Why I'm Not Watching Breaking Bad

by Charity Erickson

Sunday night was explosive. It was just nuts! Walter White, can you believe it, amiright?

Okaaay, no, I did not actually watch the latest episode of Breaking Bad. The Twitters tell me a line of some sort has been crossed…again. This is the draw of the show—the shocking and strange twists that are the mark of good storytelling—this is also why I stopped watching when I was only a few episodes into the first season. When a main character dissolved a human body in a bathtub, turning both the body and the bathtub into a sloshy, sinewy red soup, a line was crossed. I couldn’t watch any more. I mean, my god—that scene was supposed to be comic relief.

The vast majority of people I have talked to about my Breaking Bad aversion have said I should give it another chance, that if I stick with it I will discover its addictive qualities to be irresistible. And maybe someday I will find myself in a state of mind where I feel I can handle taking the plunge into Walter White’s dark world. But right now, the prospect of getting lost in one more piece of dark media sounds exhausting, overwhelming, and horrifying—and not the fun kind of horror. The panicky, get-me-out-of-here kind, and I really don’t need any more of that.

News and social media spit stories at us all day, speaking the evil of human existence into our coffee breaks and lunch hours in spurts of bloody electronic scrawl. “We shouldn’t look away,” we reason to ourselves; this evil is reality. To shut our eyes to it would be to refuse to see humanity as it is; it would be dishonest, it would be denial, it would be unethical. For, if we refuse to look upon the gross reality of life in this world, how could we effectively address ourselves to its improvement?

So it is a matter of ethics to refuse to look away from that which holds the clearest mirror up to nature; but as we can see in the growing trend of “dark” media production and consumption, it is also a matter of taste. If this year’s Emmy nominations are any indication (with nods to such unsettling series as Netflix’s House of Cards, FX’s American Horror Story: Asylum, and HBO’s Game of Thrones), a sophisticated consumer is one willing to look upon the angst of a complicated hero, or a villain with justifiable motivations, the mess of poverty, the sting of public humiliation, or nauseating episodes of uncanny violence and injury. This is the stuff that makes for “good TV.”

So, on the one hand, I’m embarrassed by my need to look away from “gritty” media like Breaking Bad, Sons of Anarchy, and Orange is the New Black. Not only does looking away imply a refusal to acknowledge social, ethical, and existential questions and realities, but it also means I don’t have access to certain cultural conversations. Being conversant in this kind of media is a status marker—not watching hurts my popular culture street cred.

On the other hand, I don’t want to force myself to consume media that makes me crazy—it triggers my anxiety, so I mean that in a literal sense—just so that I might achieve a level of social enlightenment. Watching these kinds of programs can be an exercise in self-flagellation, the “don’t look away” principle feeding into a brooding preoccupation with the evils of this world and the burden of existing within it, only serving to reinforce our view of society as inherently sick and unsafe. Yet this isn’t exactly a “kingdom” mindset, which sees in humanity the potential for renewal and expects to see the love of Christ bring healing and redemption to all situations.

This is not to say that this media trend isn’t valuable; I do believe that in many ways, shows like Breaking Bad and Orange is the New Black are bringing darkness into light, exposing the myths our society believes about upward mobility and “the American Dream,” and revealing the dehumanizing effect of violence on the ones who perpetrate it. Most days (except for the days I need to dose up on happy with single-camera friendcore sitcoms) I would still rather spend time with these programs—even if they are almost unwatchably gruesome—than ones that celebrate an unthoughtful or too-easy optimism, and especially more than programs that try to develop moral complexity into an entertainment commodity, producing lame social commentary as in the film Elysium or the droopy existential metaphors of The Walking Dead (which, like many new programs, uses characters’ capacity for violence to create a token element of depth and complexity, but doesn’t have anything actually interesting to say about anything. At all.)

But for now, as much as I love good entertainment, I have to take a step back. It’s for the sake of my soul; not out of some legalistic focus on “edification,” “setting my mind on things above,” or “garbage in, garbage out,” but because self-care is a spiritual discipline, too. For now, I’m going to be patient. For now, I’m going to say, “Maybe someday, Walter White.”

That, and, “NO SPOILERS.” 

Charity Erickson and her husband live and work together in the north woods of Minnesota. Check out her blog for more of her writing and follow her on Twitter @CharityJill.

You can follow On Pop Theology on Twitter @OnPopTheology or like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/OnPopTheology.
 
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On Breaking Bad and the Powers

by Adam Metz

I think if Dutch theologian Hendrik Berkhof were still alive, he might say that AMC’s big hit, Breaking Bad, just may be the perfect parable on the powers. His little book, ,Christ and the Powers, was translated into English by John Howard Yoder and serves as a foundational work for Yoder’s theology as well as the unique work of Walter Wink. I think it would be fascinating to reflect on this drama with the three of these great thinkers – now all dead (which, considering the tone of the show – seems kind of fitting).

Berkhof was one of the first (maybe the first?) to take a critical look at just what the Apostle Paul was talking about in the New Testament when he referred to “powers, principalities, and authorities.” Essentially, he goes on to suggest, they are the unseen forces that are at work in our world. This particular realm of discussion always makes me think of this scene from School of Rock – you may not understand the language of Powers – but everyone knows who “The Man” is:

I’ve never seen a more vivid commentary on the Powers than in the storyline of Breaking Bad. Hollywood has long wrestled with the dark realities and crises of sin through the genre of horror (a personal favorite!). Coming to terms with the reality of sin through the over-the-top nature of the the likes of Freddy Kreuger and Michael Myers is less threatening to our personal faith than what we encounter through Breaking Bad. It just doesn’t seem that threatening to talk about what we would do if a mass murderer ever broke into our homes or dreams.

Maybe it began with the Saw movies – or maybe it was Se7en - but somewhere along the line the audience wasn’t allowed to simply watch idly by as a terrible tale unfolds and project ourselves into impossible scenarios. Instead, these new movies invite us into more realistic moral quandaries – what do we do when our only choices are between two evils? To what extent are we willing to participate in the fallen state in order to maintain our self-preservation? Just how entangled are we in the sinful work of the Powers?

In the beginning, of Breaking Bad we meet Walter White – an under-achieving chemistry genius who teaches high school science. Providing the plot lines to the program, Walter faces the Powers up close and personal through disease (cancer) which plunges him to face other realities that we all face: economic Powers, the Power of health care, the illegal drug world, and on and on the story goes delving more and more deeply into the interconnected world of the Powers.  

What begins as a somewhat light-hearted traipse to the dark side of the law, continues to grow darker with each episode. It’s as if we the viewer are invited to witness the degree to which Walter becomes entrapped by the Powers in order to reflect upon our own life and the degree that the Powers have entangled us. As the story develops, the audience is forced to wrestle with the reality that the chief “hero” of the story, is slowly becoming baptized by the Powers and turning into the nemesis. This couldn’t resonate more directly with Berkhof’s teaching on the Powers: created as good, but fallen with all of creation and now ruling instead of serving.

Adam is a pastor at Alum Creek Church in Ohio. He is currently working on his Doctorate in Missional Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary. You can find more of his writings at his blog Theological Vacillation and follow him on Twitter @CrasslyYours.

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