There was once a show about a man who sold methamphetamine, murdered his enemies and lied to his wife. He threatened her, assaulted her, and stole her baby daughter. "I don't accept that. You're my wife." "I'm not your wife. I'm your hostage." Of course audiences were overcome with sympathy and righteous anger for this poor woman. Just Kidding -- they were not. Some of them absolutely hated her. “I have never hated a TV-show character as much as I hate her,” one person posted about Skyler White. The vitriol even got directed at the actress who plays Skyler, Anna Gunn. She wrote an op-ed for The New York Times which quoted the post: “Can somebody tell me where I can find Anna
Gunn so I can kill her?” So why was Skyler so easy for many to dislike
-- and why did she arouse so much anger in some viewers? "For a fired school teacher who cooks crystal
meth, I'd say you're coming out pretty much ahead." Let’s take a look at the character’s journey and how the writers of Breaking Bad held a mirror up to us by masterfully manipulating our evolving feelings toward Skyler White. Before we go on, be sure to hit subscribe and click the bell to get notifications on all of our new videos. "Look at that." "That is veggie bacon, believe it or not. Zero cholesterol and you won't even taste the difference." Skyler is the show's most consistent opposing force to Walter, so the writing set her up as a kind of his
antagonist to frustrate the viewer by getting in Walt's
way. "I don't want them dicking you around tonight. You get paid till 5, you work to 5, no later." In the beginning, we’re led to, on some
level, blame Skyler for how disappointing Walt’s
life is. Her micromanaging juxtaposed with his free-wheeling criminal shenanigans makes her appear petty, even mean-spirited. "Did you use the MasterCard last night? Ah, $15.88 at Staples? Walt, the Matercard's the one we don't use." So this is the portrait of a woman who is so caught up in the minutiae of deadening middle age logistics she can't even take a break for sex on her husband’s birthday. "Yes, fifty six! Oh!" It feels like Skyler is partly responsible for Walter being the sad, pushover man we
meet, "Surprise!" "Oh, you're so very late!" So the show uses this starting point of Skyler to sneak up on the viewer. Just one episode in you might find yourself siding with a man who committed murder, while at the same time being annoyed by his wife for being "a nag." "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?" Whereas if we look at the actual facts, this response is hardly fair. The thing Skyler mostly nags Walt about is finding money for his treatment. "Skyler, it’s charity." "Why do you say that like it’s some kind of dirty word?" And that makes him furious because it reminds
him of his inability to provide for his family. "I don’t like the way you talk about my private affairs." Unlike Walt, Skyler is not at all prideful. "Got myself a job today." "As big as you are?" Vince Gilligan, the creator of “Breaking
Bad,” knew Skyler had to be strong-minded and strong-willed from the get go, so that she’d be a worthy opponent for Walt later on. If Skyler were weak and helpless, it would
be harder to get the audience on Walt’s side when he’s mistreating her. "You have to tell me what's really going on
right now." "Tell you what?" The lesson here is that it takes two to create the dynamic of any marriage. "Joan Epperman, you know Joan, suddenly has
to go through all these photos and turn them
down, because they show cleavage." "Did you get enough pancakes, sweetie?" The viewer might subtly blame Skyler for Walt’s sad state, but really Skyler is hurting Walt’s pride not through anything she does, but simply through her very existence. She IS strong and capable, and so he seems LESS so by comparison. "Since you're scheduled for surgery, I just thought it might be a good idea to have some money coming in." "Well, Skyler, we need to think about what's best for the baby." No one likes the person who says "I told you so," and in Breaking Bad that person is most often Skyler. "The worst thing you can do is shut me out." "Apologize!" "People go to prison for this." She is always right. Like the Virgin Mary, she wears mostly blue, and she's often seen cradling Holly. Yet the viewer wants Skyler and morality to fail. "If you don't get out of here right now, I'm going to call the police, and I'm going to tell them everything." Every time Skyler tries to call the police or convince Walt to stop, many of us are likely thinking: “No, Shut up Skyler, Let him do his thing.” The show from the start is telling us that Skyler is virtuous -- she’s right -- but it’s also making us dislike her for being virtuous. Because we, like Walt, are so enjoying this path of embracing what’s wrong -- that is, breaking bad. The writers throw in a lot of small details that make it easy to dislike Skyler for specifically feminine sins. In early seasons, most of her scenes pointedly see her doing something traditionally linked with feminine vanity
