So, back when I watched Breaking Bad, I was in my late teens and I was different and the times were different. As a premise, the show is fundamentally about an average guy who inadequate in his place in life and the story of the show is what he is willing to do to feel better about his place in life. That's a really abstracted summary, but I think the reason Walter White is so resonated with so many people is, besides "I'm not happy with my life, lets do something about it" being kind of a universal core premise, it was also a point where millennials were growing up and entering adult life and realizing that it's not all it's cracked up to be, even though they themselves are qualified and smarter than the place in life they occupy indicates. From that seed, the excellent writing and varied dimensions of not just walter, but all the cast lead to a show that can be interpreted under a myriad of lenses. I've seen the show analyzed to question what is justice, to analyze Walt's psychological state, how society often fails to take care of its citizens, etc, etc. Particularly after gamergate, my preferred lens of understanding BB's drama was that of toxic masculinity. It's pretty comprehensive in that Walt identifies his role as a husband and father to 'provide for his family', but only in financial terms. It's stated verbally a few times through the series that this is what he considers "being a man". Meanwhile, Skylar and Walt Jr. were actually pretty happy at the start of the series despite having money problems and throughout the series have, at various points, indicated they don't care as much about money and would rather just have Walt around and be a good dad and husband. But he prioritized his families financial wellbeing over their emotional wellbeing to such an extent that the greatest episode of the series has that signature moment where he screams "What are you doing?! We're a FAMILY!" to his terrified wife and son.
But I'm getting away from myself. My point is, I find myself revisiting my thoughts on Breaking Bad and....well, I don't really feel different so much as I have more feelings in addition to the ones I already have. Toxic Masculinity is still probably my prime way of seeing the fundamental drive of Walt's character, but I now see it a new dimension to it as well. I simply asked myself this: Why is Walter so repulsed by charity? He was offered the money by the generosity of his good friend, Elliott Schwartz, and he couldn't bring himself to take it. He also couldn't stand Saul's suggested money laundering scheme of online donations because it made him out to be the receiver of generosity, as well as other more minor examples where he vehemently rejected the concept of simply being handed his salvation from cancer.
Now your about to write "Because his pride wouldn't let him" and yeah, sure, that's an answer that's both accurate and true, but it's also not what I'm getting at. A deeper question is this: Why is it that being the recipient of generosity, kindness and compassion (which are all good qualities for any individual to have) something to be ashamed of in his mind? I've read A LOT of Breaking bad commentary and very few people even bothered to broach this aspect of Walt's psychology. And I think it's because that, atleast at the time, this was one of those deeper, more intuitive feelings we never questioned. If you were to ask a person in an average situation if they thought that simply giving someone something they need and will be happy with is a good thing, they'd say yes, obviously it is. But Breaking Bad makes the assumption that that everyone will understand the contradiction while GIVING charity is supposed to be an act of goodness, recieving charity is something one would feel ashamed of and rejected by people with pride. And a ton of defenses of Walt's character take this stance: he couldn't have taken Elliot's money and job offer because that, in his mind, would be living the same unfulfilled life he has been living before cancer. He
had to take it himself, or else he might as well just die.
As I said, I'm different now. I feel differently about how the society and political system we live in shapes our social norms and ourselves and I feel differently about what kind of treatment citizens are entitled to from their government (
remember when this picture was just a joke we could laughed at?) and I've participated in charity a few times now (a few times in an official capacity, a few times to individuals I've met where they needed money). And I've been on atleast one occasion the recipient of charity, where a kind person took pity on me and helped me. That last part in particular has nuanced the empathy I feel for Walt's innate drive to make the money he needs on his own terms. For me to feel as Walt does, uncritically, I would have to say that I look down on those I gave my money to. I would have to say "They have been made lesser than me, because they needed the money I gave away to live on." I can't really do that. The people I donated to needed help. It wasn't their fault they were in the situation they were, but even if they had been, it wouldn't have mattered because....they needed help. That was all there is to it and it feels good to do this. If you have ever in your life been happy because you made someone else happy, that's the essential core of being charitable.
It's kind of wild how different this feels from the other side though. When I needed help, I was angry, especially because it WAS my fault that I was in the situation I was in. And when that person helped....the best way I can describe is that it is a pain. It hurts. My first instinct was to reject it , which I tried to do,and when I accepted it, I was just unsure at first. An vaguely uncomfortable mixture of shame, gratitude, humility, and obligation. As in, you are now aware that in the future, you will have to have that person's back should they ever need it, pay that kindness back in turn. It's a feeling of having to be better. And I felt much easier about it once I returned to that person with a gift as a gesture of gratitude. The way I dealt with the pain of being given charity is mainly to be grateful and promise to be charitable to that person in particular should they ever need it. And now I feel good at about it. We're better friends now and feeling that obligation to be charitable in turn could be argued to have made me a better person. But kindness sometimes hurts, weird as it is to say.
