Hard work spotlights the character of people
July 14, 2010 11:18 PM Subscribe
In the penultimate episode of season two of The Wire why does
Frank Sobotka work a day at the docks shifting cargo?
Frank Sobotka work a day at the docks shifting cargo?
Best answer: If I recall, it's Frank's way of working through his anger; his life is his union, and his union is life, so much that when confronted with Nick and Ziggy's situation that's his way of undoing his guilt at not-having-done-things right. At least he's being productive; at least he's doing something for the union. It's like cleaning the house or baking something when things goes wrong and you can't do anything to fix it yourself.
posted by suedehead at 11:32 PM on July 14, 2010
posted by suedehead at 11:32 PM on July 14, 2010
Also, after he gets arrested they're outlining the charges to him and they say something along the lines of pleading guilty will help him and his union. All along all the criminal activities were to fund their political funding and bribes(?) to get more development in the port and improve the lives of the union workers, when it all went south and was made public it drove off any of the political support to invest in the ports. So in a way Frank working was only a symbolic gesture of solidarity and wouldn't count for much.
posted by chrisbucks at 11:43 PM on July 14, 2010
posted by chrisbucks at 11:43 PM on July 14, 2010
Best answer: I don't read it as Frank doing something for the union, or to show solidarity, although I certainly wouldn't say those interpretations are wrong. Everything was falling down around him and one way or the other, his life in the union was about to end. While he still could, he took his last opportunity to do what was dearest to him: Sweat on the docks, working shoulder to shoulder with the men. It had probably been over a year since he had done this, ever since he took over the union, but it was the action that, to Frank, defined Frank--this was in his blood.
So yeah, I don't think he did it for anyone else. I think he did it for Frank. It was his answer to the question, "What would you do if you only had one day left?"
posted by kprincehouse at 12:17 AM on July 15, 2010 [5 favorites]
So yeah, I don't think he did it for anyone else. I think he did it for Frank. It was his answer to the question, "What would you do if you only had one day left?"
posted by kprincehouse at 12:17 AM on July 15, 2010 [5 favorites]
suedehead's comment "his life is his union, and his union is life" seems right.
By working a day, Frank reclaimed his identity. He went into Union leadership to do right by his fellow longshoremen. But everything got screwed up and then he was barred from even being a dockworker. In his heart of hearts, Frank sees himself as a Stevedore, part of a proud tradition in Baltimore spanning centuries.
posted by artlung at 2:52 AM on July 15, 2010 [2 favorites]
By working a day, Frank reclaimed his identity. He went into Union leadership to do right by his fellow longshoremen. But everything got screwed up and then he was barred from even being a dockworker. In his heart of hearts, Frank sees himself as a Stevedore, part of a proud tradition in Baltimore spanning centuries.
posted by artlung at 2:52 AM on July 15, 2010 [2 favorites]
Best answer: By working a day, Frank reclaimed his identity.
Pretty much came in to post that...I think he literally wanted to do at least one more honest days work.
Frank had gone a long from his roots, rising up in the union moving away from his original role as a stevedore, and also totally compromising himself with the bribery and corruption. It was, ostensibly for the good of his fellow workers but it looked like at that point that it was all for nothing if not actually making it actually worse.
It's interesting that Frank has at least two conversations with people who had moved on - his brother whose union and job had been eliminated but had found some sort of piece and political lobbyist whose family had moved out of the working class via education. Frank would or could not do this and for me the doing that day's work emphasised it.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:28 AM on July 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
Pretty much came in to post that...I think he literally wanted to do at least one more honest days work.
Frank had gone a long from his roots, rising up in the union moving away from his original role as a stevedore, and also totally compromising himself with the bribery and corruption. It was, ostensibly for the good of his fellow workers but it looked like at that point that it was all for nothing if not actually making it actually worse.
It's interesting that Frank has at least two conversations with people who had moved on - his brother whose union and job had been eliminated but had found some sort of piece and political lobbyist whose family had moved out of the working class via education. Frank would or could not do this and for me the doing that day's work emphasised it.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:28 AM on July 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
I think he literally wanted to do at least one more honest days work
Thirded (or whatever'd). He's one more character in a series overflowing with them who appears to be/ have been a good person corrupted by the job they do. And it's impossible to say if it's a job they love or if it's just the only option they ever thought they had.
posted by yerfatma at 6:11 AM on July 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
Thirded (or whatever'd). He's one more character in a series overflowing with them who appears to be/ have been a good person corrupted by the job they do. And it's impossible to say if it's a job they love or if it's just the only option they ever thought they had.
posted by yerfatma at 6:11 AM on July 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
I think fearfulsymmetery is the closest. He wanted to do an honest day's work.
posted by charlesv at 7:28 AM on July 15, 2010
posted by charlesv at 7:28 AM on July 15, 2010
To reiterate what fearfulsymmetry said, Baltimore and the world was changing around him: condo developments, loss of importance as a port, value of education, etc.
