Though his behavior is rude, Sonny’s frustration with the tourists’ pitying gaze is understandable. In the months following Katrina the complexities of the spiraling disaster were overly simplified. As David Simon puts it, the Lower Ninth Ward became “symbolic of the whole city.” Nevertheless, Sonny makes his living primarily by capitalizing on the sentiments of tourists who are looking to hear something “authentic.” Sonny resents the tourists’ simplified view of his city but he caters to it as well.

I cite this scene because the cast members of the latest edition of The Real World, also set in New Orleans, is a lot like that group of Wisconsin tourist-volunteers: naive outsiders with seemingly good intentions. According to The Real World executive producer Jon Murray, the group will be tasked with rebuilding homes during their stay in the Big Easy because “we’re hoping our cast members and the series can play a small role in the city’s rebirth.” Helping others is noble but make no mistake: these kids are in New Orleans to help themselves. More specifically, they are there for the “journey”—a term Real World cast members have historically used to refer to the combined experiences of getting drunk, learning not make racial/ethnic/sexist/homophobic slurs (at least not while on camera), and breaking up with the significant others they left at home. Thus far New Orleans appears in the series as the colorful backdrop for the casts’ bacchanal undertakings.

MTV’s vision of contemporary New Orleans is best exemplified by the décor of the Real World mansion, which is filled kitschy signifiers of its home city: seafood, feathers, brass instruments, and lots and lots of Mardi Gras beads. And when a cast member accidentally (or not so accidentally) reveals a breast or rear end to the camera, the forbidden body part is blocked out with a tiny purple and green Mardi Gras mask. This final touch would probably induce Sonny to commit seppuku.

But me? I’m not so bothered by all of this touristy-ness. In fact, Treme’s “authentic” vision of the city and the Real World’s seemingly inauthentic one serve as useful counterpoints on the contemporary televisual image of New Orleans. David Simon’s series is mournful and nostalgic, a scarred landscape of restaurants that can’t stay afloat, potholes that don’t get fixed, and bodies that don’t get buried. By contrast, MTV is showcasing a New Orleans that is tentatively getting back on its feet, a city ripe for tourists who want drunken nights on Bourbon Street, live music, and women who will bare their breasts for trinkets. Sonny might not approve of MTV’s version of New Orleans, but beloved New Orleans trumpeter Kermit Ruffins clearly does—he pops up several times during the season premiere.

Furthermore, since filming of the series wrapped in April, just before the devastating Gulf oil spill, this season of The Real World depicts a New Orleans frozen in time, wholly unaware of the disaster about to be unleashed on its shores. After watching a sobering series like Treme this winter, followed by the devastating coverage of the oil spill throughout the spring, it’s comforting to spend the summer with this tourist’s vision of New Orleans: where the beignets are hot, the Mardi Gras beads are flying, and everyone is dancing, happily, to “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

Not so in Treme. David Simon is finally giving musicians their due. Certainly there is a degree of celebration going on here (note the enumerable appearances by famous and not-so-famous New Orleans musicians). Indeed, Simon has noted in interviews his desire to demonstrate how the culture embodied by New Orleans residents was irrepressible after the flood—that is, people had to participate in the cultural expressions that are central to who they are as members of this community. [Side note: an irrepressible spirit was also central to the characters on The Wire, but it certainly had a darker, less joyous dimension than this one].

But here Simon is giving us more than just a feel-good, touristy celebration of New Orleans’ musical heritage a la Bourbon Street and Dixieland jazz. He is treating musicians and musical performances with respect (perhaps too much so for viewers who don’t enjoy jazz and may feel burdened by the resulting narrative “rupture”). Sunday night’s episode (“Shallow Water, Oh Mama”) is a case in point. Across four storylines and sets of characters—as well as at least four musical styles—each musician is seen fighting for respect on his or her own terms as musicians and artists, while maintaining respect for “the tradition” (as jazz musicians are wont to say). Big Chief Lambreaux is determined to put his tribe back together, including rehearsing by candlelight in his decimated bar sans FEMA trailer. Both Annie and Sonny yearn for more than whoring themselves to tourists for coins with yet another rendition of “Saints.” Antoine Batiste needs a gig desperately, but refuses to succumb to the soul-crushing imperative of high-society Mardis Gras gigs and their placid and safe versions of “Take the ‘A’ Train.” And Lambreaux’s son, New York trumpeter Delmond, keeps pushing back against the need for all New Orleans musicians to “kick it old school,” demanding instead that his favored brand of post-bop jazz be given the respect it deserves as a serious art form (not to serve as just another form of booty shakin’, beer swilling music). [Side note two: Simon simultaneously offers up real life versions of these tensions between jazz styles, including traditional N.O. trumpeter Kermit Ruffins and post-bop alto saxophonist Donald Harrison as actors in this drama].

