The Wire and the American Dream: Capital, Codes and Consensus in the Early 21st Century

This essay aims to explore, utilizing the concepts of Pierre Bourdieu and Antonio Gramsci, the differences and similarities of those social groups depicted in The Wire with the purpose of illustrating not the impending demise of the American Dream, but identifying the durability and strength of ideas central to the contemporary American historical bloc. It first uses Bourdieu’s concept of the field, defined as the pursuit of various forms of capital considered desirable in that particular sphere of concern, combined with his notion of different forms of capital, to examine the ways in which the various groups in The Wire’s Baltimore continue to pursue their version of the American Dream.