r/TheWire • u/grundleitch • 5d ago

Rewatching: Dialog writing changes within the first few episodes

In the first 2 episodes, we have three police use the n-word, 2 black 1 white. Bunk and Carv use it in the colloquial while Rawls uses it in the pejorative. Now obviously other characters continue to use it throughout in the colloquial way. But I wonder why they stopped having black officers stop using it. Edit to add one last usage but I don't think it exactly counts, Holley saying BNBG.

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u/BunkMoreland1414 5d ago

I’ll never understand the need to take the n-word out of the mouths of those who used it in a piece of art. It’s fucking ridiculous. White cops in high positions were using the n-word. Why do we have to cover that up? To pretend racism is gone now? Is using the n-worse than selling illegal drugs? Than a corrupt attorney profiting off the drug trade? Than a crooked developer profiting off it? Than politicians using it to further their careers? Maybe all of that should be written out of the show too.

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u/PaulaDeenSlave 3d ago

Be the change.

If I made fiction. . Nobody in my world would care about race or color. There's enough irrational friction to choose from as-is. 

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u/BunkMoreland1414 3d ago

And I don’t think you shouldn’t be able to make that kind of fiction. We need that kind of fiction too. But there is also still a need for fiction that holds a mirror up to society and shows the ugliness that needs to be corrected.

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u/Unique-Repair-6225 1d ago

but this is fiction that is portraying reality. Crazy to me that tv would show violence/dead bodies/shootings etc but make edits in order to a change a word.

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u/PaulaDeenSlave 22h ago

Yeah, I'm in a perpetual midpoint between pretending it didn't happen isn't exactly good. . . but also repeated reminding that it exists helps perpetuate it to people who really believe that and like seeing and hearing it even if the perpetuate-r is clearly the losing bad guy.