference, didn’t recognize Quantum Leap, and somehow didn’t know who Steve Martin is. He also confused Hannah Montana with an adult film actress.
And yet, earlier this week, I wrote about a quote from an analyst on China and deputized The Wire‘s Stringer Bell, played by globally famous man Idris Elba, to carry said quote. Alas, David had the gall to not only insist that people didn’t know who that was, but also to insist that I was in a bubble! Let’s tell him he’s wrong and make him stand in his wrongness and be wrong.
As a little backstory here, I did tell Peter to do the Stringer Bell image from The Wire and include the quote, but when David saw it first it was just the image:
Did my pulse rise a little when I saw this? Not so much, because I knew it was coming. I could imagine the argument, but I think the argument was worth it.
Just in case you were not aware, that is Stringer Bell, the #2 in Avon Barskdale’s drug operation in David Simon’s gritty crime drama series The Wire, which ran for five seasons on HBO. It is, arguably, the show that kicked off the current run of more novelistic, long-form prestige/Golden Age Of TV-type shows. It’s a series about institutions and what it takes to survive and change in an increasingly complex Late Capitalist society.
That’s not the hed we went with (Hed = Headline), but I’m fine with that.
How is it that a man who basically grew up Amish Lite could possibly know what Americans do or do not know? Make it make sense.
“Looking at the viewership numbers” I think means that David looked at the ratings, which is roughly like looking at the Ferrari 458 and going “Look at how many people bought this car, no one knows what it is.” The show was on HBO in the aughts! Close to 5%? FIVE-FUCKING-PERCENT?
Fun fact, when we write stories we definitely think about who may or may not read them and where those stories might play. Some stories do better on Google Discover or social or Google News or Flipboard or wherever. A little tweak to a headline or a topshot can make a story reach a bigger audience in one of those places, though sometimes we know a story is just for us and write zany headlines.
Poor Thomas, he’s just trying to do his job.
I should write a news play! Also, half the cast is British! Idris Elba and his main rival, Detective Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West), are both British. Also, Tommy Carcetti (Aiden Gillen) is like Irish or something. What’s the deal?
I’m not going to touch The Sopranos take, but I do think The Sopranos is a little overhyped.
I am not in a bubble! You’re in a bubble!
So, first it was 5% of people would know who it is and here I get a little upgrade to 20%, but he’s not even sure of that. Here comes Peter with the revised topshot:
First, c’mon. Second… c’mon. Third, that’s a good topshot.
Oh David. DAVID!
It’s true! Idris Elba did build Ford cars. TMYK.
The idea that people don’t know who someone is because it’s on an old show does not hold up in the age of streaming.
Fucking got him!
Ok, I guess I didn’t get him. But my point is made.
Wait, David watched BET when he was younger? Should I try more 227 jokes?
Aaaand here comes Peter to ask us to do our jobs because we’ve been doing this for an hour.
This is where I need you, dear commenters, to help David understand how wrong he is (or how wrong I am, but that seems unlikely). More than half of you in the Discord indicated that you, in fact, do know who Stringer Bell is. And even provided this gold:
Tiziano is a Galpin employee who sometimes shoots videos for us.
Quantum Leap is famously a show about the past! Grrrr…
This argument played out around midnight Australian Eastern Time, so once again I had no contribution.
I too haven’t watched The Wire, mainly because it’s not been as accessible here. Bek (my girlfriend!) and I watched Breaking Bad together because someone at her uni had it available on a private server.
That doesn’t meant I don’t get the reference for TMD, as I have a broad understanding of the plot thanks to many writers quoting the series and characters in articles/columns back in the day.
Plus, Idris Elba has a profile about on the level of Jason Statham, Daniel Craig or Cillian Murphy so it’s not like he’s an unknown face.
One thing I will say in Dave’s favour, thanks to his time here he probably knows more Aussie obscure movie references than 90% of Autopians!
I love The Wire and have watched it multiple times. Most people I know have not watched The Wire. But. They know Idris Elba was in it and could extrapolate.
Honestly David should have no say in any pop culture conversations after thinking no one would know who Steve Martin is. That one still boggles my mind…
I never watched The Wire, but pretty much everyone I know did, and raved about it. Someone gave me the Season One box set on DVD, but I never opened it. I’m just never in the mood for it. So I didn’t know who Stringer Bell is, but I certainly know who Idris Elba is. And I also am fully aware of the fact that I am not generally fully up to date on the zeitgeist.
The Wire is definitely part of the zeitgeist and that image with that quote was certainly the right move. I never watched, but I am very aware of it. And Idris Elba would draw clicks even if people didn’t know the show.
