Spoilers for Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul (obvs) TW: mention of DV
I just finished watching season 4 of the Breaking Bad prequel series, Better Call Saul, on Netflix, and I’m absolutely hooked. I was always a fan of Saul-heavy Breaking Bad episodes, so I was delighted to learn more about the backstory of Saul Goodman, a.k.a. Jimmy McGill.
I watched Breaking Bad for the first time this past year, at the request of my boyfriend who now exalts it as one of the best shows ever made. I was extremely hesitant at first. For starters, my chronic illness – “Not Like the Other Girls Syndrome” – was flaring up, and I wasn’t particularly interested in watching a show that every third person I’ve met in college has touted as their favorite of all time. Secondly, as much as I can enjoy a gritty picture, I wasn’t sure if I could invest myself into five seasons of violence, drugs, and the stupid yellow filter they use for all the scenes taking place in Mexico. The biggest factor holding me back, however, was my understanding of the Breaking Bad fandom.
I sat through a really good presentation about “the anti-hero” character and the kinds of fans they attract in a popular culture course I took last summer. Walter White was a character of great contention. He is undoubtedly the “hero” of Breaking Bad as its protagonist, and the showrunners expect you to root for him. However, as the “anti-hero,” you don’t have to agree with everything he does. A key feature of anti-heroes is that they garner the same support that a typical hero does without having the same cookie-cutter heroic characteristics, most importantly, morals.
The Anti-Hero
Anti-heroes are fascinating to watch on screen, and Walter White (Bryan Cranston’s performance as Walter White, more specifically) is what kept me invested in the series. Anti-heroes are more representative of the “real world” than the good guy doing good stuff and getting his way in the end. It was frustrating, heartbreaking, and upsetting to watch this anti-hero operate, and that’s what made it so enjoyable. You have this terrible man doing terrible things, but as the viewer, you want him to get away with it so that you can watch the story progress.
An issue arises, however, when viewers take the anti-hero at face value, disregard that what he’s doing is wrong, and instead treat him as one is expected to treat a regular hero. Quite simply, people who love characters like Walter White and Rick Sanchez, not because they’re complex representations of the human condition but because they’re entertaining assholes who are smart and get away with crazy shit, are missing the point.
So, going into Breaking Bad, I had a few preconceived notions about the characters and what their general reception was by the fandom. I will now state, in an effort of full disclosure, that I hate Walt. Jesse is my hero. Fuck Walt. Obviously, as the anti-hero, I was rooting for him, because if he got caught wtf would I have left to watch, but I hated every second of it nonetheless. I hated his superiority complex, I thought his motivations were nonsensical, and I genuinely believe he has no redeemable qualities, but hey, that’s just me. I have a thing about raging narcissists.
Why do fans hate Skyler so much?
All that being said, you can imagine I wasn’t in total shock when I finished the show and took a scroll through the Breaking Bad subreddit to find that a lot of the show’s fans hate Skyler, Walter’s wife. And if they don’t hate her, they don’t get her. It was concerning to see how many comments I saw along the lines of “after my fifth (FIFTH!!) re-watch of the series, I guess I can finally see where Skyler is coming from.” This really bothered me.
By all means, I wasn’t expecting a feminist masterpiece when I went into the show. To me, Breaking Bad is and always will be a “guy’s show.” I don’t really think it was made with people like me in mind. As it stands, the show barely passes the Bechtel test, but whatever, that’s alright, I’ll take the show as it is.
Nevertheless, it was disconcerting, to say the least, to see so many (presumably) male viewers unable to empathize with the main female character of the show while readily accepting an immoral drug dealer as their hero. I chalked it up to plain old misogyny, left the subreddit, and joined r/okbuddychicanery to clown on all the people who genuinely made comments calling Skyler “bitch wife.”
Then I watched Better Call Saul and fell in love with the character of Kim, Jimmy’s love interest. I was repeatedly impressed by the amount of depth afforded to her and resonated with her development throughout the series. After so thoroughly enjoying a female creation from the mind of Vince Gilligan, I couldn’t help but return to Skyler. Poor, poor Skyler.
And it got me thinking, why couldn’t the writers make Skyler more like Kim? Yes, I get it, they’re totally different characters, and unlike Walt, I actually really like Jimmy despite his fuzzy morals, but still, why couldn’t they make Skyler more likable?
Then it hit me. I don’t like Skyler.
I empathized with her, I understood and defended (most of) her actions, but in all honesty, I didn’t like her very much. I don’t think the showrunners did a good job at making Skyler a likable character, as someone the viewers could sympathize with, even if begrudgingly so.
