My sister and I were watching Season 5 episode 8 of the wire today, where the infamous Omar Little was gunned down by lil kenard at the Korean grocery store. While watching i suddenly came to a realization, i realized that when watching all these movies and dramas, they have the power to make us empathies with the mostly gratuitous people in this world.
Omar was no saint, far from it, he was more like in competition for the title devil, however through the course of the series, i started developing respect for him, and was genuinely sadden when a lil boy killed him.
One would expect that a legend such as he would die, gun blazing, in a battle with numerous opponents, against him and his shot gun, which ended with him riddled with bullets and then gazed with respects from his enemies. However to be killed by a kid thats just sad.
However what worried me more, is the power that this drama had, for me to want him not to die and let him succeed in killing all these people and gaining victory. I mean its not like when i see a real Stick artist my first thought would be "Aww i'm routing for you, kill em all", however when watching this series especially concerning Omar little i was routing for him.
worrying.
Goes to show you the power of media or one could argue the brilliance of actors. Michael K Williams did a fantastic job of playing Omar. We were able to connect to the character, as Williams took on the persona of Omar and through that we could follow him through his journey from beginning to the (belittling) end.
Just sharing my thoughts.
I also love Omar Little, I think he is one of the greatest tv characters that has ever been created. I think the reason why we all route for him is because he was different from all of the other gun slinging "thugs". He was far from innocent but he had a moral code which was only killing people that were in "game",they all knew what being in the game entailed and consented to it which is why he was in a sense justified to do what he did. He was clever, he cared about members of his family and crew. If you noticed he never killed randomly like his contemporaries, there was always a reason and he wasn't afraid of anyone. I think that we were sad about his death because it was pointless and by someone who wasn't involved in his life. He was in a happy place when it happened and he could have stayed away but its Omar and we understood why he wanted to and had to avenge his friend's death,I guess we all wanted him to have a happier ending.
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