Never watched The Wire as I was (and still am) too cheap to pay for HBO, but I do know the character Stringer Bell and I do know who Idris Elba is and I know that the 2nd played the 1st.
David is a really smart and talented person, but he’s not someone I’d ask to be on my pub pop culture trivia team.
Matt and Adrian are correct. I always read TMD, but I like to think my mouse moved a bit faster to the Stringer Bell image. I like Matt’s pop culture references in TMD, and it really makes it a personal type of product.
Yeah I could read corporate press releases if I wanted sterile boilerplate. My favorite part of TMD is reading what Matt is listening to. I get a little “hey, I know that band, he’s just like me!” thrill when it’s a song I’m familiar with.
The Simpsons wouldn’t still be on the air 30+ years later if they were worried that audiences wouldn’t understand all their references during the beginning. Discovering a reference you missed is half the fun!
I think that the readership here is probably more pop culture savvy than the norm. Since David is clearly a philistine, he can’t understand that the cultural impact of a show like this is far beyond ratings. I religiously rewatch The Wire every couple of years or so and was scratching my head at the quote when the article first popped up on the site because I didn’t actually remember it, but it sure sounded like something String would say.
DAVID WATCH THE WIRE.
Also excellent in The Wire was Wendell Pierce, as pictured in the topshot for this post.
The Bunk ain’t got time for David’s bullshit.
If Wendell Pierce is involved, it’s usually worth watching. He’s always great.
The Wire was an awesome show.
Stringer Bell was an awesome character.
Idris Elba is an awesome actor.
I’m thinking you guys need to sit DT down on the couch and make him binge the highlights of the past 20 years of pop culture, a la Austin Powers (another reference he probably doesn’t get).
Believe me, we’ve given him a long list of things he’s missed!
Heck, he could just watch Austin Powers to catch himself up on the last 20 years. Yep. Don’t check my math, it’s perfectly sound.
I’m pretty sure it’s the most perfect comedy movie ever made. There’s not much that’s aged badly, it’s pitch perfectly dumb the entire way through, it’s stuffed full of now-classic gags, Will Ferrell gets dumped into a fiery pit and shot.
And for the Bond aficionados, a plethora of clever jokes and references.
As always, goth uncle Adrian rules.
I didn’t watch it at the time but when I circled back around to The Wire later I recognized that it was one of the greatest TV series ever made. It’s just crazy good.
I’m a little less enthused about dropping F-bombs all over the place, especially in top shots. It can make things NSFW and also make things a bit awkward for what has to be a significant parent with kids population when the kiddos might be checking out what mom or dad is up to on the Internet. Not trying to be a prude, just noting that keeping things a little more PG-13 than hard R is helpful.
You definitely won’t enjoy my above comment then.
I like Ars Technica’s approach: the headlines stay PG, but in-article there’s no pretense that we aren’t (mostly) adults living in an adult world. Exceptions are made for slurs, which are discussed obliquely as there’s no cause for repeating them.
Not my zeitgeist.
I have no idea who Idris Elba is. Thought it was a woman’s name.
I have heard of The Wire but know nothing about it.
I never watched The Wire but I understand the reference.
It is for sure part of the zeitgeist.
What is really amazing to me in the ‘David doesn’t understand the world’ articles is that after like 4 or 5 of these he STILL cannot fathom that the rest of the staff is far more qualified than he is to judge what is relevant to the readership.
Stringer Bell was a brilliant character. He had a natural head for business and united the Baltimore drug gangs so they could all make more money. Avon getting out of prison messed that all up (and well, getting shot by Omar didn’t help either).
And David was wrong. 🙂
Stringer was a man without a country. Not hard enough for the high rise, and not smart enough for genuine business outside it.
I didn’t know Stringer Bell, but have some knowledge of The Wire.
For the record, I don’t decide to click or not based on the top shot.
I know Idris Elba, but I had to look up that quote. Never watched the Wire. And you and I are contemporaries, age-wise. I suspect even less of the Youngs (<40 years old is my current definition… that number keeps going up) would know the reference.
I know who Idris Elba is. (‘Rocknrolla’ is a sorely underrated Guy Ritchie film.)
I watched The Sopranos.
I have heard of The Wire.
I did not know who Stringer Bell was/is.
Stick that in your Venn diagram. 🙂
Instructions unclear, Autopian Slack now on fire.
My work here is complete.
Damn, that’s 90% of what I was gonna say. Except substitute ‘Luther’ for ‘Rocknrolla’. Not that I didn’t like Rocknrolla, but I seriously don’t even remember the plot. Was that the one where the baddies use the heat gun on the guy’s feet to get him to talk? In any case, it was no ‘Lock, Stock, and 2 Smokin’ Barrels’.