With perhaps the exception of the Indian tribe, these are experiences that all professional jazz musicians can relate to—the imperative of economic survival and what that means for the production of “music;” the reality of performing before the masses and their need for little more than a soundtrack to go about their primary concerns of jabbering incessantly or attempting to get laid; playing music that has become so cliché it is incapable of stirring the soul; and feeling the desire to say “fuck this shit” and stand up and play the tune the way it is supposed to be played. With little interest here in entering the discussions of “authenticity” and “realism” in Simon’s work, let me simply say that finally, dramatic narrative television is giving music, musical performance, and musicians their (long over)due respect.  And its been a long time coming.

These concerns were allayed in part by the program’s second episode.  “Meet De Boys on De Battlefront” sees Treme find its feet by making authenticity its primary focus. Although some have accused the episode of being heavy-handed, I think that this approach is justified as it takes the series’ sense of place and explores the characters’ connection to it. With an emphasis on work and tourism, Simon and company work their way out of the authenticity cul-de-sac by interrogating the nature of geo-cultural belonging in a place that boasts myriad interconnected classes, cultures, and communities. The storylines concerning the Wisconsin tourists,  Zahn’s struggling musician/DJ Davis McAlary, and Pierce’s trombone player Antoine Batiste examine what it means to be ‘of’ New Orleans – to know it, to inhabit it, and to be provided for by it.

We see McAlary lose his DJ job as a result of a traditional New Orleans voodoo ceremony performed to authenticate his relocated radio station. After attempting to borrow money from his wealthy parents, he takes a job as a concierge at a Bourbon Street hotel, where his discomfort with his own relationship with his environment manifests itself in a conspicuous distaste for ostensibly phony tourists and an excessive eagerness to demonstrate his local knowledge to those he deems worthy. We see that McAlary is the ultimate tourist in his own town; sharing his local knowledge is the only way for him to establish a claim that he belongs, just as the hotel job is necessary for this would-be musician to survive. Yet this strenuous performance of belonging ultimately costs McAlary his post when he instructs a New Orleans church group to visit a bar in the Treme for a taste of the authentic New Orleans.  Even this does not deter him; encountering them in the street, McAlary cannot resist proffering one last bit of knowledge. He deprives himself of his own breakfast experience in his haste to direct the Wisconsin group to a great local spot.

McAlary contrasts with the character of Antoine Batiste here. Just about broke on the outskirts of town, the trombone player’s partner exhorts him to get a real job, but he refuses. He is a musician, and is resolute that his city will provide that money if he only plays for it. He also ends up on Bourbon Street – accompanying the dancers at a strip club – but he will not admit to it. He is delivered when he pops up at Bullet’s in the Treme, scarfing down a plate of pork with the Wisconsonites before jumping on stage to play with Kermit Ruffins. Batiste is barely making it, but he is making it through music; the implication is that he can do nothing else because he is who he is where he is. He is going to ‘play for that money’ and let the cards fall where they may.

Treme paints in broad strokes here and in the ancillary storylines concerning its characters. This could have been highly problematic if not for the explicit focus on authenticity and belonging. I recoiled when I saw Elvis Costello and Allan Toussaint materialize in a local recording studio, but the scene is redeemed when the African-American players invite Costello to check out Galactic after the session. Costello, who had been so enthusiastic about Ruffins in the pilot, expresses skepticism about the jazz-funk ensemble on the basis of their whiteness to which the trombone player replies that Galactic are legitimate and authentic players. Later, we see the players from the session jump on stage in a performance of racial integration that provides a dollop of nuance to the McAlary-Batiste comparison. Lest we want to think that this is all about race, the program invites us to consider the myriad other factors that make up our identities and position us within our places and communities.

This second episode still exhibits significant problems –the wholly unconvincing buskers who recalled Lost’s Nikki and Paulo, the curious beatdown by Chief Lambreaux, the lethargic primary plotline concerning LaDonna’s missing brother – but its meditation on authenticity and belonging provides viewers with something tangible and substantive to consider. Now, we need only hope that Treme’s plotlines become more engaging so that we might come to care about those who inhabit Simon’s post-Katrina New Orleans storyworld.

