January 27, 2019
THEY'RE FRENCH:
WHY SPIRAL DOESN'T DESERVE TO BE COMPARED TO THE WIRE: On the Casual Racism and Muddled Politics of the French Crime TV Hit (RADHA VATSAL, 1/25/19, Crime Reads)
The series, now streaming its sixth season in the US, has enjoyed commercial and critical success, and "stunned executives by becoming the biggest-selling French TV show ever." The many comparisons the show has received to The Wire are revealing, however, because while both shows feature multi-layered plots involving characters from different walks of life, The Wire created memorable characters regardless of race (I think of the drug lord Stringer Bell enrolled in a business course). Spiral, although it creates a compelling and complex female lead in Proust's Police Captain Laure Berthaud, fails to open up the same possibilities for its non-white/minority characters. In fact, at key moments, Spiral abandons its otherwise meticulous plotting and undermines its own pursuit of an unvarnished realism by turning minority characters into types.
Instead of even some of the crooks being likable, even the heroes are unlikable.
Posted by Orrin Judd at January 27, 2019 7:47 AM