But yeah, this one single instance, I’m on Team David.
Rocknrolla was the one where Gerard Butler, Idris Elba, Tom Hardy, and Matt King were a gang called the Wild Bunch. Tom Wilkinson (RIP) played the shady London real estate tycoon who was dealing with a Russian guy; the Russian’s accountant – Thandie Newton – tipped off the Wild Bunch that the Russian was going to be delivering 7 million Euro in cash and the Bunch could rob them. The film also has a stolen painting and a philosophical rock star/junkie and Ludacris and Jeremy Piven as concert promoters. There’s a lot happening, frankly.
Lock, Stock had the semi-inept thieves from the north of England, one of whom would put twisted tissues (?) between the victim’s toes and light them on fire as a means of finding out where they keep their money. That may be who you’re recalling with the heat gun idea.
I didn’t watch The Wire until 2 years ago.
It’s an amazing show, well worth the time, and I have no excuse for waiting so long.
More importantly — it’s good to see The Autopian challenging the readership once in a while.
Keep up the good work.
I saw The Wire but back when it was new, so no, I really didn’t remember this guy.
Just out of spite, I have never watched The Wire, The Sopranos, The Princess Bride, and until last weekend Footloose (My wife tricked me). But, just because I’ve never seen something doesn’t mean I don’t get the reference. Plus, I think if DT thinks it’s wrong, maybe it’s really right. Kind of like Dave Ramsey’s takes.
The Princess Bride has aged surprisingly well for a low budget fantasy film from the 80s and would only steal about an hour and a half of your life so I’m going to say you ought to get on with the program for that specific one.
[replied to wrong comment]
You haven’t seen The Princess Bride? Inconceivable!
That word you keep saying… I’m not sure it means what you think it means.
Poor Angel. He might just get involved in a land war in Asia.
Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!
Or just Prepare to Die!
“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Honestly, unless you just don’t like watching movies, you won’t regret the time spent on The Princess Bride. There is a bit of angsty drama in it, but it flows well, is rather funny, and, frankly, just having full context for “prepare to die” is worth 90 min of your life. I’m betting you won’t wish you hadn’t.
I’m betting there’s been a similar discussion involving Steve Carrell as Michael Scott at some point, right?
And yeah, it’s Idris Elba, not say Andre Braugher in Simon’s breakout show (which is also amazing BTW). If you use the internet for anything more than email, you likely know at least the outlines of the character, if only b/c of your friends and websites endlessly quoting him.
Homicide I liked a lot.
Looking back on it, it really was a testbed for so many of the ideas & concepts in the Wire. Braugher’s interrogation scenes were basically two-person, one-act plays, and the final story arc where one of the best of them commits an outrageous act and then tries to cover it up is riveting.
Its competitor Law and Order was basically a modern retread of ’50s procedurals, but Homicide broke largely new ground – cops not as heroes, but as human beings.
If you’re ever in Baltimore, you can drink at the bar the detectives owned. It’s right down from the public works building that served as the front of the police station in the show.
I lived in Baltimore when The Wire was in production. They shot a scene at my wife’s place of work, and I had a chance to talk to the crew. They filmed out in the projects all the time, and never had any trouble. They got to know most of the people in the neighborhood. Pretty cool. And great show.
It’s pricey to film on location like that, but wow does it make a difference I’ve found. Though I wonder if for Canadians, they take pleasure in seeing Vancouver all the time on tv shows!
I too have not yet watched The Wire and the only Sopranos episode I saw was the Don’t Shit Where You Eat one which left me going, Meh.
Now, on the season premiere of Survivor 46 two of the young male castaways were discussing their love for The Andy Griffith Show (ended 1968). One of them is a young gay black man. I’m pretty sure I it would me take about 10,000 guesses before I named that show as their common denominator. My point is, these days you basically have no idea what people have and haven’t seen.
Bonus points: Do you know who Pola Negri or Theda Bara is without searching? Crossword puzzles are the only reason I do.
I don’t know their bodies of work and probably wouldn’t recognize a picture of either, but yeah.
I’m weird that way, though.
So, I never watched The Wire, and I probably never will, because a surefire way to make me not watch something, is to tell me I have to watch something. I never watched The Sopranos either.
That said, I still recognized that quote. It is in the zeitgeist. Frankly, the notion that David can judge any kind of awareness of anything pop culture related, is laughable. This is a dude who misses Blues Brothers references!
You should watch both The Sopranos and the The Wire. Your choice, of course, but the only person who is being shortchanged in the meantime is you.
