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frelling_tralk) wrote2014-01-21 05:14 pm
frelling_tralk) wrote2014-01-21 05:14 pm
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Skyler is still one of the most controversial topics of conversation for Breaking Bad and viewers seem to either fall into loving her and Skyler being the best and most flawlessly badass character of the whole show, or being the worst ever and a total bitch of a wife. I'm frustrated though that some of her actual morally ambiguous acts are never even considered and taken seriously. All that the criticism mostly seems to come down too are accusations of her being a terrible wife, and so there's this perception that you might be misogynistic and a total Walt stan if you do have problems with Skyler as a character
Well for me the character really bothered me over the whole car wash deal when she came up with an elaborately clever deal to force the man to sell his life's work to her. But it wasn't enough for Skyler that she was conning him out of a business that he was obviously proud of and had spend most of his life building up from where he started off as a poor immigrant, just because he disrespected her husband when she tried to make him a fair offer she deliberately decided to punish and humiliate him by dropping the offer to a much lower amount and relished in her new-found power over him. I was cringing when she seemed so smug and awful when she telling Walt that oh he'll call. I thought that her attitude there was meant to be similar to Walt's similar reactions to any perceived slights against him. Ditto with Saul and the money-laundering where Skyler brings up her book-keeping experience as a reason for why she has to personally handle the money-laundering and they have to follow her insistence on it being a car-wash, leading to the hilarity of her looking up "money laundering" on google to show us that she really doesn't know as much as she thinks. That all reminded me of Walt arrogantly thinking that his chemistry skills meant that he could handle making meth, even though he had no idea how to handle the criminal underworld and got him and Jesse in over their heads time and time again because of that
But those questionable characters flaws of Skyler's never seem to get brought up and discussed, it's ALWAYS just about what an awful wife Skyler is to Walt and how she nags him too much. I've seen her sleeping with Ted brought up soooo often as to why viewers can't stand her, yet hardly ever does the actual manipulation that Walt pulled on her in season 3 get discussed. She specifically slept with Ted because Walt broke back into the family home after she requested a divorce, called her bluff with the police, and forced her to play happy families with him. I was cheering when she threw that awkwardness right back in Walt's face by telling him that "I.F.T" right before joining Walt Junior and his friend for dinner. But so many audience members acted like a separation should only happen in Walt's terms, so if he forces Skyler to let him back in the family home then that means that they're still together no matter what and Skyler cheated on him. Being a bad wife will forever be the worst crime of all in the eyes of many of the fans. (And some argue that Skyler is considered worse by viewers only because her actions directly hurt her husband and family supposedly and Walt only hurt criminals and people that were already in the meth business, yet you never see the scene of Walt trying to force himself on Skyler getting the same amount of discussion as any of Skyler's perceived slights against him)
Fandom in general seems to divide into either seeing Skyler as an unsupportive bitch to Walt, or as some kind of faultless Goddess who wants nothing more than to protect her children, but really both sides are just as extreme with their views on women. I saw so much insistence that Skyler was this complete battered wife in late season 5 and would never have come back to Walt if she wasn't forced into it, and IMO it's really not as black and white as that. She did get lured back to Walt and tempted by the money in seasons 3/4, and it's okay to acknowledge that! Both of them were enjoying their newfound power a little bit too much, i.e Skyler was coming up with stories to gaslight the rest of the family and writing a script of what an unimpressed Walt should say and how many "sorry's" she wanted him to use in the story. IMO it wasn't Gus's shooting, but it was really Ted's injury that was her breaking-point when she found herself secretly enjoying the power that came with saying "good" when he swore to her that he wouldn't tell anyone what she did to him. That was what made her take a long look at the person that she was becoming and say enough. Was she ever as bad as Walt? No. Was she a blameless victim? No
Still in fandom neither side seem to want to recognise the times when Skyler did help Walt and when they worked together as a team, it's either she was always an unsupportive bitch wife full stop, or people only looking at her characterisation from season 5A and insist that she was always a domestic abuse victim trying to protect her children. And she was a far more interesting character than either side want to simplify it down too. Interestingly Vince and Anna also seemed to very much fall into the category of defending Skyler as always the one in the right, even though Vince's writing and Anna's performance made it clear that Skyler was in a lot deeper than that and that, after her initial protestations at Walt dealing drugs, she did end up working alongside Walt. She could absolutely be a very flawed character, but it's like people are afraid to say that out loud about a female character without appearing to be bashing them?
