The Wire & the Mythology of the Western

Abstract

The HBO television series The Wire ran for five seasons from 2002 to 2008. The series, which garnered much critical acclaim, depicts the lives and complex intersections of the police, drug gangs, political, and educational systems in Baltimore. This project seeks to examine the criteria and implications of re-imagining this television series as a work of narrative fiction belonging to the Western genre. The critical framework for these tasks is provided by John G. Cawelti’s text The Six Gun Mystique along with examples drawn from the films The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence and The Wild Bunch as well as the series itself.