Meh. I don’t watch that much TV anyways. I don’t mean that in a snobby way, like I’m over here reading great literature instead. Usually by the time I turn the TV on, my wife and I are already in bed. I’ll watch a half hour or so of something, usually something car related on YouTube, and my wife will be sleeping within 2-5 minutes.
I recognise that attitude, because sometimes it’s me. I was NEVER going to watch Game of Thrones (because I’m not into swords and dragons) until my ex ex made me watch the first couple of episodes.
The Sopranos I didn’t watch until lockdown, and I’m glad I did. But it’s not something I will revisit because I didn’t find it captivating. The Wire is an absolute must watch though.
Game of Thrones in particular can get fucked. My wife watched that, I went out onto the garage to tinker instead. My friend tried to convince me to watch it by selling me the idea that it’s like fantasy, combined with SciFi, combined with porn. I don’t like fantasy, my taste for SciFi is extremely limited, and if I want to watch porn I have the internet for that.
What’s The Wire on? Max, I bet. I don’t have that. Not gonna pay for it. Don’t care enough to pirate it or share a login with somebody else.
I have no idea what channel it’s on in the US. In the UK it kinda bounced around but it ran properly on the BBC late night at some point. Which was when I caught it.
The internet says The Wire available in the US on Hulu, which is the one big streamer I currently have. I will consider watching it next time I’m wide awake and in the mood to watch something new.
It’s not included with your basic Hulu subscription, but only with the +$16.99/month Max package, of course.
If you’ve still got a DVD player, check with your public library. They may well have all five seasons on disc.
Gotcha. Gotta love good old physical media then!
Worth a torrent. For real.
Cracks me up that it’s on late night like that in the UK. Here in the States, back in the bad old, pre-internet days, that was the only way to catch Doctor Who – PBS (our kinda BBC) would run it overnight, usually in a solid 2 or so hour block. VCRs were your friend.
I first saw Doctor Who on UNC-TV on Saturday afternoons. North Carolina had surprisingly good public television in those days, presumably because all the stations statewide were unified and the programming budget was larger. It’s where I first saw The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin and sitcoms about middle-class people farming in their suburban Southwest London back garden (sic) and about a middle-class woman trying to decide whether or not she was going to cheat on her kinda boring dentist husband, which was something American television wouldn’t have touched in the early days of cultural backlash. (Maude’sabortion was a decade in the past, and Jim Hunt’s fund providing access for low-income NC women had just wound down, IIRC.)
Totally…I always appreciated how they mined humor (humour?) out of situations that U.S. tv at the time wouldn’t touch. Like how Waiting for God is all about people in the final years of their lives, frequently coming to terms with the inevitable fact that the end is close.
I’m kind of the same way, though I did give half a episode of The Wire a try. Great big nope. Couldn’t get into Breaking Bad or The Sopranos either. I found them boring, and the characters unlikeable. Kinda-sorta watched the first season of Ozark, but then got tired of it too.
Now, throw some demons or vampires or magical shit in there, and I’m all in. I don’t mind dark stuff, I guess I just don’t like realistic dark stuff. Stuff that actually happens. I don’t want to be reminded of stuff like that, and I don’t find it entertaining.
Also, next time I’m in the same town as David with a couple hours to kill, I’m going to MAKE him watch The Blues Brothers.
I watched a little over a season of Breaking Bad before it just got too depressing for me.
YES! Make him watch it!
After The Blues Brothers, we can work on Smokey and the Bandit.
Stringer Bell is actually a werewolf but you don’t find out until the third season. You should definitely go and watch it now!
And if AT&T had never been broken up, Stringer Bell would have had a good union job and a bitchin’ ride instead of having to sell drugs.
The Blues Brothers is partially a car film, so David should at least enjoy that side of it.
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit, I’m with you, Matt. I never watched it but I know what it is and recognized the actor, if not the quote, and assumed what it was.
Gaaah, you beat me to the Clay Davis extended shhhheeeeeeiiiiiittttt.
I never watched The Wire but I know what it is. I didn’t recognize Idris Elba but I know who he is. I assumed it was some generic rap mogul like Sean Combs. So, despite me being way out of touch with mainstream pop culture, I still thought it was a banger quote and a good hed.
I’m with you, never watched the Wire, I know Mr Elba but did not recognize him, loved the quote and gestalted the situation. I thought it was great. On my personal profanity scale I think that’s the profanest hed ever at Autopian but could be wrong. Cringed a bit for the more sensitive among us but mostly enjoyed it. And this was funniest Slack tale ever. AND: I have never seen the Princess Bride but recognize all those references.
It’s okay, David. I’ve never watched The Wire, but now I think maybe I should.