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University of Innsbruck



When life gives you lemons, make meth
An analysis of the transformation of Walter White in relation
to the commitment of the audience


610016 SE/2 American Literature and Culture:
New Television Series in the United States
WS 2015/2016


Univ.-Prof. Mag. Dr. Mario


C 344

February 18, 2016


In the infamous contemporary television series Breaking Bad, there are many brilliant actors who play even more brilliant roles. The main protagonist of the show is Walter White portrayed by Bryan Cranston, who at the beginning of the show is a miserable man, who works as a teacher and at a car wash and who is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. From the start on, the audience is on Walter’s side and sympathizes with this paltry character without acknowledging that throughout the series the creator of the show, Vince Gilligan, and his co-workers turn the simple, modest man into a dark and complex character and we as the viewers accompany the mastermind on his journey into darkness.

Gilligan’s vision was to turn his protagonist from “Mr. Chips to Scarface”, and by looking at the central figure more closely, we can witness the transformation of a hero into an antihero. It is not only a show that presents a simple man on his way to becoming a notorious drug lord, but it invites the viewer to question what makes a man bad, whether it is through his actions, his behavior, the reasons for them or the deliberate decision to become a criminal (cf.

Douthat 2011). More than that, we brood over the morality/immorality of the main character, which is one aspect that bonds us to the screen while watching Breaking Bad.

Therefore, the aim of this paper is for one, to analyze the main character’s transformation from a hero to an antihero and for another, to find out why we as the viewers sympathize with the main protagonist of the series, even if he “breaks bad”. I will try to find an answer to these questions through the series and through secondary literature.

In this day and age it is often argued that fictional television is now better than movies coming on the big screens of the cinema. It is hard to find better movies that deal with the zombie apocalypse than AMC’s The Walking Dead or a fantasy movie that was as good as an average episode of Games of Thrones. Many shows are now so enthralling that the classical Hollywood movies can only hardly keep up with them.

This could also be linked to the downfall of classical Hollywood movie productions and the rise of new, more flexible and innovative Hollywood film productions. Movies are and have ever been a singular event, whereas television shows contain a great number of intertextual references, which makes the viewing of these series compulsive and essential. For instance, each single event on Breaking Bad is linked with hours of preliminary events and background story which lead to the actual story.

The characters enrich the plot with significance in their performance and rebounds.
In the past twenty years television has undergone a cognoscible alteration. The rise of the sitcoms in the 1970’s brought along a crucial influence for later television shows. Another important moment was the launch of new television series such as Twin Peaks by David Lynch, a show that promised to “change” TV and to introduce the age of postmodern television.

David Lynch’s show could be said to have transformed television by creating a global boom of the odd and isolated collectives that is still present in today’s television. This show was also an innovation for the producers, since they had to recognize that the viewers play a crucial role in the making of a series. Not only could the fans be part of an allegiant audience that could help to perpetuate the show, but they could also enhance the production’s takings with merchandising (cf.

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Jancovich and Lyons 2). Television series have become part of a “must see” television rather than just a habitual TV. Viewers of this dedicated audience have started to organize their schedules around the shows and therefore these series are often referred to as “appointment” or “date” television (cf. Jancovich and Lyons 5). In this sense, these shows are in some way related to the blockbuster “event” movies of Hollywood.

However, the audience is not the same everywhere and some series go down surprisingly well in some countries, whereas in other countries they are not well received at all. An example for this would be Dexter which ran extremely high-flying in the U.S. but only partly successfully in Germany despite the unusual extensive advertising campaign. This could be because only few people put a high-quality series past the German television channel RTL 2 or maybe the German audience was not ready for a show where the protagonist is a representative of law and order who transforms into a brutal assassin (cf.

Eschke and Bohne 17).

Similar to a good movie, the element which binds the viewer to the screen is what affects someone emotionally. This is expressed by the topic of the series and accordingly of the movie. Therefore the writers, the dramatic advisors, the editors, the directors and the producers who work on a series professionally should always keep in mind what the topic of their series is.

