1. What I Learned from BreakingBad By Stephanie Heisenberg Giluk

2. First, some contextBreaking Bad is a TV show created byVince Gilligan about Walter White, amiddle class white American man with awife, a son, and a baby on the way wholearns he has cancer that is already inthe advanced stagesHes super smart, but he teaches highschool chemistrySo naturally he decides to pay forcancer treatment and make sure theresenough money saved to support hisfamily after hes gone by cooking methand then selling it This was me watchingGo watch it on Netflix right nowBreaking Bad 3. Anti-heroes are the way to goNeither of the shows maincharacters, Jesse (on the right) or Walt (onthe left) are very likeable or moralThey can both be cowardly, violent, andmanipulative The dynamic between the two of them, however (Walt is the cook, Jesse is the dealer), is compelling and they have an odd man kind of partnership Plus its funny to watch them try to be big time criminals because they suck at it early in the series 4. The American dream is a lie (surprise) Walt could have made it big with his chemistry buddies from school but instead they got rich without him and Walt resents their wealth and success compared to his His job as a teacher, his wife, his nice house, arent enoughhes not happy He makes meth for a noble (?) cause at first, but then learns that he loves the thrill and danger of it not to mention the insane amount of money he makes This is Walt quitting his after- school job 5. Science is way cooler than anyone could have guessedWalt defeats otherrival drug dealerswith science! Well,explosions caused byscience Walt cooks the best meth ever because of his expertise in chemistry Big time dealers pay big bucks for Walts blue meth Learn to be a chemist so you too can make meth 6. The voice of reason is lameIn a show all about the anti-heroes and thehorrible/entertaining thingsthey do, its hard to likeanyone reasonableCase in point, Waltswife, SkylerFans almost universally hateSkyler, even though shesdone nothing wronghowwould you feel if your dyinghusband started cookingHey everyone this is my first meth behind your back?meme! I made it myself! 7. Morality isnt as simple asgood or badTheres a whole lotof grey areabetween good andbad and Walter livesin that grey areaWhat makes you agood man? A goodfather? A goodmother? A goodwife?I felt like this gif really said moral complexityMoral complexity isthe way to go 8. Time for some serious analysisThis article had some interesting things to say about the whole American dream aspectof Breaking Bad. Through flashbacks, we see Walt looking forward to life he wants to buildwith Skyler, but this dream (kids, good job, nice house) he and many other American mentry to live out crashes down around his ears. Walt is faced with the very real possibilitythat he and his family might fall into poverty, and he desperately turns to cooking an illegalsubstance to make sure this doesnt happen. While he is initially a sloppy, dangerousnoviceWalt enters the upcoming season having found his way to the top of a criminalempire (Rivlin-Nadler). This story arc is so appealing to so many fans because it embodiessome of middle class Americas secret desires. If so many people find the so-calledAmerican dream unattainable or unfulfilling, Walt is a way for viewers to vicariouslyescape into Walts life, where he has gained power over his life after being powerless inthe face of poverty and even death.In Ashbys chapter titled Counterpoints to Consensus, he discusses how popularculture [in the 1940s-1950s] provided outlets for feelings of uncertainty, doubt anddiminished personal power and I think pop culture, and more specifically, Breaking Bad,can still be outlets for those kinds of feeling among consumers of the show (303). TheAmerican dream has let a lot of people down by generally being a big fat lie, and shows likeBreaking Bad can help people see how fictional middle class people deal with this giant let-down. Walt has asked himself If playing by the rules can only get you so far, whybother? and this is the heart of the show (Rivlin-Nadler). Walt has chosen to break awayfrom the status quo and in doing so has become an increasing amoral criminalso is Waltreally any really better off having broken away from the myth of the American dream? Idont know! 9. Serious analysis continued (American dream)I came across a very interesting article about Breaking Bads handling of the Americandream dealing with a Walt Whitman reference made during the third season of the show.For those that dont know, Whitman was an American poet, most famous for Song ofMyself, which has been read as the intense celebration of the individual and the self butthe self as connected to every living being in the cosmos (its pretty awesome). Walterpicks up a book of Whitmans poems and is seen reading them in different episodes, andthis is obviously not an accident on the part of the writers.As Matt Orenstein points out in his article, Whitmans pithy humanism stands in starkcontrast to Walter Whites gradual indulgence of his own will-to-power and hisinsouciance towards the lives of others, but at the same time, [w]atching Breaking Badin light of Whitman is to meditate on the American Dream through a glass, darkly.Walters American Dream exists outside of the American legal system, which isntcomplicit with the proper American Dreamit should be achieved legally and honestly(Orenstein). Walters rugged individualism isnt enough to qualify him as a good oldAmerican boy, like Whitman, because in the end, they are too different (Orenstein).Ultimately, Whitmans Americawas one of altruism: his poems professed a love ofeveryone, but Walter, lives for and believes only in himself (Orenstein). Having Walterread the poems of someone who wrote about his connection to and love for his fellowhumans all while being an intensely rugged individual is a clear way of pointing outWalters contrasting dehumanization and his grasping for some semblance of theAmerican Dream in an illegal, immoral way. 10. More analysis: Skyler and genderLike I mentioned in a previous slide, almost everyone hates Skyler Whitescharacter and most people reason that because Walt is set up as our (anti)hero, Skyler is his natural foil. Shes set up from the first episode to be seen asthe nagging wife who undervalues her quiet, intelligent, troubled husband, butas the show progresses and Walt become more and more frightening, Skyler isstill seen as this unreasonable, hateful woman, even though she must deal withthe fact that her husband is placing their family in very real danger and ispossibly becoming a sociopathic murderer.In her article, Alyssa Rosenberg explores Skylers character from a feministperspective. Rosenberg describes Skyler as one of many TV wivesfans turnon rather than visiting moral judgment on the anti-hero men themselves.Skylers relationship with her husband grows more and more complex andmore dangerous with each seasonWalt becomes abusive and Skyler seesWalt as were [viewers] meant to see him: a self-deluding, pathetic man, but adangerous one (Rosenberg). Her character has been criticized for not leavingWalt, not realizing how difficult it might for Skyler to leave, with a teenage sonand infant child, a man who has been known to kill when threatened. ThoughRosenberg does point out that perhaps Skyler has a moral clarity that thoseof us who want to identify with Walt as a badass would like to deny, she alsosays that its hard enough for women who arent married to evil geniuses toleave abusive relationships and that Skyler shouldnt be villainized for tryingto work out a solution to the complex problem that is her life. 11. Works CitedAshby, LeRoy. Counterpoints to Consensus. WithAmusement for All: A History of American Popular CultureSince 1830. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky,2006. 302-347. Print.Orenstein, Matt. I See You Face to Face: Walt Whitman andWalter White. Full Stop. Full Stop, 19 September 2012. Web.14 March 2013.Rivlin-Nadler, Max. Breaking Bads Failed AmericanDream. The Nation. The Nation, 11 July 2012. Web. 14 March2013.Rosenberg, Alyssa. Stop Hating the Wives: In Praise ofBreaking Bads Skyler White. Slate. The Slate Group, 16 July2012. Web. 14 March 2013.