Twitter

Where to Stream:

Show Me a Hero

When one thinks of America’s civil rights movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. and his incredible “I have a dream” speech is probably one of the first things to come to mind. The subject also calls to mind the historical figures Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and Jackie Robinson, while at the same time, the outcry for justice in Ferguson, Charleston, and Baltimore are still top-of-mind. But what about the case of the Yonkers housing desegregation? Oh wait, you’ve never heard of the civil rights crisis that happened right outside of New York City back in the 1980s? Don’t worry, because sadly, we hadn’t either. That is until The Wire creator David Simon and Paul Haggis, director of Crash, helped reignite the conversation with their new HBO miniseries, Show Me a Hero, based on the non-fiction account by former New York Times journalist Lisa Belkin.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8VpChKfkd8]

Beginning this Sunday at 8 PM on HBO, Show Me a Hero stars Oscar Isaac as Yonkers mayor Nick Wasicsko, who stood at the forefront of the unraveling of the city following a court-ordered ruling of mandated low-income housing on the east side of the Saw Mill Parkway — in short, government housing was being pushed into historically white neighborhoods. Needless to say, white, middle-class citizens were less than thrilled, and their anger resulted in violent opposition. Wasicsko, who originally voted to appeal the court ruling (a vote which won him the mayorship against his six-term predecessor Angelo Martinelli, played by Jim Belushi), ended up leaning far left and voting with the court “because the law is the law and leaders have to lead.”

Wasicsko was labeled a sell-out and a fraud for back-pedaling on his original plan for keeping low-income and affordable housing out of white neighborhoods — not to mention that, at just 28 years old, he still had plenty to prove as the country’s youngest mayor in history. Despite New York City being “the melting pot” of America, the black movement for equal housing and better education came head-to-head with the white resistance to change, fueled by fear and a staunch not-in-my-back-yard mindset. Golden Globe-nominee Isaac shines as Wasiscko, a kid who’s been given the rusty keys to a broken city and is simply trying to do the very best he can.

During last night’s premiere at The Times Center in Midtown, showrunner David Simon — whose HBO resume also includes The Corner, Treme, and Generation Kill — explained to Decider why, despite its relevance to our current racial struggles, Show Me a Hero could have been made at any point, or at least when he and co-creator William Zolzi bought the rights to Belkin’s book over a decade ago:

We got a green light a year ago before Ferguson and so now that race has been put back on the front burner — it was always there — and my feeling is that this dynamic, racially, is not changing. Right now in Tarrytown, which is a town just north of Yonkers, they’re fighting the same dynamic, same rhetoric, same demagoguery. We optioned the book fourteen years ago, and we knew that, whenever we got to this material, sadly America was not going to figure out the idea of how to share geography, how to share society, how to share economically. This whole notion that we can have separate Americas — one for the underclass, one for the rest of us — and if that’s not going to build something chaotic and brutish and ugly, I don’t get it. This is an argument that had to happen then in Yonkers and it’s still happening now. Sadly, regardless of Ferguson and Charleston and Baltimore, it’s going to keep happening. This is a long-term fight.

Oscar-winning filmmaker Paul Haggis, who directed the six-part series, also weighed in on the what he hopes audiences will take away from the show and Wasicsko’s tragedy:

I think we have to keep questions. We have to keep asking deep questions because every time we think that we solve this thing, and feel good about it, pat ourselves on the back, and walk away from the problem, we look around and go, ‘Oh shit, it’s happening again,’ because we don’t solve it. We just do enough to make ourselves feel good. Also, I hope that it brings up the question of, can we have common sense in politics? Because right now, all we do is govern by fear. On all ends of politics, we love to make ourselves afraid of the others rather than saying, ‘Hold on! This sounds like a reasonable idea, let’s look at that.’

Considering how quickly Best Picture-donning Crash outdated itself in terms of race relations, Haggis may seem like an odd choice to collaborate with Simon, whose televised analyses of sociopolitical struggles are studied in Ivy League classrooms. In an interview with HitFix’s Alan Sepinwall, Haggis (who’s a devout Wire fanatic) mentioned that the project challenged him: “If I’m not scared, I’m not happy,” he stated. “This is an important story. It happened right there. It happened 30 minutes from here and a few years ago. And it’s happening right now. And if we don’t tell the story, who will?”

In addition to Oscar Isaac and up-and-comer Carla Quevedo, who portrays Wasicsko’s wife Nay, the series stars the aforementioned Belushi, who hopes “the audience will take away something very soulful and deep.” Bob Balaban stars as Judge Sands, who brought down the gavel on mandatory public housing. The Wire‘s Melanie Nicholls-King (whom you might remember better as Kima’s partner, Cheryl) told Decider that working on the show was “like coming home. I was thrilled to be able to get back and work with Mr. Simon.” Additional cast members include Alfred Molina as Henry J. Spallone, an anti-desegregation councilman who fights Wasicsko tooth and nail, along with Catherine Keener as Mary Bowman, a politically charged Yonkers citizen whose begins to question her inherent racism as she gets to know the young mayor and his controversial reasoning for compliance with federal mandates.

This Sunday, you can watch the first two parts of the miniseries on HBO and its corresponding streaming platforms, HBO Go and HBO Now, beginning at 8 PM. The rest of the series will be aired two episodes at a time every Sunday through August 30. In the meantime, you can stream all of David Simon’s previous endeavors, including The Wire, Treme, and Generation Kill, on HBO Go and HBO Now.

Like what you see? Follow Decider on Facebook and Twitter to join the conversation, and sign up for our email newsletters to be the first to know about streaming movies and TV news!

Photos: HBO