An accurately nameable subject and the precise and conscious exposure to the dramatic consequences are what turn a serial narration felicitous and exactly thereby successful. That is exactly what the show creator of Breaking Bad Vince Gilligan did with his masterpiece. The theme in the show is quite clear from the very beginning: faced with terminal lung cancer, a young teenage son with cystic fibrosis and a pregnancy against expectation, Walter White starts cooking crystal meth to fend for his family.

The dramatic topic of the series is bound to the requirement of the protagonist, which is an emotional deficiency to which the audience can tie in with immediately. This deficiency is the emotional motor of the story. The viewer follows the protagonist, who tries to satisfy his needs. In Breaking Bad Walt wants to provide for his family at all costs, and as the plot develops, he finds out that with his knowledge and perfectionism he could earn more and more.

Even when he reaches the point when he is so rich that he would never have to work again, he decides to continue. He is never satisfied with himself. To each dramatic topic, there is a precisely expressible contrast which leads to the conflict within the character. The figure that refuses the fulfillment of his/her needs and who is obsessed with an aim, is forced to overcome obstructions.

In the case of Breaking Bad Walter White has to decide whether to give up on being a perfect father or not, whether he should act excessively altruistic or just act in favor of his own needs (extreme). The decision in favor or against the courses of action has to be made over and over again.

This constant decision making leads to a drastic evolution of the protagonist. The alter-ego of the family man is Heisenberg, a memorial to the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Werner Heisenberg who came upon the uncertainty principle (cf. Kahloon 2013). The protagonist of the series lives in a world full of uncertainties of metaphysical types. Walter White’s transformation is visible in his ethical development: from a principled perspective that is more or less sensible to a totally unethical selfishness.

At some point of the series the main character of the show really thinks about poisoning an eight-year old child in order to regain the staunchness of his meth cooking partner and former student Jesse Pinkman (played by Aaron Paul). Even if the series could be referred to as a modern morality play and it forces the viewer to decide whether the actions are ethically sustainable or not, Breaking Bad has never given any evidence for Walt’s religious placement.

However, he will be rendered to account for his misdoings, albeit not from a Christian God or any other godhead at all. They payoff won’t come through the DEA either, but rather from the merciless bestiality of the world. Let’s look at another example from the show where unethical behavior is accepted by the viewer. In episode 03 from the first season " .And the Bag's in the River" Walter has to make a crucial decision whether to let go Krazy-8 or kill the drug dealer.

Walter is again in a miserable condition and the viewer tends to commiserate him. The audience accompanies him while he cleans up what is left of the dead body on the floor, after Jesse ignored Walt’s warnings and instructions. Walter is not really able to cope with this difficult situation, and what is worse, he cannot ask anyone for advice. On the other hand, he tells the audience that he is still a caring man by taking care of Krazy-8, who is his opponent by making him sandwiches and by cleaning up the rubbish.

It is all about killing or being killed and therefore the murder is acceptable.

Vince Gilligan’s idea was to transform a diligent father of a family into a monster. As the series progressed, the creator and producer of the show would remove the protagonist’s vindications for his misbehavior one by one, starting with the cancer diagnosis, which quickly went into decree (cf. Martin 267). Gilligan also gave Walter an opponent for whom the audience actually empathizes for - Walt’s own brother-in-law Hank Schrader, played by Dean Norris.

Hank is not only a DEA agent, but even the section chief of the Albuquerque DEA department. Hank is an honest man who cares for his and Walt’s families and he maintains a fierce refinement despite of killing criminals and being shot by cartel gunmen. His persistent prosecution of the mysterious meth lord Heisenberg leads him several times to his brother-in-law Walter White, but he never has any evidence.

What combine these two characters are the tenacity for the duty they have and the love for their families. Hank’s decides to neglect his suspicions in order to avoid ruining Walt’s family. One could argue that Walt’s brother-in-law sympathizes more for Walt’s family than Walt himself by adopting his children for some time while his marriage with Skyler (played by Anna Gunn) is decomposing.

The relation between these two characters is a constant run for masculinity, which carries on over the whole five seasons of the show. But the audience is still on Walter White’s side and wants him to win.

