Reception
For his portrayal of Omar, Michael K. Williams was named by USA Today as one of ten reasons they still love television. The character was praised for his uniqueness in the stale landscape of TV crime dramas and for the wit and humor that Williams brought to the portrayal. Other commentators applauded the many dimensions of the character with his appearances in various story lines as "...a sawed-off shotgun toting terror, a vulnerable jailbird whose life lies in the balance, and a double crossing mastermind who outsmarts Baltimore’s biggest drug dealers time and time again." Omar was named as one of the first season's richest characters, not unlike the Robin Hood of Baltimore's west side projects, although his contradictory nature was questioned as a little too strange. The Baltimore City Paper named the character one of their top ten reasons not to cancel the show and called him "arguably the show’s single greatest achievement."
Williams has stated that he feels that the character is well liked because of his honesty, lack of materialism, individuality and his adherence to his strict code. In January 2008 then-presidential candidate Barack Obama told the Las Vegas Sun that Omar was his favorite character on The Wire (which, in turn, is his favorite television show), adding, “That’s not an endorsement. He’s not my favorite person, but he’s a fascinating character.”
Read more about this topic: Omar Little
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“Aesthetic emotion puts man in a state favorable to the reception of erotic emotion.... Art is the accomplice of love. Take love away and there is no longer art.”
—Rémy De Gourmont (1858–1915)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)