In the second example, the song “Crystal Blue Persuasion,” included in the episode “Gliding Over All” (9/2/12), accompanies a brilliant sequence showing the production and distribution chain of Walt’s blue-meth business. Visually, the sequence displays an associational method of montage that avoids fades and uses cues and opposite movements of the camera, zooming in or out on similar objects, or panning continuously through different environments. The song, which like “Windy” was a hit in the late 1960s, expresses hope for peace and brotherhood, again acting as a commentary on the visuals.[12] Here, the bisociative element mainly comprises the words blue and crystal, which have different meanings in the song and in relation to Walt’s activity.[13] There are other puns that play on double entendre: for example, during the verse “People are changing,” we see drug trader and Madrigal attorney Lydia, indicating that Walt’s business partners have changed; with the verse “Love, love is the answer,” we see Skyler laundering money, as, by this time, viewers have acknowledged that her love for Walt has gone.
Irony blooms at the musical level, too, with the gravity of the meth business contrasted with a psychedelic pop song with a West Coast hippie feel and a Latin flair.[14] Here, again, music does not seem to track identification with the characters; rather, it contributes to a sense of estrangement that overshadows the fun of the puns. More precisely, “Crystal Blue Persuasion” brings in an element of nostalgia as if, for Walt and his associates, things have changed forever. Tincknell (2006) argues that recourse to the nostalgia effect in films will inevitably affect the meaning and value of the quoted text, “restructuring… the past at the level of style” (135).[15] This prompts us to ask if Breaking Bad actually constructs the drug business as style, employing a distancing mechanism not as a means to stimulate criticism but in order to refrain from a serious engagement with the most troubling issues about drugs. Insofar as stylization produces temporary moral disengagement, identification processes can be reestablished in subsequent scenes, allowing viewers to empathize with Walt once again on less troubling moral domains, when he deals with his financial concerns or faces ruthless gangsters.
To sum up, in both examples, a preexisting popular song is used to mediate and, partly, defy identification processes. In the first case, distancing is aimed at provoking a critical reflection on drug addiction; if the mechanism is successful, then we can expect the spectator to sympathize with Wendy. The second example is perhaps more ambiguous; here again, commentary generates detachment, but this is complemented by a skillful stylization of the main character’s successful activity. Stylization might engender critical reflection and thus distancing or, instead, suspension of judgment, hence allowing for new positive identification with Walt. However, needless to say, it is not possible to infer solely from a textual analysis which of the two responses will be favored, because an audience analysis would be required.
THE EXPANSION OF THE DIEGETIC SPACE
Diegetic music comes from a source within the fictional world, while nondiegetic or extradiegetic music is external to it. This distinction, borrowed from narratology, raises both conceptual and practical problems when translated to audiovisual media.[16] Supposing that we agree on a common definition of diegesis,[17] the diegetic/nondiegetic distinction neglects all those instances that do not fit in either of the two categories, and most of all, it “obscures music’s role in producing the diegesis itself” (Kassabian 2001, 42).[18] This assumed, I shall now analyze two sequences in which, for reasons that I shall soon clarify, music not only constructs the fictional space but also conveys the idea that this construction goes beyond what can be heard and seen on screen. In other words, the viewer is invited to pay attention to what the music hints or omits, as much as to what it says, about the diegesis.
The episode “Negro Y Azul” (4/19/09) opens with a song in the narcocorrido style about Heisenberg, Walt’s alias in the drug trafficking world.[19] As a music genre, the narcocorrido is a fairly recent development of the Mexican corrido, sharing with it, among other things, a ballad structure.[20] Although both deal with controversial themes involving lawbreaking and rebellion, narcocorridos appropriate subjects such as oppression, poverty, and national pride to praise peasants and drug traffickers, united in their fight against the common enemy embodied especially by transnational companies and the United States.
Narcocorridos circulate on the Internet, too, in the form of music videos marked by low-budget production values as well as by aesthetic and narrative choices, including standardized digital visual effects, the combination of original and television footage, and camera tricks, such as low-angle shots of the performers. “Negro Y Azul” draws on this imagery and mimics the style of narcocorrido songs and music videos to celebrate the quality of the blue meth and spread the aura of mystery surrounding Heisenberg, as it emerges that a Mexican drug cartel has sentenced him to death.
The sequence can be understood as a postmodern parody due to its use of quotations and intertextuality, its emphasis on stylistic features, and its puzzling mix of reality, fiction, and metafiction: in an ironic twist, it features a fictional narcocorrido about the metafictional alter ego of a fictional character, performed by a real band, Los Cuates de Sinaloa. Nevertheless, this reading might obscure the song’s functions within the overall narrative. In particular, it is worth investigating how this sequence manages to open up the diegetic space at least in two ways. First of all, “Negro Y Azul” occupies an ambivalent position within the story: because no character reacts to it, we may tend to consider it a tongue-in-cheek aside. On the other hand, this does not rule out the possibility that we are actually receiving a confidential piece of information that is inaccessible to Walt: after all, the narcocorrido culture is as far from his everyday world as could be. But this sequence expands the diegesis in another different sense, too, in that its ambiguity and intertextual references call for the audience to join the dots. Consequently, it is perhaps not surprising that fans have been engaged in lively discussions as to whether the song belongs to the fictional world or not, and whether it anticipates future events in a similar way to the flash-forwards that open other episodes.[21] In any case, this sequence demands an aware engagement with the narrative construction. The sequence’s metadiegetic status (neither fully diegetic nor completely extradiegetic) and the liminal status of the music video (both narrative and spectacular, realistic and nonrealistic) allow the music to transcend its functions of dramatic development or “myth” (Brown 1994) to engage the viewer in complicit identification with the authorial voice. In this sense, a distancing effect is achieved through what Fiske (2010) calls the producerly text:
12
Unlike “DLZ,” neither of the two songs has been edited, except for the fadeout at the end of “Windy,” which in the series starts slightly earlier.
13
According to Tommy James, one of the song’s authors, the color blue was meant to have religious connotations. Allegedly, some listeners believed instead it referred to drugs. On this regard, see the interview, “Tommy James,”
14
Previously, there have been other montages showing meth manufacturing and dealing with the accompaniment of contrasting music. In passing, it is worth noting that all these sequences are set to Latin music, making this a good example of self-reflexivity.
15
Booker (2007) argues that nostalgia is a prevalent mode in postmodern film and television, where it is not necessarily linked to personal experience or historical truth: “Postmodern nostalgia is more mediated by culture than are earlier forms of nostalgia…. By focusing on culture, postmodern representations of the past tend to be doubly mediated because they are representations of remembered representations” (51).
16
While the meaning of diegetic, nondiegetic and extradiegetic music is sometimes taken for granted in case studies, several authors have attempted to problematize it. For a comprehensive summary, see Winters (2010).
17
Bunia (2010) contends that the term “diegesis,” notwithstanding its widespread use, lacks a coherent definition. More precisely, when it is used to identify the narrated world, the related concept of extradiegesis tends to break down. Accordingly, he suggests a narrower definition of diegesis as information explicitly conveyed by a representation. I shall later show how this definition is also not without problems.
18
Music, Winter (2010) argues, occupies the same space of the events directly represented: “Trying to imagine the opening idol-stealing scenes of
19
The song, also entitled “Negro Y Azul,” has been written by Mexican performer, composer and artist promoter Pepe Garza, who adapted Vince Gilligan’s lyrics in Spanish and into a
20
In the past decade there has been a growing interest in
21
I have found these comments on YouTube discussions and online forums, such as “Negro Y Azul,”