When offered charity, Walt never got past that initial stage where you just feel pain. Rather than push through it, he raged and ran from any conversation regarding it. And that's not entirely on him, because no one really knew how to communicate with him about it. Conversations generally went "Hey Walt, we have a way of you getting the money, XXX is willing to just give it" "FUCK NO, I refuse to be a victim" "What...the fuck, Walt you have cancer and this is free money" "NO." And the conversations tended to end with the person talking to walt looking somewhat incredulous at him, not being able to actually articulate any argument to Walt's association of being given money to shame. And I can't blame them. Breaking bad does not occupy a grimdark world, atleast in the sphere of Walt's suburban life. Sure, the criminal underbelly may have all sorts of monsters and his friend and family aren't perfect, but Hank for all his chucklefuckness is a guy that cares about Walt, Marie is an airhead but loves her family and stands by them when she needs to, and Skyler and Walt Jr. all loved Walt. Even his more distant associates, like the school principle, was kind and understanding to him. But they weren't able to reach the core of his problem.
And why should they be able to? Why would they be able to do this if the majority of the audience didn't have it in them to criticize the idea. Again, I've seen a ton of Breaking Bad commentary, but those who were anti Walt and spent their time arguing how immoral he is, when they were confronted with point that if Walt accepted the charity, he'd think of himself in terms of victimhood, their response was a relatively unsympathetic "Well, he should be a victim then." It's not unreasonable that either Walt's family either shared his association of victimhood and charity and just thought Walt should accept it, or if they didn't think that, they didn't think to consider that Walt thinks differently than them and that they need to talk about that instead.
So thinking back to Breaking Bad now, while healthcare would have obviously solved the cancer issue, and reduction of toxic masculinity would have solved the family issue, Walt's emotional dysfunction stems his inability to accept any solution that doesn't fit his standards of self actualization. I don't think that in itself is objectionable. You have to live your life in a way that makes you happy, obviously, otherwise your gonna feel a lot like Walt did before his cancer pushed him out of his life-long rut into self actualization. But if someone in Walt's life had had the language or perspective necessary to get at the core of why he feels that accepting charity is something to be ashamed of, he might have realized how wrong that feeling is. You could perhaps say this is obvious, but I don't think so. Like I said, in a weird way, charity does hurt. Being shown in tangible terms, that you need to be carried by someone else is not a happy, funtime fulfilling thing even when you are in a position where you need it. Atleast at first. But if you use it to grow as a person, it can be a beautiful experience, not just because you got something you needed, but because then you feel like you have to be better. Aside from paying the treatment itself, Elliot also offered Walt a job at Gray Matters. It wouldn't have been as dramatic a story, but if all Walt wants to do is be a badass chemist, he could have done great, fulfilling work there that earned him all the self respect he craved.
I empathize with Walt's feelings perhaps more deeply than I did back then, but it also makes me wish someone would reach out and just tell him his whole perspective is wrong. There is nothing wrong with letting someone be kind to you. But Walt just didn't have anyone in his life who could tell him that, and that's sad.
BTW, I didn't write this out to make a statement, atleast not in the usual "Here is my take on this controversial character" way that you do with Kylo Ren or whatever nowadays. I'm not making any sort of argument for the greater nature of charity, not really, though my personal experience with it is good and recommend you atleast try it. No, all this was was more or less rambling. I just El Camino last night and it made me think about Walt and I realized I have a new way of thinking about him, which kind of astounds me given how much mental energy I've given to Breaking bad over the years already trying to puzzle it out. But that's what art is to me, I grow and I think something new about it as I do so. And I hope this offered a new perspective or you atleast enjoyed reading it. Good night.
Also BTW it's weird writing that this isn't a "my take on a controversial character" given that....well, he's Walter White and nothing much has changed. I guess it's more that he's not the hot topic anymore, and that's understandable, but it does make me wonder what we will think of the hot topic characters now in 10 years time. What new perspectives will we find that we don't see now? Perhaps BB is a unique case due to being so amazingly written, but it can apply to anything from the current star wars takes to better call saul to when GRRM's Song is finally finished and we see what where Jon and Dany and Tyrion and everyone really ends up. I look forward to being an old bastard talking about this shit.
