The Methods of Breaking Bad
Essays on Narrative, Character and Ethics
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About the Book
Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad is a central work in the recent renaissance in television-making. The visionary scope and complexity of the series demand rigorous critical analysis. This collection of new essays focuses on a variety of themes. Walter White is discussed as father, psychopath and scientist and as an example of masculinity. The essayists examine the series in terms of gender, neo-liberal politics and health care reform, as well as the more traditional aesthetic categories of narrative construction, experimentation, allusion and genre. With television the dominant artistic medium of early 21st century America, Breaking Bad should be viewed as a superbly designed work reflecting widespread cultural concerns.
About the Author(s)
Bibliographic Details
Edited by Jacob Blevins and Dafydd Wood
Format: softcover (6 x 9)
Pages: 224
Bibliographic Info: notes, bibliography index
Copyright Date: 2015
pISBN: 978-0-7864-9578-8
eISBN: 978-1-4766-1935-4
Imprint: McFarland
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction (Jacob Blevins) 1
Flies and One-Eyed Bears: The Maturation of a Genre (Dafydd Wood) 11
Flies in the Marketplace: Nietzsche and Neoliberalism in Breaking Bad (Jeffrey R. Di Leo) 26
What Writers Can Learn from Breaking Bad: The Risks and Rewards of Deliberate Disorientation (Neil Connelly) 47
Our “word … is half someone else’s”: Walt and the Literary Echoes of Whitman (Miguel E.H. Santos-Neves) 62
“Round the decay / Of that colossal wreck”: Pride and Guilt as Narrative Emotions (Pablo Echart and Alberto N. García) 78
Say My Name: The Fantasy of Liberated Masculinity (Jason Landrum) 94
Patriarchy and the “Heisenberg Principle” (Philip Poe) 109
Walter White: The Psychopath to Whom We Can All Relate? (Meron Wondemaghen) 122
Breaking Bad Stereotypes about Postpartum: A Case for Skyler White (Rebecca Price Wood) 132
Breaking Health Care (Matthew A. Butkus) 147
Scientific Ethics and Breaking Bad (Ron W. Darbeau) 165
Talking ’bout Some Heisenberg: Experimenting with the Mad Scientist (Cheryl D. Edelson) 183
Bibliography 201
About the Contributors 209
Index 211
