Production of the Not Given:
Equality in Breaking Bad
By Büşra Nur Güven and Hasancan Artuş
In the series Breaking Bad (2008-2013) the reason that the killings and dealing of drugs emerged is that there was a great deal of social inequality in American society. The series tells a lot about these inequalities and criticises them, sometimes with satire and sometimes directly. The adventures of our main characters called Jesse and Walter are connected to their need to make money. When Walter turns out to be stage 3 lung cancer, the government never helps him come up with the money he needed. He, with great pride, rejects money from others and tries to make his own money illegally. The series questions illegal ways like dealing drugs and whether they are acceptable or not in these societal circumstances as people like Fring look at the drug business as if it was a normal business and rather professionally. Their mental windows (which is how they approach the business of drug dealing and killings) as to what to do if there are loose ends that are likely to talk to police when caught, expand later on in the series, suggesting that the drug business is rather like a normal business. The series criticizes capitalism harshly but rather than answering, asks questions and looks for a fix. Fring, one of the main villains, who has no feelings but acts professionally in every aspect, has an illegal life in the drug business while he also has a legal life as the manager of a chicken chain restaurant. His drug business is like his chicken restaurant in almost every scene, especially in one scene, the viewer sees the restaurant’s chicken turning into meth slowly which implies the two sides of capitalism. In the scene of Fring’s death, his face gets destroyed on only one side, the other side which remains undamaged is the representation of capitalism’s soft face that is seen on the surface, but the destroyed side is what it shows later on. Breaking Bad gives symbolisms for capitalism such as the chicken which becomes compared with the meth they are dealing with. While the two businesses are compared, the answers to the questions of whether the drug business is moral or not are left to the viewers. The inequality in this society causes problems to emerge and create other problems, endangering human life and denying the right to life. Human life is also discussed in the series by the killing of innocent people, people that are in the game, and the people who are reasonable for the incidents. Through such killings, Breaking Bad lets the viewer decide if they were just or not. Peace and respect for human life also fade away with time while this business of drugs is considered a genuine business, a dangerous one, there should be precautions, these precautions mean death. If the death is not even deserved, it can still be judged upon someone as they can be considered as loose ends which means people that are likely to talk to the police in given circumstances. As the verdict of the right to life is left upon drug kingpins, they are more likely to make mistakes, thus the verdict that they give to kill or free people is strictly against the rights of humanity. These rights are given subtly and left to the viewer’s consciousness to criticize.