Well for me the character really bothered me over the whole car wash deal when she came up with an elaborately clever deal to force the man to sell his life's work to her. But it wasn't enough for Skyler that she was conning him out of a business that he was obviously proud of and had spend most of his life building up from where he started off as a poor immigrant, just because he disrespected her husband when she tried to make him a fair offer she deliberately decided to punish and humiliate him by dropping the offer to a much lower amount and relished in her new-found power over him. I was cringing when she seemed so smug and awful when she telling Walt that oh he'll call. I thought that her attitude there was meant to be similar to Walt's similar reactions to any perceived slights against him. Ditto with Saul and the money-laundering where Skyler brings up her book-keeping experience as a reason for why she has to personally handle the money-laundering and they have to follow her insistence on it being a car-wash, leading to the hilarity of her looking up "money laundering" on google to show us that she really doesn't know as much as she thinks. That all reminded me of Walt arrogantly thinking that his chemistry skills meant that he could handle making meth, even though he had no idea how to handle the criminal underworld and got him and Jesse in over their heads time and time again because of that
But those questionable characters flaws of Skyler's never seem to get brought up and discussed, it's ALWAYS just about what an awful wife Skyler is to Walt and how she nags him too much. I've seen her sleeping with Ted brought up soooo often as to why viewers can't stand her, yet hardly ever does the actual manipulation that Walt pulled on her in season 3 get discussed. She specifically slept with Ted because Walt broke back into the family home after she requested a divorce, called her bluff with the police, and forced her to play happy families with him. I was cheering when she threw that awkwardness right back in Walt's face by telling him that "I.F.T" right before joining Walt Junior and his friend for dinner. But so many audience members acted like a separation should only happen in Walt's terms, so if he forces Skyler to let him back in the family home then that means that they're still together no matter what and Skyler cheated on him. Being a bad wife will forever be the worst crime of all in the eyes of many of the fans. (And some argue that Skyler is considered worse by viewers only because her actions directly hurt her husband and family supposedly and Walt only hurt criminals and people that were already in the meth business, yet you never see the scene of Walt trying to force himself on Skyler getting the same amount of discussion as any of Skyler's perceived slights against him)
Fandom in general seems to divide into either seeing Skyler as an unsupportive bitch to Walt, or as some kind of faultless Goddess who wants nothing more than to protect her children, but really both sides are just as extreme with their views on women. I saw so much insistence that Skyler was this complete battered wife in late season 5 and would never have come back to Walt if she wasn't forced into it, and IMO it's really not as black and white as that. She did get lured back to Walt and tempted by the money in seasons 3/4, and it's okay to acknowledge that! Both of them were enjoying their newfound power a little bit too much, i.e Skyler was coming up with stories to gaslight the rest of the family and writing a script of what an unimpressed Walt should say and how many "sorry's" she wanted him to use in the story. IMO it wasn't Gus's shooting, but it was really Ted's injury that was her breaking-point when she found herself secretly enjoying the power that came with saying "good" when he swore to her that he wouldn't tell anyone what she did to him. That was what made her take a long look at the person that she was becoming and say enough. Was she ever as bad as Walt? No. Was she a blameless victim? No
Still in fandom neither side seem to want to recognise the times when Skyler did help Walt and when they worked together as a team, it's either she was always an unsupportive bitch wife full stop, or people only looking at her characterisation from season 5A and insist that she was always a domestic abuse victim trying to protect her children. And she was a far more interesting character than either side want to simplify it down too. Interestingly Vince and Anna also seemed to very much fall into the category of defending Skyler as always the one in the right, even though Vince's writing and Anna's performance made it clear that Skyler was in a lot deeper than that and that, after her initial protestations at Walt dealing drugs, she did end up working alongside Walt. She could absolutely be a very flawed character, but it's like people are afraid to say that out loud about a female character without appearing to be bashing them?
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And she was a far more interesting character than either side want to simplify it down too. Interestingly Vince and Anna also seemed to very much fall into the category of defending Skyler as always the one in the right, even though Vince's writing and Anna's performance made it clear that Skyler was in a lot deeper than that and that, after her initial protestations at Walt dealing drugs, she did end up working alongside Walt.
Ugh. Yes. They do the same with Jesse. I was listening to the Peekaboo commentary the other day and they made a comment about the morality Walt allows Jesse to keep. Are you kidding me? Walt, Jesse, Skyler, Saul, all of them made their own choices.
I think trying to boil these characters down to all good or all bad or as all being some kind of puppets to Walt demeans them completely. They were so much more than that. I wonder if maybe that's why the finale made so many uncomfortable because it didn't play to that end.
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Similarly Mike's words about Walt were taken as gospel by much of fandom, even though the hypocrisy in what he was saying about the set-up with Gus was blatant.