Moreover, the presence of Hank allows the creators to mock the legal system and in particular the drug implementations of the United States. Walter White is no more than a businessman fulfilling a need, a businessman who would do nothing criminal if the society were not that conservative and intolerant, at least that is what the main protagonist says at some point in the show.

Even if he commits a lot of crimes, he is never persecuted because he belongs to the elite which always escapes with a relative immunity from punishment. This is because notorious businessmen have an excessive influence on the executive. Another mockery of the American legal system is presented by the appearance of the lawyer Saul Goodman, played by Bob Odenkirk.

He is a stereotypically smeary lawyer who stands at Walter White’s side and assists his business. His office is bubbled over with falsified articles of furniture and constitutions, which mirrors the deep-rooted distrust in the lawyers who sell their moral standards to the best paying competitors.

Walter White’s journey into darkness is accompanied by his soul mate Skyler, who must withstand alienation and squeamish resilience of the family business. As the story develops, she evolves from a one-dimensional sister-wife as a secondary character to a more emancipated combatant who is trying to regain some self-respect. In the course of the series she transforms from a baffled homemaker into the administrator of her husband’s illegitimate revenues.

She is not willing to be a good wife and caring mother given that her husband makes no effort to do so either. At some point in the series she is so angry about the current situation that she even tells her husband that she is waiting for the cancer to strike again. The disease which affects Walt and his family in their everyday lives is an important issue of the series, since cancer represents evil.

The illness takes possession of the protagonist’s body and soul and leads to the downfall of morality. The disease is, as I already mentioned before, some kind of a justification for Walt’s misbehavior at the beginning of the show. A poor, hard-working and nonetheless ingenious man who is condemned to die just had the wish to care for his family and children to manage to pay the bills and enable his son to have a higher education.

But as does the main protagonist of the series, also his disease evolves. His greed is stronger than the wish to become healthy again, therefore, the cancer returns after a while and has become even worse and punishes Walt’s infractions. Nonetheless, we as the audience, end up condoling for a criminal. It is precisely this that the creator of the show Vince Gilligan wanted to achieve.

The show depicts that there is no person of total integrity.

We start to question the protagonist’s behavior when we look at another murder, even though it is of second degree. In season 2 the audience struggles to find excuses for his actions when Walter lets Jane (portrayed by Krysten Ritter), Jesse’s girlfriend, die. He steps into the bedroom, where the two lovers are lying in their beds drugged up to the eyeballs with heroine.

Moments later, the girl passes out and starts choking on her own vomit until she eventually becomes motionless and dies. During the whole action, Walt stands next to her and does nothing to prevent her death. At this point, it becomes clear that we should question Walt’s moral and what is more, his motive. In the episode before, the main protagonist had a vivid argument with his partner Jesse Pinkman about the payment.

Jane interferes in the action by blackmailing her boyfriend’s partner in crime. This could be one of the reasons why Walter lets her die, since she is not only e threat to his business but what is more crucial to his money and his dark secret. Moreover, she tried to incite Jesse against him, which was partly successful. In the action where Jane is about to asphyxiate, Walt first turns a blind eye to her, then he expresses his emotions by crying.

However, whatever the main protagonist does, no matter how gruesome his actions are, he always has the back up of the audience. Vince Gilligan created a figure that evolves “from Mr. Chips to Scarface”, as he once personally said in an interview with “The Guardian”. The transformation from a protagonist to an antagonist happens while we watch the series. Nonetheless, it is still up to the viewer to define Walter White as an antihero or not.

He for sure is a very complex character with moral issues, and his actions go hand in hand with those of a clearly sinful crook and also with those of a classical movie hero. Throughout the show, it is difficult for the audience to judge this complex character’s moral. This merely depends on the viewer’s point of view about morality and immorality. We are led to feel uncertain about Walter’s behavior during the whole five seasons of the series.

Gilligan once stated that: “[…] even though this is a time in television of darker anti-heroes, to me, Breaking Bad is very much an experiment” (Romano 115). The character of Walter White could be seen as an experiment too, since he is on the one hand a very damaged but on the other hand a wonderfully diverse figure.