-- putting on lotion, taking a bath, brushing her hair. So an impression is built up that Walt is out providing for the family at great personal risk, while Skyler is at home complaining. "So where have you been this time?" And later on Skyler commits more specifically feminine sins -- like smoking while pregnant. "Perhaps you might know something about this." "Perhaps I don’t, Walt. Perhaps I smoked them in a fugue state." Viewers want to see Walt take risks, be powerful and provide for his family, largely because we’ve been socially conditioned to think of these things as male duties, even male birthrights. "You know why I do this. I want security for my family." The story is infused with our social assumptions about emasculation and reclaiming lost masculinity
-- "You're gonna man up, or you're gonna puss
out?" part of what’s happening as Walt become
Heisenberg fits this narrative that he’s finally becoming a “real” man. Meanwhile, Skyler is failing in her role as a “real” woman -- by getting in the way of that manhood, and by not embodying supposedly feminine qualities like being submissive, caring and sweet. "Well I tell you what, why don't you do the grocery shopping, and then you can get whatever you want." So the writers use our shared gender baggage to manipulate us into some very questionable
identifications that we need to revisit later on as things keep going south. At the same time, this strategy of villainizing
Skyler partially backfired on the writers -- because not everyone did revisit why they’d been so quick to blame her. At times, the show made it too easy to glorify Heisenberg-Walt, and those viewers who took it too far -- like, um, for example, threatening Anna Gunn
-- were seeing no problem with the misogyny underlying that intense resentment for Skyler. "Once again he'll blame his bitch mother for taking away what his loving father has
given him." In Season 3, the audience’s dislike of Skyler is expressed through Walter Junior. "Mom, why do you have to be such a, a bitch!" "Hey, hey." It’s as if the writers decided “Hey, now we’ll show the audience how their dislike of Skyler looks from the outside." Skyler is doing everything she can to protect her son from finding out about his father’s activities, "I don't want my son to find out that his father is a criminal. which is also protecting Walt. But Walter junior only sees fault in his mom’s
actions. Even when he gets a version that’s closer
to the truth about his dad, Walter junior reacts with absolutely no judgement for Walter, but only admiration. "Dad, you’re such a stud! How much did you win exactly?" If before Skyler's hated for being strong, in season 3 she starts getting blamed for being weak and not leaving Walt. But actually, the first thing Skyler does when she learns that Walt sells drugs is find a divorce attorney. "Do you feel you have a good understanding of your husband’s financial situation?" It’s just that getting divorced turns out to be very complicated. Skyler initially has no intention of using Walt’s drug money, but she's already been unknowingly using it. "Skyler, how do you think we’ve been paying
our bills the last six months?" Then, Hank is attacked by the murderous cousins, and Skyler makes the decision to knowingly use Walt’s money to pay for treatment. "You will take our money. Use it to take care of Hank." This decision invited a new wave of hate against Skyler, as viewers accused her of being hypocritical. And it does seem Skyler is seduced by the
money. As Saul puts it, "I guess when people see those zeros dance before their eyes, it’s kind of like highway hypnosis." But Skyler’s hypnosis also mirrors the moment when Walt first sees a similar volume of cash in season one. For both, it's a turning point, and not for the better, but Walt is often admired by viewers for his desire and ability to earn money. "I'm in the empire business." So the question remains -- why do we blame Skyler for the things we excuse in Walt? The money's also not the only reason for Skyler’s eventual acquiescence to Walt. For most of season 3, She's unwillingly forced to interact with him, because he literally refuses to leave. Walt breaks into their home, "We can’t arrest a man for breaking into
