''Skyler is such a Bitch:'' The Demonization of the Non-Cooperative Female in Breaking Bad

''As the spectator identifies with the main male protagonist, he projects his look onto that of his like, his screen surrogate, so that the power of the male protagonist as he controls events coincides with the active power of the eroctic look.'' - Laura Mulvey

In her text Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, Laura Mulvey touches upon the way the spectator of film identifies and looks at the characters in it. She argues that, in classical Hollywood cinema, the spectator is encouraged and led to always indentify with the male protagonist and derive voyeuristic pleasure out of looking at the female character. I think this occurance still exists in recent film, for example in the very popular TV-series Breaking Bad (2008). In Breaking Bad we follow the story of a high school teacher (Walter White) who gets cancer, and, in order to make money to pay for his medical bills at first, and later to provide for his family (but in reality mostly because he gets a kick out of it), becomes a meth-cook. What is interesting about this series is that the spectator of the show slowly gets ''sucked in'' to identifying with Walter White, eventhough he really is not a likeable person when we take a closer look. However he is the main male protagonist, he is a bit of a loser, and he decides to ''take matters into his own hands.'' These things make Walter someone the audience, surely the male audience, sympathize and indentify with him, even when he turns darker and darker as the show progresses.
Walter White turns into quite a viscious murderer, who will do anything in order to survive (and for his meth-business to survive), with little regard of the effects this has on others, such as his family. Walter's wife Skyler starts to form legitimate concerns about the changing behaviour of her husband, and she confronts him with these regularly. They have a family together, in the beginning of the series Skylar is pregnant of their second child, and her husband who has been diagnosed with cancer suddenly doesn't come home when he says he will and starts acting very strange. It is only logical that she is concerned, however throughout the series Skyler is painted to be this ''nagging, bitchy wife,'' who stands in the way of Walter's drug-related success. Even when Walter becomes very viscious near the end of the show, he is still viewed as the ''troubled hero,'' by the audience, and Skylar as an annoyance who stands in the way of the story line. In this following clip we see this manifested as Walter tells Skyler to stop nagging him about his whereabouts and changed behaviour (or as he puts it, ''to climb down out of his ass.''). This is a highly disrespectful moment towards Skyler of course, yet amongs many fans of the show it was celebrated.



If you scroll down to the comments of this video you see how far this identification with Walter and demonization of Skylar goes, with comments such as:

 ''what an age we're living in, when the most badass thing a man can do is stand up against his wife.'' 

 ''Very satisfying. He doesn't really do this again until the end of the show, haha. Had the patience of a saint with Skyler. I like Skyler but knowing Walt, I would think he'd do this more over the series.''

'''FUCKING CUNT BITCH I FUCKINF HATE HER I WISH HER TO DIE''

''Skylar is such a cunt''

Finally, to illustrate the existence of the female character to satisfy a voyeuristic pleasure, we see comments such as:

''she was way hotter way she was preganant''

''I wish I got her Pregnant''

I think I have made my point.