How to write better (female) characters
I would argue that the show did a much better job humanizing Marie, Skyler’s sister. There’s a brief subplot of the series (that doesn’t get brought up again and doesn’t really lead anywhere) that shows that Marie is a kleptomaniac. She steals a luxury tiara to gift to Skyler at her baby shower and attends several open houses pretending to be different people and taking souvenirs from each home.
I’m sure media analysts can make several meanings of this, but at the end of the day, no one explanation matters. It’s clear that Marie gets enjoyment out of stealing and pretending – pretending to be able to afford expensive, impractical gifts for her soon-to-be-born niece or pretending to be the wife of an astronaut that is looking to buy a new house. This is her addiction.
As mentioned, this subplot serves as a character-building moment and does nothing to affect the trajectory of the story. While I’m sure most Breaking Bad viewers find this subplot to be one of the lull points of the show, it’s one of the moments that has stuck with me. I think because it gave such a great insight into the actions and mindset of a supporting character that didn’t immediately affect Walt. It shows that Marie is a real person with complex feelings and motivations. She’s not just “Hank’s Wife” or “Skyler’s Sister.” She’s Marie. She has a life outside of what we see in the series. She has an impulse control problem, and she’s speaking to someone to help with it.
As I write this, I can only wonder why the writers chose to give this subplot to Marie instead of Skyler. I can just as easily imagine Skyler wandering through open houses using aliases and telling real estate agents that her husband is a genius government chemist. Instead, the showrunners have Skyler deal with the stresses of her life by smoking WHILE PREGNANT (can’t defend that one, Sky), having an affair (the ultimate sin according to many BB fans), and taking dramatic Lana Del Rey-esque dips in the pool.
Another inconsequential detail the showrunners want the audience to know about Marie is that her favorite color is purple. She’s always dressed in a purple blouse or clothing that has some sort of purple detailing. It’s apparent that she was the person responsible for decorating her home with Hank, which is adorned with purple throw pillows, seat cushions, curtains, coffee pots and pans (very cool), and most notably, a huge purple area rug that the characters are often seen gathered around.
This is simply a costume/set design choice; it has absolutely no effect on the plot, and, if I’m not mistaken, is never referenced by any of the other characters. I absolutely adore this detail. It’s so small, so unnecessary, can so easily be removed from the minds of the showrunners, yet it was intentionally and purposefully weaved into the series. Marie is a real person, a woman who has a favorite color, a color she likes so much that she wears it every day and decorates her home with it. It’s so humanizing and charming. It makes me think of Marie outside of what we see in the show, going shopping, choosing a purple mug to add to her collection, joyfully exclaiming when she discovers that a shirt she likes comes in purple. Again, I’m at a loss as to why the showrunners didn’t choose to give Skyler this character trait, but I’m glad at least one of the leading women got it.
Because of these small details, I would even argue that I understand Marie’s motivations more than I understand Skyler’s, apart from her motivations as a mother who wants to protect her children. I can’t really say I understand Skyler other than on an innate level as a woman who empathizes with other women, especially those in abusive relationships.
Skyler is shown as cold and detached. The thing is, I get why she’s this way. I get why she has to remove herself from her relationship with Walt, I get why she tries to hurt him by having an affair. I understand her actions, but I’m left in the dark when it comes to her headspace. Who was Skyler before her husband became a ruthless drug dealer? What were her goals and aspirations? Who is she other than a wife, a mother, or a mistress?
Perhaps my understanding of Skyler greatly relies on my shared experience with her as a woman, and since a majority of Breaking Bad fans are men, they lack this basic understanding of her character and are left with what the show tells us about her, which is practically nothing.
Why Kim just…works!
When it comes to Better Call Saul, however, the show readily provides context to Kim’s motivations, and this allows for viewers to get a better understanding of not only her own personal motivations but also how she relates to Jimmy, something I wish the showrunners had considered when making Breaking Bad because I think there is a real lack of understanding when it comes to how Walt and Skyler relate to each other.
There’s a scene in the season finale of season 3 of Better Call Saul where Kim and Jimmy are deciding on a movie to watch. One of the options is To Kill a Mockingbird, which Kim remarks is her favorite childhood movie, saying, “I loved Atticus Finch,” to which Jimmy replies, “All the girls were in love with Gregory Peck.” Kim responds, “No, I wasn’t in love with him, well, a little, but, no. I wanted to be him.” Perhaps a little too on the nose with that one, but I appreciate the glimpse into Kim’s childhood that works to humanize her and establish her as a real person who had dreams of being a good guy lawyer as a kid. Later on in the series when Kim decides to take on pro bono work in favor of the more lucrative field of banking law, we can see how her childhood idealism of the law has led her to this point.