his own house." but when she tries to call the cops of him, this only makes her son angry at her. "You called the cops on dad?" Skyler is completely helpless -- a hostage in her own house. And she begins to show clear symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome. "We have a history. He's the father of my children, and maybe what he did, he --" "He did it for the family. Right?" And eventually she falls into the same trap that Walt does in Season One -- the trap of believing her own lies. "I think that -- he earned it gambling. Walt and I, uh -- we've had our problems lately. You know that. And, uh, what it all came down to really was money. For better or worse, he wanted to provide." But these lies aren't hypocrisy; they're self-preservation -- she’s trying to make an unliveable situation
livable. "Someone has to protect this family from the
man who protects this family." Season 4 Skyler is in full-blown accomplice
mode, and not surprisingly, she's really good at
it. "If you're gonna launder money, Walt, at least do it right." She manipulates Bogdan into agreeing to sell the car wash. "He'll call. Ahem. Just wait." She's so thorough that she prints out an entire
script to make sure that their gambling story holds up for Hank. "The next logical question Hank will probably
ask is: 'Where are you getting the money?' To which I’ll say: 'We want to tell you the whole story, it’s a doozy, so hold on to your hats.'" But when Hank compliments Gale Botticher, Walt almost undoes the cover up Skyler's worked
on, just because his professional pride is wounded. "Genius? Not so much. To my eye, all this brilliance looks like
nothing more than just simple rote copying, probably of someone else’s work." So Skyler turns out to be better at Walt’s game than he is. "How did Hank find out?" "It was me. I screwed up." Skyler’s altercation with Ted Beneke repeats this same situation. Skyler provides Ted the money he needs to pay the IRS, but he immediately spends it on flashy purchases. "Three hours after leaving my office." "He bought a Mercedes SL550." While all of Skyler’s actions are calculated to help herself and others, the men in her life are primarily occupied with their own self-image. "So buying that car? That was protecting your family?" At every turn, Skyler has to navigate the
prejudice, unfairness and at times idiocy of a world that is built to accommodate men with big, fragile egos. At the end of Season 4, Skyler comes to know
firsthand that Walt is more than capable of murder. "You're gonna show some kind of mild relief that I’m alive?" "I am relieved, Walt. And scared." "Scared of what?" "You." "Say hello to my little friend!" For those who are still wondering why she doesn’t go to the police at this point
-- the answer is pretty obvious. "All I can do is wait." "Waiting for what? What are you waiting for?" "For the cancer to come back." Because of the Breaking Bad tone, the circumstances of Skyler’s abuse may feel mythical and slightly comical in
some ways, but the feelings portrayed by Anna Gunn are very real and tragic. "I can't go to the police, I can't stop laundering the money, I can't keep you out of this house, I can't even keep you out of my bed." Breaking Bad eventually pushes us to wonder if we might have chosen the wrong side. Anna Gunn wrote that she came to conclude people's hatred of Skyler had "a lot to do with their own perception of women and wives. Because Skyler didn't conform to a comfortable
ideal of the archetypical female, she had become a kind of Rorschach test for
society, a measure of our attitudes toward gender." The way each of us reacted to Skyler may have
said more about us than it did about the character. Yet it became clear that because viewers tended to see Skyler as an obstacle to Walt's plans, her character inspired sympathy most when Walt did not. The more invested we are in Walt, the more inclined we are to judge Skyler unfairly
-- and the more horrified or disillusioned we get with Walt, the more we can acknowledge the terrible life that Skyler's persevering through. So the writers masterfully played us when it came to this couple -- not once, but twice. They gave us a man who was turning irredeemably evil, fast -- and somehow they got us on his side and made us stay on his side much longer than seemed possible. And they gave us a woman who was strong, mistreated and trying to keep her family alive. They gave us all the facts, and somehow, we ignored them. "You need to understand--" "If I have to hear one more time that you did this for the family --" "I did it for me." Hey guys, it's Susannah and Debra here. Thank you so much for watching. If you're new here, please subscribe, tell all your friends, and please consider clicking the bells so you get notifications for all of our new
videos. And if you have the means, support us on Patreon.
That was well done.
I have really liked the Analysis from ScreenPrism and this one was specially great.