The Subject of Risk in Breaking Bad - Essay Example

The of risk in Breaking Bad It has been It has been widely acknowledged that Breaking Bad is not supposed to be a trivial series which meansit differs quite drastically from popular mass-consumption TV products mainly because of profoundness of ethical issues and universal values being brought up; the extreme popularity and quite a wide response drawn prove that well enough. The question of the entire series is: can you achieve what you are striving for without losing anything or finding your place in the world and taking risks is a way of loss by default? It is excruciating to observe yet impossible to tear yourself away from it. Risk and taking chances is beyond no doubt one of the fundamental issues brought up in the series. While Walter’s spiritual crisis is moved out into the foreground, the ‘one way ticket’, or, to be more precise, ‘all or nothing’ issue becomes the tenor, the leading idea of the plot. This particular detail makes Vince Gilligan’s brainchild a true drama masterpiece deserving exceptional appraisal. Still, the risk itself in the Breaking Bad series is not considered to be conventional one i.e. not the risk we all got accustomed to. Walter risks literally everything for the sake of everything, a desperate trip on the road to hell, which is definitely paved with his good intentions. Like Gregory House and Dexter Morgan, Walter White in much the same way states that “everybody lies”. In fact, his lies are nothing but attempts to conceal his determination to bet all in, yet it is not concealment due to cowardice or intention to evade responsibility, it is indeed a decision of a Man to risk it all and face it as a Man; he tries to protect with an unsustainable web of lies his family. Even before Walter’s lies are uncovered, the lies separate him from remaining his own self. Walt has lied repeatedly, to himself and others, for the sake of elevating his horrific actions to something he imagines is noble. Vince Gilligan, the maker of Breaking Bad aptly noted in a Filmmaker Magazine interview that “His ability to lie is his power. I didn’t realize what a world-class liar he would be. That’s really his superpower”. Was he over compensating for his lack of virility and ambition under the threat of death by cancer, or was the cancer scare the unlocking of the “true” Walt he was meant to be? One way or another, risking like this puts Walter in the seat of a hero, though not idealized (since notions of what is ‘good’ and ‘bad’ in the series are pretty much blurry (it seems really hard to label who is good and who is bad or evil in Breaking Bad, especially when it concerns White’s testimonial), e.g. Walter rationalizes murder and cooking a drug that destroys the lives of those who take it by saying that if he didn’t someone else would); a much-talked noble deed of risking is a kind of thing modern series were lacking and what really makes Breaking Bad a unique one. Just think how resolute seems Walt’s decision to refuse Elliott’s offer to pay for Walt’s cancer treatment; in fact it was a decision that represents a genuine risk. We can as well suppose that Walter’s personal choice of risk at some point is a decision to literally become bad. Just look at the series title – Walt risks to break bad and stay stereotypical bad guy for the sake of his own family. We do set forth Walter’s decision to break bad as a risk and the further events to occur in the series indeed prove that. From another point of view the risk Walter takes is a worthy decision of a breadwinner. Remember the conversation between him and Gus, when Fring notes, that “they [decisions previously made by Walter] weren’t bad decisions. What does a man do? A man provides for his family”. Throughout the series, Walt has continually justified all his actions with the fact that hes doing this dirty work for his family. When Walt learns he is terminally ill, he insists that it is his sole responsibility to make sure his family will be financially provided for after his death. The well-being of his family is still what he claims to be the motivation; however it is obvious to everyone else that this has become all about Walt. The cancer seems to be really a blessing in disguise – he had never felt more alive when there was nothing left to lose and so much to gain. Now there is no set pattern of life for Walt, which is why a fifty-year-old high-school chemistry teacher can risk and find himself at the head of a drug empire. Although the drive to earn money that will serve for the good of the family is a genuine objective in the initial chapters of the series, it is soon converted into a mere excuse. Though hes the classic example of an anti-hero, cursed and doomed, Walt initially entered the ever-thrilling field of meth production in a desperate effort to provide economic security for his wife. It was expected that Walt would be getting overcome at long last with a more proper sense of morality and sincerely engaging in self-sacrifice, by either turning himself in or taking his own life, and in fact what we finally get is that Walt gets redemption in full in the process. Though he steps on the path of crime, which proves to be far from nobility, right and wrong deeds are rather ambiguous in the movie, which still makes Walter’s risk