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"The thing is, if you just do stuff, and nothing happens, what's it all mean?"
Friday, August 16, 2013
Love and Compassion: Wait...in this show?
Living is a dream
When you make it seem enchanted
Lovers take for granted
All the world's aglow, they ought to know
When you touch a star
Then you really are enchanted
Find a seed and plant it
Love will make it grow
It's really grand when you stand
Hand in hand with your lover
And thrill to the wonders of night
And days, too will amaze you
And soon you'll discover
Your dreams run to dreams
In continuous flight
Love is ecstasy
It's divine to be enchanted
When your dreams are slanted
Through a lover's eyes
-The Platters, "Enchanted," 2x11 "Mandala"
When you make it seem enchanted
Lovers take for granted
All the world's aglow, they ought to know
When you touch a star
Then you really are enchanted
Find a seed and plant it
Love will make it grow
It's really grand when you stand
Hand in hand with your lover
And thrill to the wonders of night
And days, too will amaze you
And soon you'll discover
Your dreams run to dreams
In continuous flight
Love is ecstasy
It's divine to be enchanted
When your dreams are slanted
Through a lover's eyes
-The Platters, "Enchanted," 2x11 "Mandala"
"I haven't been myself lately, but I love you.
Nothing about that has changed, nothing ever will.
Nothing about that has changed, nothing ever will.
So right now, what I need, is for you to climb down out of my ass.
Can you do that? Will you do that for me, honey?
Will you please, just once, get off my ass, you know?
I'd appreciate it, I really would."
-Walter White, 1x02, "The Cat's in the Bag"
This fan-made YouTube montage is fittingly titled, "I killed her; I loved her"
Question: aside from the above epigraphhow many times is the phrase "I love you" said throughout the series? How often is it genuine,
-example
So, barely at all.
Now, how often do the characters show signs of affection and compassion? How often do you see the compassionate side of Walter squashed by the utilitarian Heisenberg, the devil on his shoulders and inside his head?
The moment of resolve: when we and Walt realize that love, even for "family," wouldn't squash his dark impulses. Walt becomes the Dark Phoenix
Family. Walt could have rationalized that he let Jane die because of his fatherly affections for Jesse, but as the aftermath exposes, this was a fools' logic; deep down he did it because Jane was a threat. How was she a threat? She could expose the truth, plain and simple. Is wasn't his family that would have been destroyed by her bluff, but his reputation. His pride. His ego. His control.
Maybe Walt temporarily saw her as another Tuco, someone who genuinely had it coming ("We tried to poison you because you are an insane, degenerate piece of filth and you deserve to die"
Admittingly, Jane-on-Heroin was pretty unlikable, but junk-makes-cowards-and-demons-of-us-all.
(...the parallels between Holly and Jane, .
What kind of father--what type of man--let's somebody's daughter die so pitifully?
...No man, no man at all.
In the initial writing process of "Phoenix," Gilligan and Crew toyed around with the idea of having Walt directly inject Jane with a needle that would force her to overdose. That wasn't authentic to his character development at the time, and would have probably alienated fans and could have lead to a cancellation of the series, so thankfully they "put a pin in that." Fifth season Walt would have just had the Nazi-goons brutally kill (and likely rape) her. Then again, the No-Where-Man Walt wouldn't have even showed up there to help Jesse; the likelihood of their mutually-assured-drug-destruction would have been seen as a "problem taking care of itself.
The thing about the final scene in "Phoenix" that made it so indelible and sublime (until "Fly" and the Fourth and Fifth season, I didn't think the show would ever top the emotional and artistic resonance of "Phoenix;" but I guess it was able to rise from the ashes, more compelling and pathos-inducing than ever) was that letting Jane die wasn't a "Pro/Con" scheme of necessary evil, or even a thought-out choice. It was instinct. No scientific reason. (...this comes up later in 5x07, when Walt kills Mike purely out of pride, even though it's clearly the most reckless and self-endangering thing he could do...post-shooting Walt is the most pathetic and vulnerable we ever see him as).
This moment of renouncing love is Walt's true point-of-no-return-sin; his Jane-moment would later resurface in Jesse's ultimate sin, the murder of Gale.
