context; personal nonsense
The first time I tried watching Breaking Bad was when the series had ended but was relatively fresh. At that time I guess my comprehension was not good. Because I stopped at the episode when there is a single fly in the lab. My interpretation at that time was that the episode was a comedy filler but upon rewatching that arc I couldn’t be further off the mark. So it’s fair to say I did not understand what was going on.
series spoilers
I don’t really know what to say. The whole point of this season seems to be watching W.W. be a monumental piece of shit. In the previous seasons you had at least a modicum of a reason to root for him because apart from his origin story he was in a tussle against powers greater than himself. Now he is just being a garbage human being for no reason.
I think it is just a logical culmination of how badly W.W. is characterised in the series. He goes from someone who is “cut off” from a multi-billion dollar endeavour for $5000 bucks of rent money to someone who wants to be the king of meth slingers at any cost. The transition is not subtle because it turns out he was a sleeper hardcore badass all along and he just needed the consciousness of mortality that a cancer diagnosis brings about to be doing his thing.
So far I have been viewing the series as somewhat of a fantasy setting which has made the whole thing acceptable premise-wise and very enjoyable. But towards the end as they are wrapping it up I don’t feel compelled to see it through for a reason other than the sunk cost.
I feel like Jesse has been much more sympathise-able throughout. It is not a surprise he did not “apply himself” with a teacher like W.W.
Breaking bad is inherently conservative media, in the same way the wire is. Its a conservatives vision of the drug war and what would happen if the middle class white suburban dad decided to become a meth kingpin based soley on what the news has told him about what drug kingpins are like.
Racism doesnt even enter the conversation, which is kinda insane considering its 5 seasons focused on the police and a drug kingpin no? The drug war was made as a class and race war, yet the entire 2 show universe focuses on suburban white guys who have everything they could ever want before they decided to do adventurism into the underclass.
Excellently put. I just wanted to hijack the post to highlight how easily this is seen by looking at the ‘junkie’ characters.
All of the ‘good’ drug using characters are from well-off homes where the character in question ‘fell off’ the path and took drugs on their own accord. See: Jesse living in a literal mansion because his family is so well off that he was expected to inherit it.
All of the ‘bad’ drug using characters? They’re literally useless junkies, incapable of higher thought and consistent only in their deranged behaviors. See: the meth family with the ATM episode.
It paints a picture that was already sort of clear from the premise: this is a story written from a fairly privileged perspective not influenced by the reality it’s referencing.
I wouldn’t say The Wire is conservative. It does a very decent job of showing how racism, poverty and an absolute neglect by the government creates a black hole of crime that sucks everything in and from which there’s no escape. It also does a very good job of showing how cops are mostly pieces of shit either by upbringing or by the system grinding them down.
I would argue it is, its based on the memoirs of a guy who shadowed the police for a year and it tends to view the police as ‘good guys and bad guys’ rather than structurally bad.
The way it potrays gangsters as well, while the reality of the gang soldier is accurately potrayed the gang leaders enter mythical figure territory pretty quickly lol.
Thats not to mention the subtle anti-union messaging of season 2; the show is certainly critical of the police, but its solutions dont consider legislation (look at the hamsterdam episode, its making fun of liberals).
I can understand the reasoning why it seems conservative, but there’s a clear intent that each season is critical of one facet of society that eventually ends up leading to oppression, poverty and misery. The 1st season is about the failure of the justice system and the police as an institution. The 2nd season is about the failure of the education system under capitalism. The 3rd season is about the failure of politics even at a local level. The 4th season is about the failure of journalism to inform people on why the other failures exist.
Overall it shows how indifference and corruption leads to a total failure of society. Also, it shows how individuals trying to lash out and forge their own solutions is ultimately going to fail, because nobody addresses the core issues.
On the Hamsterdam episode, I’d say it makes fun of conservatives actually. The captain wasn’t trying to solve crime in Hamsterdam. He was trying to “exile” all crime in a particular area, so the rest of the city can be alleviated of crime. This is the conservative dream. Get all criminals in the wilderness and let them kill each other. And his motive was partly to say fuck you to his bosses who cared about crime numbers. And eventually it all failed because it didn’t address the actual issue that causes crime to be the only option left to the, largely coloured, poor population.
I don’t think any of the cops are viewed as heroes by the show. Even the main character’s starting motivation is self-interest and career advancement.
I think the creator is a “progressive” liberal, so his views are flawed ofcourse. But I still find it hard to consider the show as conservative.
I would say McNulty and his motely crew of gestapo officers are potrayed sympathetically, the show keeps banging on about ‘real police work’ and suggests some work (mainly that of terrorizing the underclass) is considered ‘good police work’
Partially, its also about how unions are full of fuckin failures and undermine their own workplaces through greed yadayada fuck the dock workers for asking for more money; the anti-union messaging in 2 is strong.
https://youtu.be/1BgwYXGdHE0
My ideas are also considering the authors later works, he made ‘we own this city’, which again focuses on Baltimore police and attempts hyper-realism - the issue is that again while hes able to potray these things realistically, the solutions they come to and try to push are for reforming the bad guys out of the police rather than addressing the root issues.
Most of your analysis makes sense to me. But this part:
I don’t quite follow on. Looking at the two main characters:
spoiler
Jesse is a drug addict from the start, no? (Using his own supply?) And not exactly doing well for himself. Sure, he’s white and his parents are doing well enough, which makes him better off than the most exploited in society, but he’s not exactly a Bruce Wayne becoming a vigilante (which would seem like a more apt place to use phrasing like “everything they could ever want before they decided to do adventurism into the underclass”).
Walter this maybe more closely applies to, given his flirting with big business success in the past, but he’s actually kind of miserable because of not getting the part in it that he wanted, getting stuck working as a high school teacher in spite of how well he knows chemistry. And then he’s dealing with a cancer diagnosis and medical bills. The first part is more his own ego as the problem than anything else, but the second is a very real existential threat on multiple levels. His response to it is bonkers, but I’d hardly call it adventurism. It’s fueled by a combination of desperation and ego, and I’d argue starts out primarily as desperation with it becoming ego more so later.
Oh I meant more Saul and Walter respectively, should have clarified.
Jesse is like the vessell that the bored middle class guy gets to live his fantasy through, the stoner underachiever underclass that is Jesse; we find Jesse as a drug dealer on the run from the DEA and estranged from his parents.
Ah gotcha.
I am not saying this to dispute your point because I agree. But it did make me think of something. There is a very explicit point in the series where Hank making racist jokes ends. Up until that point he cracks racist jokes at Steve Gomez but at one point that just stops happening. Hank also has an arc in Texas where he takes a stab at a racist joke but his colleagues don’t like it. It was right before the tortuga episode.