HBO's Treme: Two Perspectives

As some of you may know (and all of you should know), the new HBO show Treme, created by the same team who brought us The Wire, debuted last Sunday. Critics have been raving ever since (87% on Metacritic after 30 reviews), so I thought it was appropriate to give this important and impressive piece of television it's due respect here on Poposaurus. And in an attempt to really do the show justice, I have enlisted the help of a close friend of mine who is a native NOLA resident (and a talented wordsmith, if I do say so myself) to supplement the article with his own reactions to the show, which stand to be quite different from mine as I am a born-and-raised yankee. Below, you will find both of our reviews of Treme (first his, then mine). I think the similarities and differences between our reactions will prove rather interesting.

Treme: A Careful Depiction of the City Care Forgot
By FatFat McWhoDat

As a born and raised native son to New Orleans, words fail to describe the complexity of emotions I feel when considering Katrina and the months thereafter. The water line in my home was only a few feet above the floor; nevertheless my family lost half of our house to mold. Therefore, the period of time in which HBO's new series Treme begins isn't exactly a favorite memory for myself or anyone affected by Katrina. At the very least, its a difficult topic to discuss and even more painful to see played out on screen.  However, Treme approaches the subject with poignancy and deft, exploring the melancholic subjects of mass destruction, civic tragedy and personal loss with enough respect as to incite interested conversation instead of grief.  Moreover, the show provides an overwhelmingly accurate slice-of-life portrayal of New Orleans culture through the eyes of its inhabitants. Treme's attempt to capture the essence of daily life in New Orleans is undoubtedly the most authentic representation achieved through mass media in recent memory.

Treme certainly hit upon a few phrases one would hear everywhere in New Orleans after the flood: "how's your house?," "how much water did yall get?" and one that always had more gravity for myself: "drop you where exactly?" All of these questions sought deep, complicated responses, and one of the characters responded in typical fashion, suited perfectly with the right blend of anger and courtesy to steer the conversation elsewhere, "don't ask me about my f*ing house." Although bits of the show seemed contrived, fetishized New Orleans catchphrases- perhaps of the canon Steve Zahn refers to- i.e., "Red beans and rice? and it aint even monday!" Wendall Pierce's surprised interjection is something you'd never hear down here. You'd also never see a Mardi Gras Indian walking alone in the middle of the night 3 months after Katrina, for two reasons at least: he wouldn't be able to put the suit on without help and the national guard would have arrested him on the spot for violating curfew. However, the scene made for some beautiful imagery, didn't it?

While it'd be easy to sit here from my balcony on Constantinople Street, listening to the St. Charles streetcar rumbling down the avenue on a pristine spring morning and chastise the mundane, misplaced elements of Vaughn's (The Abita Jockomo IPA Sign, for instance), I'd much rather instruct y'all as to what Treme got right, or as close to right as anyone could expect. For all of its music, nothing pleased me more than seeing Rebirth Brass Band playing "I feel like funkin it up" with second line revelers dancing on cars, buying beer from coolers, singing along under the overpass at North Claiborne and I-10, and enjoying life in whatever manner suited them best at that single moment. This scene was a true masterpiece, not only in the technicality of its production, but also in the accuracy with which it depicts the New Orleans Second Line tradition. Second Lines are singularly amazing elements of New Orleans culture, and I urge everyone to experience one. Furthermore, Kermit Ruffins is a real New Orleans trumpet player, who has really been playing here for decades and he really does have WHO DAT tattooed on his chest. His music is spectacular, and I saw him perform last weekend at French Quarter Fest. When Steve Zahn says, "America needs it some Kermit," he's 100% right. This guy should be nationally regarded as a world-class musician. Lastly on Kermit, he really is high all the time and loves to bbq.

Finally, I'd like to discuss my favorite character on the show, played my New Orleans local John Goodman. His rant about "a federal F up of epic proportions" is par for the course down here. Outside of New Orleans and the Gulf South, people know the events of late August and September 2005 as "Katrina." But when you're down here, it's called "Katrina and the Federal Flood." I could write books talking about this one (I've already done a research paper in college), but I'll try to keep my thoughts here short and to the point. John Goodman is based off of Ashley Morris, a Tulane Professor and blogger who became a pop culture figure head with his incredibly defiant works about the aftermath of Katrina. John Goodman's explanation about what happened during Katrina and who is responsible for those events, he was almost speaking verbatim what Ashley Morris wrote years ago, and what New Orleanians in general hold to be true- (not because we were the victims and need someone to blame, but because we saw this coming decades ago after Betsy in 1965 and this is where I stop myself to keep from writing too much).

