Aha! Also, I don't think that means that they think it means...

[selenak]

Why Twitter is useful: someoene asked Vince Gilligan whose idea the fantastic Ozymandias promo for Breaking Bad had been, and he replied:

Shelley's "Ozymandias" came up a lot this season, as my writers and I are nerds who never see the sun... However, the idea of cutting the poem into a promo was the idea of the brilliant director Rian Johnson.

Comments

[abigail_n]

The reason Skyler's smoking ranks so high is because she was pregnant, and nothing a woman does is ever considered as terrible as being an irresponsible mother (Skyler herself seems to agree since she tells Walt that she feels terrible about smoking). I'm of two mind myself - it is irresponsible to smoke while pregnant, but on the other hand I doubt that one cigarette is really going to destroy Holly's life (certainly not as much as having a meth dealer for a father is going to), and as you say, placing it at the top of the list is just inexplicable unless you truly believe that bad mothering is the most terrible thing Skyler can do (and that that one cigarette makes her a bad mother).

[local_max]

This -- it's a matter of scale. (And for what it's worth, while I don't recommend this to other prospective mothers as a life choice, my mother smoked a pack a day throughout her pregnancy with me, and I seem to be intact. It's very hard for me to take criticisms of Skyler on this point seriously as a result.)

[falafel_musings]

I think Skyler's 'smoking one cigarette while pregnant' might receive more criticism partly because it's such a real world middle class sin. Walt and Jesse cooking for drug rings, melting corpses in acid, robbing trains, etc, are crimes very far outside the average person's experience.

That said, I do think that there's still a hefty amount of misogyny in the Skyler haters arguments. In the comments once again some fan roots all their hatred in the handjob scene from the Pilot and actually cites Skyler's emasculating treatment of Walt as the reason Walt HAD to fight back and reclaim his manhood in such an extreme way. It seems there are a scary amount of men who see Walt as the righteous rebel defying his controlling bitchy wife. Oh and you also have all the rants about Skyler being so ungrateful that Walt cooked all that meth and made all that illegal drug money for her and the kids.

[selenak]

Yes, that's what I meant with the despairing-of-humanity comments. Mind you, I've also seen women describe Sykler as "the suburban monster Walt has to get away from" (though given that Skyler's problem from s3 onwards is that he WON'T go away and insists on being with her, I'm not sure how that works), but most of the "she drove him to it/ that bitch has it coming" comments seem to hail from men. And this whole "mild-mannered, downtrodden teacher becomes feared bad-ass crime cszar" summary, which is the story as Walt sees it but stripped of all the irony of the show, and of course of the show's way of undercutting Walt's idea of himself (the episode in which he gives Skyler the "I am the one who knocks" speech is one where he's show completely powerless and used as contemptously in Gus' employ as he ever was at the car wash, and well, the immortal pizza throw which is SO WALT, for example) - this story as Walt sees it seems to resonate very deeply in a lot of male fantasies

[falafel_musings]

I think the only thing that's missing as far as male gangster fantasies are concerned is Walt getting beautiful women into bed. Instead, the only time he makes a pass at another woman - and this to pay back Skyler for the Ted thing - he's terribly clumsy and gets rejected, and otherwise he seems to be solely interested in his wife. Well, I've always said the reason they never did an "other woman" story with Walt is because Jesse has always functioned in the rival love interest role. Jesse is the one who has shared in all Gangster!Walt's adventures and Jesse is the only person aside from Walt's family who Walt will go out of his way to protect. I guess it feeds Walt's heroic ego that Jesse is someone who needs rescuing much more so than Skyler really does. So while Walt is solely interested in his wife as a sexual partner, I'd argue that Walt may have developed a stronger emotional attachment to Jesse, simply because Jesse has been his partner through his exciting criminal life while Skyler has been his partner through his dreary

[selenak]

Oh absolutely, Jesse is the reason why there wasn't an "The Other Woman" storyline because Walt already has the emotional affair/partnership with him. However, in terms of male gangster fantasies I was thinking not so much of a mistress who has an actual relationship with the gangster as of lots of nameless girls who show up in gangster movies more or less as eye candy and sex fantasy, not as actual characters. Of course, Breaking Bad gave Jesse both the significant relationships (Jane, Andrea) and the casual sex (Wendy, and the girl from the pilot) with young and pretty girls, so a cynical person might say there was no need for Walt to serve as a vehicle for that part of the male gangster fantasy - Jesse was doing it for him

[falafel_musings]

Even Jesse's sex life didn't seem that glamorous to me. He's had two serious girlfriends who both kinda disapproved of him being a drug dealer. If he has money then Jesse and his stoner friends will go get drunk and party with strippers but it always seems more like a white trash wannabe gangster fantasy than the real deal. The only real glimpse we get of the beautiful women fantasy is at Don Eladio's pool party. Other than that most of BB's gangster characters appear to be single men (Gus, Mike, Saul, Gale, Tuco, etc). It's more like a western than a gangster fantasy with all the men being lonesome cowboys.

[selenak]

You're on to something - Being A Bad Mother really seems to be the cardinal sin for a female character, in a way Being A Bad Father is not. (Unless of course the child is the fandom woobie - step forward, Odin and Loki.) But one cigarette making Skyler an irresponsible parent is still extreme even given that.