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Television Breaking Bad

motherofearth said:
Sorry to jump in on this when the original issue is all but resolved, but I needed to address this. I assume you are referencing Not Frank's comments in the above. I'm pretty sure he wasn't implicating dislike for Skyler equated to problems w/ women; he was inferring purpkush had this problem. I didn't get that he was making a general correlation. Sorry to dig this up when it was already buried earlier today, but I think this resentment is inappropriately placed in this instance :\
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Fair enough. I spent some time on the IMDB boards a while back and there was a constant "everyone who hates Skyler is a misogynist" argument, which I found absurd. I likely misappropriated the comments by HisNameIsFrank into this category.




95Land said:
http://openseasonreviews.tumblr.com/post/56255159700/so-you-think-skyler-white-is-a-bitch

There's some interesting points made in the above post regarding the Skyler hate. I still feel somewhat ambivalent, but I found it interesting. In particular that the author was able to pretty aptly pick apart the "Walt's the protagonist, so everyone else sucks" line of thinking that I had begun to ascribe to.
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I don't necessarily agree with that assessment, even if Vince Gilligan himself would tend to agree. Any work of art on the level of Breaking Bad opens itself up to a much wider range of interpretation and moral relativity/ambivalence than the creators of the work themselves intend. I think Vince Gilligan himself is wrong in this case, and I would reply to him that anybody who thought that Skyler was some sort of typical, acceptable idea of a morally good, strong woman, is more misogynistic than anybody who hates her. I don't see how Skyler can be perceived in any context as a decent person.

Additionally, I think the writer of the blog post significantly underestimates the degrees to which Skyler's intentions have been bad, and Walt's intentions good. He references a lot of Season 5 behavior as his logic for Walter's intentions having always been bad, when we know that season 5 was something of a tipping point for Heisenberg's hostile takeover of all that was once good in Walt. Walt in season 5 is undoubtedly a terrible person (although I cannot help but empathize with him, personally, I still understand just how corrupted he is), and this is undisputed. But he uses that as a rationale for categorizing every morally ambiguous action committed by Walt from the first episode on as "selfish behavior done to feed Walt's ego." We know this is not the case, as he has at several times throughout the first 4 seasons acted out of the self interest of others, to his own detriment (his attempts to save Jesse in season 3, and early in season 4, pre-Crawl Space breakdown).

His attempts at ascribing Skyler's behavior as being entirely for the welfare of her children are ludicrous as well. Early in season 2, we had Skyler looking at a picture of Ted, indicating a degree of affection for him. When she acts on her impulse, there is no doubt that a part of her intention is indeed to push Walter away, but there are also strong indications that her intentions are also towards fulfilling her own self-interest in this regard. Her intentions were hardly pure.

But once again, the single greatest knock against her is that she has very few (or rather a total lack of) endearing qualities. She has no particular charm or sense of humor, she is certainly bright but lacks the awe-inspiring intelligence of Walt, she nags constantly, and when she gets upset about something, she behaves in a passive-aggressive and often irrational manner that complicates and makes worse the situation for herself more than it helps it (which is such a fucking TV trope for women, most women I know are capable of rational, well thought out, solutions-oriented behavior, but women like Skyler, Lori, and Margaret seem completely incapable of this, which is why I accuse the creator of the show of being misogynistic). Say what you want about evil old Walt, but when he tries to solve a problem, he looks for an actual solution before acting. All of these writers, who write their male characters to perfection, and avoid tropes in their writing, seem to be incapable of writing a female character who really thinks before they act. It's fucked up. The only way these characters are capable of getting what they want seems to be nagging and annoying their way into in, and when they don't get what they want, they behave passive-aggressively.

There's a post by PA a little while back that describes the flaws in Skyler's character perfectly, I will try in bring it up in my next post.
 
95Land said:
Breaking.Bad_.S05E04.720p.HDTV_.x264-EVOLVE.mkv_000859900.jpg


This doesn't count? :)
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LMAO...it is so funny you said that because when I was pondering what they said about she never went out of her way to do something nice that is honestly what popped up in my mind!

Also I apologize if this has been addressed and maybe I missed it but does anyone know how many episodes are left in this last part?
 
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^8 episodes. I believe the Finale is set to run for an hour and a half, as opposed to the usual hour.

Here we go. I think this post says a lot of what I think about Skyler and her character, better than I could have said it myself.


P A said:
True that. Does Gilligan have some sort of covert/un-confronted issue with the fairer sex? In all fairness, the men aren't that much better, but must every woman be a Quasi-Hysterical, Hyper-Emotional Shrew Just Barely Keeping it All Together? In addition to being securely nestled within my top ten "Done to Death" Good TV Drama Cliches, Gilligan's weird preoccupation with obstinate, busybody fussbudgets is a constant, detractive undercurrent in the show.