ETA And I'm trying to remember where I heard this now, but I'm pretty sure there was a commentary from the later seasons ( season 5?) where Vince talked about Jesse becoming the moral voice for Walt and Bryan Cranston saying that he doesn't see it that way at all. I wish that I could remember what he actually said now, but I think it was something along the lines of Jesse being an emotional voice in Walt's life sure, but not necessarily the moral one. And just YES to that. For example Jesse clearly felt horrible about the death of the little boy in season 5 and fell apart over it, but he wasn't exactly planning to go to the police either and bring closure to the parents, he got as far as quitting the business and throwing money around to try and ease his conscience. That puts him ahead of Walt for sure, but at the same time let's not go crazy here.
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while Jesse is coming up with elaborate revenge schemes and blaming Walt for his having nothing in his life.
Yeah, I saw it more as an angry rant than anything. I mean, Jesse is the one who caused all that. He's the one who started cooking again. I feel sorry for him because he tended to be the one who took the beatings, but he wasn't innocent in it all.
But it's rather common. The same sort of things went down when I dipped my toe in the Sopranos fandom. And you definitely see it in Buffy/Angel fandom. It's just annoying when the writers play to it, too...assuming they do. I wonder sometimes if Vince doesn't just say things to assuage the voice. He'll say on thing then immediately say it's open to the viewer. I usually much prefer Schnauz's take on things.
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It's all very well absolving Jesse of all responsibility just because he openly felt bad about the death, but he would have been held responsible for the death legally as it happened when they all were willingly carrying out a crime. And even after that, Jesse and Mike were still hoping to make a profit by selling their meth and Jesse was asking Walt for his share of the money.
And I think that Vince did intend all of the characters to come across as morally complex, but maybe got frustrated with the Skyler hate and so felt that he needed to emphasise that Skyler has every right to speak out about cooking meth, and he didn't want to then get into the rest of it when he was trying to defend her from irrational hate? I dunno, but I do think that he also has a sympathetic reading of Walt. A lot of viewers assumed that they were supposed to just hate Walt as the bad guy full-stop, but I don't think that Vince saw it that way. Nor do I think he had much exposure to those fans actually, when he was talking about the finale he seemed surprised at critics wanting it all to be a dream. He talked in terms of well that wouldn't be a very satisfying ending, as if he took for granted that most of the audience would want things to end with some closure for Walt.
I get the impression that many of the fans that loathed Walt assumed that he was in their wavelength after he spoke out against Skyler hate, and there was this assumption that he wanted the audience to hate Walt and side against him. I mean I can't speak for him, but I don't think that he ever wanted the audience to hate Walt as much as many of them did, any more then he wanted the obsessive stans to defend everything that Walt did and see him as the hero right up to the end. He mostly seemed interested in examining the character flaws that ultimately brought a once good man down, not telling some black and white morality play
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But I don't think he was unaware of it either, just because I know Kelly Dixon was aware of the fandom hate and thus made him aware of it. They talked about it in some of the podcasts.
He never seemed to make a conscious effort to put that onscreen, though. Were that the case, no way would Sky have suggested killing Jesse. He'll always have props in my book for not catering to one side or the other. Unlike some people who shall remained unnamed. :P
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And yep Skyler remained very consistently written right up to the end thankfully, and there was never an attempt made to soften her, or fullfill the wishes of fans who wanted her to team up with Jesse against Walt when that would have made no sense whatsoever
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It feels like so many viewers are just projecting some one-dimensional view of how they view female characters on to Skyler. When it comes to a character like Walt, if he had handled the car wash sale the way that Skyler did then it would absolutely get discussed in terms of what it says about his character, but with Skyler stuff like that very rarely seems to come up? The discussion seems to nearly always comes down to talking about her in relation to Walt and condemning her for not being a good wife, and then even the fans who are defending her are usually mostly talking about her in relation to being a saintly mother figure and how everything she did was to protect her family from Walt. And there's so much more to her character than that
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I was cheering when she threw that awkwardness right back in Walt's face by telling him that "I.F.T" right before joining Walt Junior and his friend for dinner.
So say we all.
Being a bad wife will forever be the worst crime of all in the eyes of many of the fans.
Nail, head.
Fandom in general seems to divide into either seeing Skyler as an unsupportive bitch to Walt, or as some kind of faultless Goddess who wants nothing more than to protect her children, but really both sides are just as extreme with their views on women.
PREACH. And you know, it’s testament to THE SHOW that they allowed Skyler to be so complex. Fandom just missed the point.
As far as Vince and Anna being defensive goes, well, I’m not surprised - they’ve both seen the amount of hate Skyler gets and are/were probably being reactive.
