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

[local_max]

"Skyler may be an evil bitch who smokes a few cigarettes during the pregnancy, but she is sympathetic because she participates in drug production and laundering For The Family!" is the type of difficulty with scale that seems to crop up a lot in discussions about shows like this, which is...well, annoying seems insufficient, but we'll go with that. Obviously Michael Corleone being kind of standoffish to his family at Connie's wedding is the worst thing he did, but fortunately he redeemed himself later on with all that Godfather taking-care-of-the-family murdering.

[selenak]

:) Obviously. Great comparison.

[falafel_musings]

Yay Rian indeed! I believe Rian Johnson is directing the episode titled 'Ozymandias' in the final eight. Vince said at the Times panel that I thinks Rian's upcoming episode might be the best they have ever done.

Yes, as much as I appreciate any pro-Skyler articles to combat the moronic hate campaign against this character, I'll admit that piece was lacking in depth of thought. I think Anna Gunn herself was recently talking about "ego" being Skyler's worst quality as much as it is Walt's. A big part of Skyler NOT going to the police was her belief that she was clever enough to control this frightening situation all by herself. Skyler (unlike Walt) has the self-awareness and sanity to realize when things have gone too far and she'll admit when she's run out of good solutions to the horrifying mess Walt has made of their lives.

Meanwhile, another article also made me rise my eyebrows: the sixteen worse things Walter White has done on Breaking Bad. I'm kinda amused that "cooking many many tons of highly addictive life destroying

[selenak]

I think Anna Gunn herself was recently talking about "ego" being Skyler's worst quality as much as it is Walt's. A big part of Skyler NOT going to the police was her belief that she was clever enough to control this frightening situation all by herself.

Yes, exactly. And see, if people said this is why they don't like Skyler, that they condemm her for this, I wouldn't argue. But instead, you get the "smoking while pregnant"/"slept with Ted" stuff, and of course endless variatons of "emasculating bitch".

I'm kinda amused that "cooking many many tons of highly addictive life destroying crystal meth" doesn't rank anywhere on the list of bad things Walt has done.

Quite. Methinks the show needs to bring Wendy back, or show us other addicts to remind everyone again graphically of the source and consequence of Walt's "empire".

Though I would like to add that Walt didn't force Jesse to cook meth. Jesse was already cooking meth. Walt just blackmailed Jesse into being his partner, something Jesse was willing to do once he saw the quality

[falafel_musings]

to call Gale "innocent" (as opposed to, say, "naive") is just plain wrong.

I don't even think Gale was all that naive, in terms of poisoning people that is. Gale seemed to have his eyes open when he explained to Walt that if he wasn't cooking meth, tweekers would still get their drug from some other source and at least with his meth they get exactly what they pay for, etc. I think Gale was a bit of a hedonist. He loved the "magic" of the lab and he seemed like a globe trotter. Gale probably planned to use the money he earned to explore the world. He was such a loner so maybe he had a low capacity for empathy and that stopped him considering the damage his drug was doing. I guess Gale was naive to just how dangerous Gus's organisation was, but then Gus fooled Walt into thinking his business was non-violent too.

[selenak]

Said scene is one of the reasons why I've said back in my s3 review that Skyler has it in her to be an Evil Overlord. Though she' be one more like Gus (who also has it in him to gloat, he's just not blatant about it the way Walt is - but he did make sure when taking his revenge that Don Emilio knew exactly what was happening), less like Walt. One of the reasons why she ultimately does not go there is that she lives with Walt who is a graphic warning if anyone is, but had Skyler lived on her own, with no Walt around? Who knows. But you know, is that scene on anyone's list of Skyler misdeeds/illustrations of her dark side? No. Because obviously, the handjob, the smoking and the Ted affair are so much worse.

[selenak]

Oh, word about Jesse; being inefficient at something or not thinking it through do not a higher morality make. And Jesse knows it, too. When he tells Walt in late s3 that they're in the business of manfacturing poison, it sums it up.

Hank: has a dark side, which is shown both in his beatinig of Jesse and in his treatment of Marie during his reconvalescence. However, he has that saving grace of knowing that what he did to Jesse is not okay simply because Jesse is a criminal, and that he can't brush it off or hide it or allow his superiors to ignore it. So, is Hank a good man? Not always, but he IS a moral one.