Fucking incredible !
In most of David Simons shows no one ever talks about what the right thing to do is, Show Me a Hero is no different. There’s a scene where Mary Dorman, played by Catherine Kenner, a white-haired suburbanite mentions “i just think you shouldn’t take people with one lifestyle and put them smack in the middle of a place with a different lifestyle”. If there’s a tractable sub-issue inside the whole public housing problem, i think this summaries it.
Its typical David Simons logic, he confers with people who fight for things that statistically and in hindsight will be proven correct but in the moment of truth they’re disguised in corruption, and in this case northern racism. These kind of paradoxical situations are what his shows are made of, in this case a real life story thats morally skewed and thus by form, exciting and riveting.
In another scene, Mary visits some of the potential home owners who might win the lottery, to get an idea. The image of a white woman judging how black families live before they’re literally awarded public housing facilities could be terribly Green Booked, but the show refuses to treat her moral transition as a triumphant one. Its an unnecessary obstacle, an eradication of prejudice that shouldn’t be present there in the first place. Its both celebrated and shoved away when it happens, like it should, with hip-hop music in the background btw.
The ending also is a two fisted punch in the gut, a reminder that most of us end up spending our entire fucking lives trying to fix problems we made up for ourselves. Ranging from legislative complexities to something as simple as discrimination and elemental human indecency.
PS : I didn’t even mentioned Nick Wasicsko, the man the show is about, or is it. Well thats a David Simon show for you.
Fucking incredible !
In most of David Simons shows no one ever talks about what the right thing to do is, Show Me a Hero is no different. There’s a scene where Mary Dorman, played by Catherine Kenner, a white-haired suburbanite mentions “i just think you shouldn’t take people with one lifestyle and put them smack in the middle of a place with a different lifestyle”. If there’s a tractable sub-issue inside the whole public housing problem, i think this summaries it.
Its typical David Simons logic, he confers with people who fight for things that statistically and in hindsight will be proven correct but in the moment of truth they’re disguised in corruption, and in this case northern racism. These kind of paradoxical situations are what his shows are made of, in this case a real life story thats morally skewed and thus by form, exciting and riveting.
In another scene, Mary visits some of the potential home owners who might win the lottery, to get an idea. The image of a white woman judging how black families live before they’re literally awarded public housing facilities could be terribly Green Booked, but the show refuses to treat her moral transition as a triumphant one. Its an unnecessary obstacle, an eradication of prejudice that shouldn’t be present there in the first place. Its both celebrated and shoved away when it happens, like it should, with hip-hop music in the background btw.
The ending also is a two fisted punch in the gut, a reminder that most of us end up spending our entire fucking lives trying to fix problems we made up for ourselves. Ranging from legislative complexities to something as simple as discrimination and elemental human indecency.
PS : I didn’t even mentioned Nick Wasicsko, the man the show is about, or is it. Well thats a David Simon show for you.