This moment of renouncing love is Walt's true point-of-no-return-sin; his Jane-moment would later resurface in Jesse's ultimate sin, the murder of Gale.
-
Here are the "criminal" characters that seemed most capable of genuine love and compassion...Mike, Gus, and mostly Jesse and Gale.
Gale loved the hell out of life. Jesse could see this in the soul glimpsed through their eye contact in the last scene of 3x13, which is why is was the most crushing thing he ever did. Jesse was (see the fan art in the Dramatis Personae page, for a great representation of this psychic fracturing).
Want some ocular proof of Gale's zeal and over abundant Love for Life...
For all the martyr symbolism attached to Jesse, Gale may have been the most authentic savior-figure
Is Walter White, self-presumed savior of the dirty and impure meth game, capable of true love? For a man that presents himself as an all-knowing god, he seems more in line with blind Old testament wrath than agape. No, his idea of compassion is more like a-gaping hole in the fabric of decency.
The Will to White Power: Racial Politics and Geopolitical Poetics
Murky waters (I'm white, so some may say I have no idea what I'm talking about...but am far from "whitey."
Sources:
http://ideas.time.com/2012/07/20/breaking-bad-and-the-downfall-of-the-white-anyman/
http://www.salon.com/2012/09/12/breaking_bad_white_supremacist_fable/
Many blogs and articles that responded to Malcom Harris' article, making even more narrow interpretations of the show.
Fear of globalization.
Is the scene near the end of 5X09, where Jesse treats the black homeless man like as a dog, racist? Clearly, the purpose of this scene is to bring back the "Problem Dog" symbolism (it also cleverly calls back the Dog House eatery than Jesse used to frequent, having the background wagging tail appear as if it's coming out of the vagrant); but there was something burlesque about the transient, and in a show with few unintended icons, perhaps "Blood Money" is drawing attention the the inherent racialized contradictions in the Pinkman character (...shit, his last name isn't as white as "White"'s, but it does denote honkiness...then again, aren't we all pink(-hu)man(s), on the inside?).
Recall that Jesse started out in season one as a complex yet caricatured "wigger" archetype (5x09's juxtaposition of Jesse's background stoicism and his former running-crew's [Badger and Skinny Pete...off the meth but still on the pipe] foreground shenanigans--echoing the start of the meth-fueled bro-out blast-that-went-on-seemingly-in-perpetuity which started in "Thirty Eight-Snub" (4x02)--show how far Jesse has unraveled from his previous "personaes." Like Walter, the characters and the audience no longer see someone rooted in "being" (confined identity which embodies cultural archetypes and performative expectations) We don't no who, or where, they are. So...is it better to sustain an identity that, while . ; or to go in flux with the abyssal tides of nothingness?
Then again, maybe I'm giving the show too much progressive credit. If it's meaning is inextricable with the "meaning of life," than I guess it is racist. Keep in mind that Gilligan is known by some (at least one) as the "Red State Auteur".
German Conglomerate.
Gus being the ultimate Other (a Chilean emigrant to Mexico, who then emigrated to the U.S.), dark skinned and likely homosexual. However, he is the most efficient and humane . Lydia, who is a quintessential
Racialist tropes from Western film (guy with clear Native American descent being the foil for the "White guys" caper.
Ricky Hitler.
Purity.
Sources:
http://ideas.time.com/2012/07/20/breaking-bad-and-the-downfall-of-the-white-anyman/
http://www.salon.com/2012/09/12/breaking_bad_white_supremacist_fable/
Many blogs and articles that responded to Malcom Harris' article, making even more narrow interpretations of the show.
Fear of globalization.
Is the scene near the end of 5X09, where Jesse treats the black homeless man like as a dog, racist? Clearly, the purpose of this scene is to bring back the "Problem Dog" symbolism (it also cleverly calls back the Dog House eatery than Jesse used to frequent, having the background wagging tail appear as if it's coming out of the vagrant); but there was something burlesque about the transient, and in a show with few unintended icons, perhaps "Blood Money" is drawing attention the the inherent racialized contradictions in the Pinkman character (...shit, his last name isn't as white as "White"'s, but it does denote honkiness...then again, aren't we all pink(-hu)man(s), on the inside?).
