Been re-watching The Wire for the umpteenth time, and am once again struck by the extreme ambiguity of the Carcetti character. Obviously, all the characters are shades of gray, but Carcetti’s the one I can’t figure out at all. Is he a well-intentioned idealist who gets caught up in the political machine and has to compromise, or was he always calculating, lying to appeal to different segments of the voting population? He started out in season 3 going behind the mayor’s back to Burrell, so he was definitely ambitious, but was he sincere in his desire to change the way the city was run or just greedy for power? It’s a matter of opinion, of course, but I’m interested to hear your take on him.
Both sincere about making positive change and personally ambitious, and a great character for this reason.
The dualities or multiplicities in almost every major character are a large part of what made the show as a whole great.
The idea is that you feel compelled to believe in him, that he will actually bring positive change to Baltimore… only to have your heart broken alongside Norman Wilson when you see him choosing to put his political future in front of the money the schools needed.
That, my man, is one of the deepest moments in the history of narrative.
He’s never one or the other. One of the first things Carcetti does is tell his friend (Tony Gray) he’ll support his run for mayor, and he lets him go on believing that long after he has decided to run for himself because he needs Gray to split the black vote. Carcetti is definitely shrewd and not afraid to get his hands dirty at the beginning. I think he believes at the beginning that when he screws people or plays dirty, he’s doing it for the right reasons and has a more noble goal in mind. As the series goes on, he ends up having to compromise himself more and more while getting less and less for it. In the end he runs for governor because even with all the ethical compromises he’s made, he can’t get much done as mayor because the governor doesn’t care about the city - oh, and because he realizes that becoming an ineffective mayor will kill his chances at national office.
He was complicated. I liked how he refused sex with his campaign manager after the election. It seemed to show he was going to take his position seriously – he didn’t want to fuck things up. But then his pride takes over when he refuses state funds because he would lose control of the schools.
One thing about Carcetti is we never saw him get personally involved with his constituency, not like we did with Jimmy and Bodie or Bunk and Omar or Carver and Randy. With Carcetti it was the city as a whole that he cared about – abstract – so it was hard to know why he cared. But I think he did care. He wanted to do a good job. Whether it was out of pride or genuine feeling for people, who knows.
Of course I hope you’re all watching Game of Thrones on HBO, in which the same Irish actor, Aiden Gillen, is playing another poltically-shrewd, conniving and ambitious guy, Lord Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish:
http://mimg.ugo.com/201007/50998/cuts/thomas-carcetti-mayor-wire_288x288.jpg
My biggest disappointment with him was when he demanded that the newly minted commissioner “juke the stats”, after specifically promising him that he would never do that. It showed the basic corruption at the heart of politics; the willingness to compromise one’s integrity for political gain.