Assignment 2

The Wire and Ghost Dog share the theme of crime.  More notable is the similar way they portray crime as a function of the human race. By function I mean the process of crime from its origin in purposeful thought and the performance of a crime. The Wire and Ghost Dog display crime as an innevitable human function by depicting the human side of the criminal lifestyle.

Ghost Dog, a story told its title character of the same name, portrays the human aspect of crime by starting screen time with an assassin's homelife; First, we see an isolated man with his guns reading oriental literature before setting out on a job. The day after the killer is lying on a roof reading Samurai literature with a pigeon flock.  Nondiagetic samurai quotes are voiced over meditative sword practice.  We were trained to empathize or sympathize for a killer, by first being shown his pure and loyal ways away from work.  Here is a man enlightened who, through religious practice, and away from the trigger, lives a more credible life than anyone else in the movie (which isn't much given they're mafiamen).  But truthfully, when you set aside his job as a hitman, Ghost Dog is a man of respect and integrity, and shows it quietly in a pradictable lifestyle.  In other words, crime is undertoned by an orchestral way of life, through a man who communicates with animals more than humans, which again is respectable but also points to his process of murder.  If you tend to connect with animals more than humans, you are less in touch with humanity.  His best friend is French and besides the Little girl and Louie he communicates only through pigeons.  Since he is the central character we live life through his eyes, and in this way, we disconnect from humanity as he does.  Humans become targets to the audience.  In order for this to be effective, the target had to be easily dislikeable.  Well, an essence of the whole gangster genre is having the ones committing crimes be the protagonists (The Godfather, Goodfellas).  In most notable cases, protagonists have been mafia men:  ruthless but cerebral men to be cheered for through themes of wealth, family,  and revenge,  as well as witty characters and undeniably cool characters.  The mafia men in Ghost Dog seriously lack the traits that sway mafia men on the good side.  These men are old as dust, poor as dirt, and they lack in having an actual purpose for being a mafia, essentially they are 'washed up' and unappealing.  Towards the end of the film, one mafia man is telling another that he appreciates Ghost Dog for one reason, and that is for giving him a cool reason to die.  If the protagonist is an assassin, his opponents have to be unnappealing so his kills are sensible to the viewer, and his lifestyle is not as criticized because his crimes are only towards irrelevant mafia geezers.   I'm besides the point but, Ghost Dog's crimes present the human function of homicidal crime.  I don't believe we are told why he started his profession, for money I suppose, but either way, crime is acceptable in this movie because the assassin is an artist and the deceased are posers.

To begin, note the basis of my argument for The Wire (and some Ghost Dog) is subject to comparison with police procedural shows, where crime is the single mystery as authority of law are protagonists, making the criminal an alien target of sorts.  The Wire and police procedurals share crime as their central theme.  As stated, police procedurals rarely take the criminals perspective and limit perspective through lawful response process.  The Wire, on the other hand, shares its perspective between drug distributors and the people trying to find them.  The content and characters are divided evenly between those trying to stop drug traffic and those trying to traffic drugs.  This perspective is polyphonic, which makes it up to the viewer to question which side they agree with and why.  The cops and criminals each have attractive personalities, and we notice similarities in criminals and cops existing together naturally as humans.  Because of its polyphonic element, crime is seen without bias for cop or robber. Rather, it can be understood as an unfortunate innevitable that will always present an avenue for economic gain.

Directly comparing these two pieces is tricky, because  although they are both character studies, The Wire approaches character through a variety of character samples, while Ghost Dog surrounds one man.