Rizzo, Mary
Come and Be Shocked: Baltimore Beyond John Waters and the Wire
Johns Hopkins (Baltimore)
2020
OUR SYNOPSIS: Mary Rizzo explores the question of what defines Baltimore by examining cultural and political attempts to craft Baltimorean identities. She emphasizes how a white, working-class “Charm City” narrative historically and presently clashes with Black Baltimorean lived experiences. In the pop culture realm, she contrasts queer white Baltimore in the films of John Waters with portrayals of Black Baltimore in TV shows like The Wire and Roc. Her analysis of Chicory magazine provides an important authentic Black Baltimorean narrative. She also demonstrates how urban renewal projects tried to remake Baltimore as a neoliberal tourist hub, excluding Baltimoreans in the process.
BIG QUESTIONS:
What historical and present significance do you associate with some of Baltimore’s many nicknames or city slogans?
How do urban renewal and popular culture interrelate?
FEATURE QUOTES:
“The imaginary Bodymore is mapped onto the real Baltimore although Roc attempted to use TV to depict a respectable black working-class family, it was superseded by other shows that gazed more intently at black criminality and violence. While The Corner and The Wire offered a people’s history of Baltimore, many viewers preferred to focus on the vicarious thrill of inner-city violence. This Wild West of male freedom exists next door to other Baltimores, ones that are defined through white eccentricity and femininity.” (207-208)
PRIMARY SOURCES:
Greater Baltimore Committee and the Committee for Downtown, “Baltimore’s Inner Harbor Plan,” date unknown, University of Baltimore, Baltimore Studies Archives, Greater Baltimore Committee Records (R0046), Planning Council, Box 28, Folder 11, https://archivesspace.ubalt.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/52314.
BALTIMORE CONNECTIONS:
Most of the book directly.