Walter uses his family as an excuse for his criminal actions, he even tells that to his enemies, as he does in episode 3 to Krazy-8. Even when he talks to Skyler he always makes sure to point out the importance of the family and that all that he has done was for them. In the already mentioned third episode of the first season called " .And the Bag's in the River", Walter jots down pros and cons to kill his enemy who he and Jesse hold prisoner in the cellar.

He finds a lot of reasons not to murder Krazy-8, but the only reason he can think of to kill him is that he will kill his entire family if he let him go. Again, this is enough of a justification for the audience to see a man die. Another victim who has to die because he threatened Walt’s family is Gus Fring. The shabbiness of the main character in the first episodes of the series soon disappears, and turns him into an antihero as a part of his transformation.

The morals presented in the show are betrayed not only by Walter but also by the other characters in order to protect the loved ones. As the show progresses, also this changes and Walter does not use the family as a justification for his misbehavior anymore, but he consciously commits crimes for his own sake. He has become a thoroughly villain, because he has more than one chance to quit the drug business, refusing the offer all along.

At the end of the series, in the last episode he finally admits that he did what he did for himself and not for the family anymore: "I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. And, I was really . I was alive." (Breaking Bad Season 5, Episode 16 - “Felina” 00:33:31-­‐00:34:02). In Breaking Bad the viewer can decide for whom he/she wants to cheer for: the caring family father who wants to provide for his family, Walter White, or the ruthless drug lord Heisenberg.

One character made out of two totally different identities, which seem to mix up as the series develops. An example for this mixture of identities is the sixth episode of the fourth season when Walter says:

"Who are you talking to right now? Who is it you think you see? Do you know how much I make a year? I mean, even if I told you, you wouldn't believe it. Do you know what would happen if I suddenly decide to stop going into work […] it ceases to exist without me. No . I am not in danger, Skyler. I am the danger […] I am the one who knocks"(Breaking Bad Season 4, Episode 6 - “Cornered” 00:09:00-­‐00:09:42).

Walter can die in peace, knowing that with his death, he brings his fames as a drug lord and all of his empire with him.

There is more than just one reason why Walter White broke bad and evolved into Heisenberg. One of the most reasonable causes is that for the first time in the main character’s life, he does something at which he is good at and for which he can be proud of.

"He certainly could lie to his family, and he can lie to himself, and he can make these lies stick. He can make himself believe, in the face of all contrary evidence, that he is still a good man. It really does feel to us like a natural progression down this road to hell, which was originally paved with good intentions." - Vince Gilligan (Brown 2013)

The protagonist Vince Gilligan created could be compared to a cowboy in modern Wild West. Gilligan himself called his show “a contemporary Western”. The interpretation and especially the reputation of the genre Western has changed a lot over the past decades. Tales of the lone gunmen in the desert riding on horses and stepping through swinging saloon doors have decreased a lot in numbers and popularity.

It would also be comparable to the Western sub-genre Spaghetti Western that has lower budgets, gruesome standoffs, iconic soundtracks and darker plots. Breaking Bad contains plenty of standoffs; however they are normally not presented as the eye-to-eye-where-the-first-who-twitches-dies standoff, but rather as long-term standoffs and cold-blooded chess games between the main protagonist and Gus Fring.

Also the constant cat-and-mouse game between Walt and his brother-in-law Henk could be referred to as a long-term standoff. Progress is another topic that runs throughout the series and it is expressed via the characters, who all want to achieve something or have something to prove. Jesse Pinkman for instance, he initially enjoys playing the drug game and he longs for the life of a drug lord.

However, he soon has to realize that the world he and his partner in crime Walter White stepped into is a harsh and brutal environment where death accompanies them day by day and it follows wherever the meth flows. Throughout the story, Jesse hangs on, condones and survives and more than that he learns for his life. According to this, Breaking Bad contains elements of both Spaghetti Western and classical Western mixed with some features of a crime drama.


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