There are countless other examples of important character-building scenes like this that made Kim the loveable character she is to me. The main, and probably most important difference between Skyler and Kim is their screen time. Kim simply gets more alone time on screen than Skyler does. I understand that Kim is arguably the second (or third) main character of the show, whereas Skyler more appropriately falls within the main, but supporting, cast of Breaking Bad, but god do I wish we got at least one episode dedicated to her! Was Skyler that unimportant to the showrunners?
I’m one of those people who thinks the “fly” episode was totally pointless, especially when I think about the fact that Skyler’s only dedicated plotline has to do with her affair, which leads me to my final point, the final nail in the coffin when it comes to Skyler’s likability: sex.
The elephant(s) in the room: sex and misogyny
Not to go full commando feminist on whoever is reading this, but I must point out a very unfortunate truth about the world we live in, and this is that sex devalues women. Not literally, of course, but in patriarchal societies, the societies in which both Skyler and Kim were conceived, sex is seen as degrading to women, and empowering to men. I can’t help but wonder if Skyler’s sexuality, the sexuality which violates her sacred commitment to the anti-hero of the show, is a reason why so many male viewers of the show simply cannot stand her.
The showrunners weren’t doing Skyler any favors either. Instead of erotic sex scenes, we get sleazy backseat car sex, cringe-worthy seductions (Happy Birthday Mr. President), and even a scene where Walt rapes Skyler, a scene that most male viewers choose to ignore or purposely misunderstand. As viewers, we don’t even get good sex from Skyler. This is sex that devalues and degrades her. Although all sex under the patriarchy devalues and degrades women, Skyler’s affair and her refusal to want to have sex with her husband are unique atrocities that mark her as a particularly sinful woman. Whether male viewers think of Skyler in this way subconsciously or not, I believe this aspect of her character plays a huge role in her un-likability.
As mentioned, most of the times we see Skyler alone is when she’s at work with the man she’s having an affair with, leaving the home of the man she’s having an affair with, or picking up after the mess of the man she’s having an affair with. Skyler’s character is wrapped up in sex, inadvertently or not.
And so, I couldn’t help but notice the lack of sex in Better Call Saul. We know Kim and Jimmy have sex, but we never actually see it. As an audience, we are never drawn to Kim’s sexuality, it’s almost like we’re supposed to pretend it doesn’t exist. Even in a post-sex under the covers bedroom scene, Kim is fully clothed.
The characters never say I love you, they don’t refer to each other as boyfriend or girlfriend, and there are only two scenes where Kim and Jimmy “make out.” Despite the lack of conventional scenes of intimacy between the couple, it’s very clear that they deeply love and care for each other, and I’m not sure how I feel about this.
On the one hand, I love this. I love that Kim is her own character, a female love interest who doesn’t have to be sexy or show her tits on screen to be deemed worthy of a meaningful relationship with the main male character. But there’s this creeping thought…in the back of my mind…one that has only arisen after doing this analysis…I can’t help but wonder… was this… intentional? Did Vince Gilligan and the other showrunners see the negative reception of Skyler, a reception I believe had much to do with her sexuality and deliberately make sure that Kim was stripped of hers? Did they actively try as hard as they could to make sure that Kim could never be construed as bitch wife??
To conclude…
Once again, I can only wonder. In the end, I’m left with a lot of questions when it comes to the creation of Skyler White, but her reception is a lot clearer to me now. The two main reasons, I’ve concluded, that a lot of Breaking Bad fans don’t like Skyler can be boiled down to two main reasons:
1. The showrunners quite simply did not make her a likable character. The lack of character development made it difficult for viewers to understand and sympathize with her actions (this is how I feel about her).
2. Misogyny.
And so, the question still remains, the title of this article, how do we get men who worship the “anti-hero” to like female characters? Do we remove them from their sexuality? Do we make them more complex so they realize, hey, she’s a person just like me! Or perhaps a combination of the two? Maybe, but
the answer is a lot simpler when you realize that it’s not hard for men who aren’t misogynists to like and empathize with female characters. So, when I learn the answer to how to solve sexism, I’ll get back to you.
Most importantly, though, male showrunners need to learn how to better write female characters, and I think the writers of Better Call Saul did a fantastic job.
For some fun extra reading: here is a really interesting op-ed from the New York Times written by the actress who plays Skyler, Anna Gun, who talks about her experience playing the “most-hated” character on Breaking Bad.