Gender, Sex, and Violence - Critical TV Watching
Breaking Bad
AMC’s hit
show, Breaking Bad, is an hour-long
drama with characters and writing that exemplify extremely stereotypical gender
role behaviors. Overall, the show
depicts men as hyper-masculine, aggressive, and cruel while females are shown
as dependent, emotional, and weak. Sex
and violence are also featured as the show is about producing drugs and
maintaining that business no matter the cost.
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| Image credits to AMC and salon.com |
The main
male characters, Walter White, Hank Schrader, Jesse Pinkman, and Gustavo Freng,
all contribute to the show’s illustration of male physical dominance. Walter White, a cancer patient and former
chemist, experiences a transformation from a gentle father to a ruthless and
greedy killer as he has to compromise his morals for his wallet’s sake. Hank Schrader, Walter’s brother-in-law DEA
agent, is a hard-nosed cop type who only hardens even more after being wounded
and rehabilitating to walk again. Jesse
Pinkman, a high school burnout and druggie, is illustrated as a selfish, cocky
young male with emotional aggressive habits.
Gustavo Freng, a Colombian drug lord and entrepreneur, is presented to
be a harsh, brutal, intimidating person as he is shown murdering and threatening
his colleagues and henchmen. All these
main male characters in Breaking Bad contribute
to the general tough, physical, and aggressive masculine image the show seems
to want to emphasize (for the narrative’s sake).
The only
two female characters are depicted as the stereotypical female one might
imagine in media. Marie Schrader, Hank’s
wife, is an overly-talkative know-it-all who gossips frequently and is weak
emotionally. She is dependent on her
relationship with Hank and results to kleptomaniac habits. Skyler White, Walter’s shocked wife, is also
a very emotional person who crumbles upon discovering her husband’s
discrepancies and lies. Skyler reacts in
a more aggressive manner toward Walter while maintaining that feminine,
subordinate role. Skyler, like her
sister Marie, is flighty and seems to change her attitude about Walter as they
are having sex one minute and screaming at each other the next.
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| Image credits to AMCTV.com and AMC |
Sex is
truly not a large part of Breaking Bad. Sexual relationships are limited to Skyler
and Walter, and Jesse and his girlfriend.
These are merely to advance the personal storylines within the
narrative. However, one could say that
the use and act of sex as a positive reaction to happy relations cheapens it to
something one does for fun. Violence,
unlike sex, is a HUGE theme in Breaking
Bad. People are killed almost every
episode of the drama. In my two hours of
viewing, 5 to 8 people were killed.
These people were not main characters and were either Mexican cartel
henchmen or Gustavo Freng’s men. These
people are viewed as disposable and violence, as it becomes more common
throughout the series, is casual and the norm.
Breaking Bad employs the stereotypical
male and female roles and behaviors found in many traditional media
productions. The men are
hyper-masculine, greedy, blood-shedders while the women are feminine, extremely
dependent, emotional, and flighty in nature.
The ever-present violence amidst the men and their jobs and businesses
are a running theme throughout the show.
The fickle relationships of these
archetypal couples are emphasized by the casual view of sex by the show. Breaking
Bad’s use of sex, stereotypical gender roles, and violence could contribute
to our previously mentioned lecture point, “Mean World Syndrome” as the
audience is normalized and numbed to these.
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