What HBO Taught Me That Ethnographies Couldn't

After reading a play based on Harry Wolcott's controversial ethnography of Sneaky Kid and after making my way through another qualitative study of a marginalized group, I became frustrated with the mission of qualitative research geared toward social reform. Of course, I agree with the motives and ethics behind the research, which aspire to make the world a more tolerant, egalitarian place, but the actual experience of reading this work gives me the impression that its authors are trying to wrap their politics in the guise of science. Maybe there's nothing wrong with that per se, but at the end of the day, I think the most important question is: is it effective? Does it actually change minds and behavior, or does it just make its authors feel good and boost their chances at tenure?

It should be obvious by now that I feel that the latter is more true than the former. So then I asked, what could change people's minds and behavior towards marginalized groups? What had changed my mind about such things? The most valuable attitude/politics-changing information comes from 1st hand experience. Spend a few years in a poor neighborhood or a poor country, or befriend members of a marginalized group, and you're bound to sympathize more than you did before (although Robert Putnam's work on diversity and distrust might disprove this) . In the absence of such experience, I think a well-told fictional story can do the trick. At least that's what's worked best for me.

After watching The Wire and The Sopranos, I feel differently about the cause and remedy of pretty much every social ill. At first, you wouldn't think that qualitative research and TV shows have all that much in common, but I think that they have or could potentially address a lot of the same issues. If you take a close look at any aspect of society, you start to see how messy things really are, how everyone is guilty to one degree or another - something that these shows are able to convey.

Both shows even have stand-ins for the ethnographer that act at proxies for both the audience and the author - Melfi in The Sopranos and the entire police force (particularly McNutty) in The Wire. Both Melfi and McNulty wonder whether what they're doing really makes a difference. They wonder whether they can possibly help reform society, and wonder what gives them the right to intervene the ways that they do, just as an ethnographer would. I wondered along with these characters whether or not I merely used my hope that Tony would reform as an excuse to vicariously experience his supreme selfishness, and also whether that vain sense of professional competitive satisfaction mattered more than actually helping people, which might be impossible given the extent of corruption in 21st century urban America.

Supposedly, it is up to the reader of the qualitative study to decide if qualitative researchers' work is generalizable beyond the population that was studied, but the very fact that they're bothering to publish this work implies that they do see it as indicative of larger patterns. Wolcott gets into a whole mess of trouble by becoming involved with his subject of study. Its hard to fault the subject because, really, who likes to be scrutinized to that degree and used as an example of a certain type of social problem? Even if you make the study anonymous so as to protect the reputation of the subject, I still feel uneasy about the relationship between ethnographer and subject. Either they make these people into bad guys, repaying their openness with harsh criticism of every aspect of their lives, or they lionize them, which isn't telling the whole story and ultimately helps no one.

That's what you need the protective layer of fiction for. Not only does it protect the identities of the not-so-innocent. It also doesn't necessarily claim to be realistic and generalizable the way that qualitative research does. If people happen to think The Wire and The Sopranos are realistic, great. And as much as the creators and fans of the shows crow about the "realism" of the show, what makes them both great, what sucks people in and keeps them watching, is the entertainment value of the show. They're exciting, hilarious, dramatic, ironic, and moving. Ehtnographic studies can be all of these things, but its much easier to make a story reliably entertaining if you're permitted to take massive liberties with reality, and that's something qualitative researches have no business doing.