Most neo-liberal drug policies are popular and widely accepted among people because they have the appearance of social neutrality. Todd Gordon (2006), in examining Canada’s neo-liberal drug policies, argues that, despite their neutral appearance, these drug policies do affect and are often aimed at minority populations. He adds that racialized drug policies are not driven by overt racism (Gordon). Breaking Bad, however, does suggest that some law enforcers may harbor racist attitudes. Hank frequently reveals his deep-seated, racist attitudes toward Latinos and Latina/o culture. In the pilot episode, for instance, Schrader makes a twenty-dollar bet with Gomez, his DEA partner, that the suspect in a meth raid is “a beaner.” In the episode “…And the Bag’s in the River” (2/10/08), when Schrader comes across a hydraulic suspension device in a Latino drug informant’s low-rider car, he laments to Gomez about the precipitous decline in Latino culture.
Neo-liberal drug policies are not predicated on the tacit fear-of-the-Other-syndrome among white citizens. Instead, Gordon (2006) claims that racialized drug policies are rooted in the bourgeois order and its systemic moralistic character, which involves policing and maintaining the dominant, normative moral order through imposing market relations on minority communities. Law enforcement is charged with eradicating any social alternatives, like drug trafficking, which would compete with the capitalist order. Ironically, the Mexican drug cartels and Latino/a American drug smugglers are completely immersed in capitalist relations. Payan (2006) says that the drug cartels follow the “laws of the market.” Since drug trafficking is an illegal market, the cartels are unable to use legal remedies to settle market competition and internal disputes. Violence is just one of many options (e.g., negotiation, profit-sharing) available to cartels in their business operations (Payan 868). Breaking Bad illustrates how cartels and drug dealers adhere to capitalist relations. Gus asks a Mexican drug cartel to delay their revenge killing of Walt for Tuco’s death so that he can complete his business agreement with Walt to pay him three-million-dollars for manufacturing three months’ worth of meth. Later, Gus impresses Walt with his ability to masterly out-maneuver and eliminate his chief business rival, a Mexican drug cartel. Despite his efforts to be a successful drug producer and avoid the brutalities of the criminal drug economy, Walt eventually finds himself pitted against Gus whom he believes wants to kill him. As with the characters in The Wire, Walt and Jesse’s freedom is always illusive and they are invariably circumscribed within the institutional boundaries of a neoliberal society.
CONCLUSION
Following in the tradition of Beck and Byers and Johnson’s work on The Wire and C.S.I., this study explores the intersections between contemporary neoliberal discourses and policies, and television fictional dramas. As with neo-liberalism, American cable TV programming is dynamic in form and expressive of popular discourses in American society. John Fiske (1984) argues that popular TV programs are popular because there is an “easy fit between the discourses of the text” and the discourses that are drawn on by the audience to express and make sense of their social experiences (168). This study asserts that neo-liberalism is one of the central discourses in Breaking Bad. While neo-liberalism can be an abstract, difficult concept to comprehend, the fictional series makes it accessible and manifest through its main characters and their intense narrative situations. Breaking Bad’s criminal meth culture not only presents opportunities for Walt to flex his entrepreneurial muscles, it exemplifies the harsh brutalities, risk/benefit calculations, and winner-take-all ethos best associated with neo-liberalism. Walt’s transformation from a dying, emasculated public school teacher to a self-confident, aggressive drug lord attests both to the seductive power and the dangers of a neoliberal lifestyle where there can only be winners and losers. Even when Walt’s cancer goes into remission and he has amassed plenty of capital, he still wants to continue to cook meth.
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