Instead of being a mere by-product of the narrative, Deidre Pribram maintains that emotions can be understood as a form of narrative action that is as significant and determining as any physical action. Emotions are mobile and circulate within a narrative producing social relations by enabling cultural meanings to be established and exchanged. Relying on these two concepts, Pribram analyzes two narrative sequences from Breaking Bad in order to understand how they function as emotional, dramatic acts conveyed in the narrative, how they concern the circulation and exchange of emotions between characters, and how they serve to establish cultural meanings and emotional significance for audiences.
Because Breaking Bad is a richly textured, television drama, this edited collection can only proffer a critical glimpse into the cultural, economic, and social contexts, representational politics, and aesthetic style of the series. More research is needed on the fictional women of Breaking Bad and with the series’ reception among a diverse array of audiences, along with how AMC engages with these audiences through its website and a variety of industry-produced paratexts, which include blog and talks, interviews, newsletters, episode previews, games, and podcasts. Of course the fan-based and produced paratexts are also fertile textual resources for investigating the range and character of meanings that audiences construct of the series and its characters. Emerging in the depths of the Great Recession (2007-2009) and in a post-welfare, neoliberal state, Breaking Bad expresses many of the social and economic struggles of a middle and working class America where only the ruthless capitalist entrepreneurs, whether legitimate or illegitimate, are handsomely rewarded and the timid often find themselves marginalized or even victimized in a winner-take-all modern society. Walt, in the pilot episode, explains to his students his views about chemistry as the study of change involving complex processes of growth, decay, and change. While he is talking about the subject of chemistry, he could just as well be describing not only his character but the narrative dynamics of Breaking Bad. As Quentin Huff (2011) aptly points out, the audience becomes pseudo-scientists observing the physical and psychological changes that occur in Breaking Bad’s characters, most notably Walt who shaved his head after chemotherapy, grew a goatee, and becomes more aggressive and assertive in his demeanor. Breaking Bad, through its analogizing the series title (“Br” in Breaking, “Ba” in Bad) along with the names of actors and actresses with the first two letters of the periodic elements table, invites its audience to perceive of the series’ characters as dramatic elements that combine, like elements in a new compound, in unexpected and unanticipated ways and conditions, like the turbulent, unlikely pairing of Walt and Jesse, or the dissolution, then resolution of Walt and Skyler’s marriage into a tense, business partnership. Every change creates a reaction in the series’ universe, “the consequences of which might be as minor as a young child finding a gas mask left behind (from) one of Walter and Jesse’s cooking sessions, or as major as an air traffic control worker’s pain over his daughter’s overdose causing an airplane collision that kills 167 people” (Huff 2011). Throughout the series, the characters repeatedly change and these alterations invariably produce reactions from other characters and thereby, establish distinct dramatic situations. This edited collection provides a range of critical lens and perspectives by which to explore and examine Breaking Bad’s transformative characters and narrative moments located within a series of intricate social, political, and cultural contexts.
WORKS CITED
“AMC pulls plug on ‘Remember WENN.’” Albany Times Union. (28 September 1998): C-4.
Bianculli, David. “AMC’s Brand-Smart Strategy.” Broadcasting and Cable. (29 September 2008): 40.
Caldwell, John T. “Critical Industrial Practice: Branding, Repurposing, and the Migratory Patterns of Industrial Texts.” Television and New Media. 7:2. (May 2006): 99-134.
Edgerton, Gary R. “Introduction: When Our Parents Became Us,” in Mad Men: Dream Come True TV, edited by Gary R. Edgerton, xxi-xxxvi. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2010.
“Emmy Winners.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. 17 Sept. 2007: C3.
Gomery, Douglas. “American Movie Classics.” The Museum of Broadcast Communications. 2013. http://www.archives.museum.tv/eotvsection.php?entrycode=americanmovi.
Huff, Quentin B. “Characters, Compounds, and the Study of Change in ‘Breaking Bad: Season 3.’” PopMatters. 8 June 2011. http://www.popmatters.com/pm/column/142497-characters-compounds-the-study-of-change-breaking-bad/.
Koepsell, David R. and Robert Arp, eds. Breaking Bad and Philosophy. Chicago: Open Court, 2012.
Klinger, Barbara. “Digressions at the Cinema: Reception and Mass Culture.” Cinema Journal. 28:4. (Summer 1989): 3-19.
Kroll, Justin. “Aaron Paul’s ‘Bad’ Trip, ‘Breaking’ Character was Almost Killed Off.” Daily Variety. 308:40. (30 August 2010): 18.
“Movies That Shook The World.” IMDb: Internet Movie Database. 2012. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0390776/.
Owen, Rob. “AMC Gives Its Quirky Series, ‘The Lot,’ A Quick Run.” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. (19 August 1999): D-1.
———. “AMC’s ‘Remember WENN’ is a Swell Piece of Work.” Albany Times Union. (6 July 1997): 45.
Segal, David. “Art of Darkness.” The New York Times. 10, July 2011. 18-23.
Sergeant, Jill. “From Bad to Worse for TV’s ‘Breaking Bad’ Dad.” Reuters.com. U.S. edition. 3 March 2009. http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/03/03/television-breakingbad-idUSN2628364020090303.
“Shootout — AMC.” IMDb: Internet Movie Database. 2012. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489613/.
Umstead, Thomas R. “AMC To Move in New Direction.” Multichannel News. 23:19 (13 May 2002): 90.
Whitney, Daisy. “Original Series Help Cement a Network’s Brand.” Electronic Media. 21:18 (6 May 2002): 28.
I
The Contexts of Breaking Bad
