Through The Wire: The Avon Barksdale Story

Abstract

Released exclusively on DVD in 2010, The Avon Barksdale Story is the first and only instalment so far of a series of docudramas called Baltimore Chronicles: Legends of the Unwired. As its title indicates, the film claims to tell the real events in the life of Baltimore drug kingpin Nathan “Bodie” Barksdale in order to expose his near namesake from HBO’s The Wire (2002-2008), Avon Barksdale, as a fictional persona. Structured around an interview of the real Barksdale by the actor impersonating him in the series, The Avon Barksdale Story presents itself as a corrigendum or as a right of reply. This so-called critical reading thus aims to debunk The Wire as a distortive rewriting of events. The film’s title, however, paradoxically acknowledges that it tells and perpetuates the legend of Avon, Nathan Barksdale’s fictional counterpart, despite the fact Nathan declares he always resented the nickname “Avon”. Besides, even though The Avon Barksdale Story sets out to restore the reputation of the historical gangster by seeing through The Wire, it also borrows, at regular intervals, the typical style of David Simon’s program. Consequently, while the docudrama claims to tell the real stories from which The Wire is freely inspired, it is itself loosely based on the fictional stories told in the show. Through a comparative analysis of sequences from The Avon Barksdale Story and extracts from The Wire, this paper purports to identify a specific type of TV series derivative, a hybrid form of remake I suggest to call the “alternative make,” and to investigate its role as an analytical instrument. As a matter of fact, the mechanics of this “counter-Wire” indirectly informs the nature of David Simon’s study of social reality through the narration of semi-imaginary life stories, and The Wire’s unique approach to fact through fiction.

Keywords

• Wire (The)
• Avon Barksdale Story (The)
• docudrama
• right to reply
• alternative make