NSFW:
That said, I'm more or less at the same place that I was after the first episode re. Skylar - I'm just not certain. She's clearly a necessary character, one that provides a large bulk of the narrative tension with which the show has consistently pleased me. On the other hand, even at her most resourceful and malleable, Skylar's character is about as static as they come. Despite her recent roller-coaster of emotions and behavior, every meaningful alteration in her personality has been surface-level, as the last episode perfectly illustrated. I suppose this provides a certain meta-tension to the story, wherein Walt's radical transformation is continually challenged and (ironically) reinforced/cultivated by the obdurate, vaguely moralistic sensibilities of his shrewish wife. Another bizarre source of personal friction is the attempt to portray Skylar alternately as an Ordinary Housewife Whose Normal Life is Upended by [Someone/Something], Forcing Her to Change Not Only Her Behavior, but Also Her Worldview in a Very Big Way; the perennial (and offensive) Stubborn Shrew Who Wears the Pants; the Plucky, Assertive Woman with a Broadly Pragmatic Attitude; and the (also offensive) Hysterical Damsel in Distress. I find it somewhat outlandish that she should alternately be portrayed as all four, or some combination thereof, depending upon the individual season or episode. Clearly, this show hasn't been aiming for artistic realism since, like, Season 2, so what are they playing at with this bitch? Skylar's character simply isn't multidimensional in the usual sense - more like a mildly interesting, but nevertheless tedious agglomeration of offensive stereotypes and hackneyed TV cliches. As of Season 5, her misery appears to be the consequence of, proximately, her (ill-rewarded) shrewish preoccupations with the minutiae of her loved one's lives, her understandable shock at her husband's deviant metamorphosis, and the clash between the fundamental rigidity of her Pragmatic Fussbudget Housewife persona and the desperate reality of her circumstances. I guess I just wish that Gilligan had focused a little more on making her character genuinely likable and believable to serve as an effective dramatic counterpoint to Walt's gradual decompensation into a DSM-IV personality disorder with a chip on its shoulder.


Anyway, after trying to drum up a single redeeming paradigm case re. women in this show, I could only come with....Jesse's girls?

6aaaabiJasTf.jpg


Andrea.jpg
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95Land said:
http://openseasonreviews.tumblr.com/post/56255159700/so-you-think-skyler-white-is-a-bitch

There's some interesting points made in the above post regarding the Skyler hate. I still feel somewhat ambivalent, but I found it interesting. In particular that the author was able to pretty aptly pick apart the "Walt's the protagonist, so everyone else sucks" line of thinking that I had begun to ascribe to.
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I just read trhough that and i must say it is quite interesting.But i still hate not only because of her actions but the way she talks,her manners make me despise her. Also when he says alot of her ''haters'' where more lenient in the fifht season, i wasnt. I just hoped walt would snap at her. LOL. the comparison wioth her and lydia is interesting. But lets say on a scale of 1-10, lidia anoyed me with her bioligic loving and stressing manners maybe 4-5 max, whereas skyler as soon as she appears its already at 10. And at least Lidia makes up for it by being pretty hot. Id say she is the sexiest lady to be in that show. Jane is pretty close though. Also the person who wrote that really understood the whole walt character. I didnt even catch on when he said empire and all. I cant wait till the last 8 episodes come out!
Mr.Scagnattie said:
Yeah me too. They say Gilligan is talking to the men up stairs now to see if he can get it green lit.
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Shit i hope he gets it done. Saul is the funniest character in BB id say. Altough Jesse can be pretty funny thouigh '' YEAH, Magnits, BItttch'' hahahahaha
 
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And this from Vince himself on Walt:

For the record, Vince Gilligan doesn’t seem to think there’s anything good in store for the man who would be Heisenberg — and he’s also confounded by anyone who’s somehow still rooting for the show’s one-time hero.

“What I was worried about in the early days was that people would not engage with [Walt], that we wouldn’t be able to set the hook, as it were, because he wouldn’t be likable enough,” Gilligan explained, noting that it’s tough to care about someone who cooks crystal meth. He cast Cranston partially because he knew audiences would sympathize with him: “He had this basic underlying humanity that just comes through. It kind of beams out of his eyes,” Gilligan explained. The show’s creator also stacked the deck against Walt — saddling him with major economic hardships, a pregnant wife, and a disabled son — in order to make him a more sympathetic figure.

Having laid this groundwork, Gilligan hoped that people would keep watching as Walt got darker — even though they clearly wouldn’t like him as much. But much to his surprise, “people are still rooting for this guy — and I’m like, ‘Really? Seriously?’”

“I mean, I want you to be interested in him,” continued Gilligan. “But I would not have guessed the character…I would have guessed at this point he would lack sympathizability. But [that's] not so for a great number of viewers.”
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I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
 
I really hate the "Say my name" scene that keeps being brought up in commercials and news clips.

Part of me wants Walt to get an axe to the head during one of his grandiose demonstrations. It's all puffery, and it bothers me that the characters in the show aren't aware of that.

Try becoming a dealer some time, and see how far you get acting like that in your interactions. The second you turn around somebody'll take the bastard axe to you.

You have to either be really invisible or surround yourself with loyal, heavily armed goons.
 
23536 said:
I really hate the "Say my name" scene that keeps being brought up in commercials and news clips.

Part of me wants Walt to get an axe to the head during one of his grandiose demonstrations. It's all puffery, and it bothers me that the characters in the show aren't aware of that.

Try becoming a dealer some time, and see how far you get acting like that in your interactions. The second you turn around somebody'll take the bastard axe to you.

You have to either be really invisible or surround yourself with loyal, heavily armed goons.
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This is my favorite show of all time, so I don't want anybody taking this the wrong way.



But since when has Breaking Bad ever been based on reality?
 
I guess it's on right now in the US, as i see some people talking about it on twitter.....

Cool, I'll be able to download it later today (it's monday at 11 am here right now) :)
 
fuuuuuuuck I didn't know the new season started today. Luckily, I just missed 5 mins and got it on a repeat. So much for going to bed early but it's worth it!
 
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