Frank's fatal flaw was the inability to adapt. He retreated into what he knew, what he had always known, and the fate he'd doomed his nephew to. This was something his fellow dock workers could respect and they too choose to stay entrenched in the past by continuing to support Frank even though it would harm the union.
Fun fact: watch out in season 3 for old tattered re-elect Frank Sobotka flyers.
posted by fontophilic at 7:47 AM on July 15, 2010 [2 favorites]
Frank's fatal flaw was the inability to adapt. He retreated into what he knew, what he had always known, and the fate he'd doomed his nephew to. This was something his fellow dock workers could respect and they too choose to stay entrenched in the past by continuing to support Frank even though it would harm the union.
Fun fact: watch out in season 3 for old tattered re-elect Frank Sobotka flyers.
posted by fontophilic at 7:47 AM on July 15, 2010 [2 favorites]
"What do you think they grew up to be? Stevedores. What the fuck you think?"
Like his nephew, where else is he going to go?
posted by box at 7:57 AM on July 15, 2010
Like his nephew, where else is he going to go?
posted by box at 7:57 AM on July 15, 2010
At least part of the beauty of The Wire is that all of these answers are probably at least partially correct. Characters on The Wire do all sorts of things for complicated reasons that they themselves may not fully understand. And sometimes they do complicated things for no more reason than it seemed like a good idea at the time. That there's never one clear, obvious motive for any given action is a huge part of what made The Wire feel so real. Because really, when is the last time you made any major decision without feeling conflicted about it in some way?
posted by jacquilynne at 9:17 AM on July 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by jacquilynne at 9:17 AM on July 15, 2010 [1 favorite]
Best answer: A little late to the party here, but I wanted to comment because I always found the scene in question to be one of the most moving in the entire series.
One of the keys to understanding the second season is the aforementioned scene where Frank tells his lobbyist the story of the dockworker who stole a crate of what was supposedly scotch, but turned out to be Tang. You know, "What do you think they grew up to be? Stevedores. What the fuck you think?" Obviously, one way of looking at it is that it's a story about how their grandfathers and fathers and children and grandchildren were trapped in their lives, despite what measures they took, illegal or otherwise. This rings particularly true for Ziggy and Nick, who always had designs above their station, and even seemed to make some progress (before the axe fell). But in the end, there was no amount of cargo they could boost to get them out of the hole that they had dug, and that had been dug for them.
But Frank always saw it differently; he never (or at least, not completely) saw the stevedore lifestyle as a trap, but rather as a birthright. Frank saw and fought for the dignity of the profession, felt the weight of its tradition and honour. Unlike so many other characters in the Wire, he did the wrong thing for the right reason: wrestled with the system not for his own gain, but out of a sense of righteousness. Working class life was never a trap to him, nor was it something to rise above. It was a trade with history and nobility, and he saw it dying, maybe knew its death was inevitable, but fought for it anyway with whatever means he had.
And despite the ambitions of Nick or Ziggy or anybody else, all of the dockworkers at least shared a little bit of this fervor. One of the criticisms leveled at the second season was that the lives of the stevedores never resonated the same way that the lives of the soldiers on the street had in the first season, and that seems insane to me. These were characters who lived the docks and its history, were acutely aware of the centuries that had gone before them, and also understood that the dignity of labour and honour of the their trade that had meant so much in previous generations were a rapidly devaluating currency.
But Frank never got that, not all the way, so when it all came apart and he saw the end approaching rapidly, he did the only thing that made sense to him, proud union man that he was: he went to put in an honest day's work. You know the scene where he takes the other guy's card, and the guy behind the glass is like "I don't see the resemblance," and Frank goes, "we're both bald, and we're both Polacks," and he puts him through anyway. Even though everybody knows what's happened, everybody knows how far Frank has fallen...you really see there how strong the brotherhood of stevedores is.
So, I don't have a good answer for you as to why Frank chose to work the other guy's shift. Nothing like "he did it because X." Only that it was absolutely the right thing for his character to do at the time; it had a poetic ring to it, and seemed a reasonable thing for somebody like Frank to do in real life.
As good as the first season was (and as good as things would get in the third) Season Two of the Wire is really where the series discovered what it was: high tragedy. We have a king, deeply flawed but essentially noble, with a crumbling kingdom. And he can NOT catch a break.
