What is it about?
Breaking Bad was one of the most acclaimed shows of TV's "Golden Age". This paper examines how, by its own framework of de-romanticization (building up and breaking down), the series faltered, falling in thrall to critics' praise, viewers' admiration, and its own glorification of its anti-hero, Walter White.
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Why is it important?
This reconsideration of Breaking Bad and its grander story, visual, and aural flourishes helps to burst the bubble of hype around the show that still lingers. A largely male-run, male-dominated television series became too self-aware of its reputed brilliance and over-identified with its male antihero until he was granted a loving swansong. Is there a warning here about unalloyed adoration of today’s television?
Perspectives
I hope this article helps readers to reconsider one of this decade's best-known TV series using the framework that it set up itself, in its first season. And perhaps it will help some readers to see that some TV shows are much more related and indebted to past poetry and fiction--in this case, Romantic literature, particularly--than they may realize.
Brian Gibson
Universite Sainte-Anne
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Romancing the ice: The problematic poetry of Breaking Bad, Critical Studies in Television The International Journal of Television Studies, December 2018, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/1749602018796698.
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