In conclusion: Yes, Treme is pretty much as good as it gets when putting New Orleans on TV, but no its not perfect. In the tradition of The Wire, the show's novelistic approach will allow complex plot lines to unfold throughout the season, aided by a group of stellar actors and scenes authentic enough that you should believe them to be true. However a single fact remains when trying to express the Jewel of the South in any medium of art: The only way to experience New Orleans is to come down for yourselves and see what we're all about. Jazzfest is only 2 weeks away, and guess what: You're all invited.

An Outsider's Take on HBO's Treme
By The Spot

Going into HBO's Treme, I was equal parts excited and wary. I was excited because I had recently started watching The Wire for the first time, and after discovering what an amazing show that was, I was happy to have the chance to start from the beginning with a new show by the same talented team. I was wary, however, because I knew that there was a strong chance that my yankee blood would remove me so far from the subject matter that I simply wouldn't be able to relate on a level that would allow me to properly enjoy the show. You see, before the show's announcement, I had never heard of the area of NOLA known as Treme. In fact, up until the day before the show aired, I didn't even know how to pronounce it (which I discovered in a rather embarrassing moment; apparently, it's French). And when I sat down to watch the series premiere, I felt a lot like an outsider looking in, much like the geek who gets paired with the three jocks to work on a group project in English class. And while my fears ended up being justified and I didn't quite wrap my head around everything I was seeing, I was still able to enjoy Treme for the marvelous show that it is.

In truth, if you didn't grow up in NOLA and/or aren't very familiar with the music, culture, and history of the city, some things are bound to go over your head. For example, most likely, you wont recognize all of the featured musicians, you wont appreciate the significance of the songs being played, you wont really understand the importance of the "Second Lines," and you definitely wont know what a Mardis Gras Indian is. But let me make one thing very clear: while being familiar with all of these different things may bolster your overall enjoyment of Treme, there is still a lot to like about the show even if you are unfamiliar (like yours truly). Most importantly, as is to be expected from the creators of The Wire, the characters and their dialogue are truly fantastic. Everything has a gritty realism to it that is lost in many other shows. The characters speak exactly as their real world counterparts do. They don't always say exactly what they are thinking or describe what they see going on around them to push the story along, but instead converse just like real people do. As such, the characterization in Treme is absolutely top notch, as the viewer learns who each individual character is by simply watching them be themselves, instead of through clunky exposition dialogue.

Of course, any show attempting to capture the emotional trauma suffered by victims of Hurricane Katrina must walk a fine line between realistic emotion and melodrama. Luckily, Treme hits the nail on the head in this department (at least, in my opinion). While it is clear that every character has been effected in a large way by the flooding (Ladonna's lost brother, Batiste's financial woes, Albert's trouble rebuilding his home, Janette's difficulty keeping her restaurant afloat), the show never depicts them as run-down, broken spirits. It is this strong will that makes them all so endearing and relatable, even to someone like me who is unfamiliar with what exactly they are going through. That is not to say that Treme does not have its fair share of emotional moments. The first time Albert steps into his old home is an emotional moment I remember particularly well, as is Creighton's interview with the British press. In short, Treme strikes a great emotional balance, showing just enough drama without beating the viewer over the head with it.

Adding to the show's realism is its implementation of music. In the series premiere, every single bit of music heard by the viewer was happening in real time around the characters. In other words, short of one brief montage moment, the audience is hearing the music exactly as the characters onscreen are, whether it is being performed by one of the many featured musicians or it is trickling out of a radio in the background. It is an effective method that further submerges the viewer into the realistic world created by Treme. Also, there are a lot of moment during the show where helicopters can be heard in the background; another nice realistic touch which I appreciated as a constant reminder of the tragedy surrounding the onscreen action.

If I could register one complaint against Treme, it is that, so far, there hasn't really been a lot of plot development. I know, it's only been one episode, and here's hoping that this changes in the coming episodes, but not a lot "happened" in the first episode. A good show is one that leaves you on the edge of your seat for the next episode, thinking to yourself, "I can't wait to see what happens to X," and, "I wonder where Y went and if Z is going to find out." The Wire was notorious for leaving viewers cringing for relief in the periods between episodes, and after the first episode of Treme, I am intrigued, but I am not enveloped by the potential of next week's installments. In truth, such a complaint is hard to validate seeing as how we are only one episode deep, but I sincerely hope that Treme develops some gripping story lines to compliment its fantastic characters or I may find my interest waning in the coming weeks.

But regardless of this gripe, and regardless of my unfamiliarity with a lot of the subject matter and many of the references, I still enjoyed Treme for what it is to me: great television. And while I can't attest to whether it is particularly authentic or faithful to NOLA residents, I can assure you that it is a fantastically scripted and acted TV show with some of the most realistic characters you'll find on the small screen today.