a necessity requiring an extreme effort of will. But let us try to take a look at the subject from a rationalistic point of view. Ulrich Beck in ‘Logic of Wealth Distribution and Risk Distribution’ aptly notes that material need (being experienced by Walter White in full measure) “can be reduced through legal protections”. But Walter is not a common member of society in a traditional sense, which means he is likely to choose an alternative path i.e. risking. The alter ego of Heisenberg may have been psychologically necessary for Walt to differentiate who he had become. His disease spreads to those around him as well. Such life circumstances may cause us to reframe our worldview, and surely did for Walt. Walt’s confrontation with his own mortality brings this all into question. Cancer became not only the impetus for Walt’s transformation, but perhaps a metaphor for what Walt himself becomes as he greedily consumes and destroys anything that stands in the way of his growth, influence, and power, which embodies his way of risk; take into consideration his nihilistic worldview, where ethical codes are merely conventional. Walter is a normal citizen who embraced his destiny, as the nothing-left-to-lose villain. He is portrayed as a perfectly normal and sympathetic character, who is nevertheless forced to face many misfortunes resulting in making some questionable and risky decisions. With that said death [cancer] proves not to be bad thing this time. Death, in the form of cancer, was the catalyst for Walt’s first step into his downfall. In the form of violent threat it was what drove him deeper and deeper into a methamphetamine trade and foreshadowed a brutal transformation (Walter is portrayed very differently in each episode, thus emphasizing the transformation his character undergoes during the serial), a pretty reckless (from a rationalist point of view) decision of devoting his life to risk. Now, how about “already destructive consequences” and “potential element of risk” described by Beck? Becoming a criminal (it goes without saying that Walter’s further actions cannot be treated as legal in no way) means the protagonist gets prepared for potential losses and side effects of every sort and kind. Just starting the ‘career’ of a criminal Walter assumes responsibility for destructive outcome of his deeds. The phenomenon of risk depicted in Breaking Bad may be considered just the way Beck represented it in the quotes mentioned above. ‘Potential element of risk’ consists in expectation of any positive outcome of what is on the pot and of what is done. But what does Walter get after all? How could so much cost have led to so little gain? Was that risk really that reasonable? Clearly the only solution is to cook more meth, kill the last person standing in the way, etc. Walter is making this argument every time we hear him say something like "this is the last time," which he seems to say about once every other episode. Shouldnt failure have taught Walter White a lesson? Failure is not so predictable. Moreover, costly mistakes can be some of the hardest to learn from, because they are the ones we feel most obligated to rationalize. Walter’s going for risk is neither an imprudent, foolhardy intention nor thoroughly thought-out plan; this is a firm resolution with purpose. While Beck mentions ‘social impetus’ for risk, which lies in the projected dangers of the future (Walter’s one-year term cannot be considered as danger, but even more serious than that), the impulse urging the protagonist to taking the risk is more about personal issues. He is guided solely by concerns about his family and the future he is able to build for it without taking place in that future. Walter becomes active today to alleviate problems of tomorrow. Walter believes he is a victim, at least in the beginning. The problem with believing you have no control over your life (that you’re a victim) is that it increases your chances of being a criminal after all. As the Journal of Association for Psychological Science reports, “several studies have shown that being led to disbelieve in your ability to control your own fate (i.e., your free will) directly increases the chances that you will be aggressive, cheat, and fail to help others”. Walter’s case right here isn’t it? Though it seems a rather ambiguous whether or not Walter’s risk is reasoned, there is another issue, which is quite important in terms of morality since morality is represented as the primary impetus of protagonist’s decision. What we mean is ethics or implicit ethics after Ulrich Beck. When moral boundaries are drawn differently, a lot of people comply by engaging in behavior they otherwise wouldn’t. When Walter started his dark descent into the world of cooking meth, his motivations were very pure. Still we have got to acknowledge that biblical categories of good and evil do not apply in Breaking Bad. The point is to what extent is Walter’s risk is worth respect or, to be more precise, what degree of acceptance it deserves. What makes the moral ambiguity of Breaking Bad so particularly interesting is that it pushes the boundaries of what viewers deem still-forgivable behavior. Protagonist’s ideas in Breaking Bad are not utopia; he believes his aspirations are nothing but good intentions, though paving his road to