Recall that Jesse started out in season one as a complex yet caricatured "wigger" archetype (5x09's juxtaposition of Jesse's background stoicism and his former running-crew's [Badger and Skinny Pete...off the meth but still on the pipe] foreground shenanigans--echoing the start of the meth-fueled bro-out blast-that-went-on-seemingly-in-perpetuity which started in "Thirty Eight-Snub" (4x02)--show how far Jesse has unraveled from his previous "personaes." Like Walter, the characters and the audience no longer see someone rooted in "being" (confined identity which embodies cultural archetypes and performative expectations) We don't no who, or where, they are. So...is it better to sustain an identity that, while . ; or to go in flux with the abyssal tides of nothingness?
Then again, maybe I'm giving the show too much progressive credit. If it's meaning is inextricable with the "meaning of life," than I guess it is racist. Keep in mind that Gilligan is known by some (at least one) as the "Red State Auteur".
German Conglomerate.
Gus being the ultimate Other (a Chilean emigrant to Mexico, who then emigrated to the U.S.), dark skinned and likely homosexual. However, he is the most efficient and humane . Lydia, who is a quintessential
Racialist tropes from Western film (guy with clear Native American descent being the foil for the "White guys" caper.
Ricky Hitler.
Purity.
Thursday, August 15, 2013
The Name and Name Calling of the Father: Verbal Gymnastics and Linguistic Charlatanry
Your world is in flames there ain't even a name
For the feelings you feel as you watch it all burn.
There's a girl in the distance, she's calling your name,
But the name that she's calling is not your name, she calls:
The word-mule! the word-mule! the word-mule!
But he's plowing the field
The word-mule! the word-mule! the word-mule!
But he's plowing the field
And you can't walk on that water, I know 'cause I tried.
It's our spider web-thinking, it's just too heavy with holes.
And our thoughts they are made up of red georgia clay,
We think we know everything, but man we don't know:
My friends,
Look out for hustlers for preachers for shysters,
Them silver-tongued saints who pretend to do good,
'Cause they're geeks biting chicken-heads off with their witty rejoinders they ain't nothing but greasy fast food for:
-Jim White, "Word Mule," 5x09 "Blood Money (see analysis of Hank in Unraveled 5x09)
Language games.
Truth content.
Some weird pretensia...
Usually, academic-y writings take the literary "epigraph" and use an excessively long external quote, as I am often guilty of; to bring out the echoes of past works, to elucidate common themes and establish an overall "feel" from the get-go. It can often be a too-clever-and-elusive for its own good mechanic (...again, "you got me").
(Funny story about being a dick about things: despite using them often, I would use the term "epigram" whenever I would talk about epigraphs. Unfortunately, both terms were, so no one ever called me out for it (not like it was the most important . I felt like I needed to share, especially in a post about proper naming (literally
But hey, despite the unreliability of empiricism, idealism, logic, common sense. the things that gave Hank the smoking gun was the word (i.e. the initials and handwriting in Walt's copy of Leaves of Grass juxtaposed against old DEA files of the Fring case...or something) and a clear vision (i.e. looking into Walt's eyes as he laid down the accusation, everything afterward was just Hank telling Walt the truths that he knows).
The future unraveling of episode 5x07 will dig even deeper (Spotlight!)
Driftin' back.......
Walt wanted to be Heisenberg. Full actualization took scientific trial and area, with a dash of complete madness and unplanned stumbles down the avenues of absurdity.
First Heisenberg was an afterthought embedded in an unconscious impulse of regress; a phantom. A linguistic fancy thought up on the "Fly." His coming out party was a blast...
A good time was had by all. Hell, Walt was just putting on a persona to avenge his surrogate son. Awesome(see, the audience approves...#HEISENBERG-RULES)! Identification with the main protagonist rocks!
Even Tuco enjoyed himself, and was able to lighten up a bit.
Shit; sure beats some of the other party's Walt-enberg has "thrown":
Funny how things "blew over" better for Ol' Heisen-Walt in the drug-den, than in his own backyard
To toughen up, and complete the "secret identity," Walt needed a costume...