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And IA with the show doing a terrific job of defining Skyler's character, it's just a shame that fandom had to even approach a show like BB with such black and white morality. I think that too there was a lot of 'well I'm starting to really dislike Walt and recognise that he's the bad guy now, so that means that I should be rooting for Skyler and Jesse as the good guys who are opposing him'. Even Mike I've seen discussed from that viewpoint as an example of a 'decent criminal', and wtf just because those characters have individual reasons to hate Walt and oppose him does not mean that they have suddenly become the heroes of the story. Skyler possibly fell under that in 5A when she was fighting to protect her children from Walt's criminal activities in the right way, but by the time of 5B she was telling Walt to 'take care' of his enemies like Jesse and she was back to working alongside Walt, even if that meant threatening Hank over turning Walt in. And a lot of Jesse's emotional response to Walt came after he believed that Walt had killed his friend Mike, and then with his realisation that Walt had been manipulating him all along with Brock and Gus. Of course it's understandable for anyone to freak out at that, but let's not pretend that it was all about Jesse suddenly wanting to do the right thing and that he became the moral voice of the show. And I won't even get into Mike and the bullshit that he talked about Walt messing up 'their' good arrangement with Gus lol. None of those characters were as simple as the white hats speaking the truth against Walt's black hat, but you wouldn't guess that from a lot of the audience response
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But, heh. HERE I AM, REPLYING ANYWAY.
So, basically, I think (hope?!!) I fit in the third category? I LOVE LOVE LOVE Skyler, but I love her 'warts and all' and I also get annoyed when people brush off her (many) 'flaws' or erase them altogether because those things are what makes her HER. She has the propensity to be an awful person. She's arrogant, cold, ruthless, ambitious, spiteful, jealous, hypocritical (note: all things a female 'shouldn't' be!!), but she's also a victim and she's fiercely protective of her kids, and she's brave and scared and A THOUSAND OTHER THINGS.
Urgh. I LOVE HER SO.
(Though I agree that comments I've seen both Anna and Vince make about her make it seem like they think of her slightly differently, but I choose to read that as a reaction to the HATE and RAGE the character - and actress - copped, as opposed to an accurate reading that I need to adopt/adjust to).
Basically, I agree with so much of what you've said here, but the only difference is I love it all and her to BITS because of it?!!
She is my second favourite character behind Walt and my most favourite of season five. LOVE HER. Yes.
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But right up to the end her character was exclusively viewed as how she came across as a wife by so many of the viewers, and even the viewers defending her didn't seem to release that they were also interpreting everything that she did through how it affected her husband and children, they just cheered her on for it and were team Skyler against Team Walt, but that's brushing off such a huge part of her character. It hardly ever gets brought up that she did refuse to be the wife that looks away, but actually insisted on taking an active role in the cover-up and working at money-laundering right alongside Walt. Still her character gets boiled down to those that never forgave her for freaking out over her husband dealing drugs and holding him back, and those that only saw her as the mother figure who was taking a stand against Walt and insist that she only returned to him because Walt dominated and abused her. And both sides are missing, not just a huge chunk of her storyline from seasons 3 and 4, but who Skyler fundamentally is as a person
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I tend to think they go hand in hand. I don't think the familial situation in S1 is written so much as Walt's POV because to me she's never written antagonistically. Sky is overbearing and controlling in S1, but at the same time it also shows why she is: Walt has quit. He's a pushover. He's a sleep. Sky is the one keeping track of finances. Walt Jr doesn't respect him. It's Sky who goes to confront the kids making fun of Jr and their surprised when Walt does.
If Vince was writing from that angle, I can see why he'd be surprised at how it was taken by some folks.
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Skyler is not written as an outright antagonist I agree, but the show always felt very singularly focused on Walter White to me. Both seasons 1 and 5 in particular felt almost solely constructed around Walt's POV, there was little exploration of how characters like Jesse and Marie would ultimately end up in the end for example. Jesse's happy ending from Walt's POV rings false the more you think about what he was actually driving back too, and even the people that Walt was taking out were very much one-dimensional baddies that we see from Walt's POV as bad guys to defeat, even though arguably Lydia had previously been given more dimension than that
Obviously as the show went on the supporting characters did get a lot more range and their own stories at times, but just in general I got the feeling most strongly with season 1 that we were primarily watching Walt's story and how he viewed the people in his life, and then by the end of season 5 that's what we were again going back to with the other characters just supporting his story. IMO Skyler's role early on was very specifically one of the ~nagging wife~ stereotype who's going to give Walt a hard time for eating bacon, or for not checking in with her over the credit card spending, and we were almost encourage to see her as way too controlling in the same way that Walt did. Later seasons did give her more dimension, but it seemed like those early episodes had already coloured many viewers opinion of her
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True that the story is Walt's POV, but even Walt's POV, I don't think he ever sees her in that light. I mean, I agree that she comes across that way, but *Walt* never sees her as such and that's why I think Vince might have been taken aback that people were hating her to the extremes they were.
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