Don’t Mention Les Talibanlieusardes

Reality being insufficient for their perennial hatred and demonization, French academics turn to fiction, turning to the lecturesome US crime series “The Wire” which another scholar plainly calls a vehicle to convey a political message

I suppose the point is to throw red meat at their own delusions and find some contrivance of "social realism” that feeds their prejudices that the whole of the United States (apart from those who are too well off are a slum.

To delve into the topic of social inequality in the United States, a French university has turned to a slice of American popular culture: the HBO series The Wire.

The critically acclaimed show, created by former journalist David Simon, had previously been the subject of a course at Harvard, but now will be used by students at Paris' University Nanterre La Défense to look in on American social ills from the outside.

From January 13 to June 1, several seminars will take place within the walls of the university, the latest tribute to the gritty realism of a series depicting the largely African-American, crime-plagued neighborhoods of Baltimore. The course will focus on subjects such as the American city, the representation of African Americans and the role of institutions as they are depicted in The Wire.

So they turn to ‘political art’. How cute. Never mind the fact that most French people who ask about life in America still think that it’s 1958 in the American south, most of them also seem to condescendingly want to believe by extension that dramas like “The Wire” represent all urban America, and all African Americans.

As if these things weren’t universal enough to make them realize that they are no better, while their strange fantasies about American society continue: they play at detesting it, and pretend that they need to prove they’ve got a “street cred” in that same “fake thug” fantasy world that their own pop culture is assuming American cities to be.

Nanterre c’est west side yo. Pour faire un « The Wire » en France faudrait surtout trouver un journaliste qui limite pas ses enquêtes à son compte twitter.