The Heisen-Hat even gets it's own leit-motif, courtesy of Dave Porter's expressionist score...
If Gus can't recognize my internal awe-inspiring-ness; I guess I'll have to really sell it with this hat
Yeah, I'm being silly. The . Where's the hat? Tossed out with the other symbolic representation of THAT SWEET AZTEC
Nowhere Man sees the writing on the walls. Before, the name was a spectre, a disembodied categorization. He thought having a rival (an alter ego aside from his own...which Declan provides) say his name would make him a God. He flew too close to the god-is-the-sun.
Killing Mike (the real Father of the meth-game) for no real reason, made Walter White face the gaping holes in his assumed omniscience. He was nothing after that. Who is Heisenberg now? The truth. It is written...
Soon the word-mule's, world may be in flames...immolating all
Very Crucial Thread to Understanding the Circular Metamorphosis (i.e. metaphor-apotheosis)
For the feelings you feel as you watch it all burn.
There's a girl in the distance, she's calling your name,
But the name that she's calling is not your name, she calls:
The word-mule! the word-mule! the word-mule!
But he's plowing the field
The word-mule! the word-mule! the word-mule!
But he's plowing the field
And you can't walk on that water, I know 'cause I tried.
It's our spider web-thinking, it's just too heavy with holes.
And our thoughts they are made up of red georgia clay,
We think we know everything, but man we don't know:
My friends,
Look out for hustlers for preachers for shysters,
Them silver-tongued saints who pretend to do good,
'Cause they're geeks biting chicken-heads off with their witty rejoinders they ain't nothing but greasy fast food for:
-Jim White, "Word Mule," 5x09 "Blood Money (see analysis of Hank in Unraveled 5x09)
My mother would tell me so many stories about my father.
She would talk about him all the time.
I knew about his personality, how he treated people...
I knew things about my father.
I had a lot of information.
It's because people would tell me these things.
They would paint this picture of my father for me, and I always pretended that was who I saw, too, who I remembered, but it was a lie.
In truth, I only have one real, actual memory of my father.
It must've been right before he died...
Anyway, there, lying on the bed, is my father.
He's all-- He's all twisted up...
Anyway that is the only real memory that I have of my father.
I don't want you to think of me the way I was last night.
I don't want that to be the memory you have of me when I'm gone
-Walter, 4x10, "Salud"
What other epi-graphic did you expect, a TLC music video?
Language games.
Truth content.
Some weird pretensia...
Usually, academic-y writings take the literary "epigraph" and use an excessively long external quote, as I am often guilty of; to bring out the echoes of past works, to elucidate common themes and establish an overall "feel" from the get-go. It can often be a too-clever-and-elusive for its own good mechanic (...again, "you got me").
(Funny story about being a dick about things: despite using them often, I would use the term "epigram" whenever I would talk about epigraphs. Unfortunately, both terms were, so no one ever called me out for it (not like it was the most important . I felt like I needed to share, especially in a post about proper naming (literally
Explanation of first Epigraph
I've seen a million numbered doors on the horizon
Now which is the future you choosen before you gone dying
I'll tell you about a secret I've been undermining
Every little lie in this world comes from dividing
Say you're my lover
say you're my homie
Tilt my chin back, slit my troath
Take a bath in my blood, get to know me
All out of my secrets
All my enemies are turning into my teachers
Because
Light's blinding
No way dividing
What's yours or mine when everything's shining
Your darkness is shining
My darkness is shining
Have faith in ourselves
Truth.
-Alexander Ebert, Truth, 5x01 "Box-Cutter"
I'm saying I've lived too long.
I mean you want them to actually miss you, you know? You want their memories of you to be But she just won't She just won't understand.
I mean, no matter how well I explain it these days, she just has this This I mean, I truly believe there exists some combination of words.
There must exist certain words in a certain specific order that would explain all of this, but with her, I just I just can't ever seem to find them.