This past Sunday marked the latest installment in what has become a semiannual event in my household. About every 12 or 18 months, the desirability of the HBO original programming lineup teams up with my frustration over lousy DSL download speeds and my lingering conscience about copyright infringement to convince me it’s worth $15 a month to subscribe. This warm feeling usually lasts three or four months, till I become miffed with the indeterminate period between seasons of Curb Your Enthusiasm, and admit there’s nothing so culturally relevant about True Blood that I can’t wait for the DVD release.

The blessed event was initiated this year by the premiere of David Simon’s new series, Treme. I was tipped off by a colleague’s Facebook post, and more importantly, my eagerness to subscribe was surely motivated by a desire to make up for my embarrassingly belated immersion in The Wire. I belong among those who were too busy watching Six Feet Under, Sex and the City, Deadwood, and, yes, The Sopranos (not to mention already depressed by consecutive George W. Bush “administrations”) to dedicate TV time to The Wire’s narrative-ly complex social realism.

But, no more! For I have drunk the David Simon Kool-Aid. Said beverage must have been the “electric” kind Tom Wolfe wrote about, because it has inspired hallucinogenic dreams of impossible spinoffs—a sitcom with Omar and Brother Muozone managing a vegetarian diner a la Alice or Cheers, or a re-vamped X-Files starring Bubbles and Kima as paranormal investigators.

And so, last Sunday, I eagerly plied my wife and honored guests with a big bottle of (cheap!) Pinot Grigio in anticipation of impending David Simon greatness. Who better to wield quality television as a bludgeon against government incompetence and malevolent neglect, not to mention the continued lack of public will to rebuild the great American city of New Orleans?

Indeed, Treme delivered on all the expected markers of quality TV circa 2010, an era in which The Wire, not Sex and the City or The Sopranos reigns as model of HBO’s “not TV.” Here are a few key elements:

1. Intertextual pleasures, i.e. former Wire cast members in prominent roles. “There’s the guy that played Lester Freamon, and isn’t the actress that played his girlfriend in season one now his daughter?!”
2. Film actors whose careers have veered dangerously off-course, seeking to re-establish cred while pretending to be happy working on HBO because “It’s Not TV.” John Goodman and Steve Zahn, I’m talking to you.
3. A self-important attitude that reassures us of our own distinction through the lack of sensational content. For example, Treme’s timeframe is comfortably post-Katrina, thereby keeping truly horrific images of Katrina’s devastation off-screen, because we care, but we don’t really want to see that. And we already know that we care, so what’s the point?
4. Arty title sequence: The moldy, spotted walls of flooded houses as backdrop for credits, self-consciously implicate us in our desire to see material evidence of human suffering as abstract backdrop. Or, maybe they just look cool.
5. Flagrant disregard for traditional TV runtimes. Just when you think the Treme pilot is going to go all 55+ minutes like The Wire, it keeps going! And going. Till a properly poignant, but no too poignant, moment.

Perhaps my preoccupation with improbable spinoffs of The Wire is evidence David Simon’s work leaves me, at least subconsciously, cold. How about cutting loose a little? Why such a realist route, however artfully created, to quality TV/cultural critique?

The aforementioned colleague’s Facebook post linked to a newspaper column in the form of a letter from David Simon to the people of New Orleans. The letter somewhat smugly addressed “fact-grounded literalists” who Simon anticipates will complain about the historical inaccuracies and anachronisms bound to populate his fictionalization of post-Katrina New Orleans. Borrowing a line from Picasso, Simon says art is the lie that shows us the truth. As for Treme,

“It is not journalism. It is not documentary. It is a fictional representation set in a real time and place, replete with moments of inside humor, local celebrity and galloping, unrestrained meta. At moments, if we do our jobs correctly, it may feel real.”

Is feeling “real” the most we can hope for from a TV auteur with so much skill and creative control? For all the pleasures of Treme’s graceful, respectful representation of post-Katrina New Orleans, I couldn’t help itching for a bit more crazy. Say, just a little of the crazy deftly at work in Werner Herzog’s post-Katrina Bad Lieutenant. Or the crazy of the American West re-imagined and represented by Deadwood. Or the crazy of Tony Soprano watching a bear wander around his backyard pool. I’m not talking Lost-style, narrative enigma-crazy.

Just television that embraces the representational power of fiction, rather than feeling the need to justify or excuse it.

*Apologies to Lester Bangs, who is long-dead anyway.