radical-eirini:

ratliker1917:

ratliker1917:

Breaking Bad really feels like a show that is for the most part good but that like a very large number of people who like it have like, no idea why it’s good, or like it for completely insane reasons that aren’t even supported by the narrative, like, you know, thinking that Walter White is “badass” when like he spends so much time just fucking up in ridiculous ways (that at times the show even makes clear are meant to make him look like a loser and even be like, comedic) but people just remember Bryan Cranston doing a growling manly voice and saying I AM THE DANGER even though that entire speech is Walter being genuinely unhinged and high on his own ego, like, he’s actually literally in danger from Gus and terrified of it at the same time that he’s macho bragging about how he’s totally not in danger.

Walter isn’t even one of those like, television or movie villains where the entire point of the character is meant to be like “this man is awful but the abuse he received from other people made him this way”, because like the extent of actual bad things that have happened to Walter are either nobody’s fault (his cancer) or are like just petty instances of him feeling emasculated or weak, and the show even goes out of its way to show that even people trying to help him and sympathize with him makes him feel less masculine and in charge, so it’s like, not a Joker (2019) style narrative where the tragedy is in seeing an otherwise not too horrible guy turn into a monster because people treated him heinously, the tragedy of Walter White is literally more about a man who is so fundamentally incapable of escaping the toxic ideology of white suburban masculinity that he chooses instead to break every single moral rule he claimed to believe in, because he literally cannot conceive of himself as anything except the authoritarian white patriarch, which the show even highlights with Gus’s delivering of that “a man provides for his family” speech that is explicitly aimed at manipulating Walter! And it’s an interesting tragedy, but some people keep insisting on trying to water it down into “look at what society did to poor old Walt”, probably because they see nothing wrong with the ideological value system that Walt is immersed with and which is at the root of his villainy.

I think the funniest thing about the “A man provides, even when he’s not appreciated” is that Gus 1. literally doesn’t have a family to provide to 2. absolutely cares about being appreciated and respected by the people around him. From the way he treats the front of his drug operation “Los Pollos Hermanos”, the way he involves himself with charity fundraisers, the very professional and competent air he holds, he very much seems to be a person who wants to be seen as an important and indispensable member of the local community. Its a speech that redditors find to be inspiring, but its literally Gus feeding Walter a bullshit version of masculinity that he himself doesn’t even adhere to, specifically because this is what will get Walter to do what Gus wants.