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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?
no subject
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
no subject
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.
no subject
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
no subject
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.
no subject