-Walter White, 3x10, "Fly"
"What is 'One-Who-Knocks' Raving-Rant?" would be the Jeopardy Style response to the Walt's saught-out Answer "The Specific Combination of Words that Explains 'All of This'" (Double Jeopardy Category: Performative Speech Acts
But hey, despite the unreliability of empiricism, idealism, logic, common sense. the things that gave Hank the smoking gun was the word (i.e. the initials and handwriting in Walt's copy of Leaves of Grass juxtaposed against old DEA files of the Fring case...or something) and a clear vision (i.e. looking into Walt's eyes as he laid down the accusation, everything afterward was just Hank telling Walt the truths that he knows).
- For score-keeping, here's a running list of the names of father White
- Father White
- Walter White
- Mr. White
- Walter
- Walt
- Word Mule
And for some surreal fan(tasy)-made pictorial enlightenment, her
Explanation of second Epigraph (warning, you are about to witness something real nuts...epigraphs to epigraph-explanation subheadings...oh boy).
It's telling that Walt's most authentic moment he ever has with his son in during this (Epi-graphic Explanation
Seems obvious, but there are some intriguing layers to the cold open that snippet is from.The future unraveling of episode 5x07 will dig even deeper (Spotlight!)
Driftin' back.......
Walt wanted to be Heisenberg. Full actualization took scientific trial and area, with a dash of complete madness and unplanned stumbles down the avenues of absurdity.
First Heisenberg was an afterthought embedded in an unconscious impulse of regress; a phantom. A linguistic fancy thought up on the "Fly." His coming out party was a blast...
A good time was had by all. Hell, Walt was just putting on a persona to avenge his surrogate son. Awesome(see, the audience approves...#HEISENBERG-RULES)! Identification with the main protagonist rocks!
Even Tuco enjoyed himself, and was able to lighten up a bit.
Shit; sure beats some of the other party's Walt-enberg has "thrown":
To toughen up, and complete the "secret identity," Walt needed a costume...
The Heisen-Hat even gets it's own leit-motif, courtesy of Dave Porter's expressionist score...
Yeah, I'm being silly. The . Where's the hat? Tossed out with the other symbolic representation of THAT SWEET AZTEC
Nowhere Man sees the writing on the walls. Before, the name was a spectre, a disembodied categorization. He thought having a rival (an alter ego aside from his own...which Declan provides) say his name would make him a God. He flew too close to the god-is-the-sun.
Killing Mike (the real Father of the meth-game) for no real reason, made Walter White face the gaping holes in his assumed omniscience. He was nothing after that. Who is Heisenberg now? The truth. It is written...
Very Crucial Thread to Understanding the Circular Metamorphosis (i.e. metaphor-apotheosis)
Narcotized Interventions: Chasing the Mind-Erasers
All I wanna do is have my mind erased
I'm begging you, pleading you, stop comateasing us all
Drug company, where's a pill for me?
I call it mind eraser, no chaser at all
On permanent leave of everything
Law biding dick riding, fun police, leave us alone
Dulling the edge of a razor blade
What does it mean when the knife & the hand are your own?
-Them Crooked Vultures, "Mind Eraser, no Chaser," Them Crooked Vultures
I'm begging you, pleading you, stop comateasing us all
Drug company, where's a pill for me?
I call it mind eraser, no chaser at all
On permanent leave of everything
Law biding dick riding, fun police, leave us alone
Dulling the edge of a razor blade
What does it mean when the knife & the hand are your own?
-Them Crooked Vultures, "Mind Eraser, no Chaser," Them Crooked Vultures
…Maybe I should’ve done something different. The thing is,
if you just do stuff, and nothing happens, what’s it all mean?
What’s the point? Oh, right, this whole thing is about
self-acceptance… So I should stop judging, and accept?
...So no matter what I do, hooray for me because I’m a great guy?
It’s all good? No matter how many
dogs I kill, I just what,
do an inventory, and accept?”
-Jesse, 4x07, “Problem Dog”
Something tells me the dramatis persone of BB won't get off as easily as these characters
Shame Spiraling Out:
Spotlight Episodes:
Death Drive(er): A weave of "psycho(tic)-analysis"
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but sometimes a cigarette is everything.
Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Vertical Integration: A "Free" Market Meth-aphor
All Your (Free) Base are Belong to Capitalism
Less Pithy Subtitle: A(live) Free(or/and Die) Fallin' Marked-Up-it Meth-Apor(isms)
"Get them coming and going, twice as much revenue and no worries about new customers—as long as American life was something to be escaped from, the cartel would always be sure of a bottomless pool of customers” (192" Inherent Vice
"We're gonna make a lot of money together" Tuco and Lydia
Breaking Bad does not attempt to be a work of art like The Wire: a show which focuses on the literal manifestations of the drug culture (though, even The Wire didn't focus on the overall experience of drug use, instead using the drug trade and its victims as auxillary to a broader exposure of systematic abuses and bureaucratic cycles).
One friend of mine from New Mexico doesn't watch the show; one reason being that meth abuse isn't too big an issue, with heroin being the real epidemic (though, she also presumptiously dislikes the show because "Albuquerque is a horrible, ugly place," so I really couldn't take her "realist" stance seriously).
If we were to read the shows representation of drug culture at face value, then it opens up the racialized interpretation of the show being a representation of white superiority midst mostly Latino "adversaries."
Drug addiction serves as a thematic parallel to Walt's impulsive desires and self-deception (interestingly, it is always been Walt is actually intoxicated that truth slips through and ruptures his psychic deception
(See this previous post for a differant take on the meaning of alcohol use in the show[LINK])
-Season 2 "Over," Walter's drunken intoxication and guilty conscience lead to his Heisenberg persona's first entry into his domestic life.
-Season 2, "ABQ," Before his cancer surgey, Walt is hopped up on medications. It is during this real fugue state that he reveals his second cell phone to Skylar.
-Season 4, "Salud," In the aftermath of his fight (i.e. "smack-down") with Jesse, Walt is drunk and on pain pills, breaking down and exposing his vulnerability to Walt Jr.
Other series that featured drug abuse/addiction as an important thematic element:
-House
-The Sopranos
-Shame
-24 (Season 3, Jack's Heroin addiction, and numerous sub characters that were junkies or involved in the drug trade)
-Workaholics
-
Spotlight Episodes:
Less Pithy Subtitle: A(live) Free(or/and Die) Fallin' Marked-Up-it Meth-Apor(isms)
"Get them coming and going, twice as much revenue and no worries about new customers—as long as American life was something to be escaped from, the cartel would always be sure of a bottomless pool of customers” (192" Inherent Vice
"We're gonna make a lot of money together" Tuco and Lydia
Breaking Bad does not attempt to be a work of art like The Wire: a show which focuses on the literal manifestations of the drug culture (though, even The Wire didn't focus on the overall experience of drug use, instead using the drug trade and its victims as auxillary to a broader exposure of systematic abuses and bureaucratic cycles).
One friend of mine from New Mexico doesn't watch the show; one reason being that meth abuse isn't too big an issue, with heroin being the real epidemic (though, she also presumptiously dislikes the show because "Albuquerque is a horrible, ugly place," so I really couldn't take her "realist" stance seriously).
If we were to read the shows representation of drug culture at face value, then it opens up the racialized interpretation of the show being a representation of white superiority midst mostly Latino "adversaries."
Drug addiction serves as a thematic parallel to Walt's impulsive desires and self-deception (interestingly, it is always been Walt is actually intoxicated that truth slips through and ruptures his psychic deception
(See this previous post for a differant take on the meaning of alcohol use in the show[LINK])
-Season 2 "Over," Walter's drunken intoxication and guilty conscience lead to his Heisenberg persona's first entry into his domestic life.
-Season 2, "ABQ," Before his cancer surgey, Walt is hopped up on medications. It is during this real fugue state that he reveals his second cell phone to Skylar.
-Season 4, "Salud," In the aftermath of his fight (i.e. "smack-down") with Jesse, Walt is drunk and on pain pills, breaking down and exposing his vulnerability to Walt Jr.
Other series that featured drug abuse/addiction as an important thematic element:
-House
-The Sopranos
-Shame
-24 (Season 3, Jack's Heroin addiction, and numerous sub characters that were junkies or involved in the drug trade)
-Workaholics
-
Spotlight Episodes:
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