Well, now that the much -celebrated “Breaking Bad” has wound down to its horrific finish it can be said: damn was that fun. Serious fun. Fun and then some.
What was there about “Bad” that so many found irresistible? Great writing, great acting, innovative music and photography—definitely; and what else do you need to know? But to congratulate it that way on style points is also to distance ourselves from its content and its real hold on us.
As a culture we are obsessed with crime, as is clear from the disproportionate percentage of TV and movies about it. But this story of a meth cook with very high standards grabbed us in a different, deeper way than most of the genre.
Crime–organized crime, professional crime, the criminal underworld– is as much part of the structure of our society as business, religion, family life, professional sports, middle, working, or very wealthy classes. It would not be wildly unreasonable to suggest that professional crime is systematically produced by our society, along with the other constituent elements.
Most of us, I daresay, will admit having broken or bent a few laws ourselves, especially in the area of drugs and alcohol. But our official line is that “we” are one thing, creatures of the upper world, of the light, and “they” are creatures of the dark, underworld. We grant crime no standing as we do those other large categories of our social reality. We recognize no necessary logic to its existence, no human need, no humanity to it.
Most crime drama reinforce this strict dichotomy with ritual celebration of the triumph of the light over darkness, of we legitimate citizens over this alien species. Some of the best movies and TV dramas grant crime humanity: “Bonny and Clyde,” “The Godfather” series, “The Sopranos,” often mentioned as a “Breaking Bad” precursor.
In enjoying Tony Soprano we become complicit in some connection between his charm and sexiness and his ruthlessness, but the show really doesn’t explore that connection. “Bad” goes deeper, dramatizing a murderer in the making. Our compelling but uncomfortable involvement with Walter White starts of course with the famous family values premise: high school chemistry teacher does what he has to do to take care of his family, since the insurance industry won’t. It’s a premise with extra meaning during the years of this distressing economy. (Got any better strategies?)
And when one thing leads to another, well, it gets messy.
“Bad” doesn’t condone killing. It’s not a selling point, like the nudity ubiquitous now in TV series (and of which there is none in “Bad”). But it’s all about the the fact of its existence, the logic of its existence. With Walt and Jesse, his sous chef, we agonize over every death and we are shown how each is absolutely follows from the reasonable premise.
It was a difficulty for some people, apparently, that the younger Tsarnaev was such a presentable, normal-looking kid. In the middle of reading the story when it first emerged about how Tsarnaev’s wrestling teammates found him a role model and all-round good guy, Jack Williams the Boston TV anchor actually got angry at what he was reading, that these kids would not have known this inhumane monster for what he was. It was apparently unacceptable to Williams that Tsarnaev could have been both a charismatic friend and a heartless terrorist.
“Bad” makes a little more room for “There but for the grace of God go I.”
“Bad” toes the old “crime doesn’t pay” line in that Walter and Jesse certainly suffer greatly for their sins. But its complex appeal has something to do with making us question some of the lines we traditionally comfort ourselves with between light and dark, the upper world and the lower world.
Call its success more evidence of our decadence as a society; or call it a sign of a maturity.
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