hell. The problem with thinking you have nothing left to lose is that you start to take risks you otherwise wouldn’t. This is sometimes called risk sensitivity, which basically says that it makes sense to take risks when youre likely to lose if you don’t. Since Walter got his cancer diagnosis, he “slept like a baby.” One of his biggest fears is insignificance. He risks again and again with intention to become somebody significant, he is tired to be nobody, in other words, he fears he’ll be forgotten – another reason of taking risks. Shall we call it fate, or the will of the gods, but it seems to be Walter’s fate to make that risky step. After the examination, Walter is shown upside-down, this time in his reflection on the doctor’s table. This mirroring suggests and foreshadows the duality that Walter will come to possess and the double-life he is about to embark on. Still Walter manages to upset the balance of weighing scales; his risk turns to be his fate. It is definitely fate to send Walter off on his tragic course. We can’t help thinking that taking risks surely means challenging the fate. That is what exactly happened to Walter White. We might say a few words about Walts conscious decision not to save Jane when he could led to lots of people dying on a plane because it could prevent him from making another meth business deal. We talked a lot about morality earlier but this time it’s more about what Walter is ready to bet in order to get what he is craving for. Anyways, risk is always a matter of morality, isn’t it? It would be quite interesting to acknowledge that one can find ideas of perception of risk and wealth’n’power philosophy in Breaking Bad once expressed in ‘Shock Doctrine’ by Naomi Klein. As the ‘New Statesman Magazine’ alludes, “Breaking Bad’s power lies in its chilling vision of a society in thrall to the market”. Walter White is a high-school chemistry teacher, not a respected, reasonably well-compensated profession as one might think; in XXI century America he has got to have a second job at a carwash just to make ends meet. David Pierson, prof. of media studies at the University of South. Maine suggests that character of Walter is nothing but demonstration of the true consequences of capitalist ideology. This kind of capitalism, labeled by Klein as the disaster capitalism complex may be considered as another reason of Walter’s decisions. There were a lot of crimes committed in the name of communism before the USSR collapse, but the point is that the capitalism philosophy comprises disposition towards crimes for the name of other things yet remaining risk and offence incitements. Under conditions of neo liberalism and modern capitalism, the criminal himself is not a product of psychological disorder, but “a rational-economic actor who contemplates and calculates the risks and the rewards of his actions”. I think it’s just about Walter White as depicted in Breaking Bad. Klein insists that market system literally requires violence and risking is a vital part of its functioning. Walter has chemical skills that enable him to cook some of the purest methamphetamine and he makes a step ahead, he makes a series of choices based on what he perceives as his circumstances. Walt recreates his own identity, however, makes a deep claim about what it means to behave badly in the modern world of capitalism.Naomi Klein talks about psychologically unmoored and physically uprooted like if she wanted to paint Walter’s psychological portrait. Walt’s freedom excludes the very idea of moral personhood just as decisively as he dissolves his victims’ bodies in acid. Now Walter finds a niche in a world full of money and violence; it is the point where utilitarian calculus justifying Walt’s every move is on. It seems quite interesting to note that initially Walter’s decision to cook methamphetamine wasn’t too risky as he suggested; remember him talking about ‘easy money’. His addiction to implementing skills at chemistry sustains thoughts that risk he is taking is quite reasonable as he always finds a reason to continue despite the price that he must pay. For justice’ sake let’s admit that although money no longer becomes a need, Walter remains addicted to the business forgetting in the course of time that not long ago it was almost a step of despair to take risk like that. Works cited Beck, Ulrich. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. New Delhi: Sage. (Translated from the German Risikogesellschaft) 1986. Filmmaker Magazine. “It’s Better to Be Somebody Negative than Nobody”: Breaking Bad‘s Vince Gilligan on Walter White. Neil Landau and Vince Gilligan Interview. Filmmaker Magazine. Web. Retieved 21 Jan 2015. Hills, Thomas. The Psychology of Becoming Walter White. Psychology Today. Published on September 28, 2013. Maureen, Ryan. Walts Takeover Was Complete (But Hard To Buy And Unsatisfying). Huffington Post. Web. Retrieved 18 Jan 2015. Van der Werff, Tod. Breaking Bad Ended the Anti-hero Genre by Introducing Good and Evil. Web. Retrieved 18 Jan 2015. Watkins, Gwynne. A Psychiatrist Analyzes Breaking Bad’s Outraged Walt Jr. and Others. Vulture: Entertainment. Web. Retrieved 18 Jan 2015. Xie, Alan. Breaking Bad: The Devils in the Details. A look at what makes Breaking Bad special. The Harvard Crimson. Published on September 25, 2013 Read More