Masculinity and female subservience in Breaking Bad

I recently started watching Breaking Bad. And by “started” I mean I started with episode one, and then blew through the whole series up to last season’s finale in about two weeks. At first, I really identified with Walt and his quest to provide for his family by any means necessary. But let me get into that more troubling theme. …

Walter’s Path Through Violence

Firstly, Walt’s path toward financial and social independence almost immediately takes him down a path of violence. Once he’d been told he was going to die, Walt had little inclination to satisfy societal norms of conduct. For example, when a group of older boys makes fun of Walt Jr.’s speech and mannerisms (an effect of his cerebral palsy) at a clothing store, Walt takes no time to confront the boys or ask them to stop, he simply jumps straight to violence, kicking the ringleader in the knee and punching him. In this scene, you can see that Walt has no patience or desire to conform to the societal controls that once prevented him from reacting in socially-unacceptable ways. In essence, his base masculine desires come to the forefront with little to no inhibitions.

After that first incident, violence seems to come increasingly easier for Walt, as he attacks two drug dealers who want to kill him, killing one in self defense but eventually killing the other in an act of self-preservation. From this point on, Walt either uses violence or counsels Jesse to act violently as a solution to most problems. Eventually, Walt becomes almost completely desensitized to violence, to the point that he murders two drug dealers at point-blank range to protect Jesse, showing no apparent emotion or remorse after the fact, and subsequently orders the death of Gale Boetticher, a friend, to save his own life.

Although much of the violence of the show is framed within the context of self-preservation, it becomes apparent that — as the story progresses — Walt becomes less and less concerned about collateral damage and begins to see violence as a first line of defense to solve problems.

Reclaiming Masculinity Through Male Dominance

Although violence against others is a tool Walt uses to control others and his own life, the show also demotes women to a subservient role as Walt becomes more powerful through displays of masculinity. And, although there are only a handful of women who have appeared on the show (Skyler, Marie, Jane, and Andrea), Skyler is the main female protagonist and best displays the shows backlash against strong women.

At the beginning of the series, Skyler is clearly the head of the White household. Although she is pregnant and fulfills most of the stereotypical female duties — like making breakfast, cleaning the house, etc. — it is very clear that Skyler dominates Walter in most aspects of their life. As a woman with a strong personality and physically dominating presence (she is roughly Walter’s equal in height and weight), she runs the house, tells Walter and Walter Jr. what to do, where to go, and how to act; and blatantly disregards Walter’s wishes to keep his cancer diagnosis a secret, further illustrating that Walter has no control.

Perhaps his emasculation is best illustrated in the first episode, when Skyler does Walter a “favor” by sexually stimulating him on his birthday. Although he doesn’t want to — because she’s busy bidding on an E-bay item at the same time, and it is clear he’d rather have actual sex — she imposes her will on him and he reluctantly accepts, only to be interrupted when she wins her E-bay bid. This act shows that Skyler has no regard for Walt’s sexual needs, and by imposing her will on him in such an intimate way, she shows that Walt cannot even impose his manhood in the bedroom — perhaps the most emasculating blow of all.

But as Walter begins to throw off the societal castration that he feels he has been dealt, Skyler rapidly descends into the stereotypical nagging wife. She begins to poke her nose where she shouldn’t, even when Walter expressly tells her not to, and she becomes not the voice of reason on the show, but rather the impediment that keeps Walter from fulfilling his manly duties to provide for his family.

In fact, in counterpoint to Walter and Skyler’s initial sexual encounter, once Walter becomes successful at cooking and selling meth, he immediately goes home and ravishes his wife in a way — made clear by the context — he has not done in a long time. This symbolic physical act is meant to show us that Walter is no longer a social eunuch, but a master in his own home.

As the show progresses, Sklyer eventually becomes complicit in Walter’s illegal activities and begins to function as his employee in a subservient role to his newly-masculine self. Once she has made the transition to lesser partner in his meth business, she no longer has power over Walter, and can only react to his successes and failures instead of acting on her own impulses and moral objections to his work.

Masculinity and Oppression

At its current state, Breaking Bad has managed to metaphorically give Walter his balls back by allowing him to triumph through violence and subvert his once strong (and domineering) wife into a lesser role where he has control over her.

Although there is an argument to be made that the emasculating of the American male is a theme rarely explored in movies and television, the manner in which Walter frees himself from societal and feminine oppression is questionable and hints that perhaps the show is moving away from the somewhat precarious objective of reclaiming masculinity, instead moving toward misogyny.

James Ged is a writer and TV addict who spends most of his days blogging for CableTV.com, but he also posts cool TV memes and news at TV Buzzer.

Clacked by Guest Clacker
on Oct 21, 2011 @ 10:26 EST5EDT