Abstract spoiler alert, but by the time we get to the third season, we're essentially watching the story of two princes warring over a beleaguered throne. So it only gets better.
But the second season was always my favourite, and I think it's entirely because of Frank Sobotka.
posted by Tiresias at 12:42 AM on July 16, 2010 [4 favorites]
One of the keys to understanding the second season is the aforementioned scene where Frank tells his lobbyist the story of the dockworker who stole a crate of what was supposedly scotch, but turned out to be Tang. You know, "What do you think they grew up to be? Stevedores. What the fuck you think?" Obviously, one way of looking at it is that it's a story about how their grandfathers and fathers and children and grandchildren were trapped in their lives, despite what measures they took, illegal or otherwise. This rings particularly true for Ziggy and Nick, who always had designs above their station, and even seemed to make some progress (before the axe fell). But in the end, there was no amount of cargo they could boost to get them out of the hole that they had dug, and that had been dug for them.
But Frank always saw it differently; he never (or at least, not completely) saw the stevedore lifestyle as a trap, but rather as a birthright. Frank saw and fought for the dignity of the profession, felt the weight of its tradition and honour. Unlike so many other characters in the Wire, he did the wrong thing for the right reason: wrestled with the system not for his own gain, but out of a sense of righteousness. Working class life was never a trap to him, nor was it something to rise above. It was a trade with history and nobility, and he saw it dying, maybe knew its death was inevitable, but fought for it anyway with whatever means he had.
And despite the ambitions of Nick or Ziggy or anybody else, all of the dockworkers at least shared a little bit of this fervor. One of the criticisms leveled at the second season was that the lives of the stevedores never resonated the same way that the lives of the soldiers on the street had in the first season, and that seems insane to me. These were characters who lived the docks and its history, were acutely aware of the centuries that had gone before them, and also understood that the dignity of labour and honour of the their trade that had meant so much in previous generations were a rapidly devaluating currency.
But Frank never got that, not all the way, so when it all came apart and he saw the end approaching rapidly, he did the only thing that made sense to him, proud union man that he was: he went to put in an honest day's work. You know the scene where he takes the other guy's card, and the guy behind the glass is like "I don't see the resemblance," and Frank goes, "we're both bald, and we're both Polacks," and he puts him through anyway. Even though everybody knows what's happened, everybody knows how far Frank has fallen...you really see there how strong the brotherhood of stevedores is.
So, I don't have a good answer for you as to why Frank chose to work the other guy's shift. Nothing like "he did it because X." Only that it was absolutely the right thing for his character to do at the time; it had a poetic ring to it, and seemed a reasonable thing for somebody like Frank to do in real life.
As good as the first season was (and as good as things would get in the third) Season Two of the Wire is really where the series discovered what it was: high tragedy. We have a king, deeply flawed but essentially noble, with a crumbling kingdom. And he can NOT catch a break.
Abstract spoiler alert, but by the time we get to the third season, we're essentially watching the story of two princes warring over a beleaguered throne. So it only gets better.
But the second season was always my favourite, and I think it's entirely because of Frank Sobotka.
posted by Tiresias at 12:42 AM on July 16, 2010 [4 favorites]
Fantastic stuff Tiresias, but I would disagree that doing the wrong thing for the right reason is "unlike so many other characters". In the final season McNulty does the same, though he starts the second season by doing the right thing for all the wrong reasons (working out the currents to determine who owns a murder victim). I think one of the over-arching motifs is an abstracted version of that sentence, characters who do the "(right|wrong) thing for the (opposite) reasons". My one, super-minor, complaint is that David Simon & co. are too willing to let The System take the blame for the tragedies that happen inside it and absolve the players of responsibility.
posted by yerfatma at 6:25 AM on July 16, 2010
posted by yerfatma at 6:25 AM on July 16, 2010
Response by poster: So apparently I didn't miss anything. The show spent so much time on this that I figured I was missing some plot advancement.
posted by Mitheral at 8:42 AM on July 17, 2010
posted by Mitheral at 8:42 AM on July 17, 2010
Response by poster: Watching this again season two episode one has an exchange between Frank and Nat (a stevedore Union guy).
posted by Mitheral at 11:24 AM on September 20, 2010 [1 favorite]
NAT: Goddamn checkers local always acting like you're the king of everything and shit.Which lends weight to the "back to his roots" theory.
SOBOTKA: Nat. Nat, listen to me, if we--
NAT: Y'all need to crawl back down in them holds, remind yourself of who you is and where you come from.
posted by Mitheral at 11:24 AM on September 20, 2010 [1 favorite]
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posted by chrisbucks at 11:31 PM on July 14, 2010 [3 favorites]