Yes, yes, I know we’ve all basically finished talking about Breaking Bad. I’m on the bandwagon a little late when it comes to blogging about it.
Rest assured though, I did catch up to see the finale with the rest of the world. So now let’s talk about it all.
*spoilers, of course*
First, I wanted to give an update that after I wrote my post asking where the women are, I finally got to a season 5, I think was when Lydia came into the picture.
So, we finally got a woman who’s not a love interest of a main character involved in the story! (I would’ve been happy with someone involved with the DEA or the drug trade. She happened to be involved in the drug trade part.) So, yay!
…Except for the fact that she was a complete and total mess – way more so than any man we saw involved in the drug trade. She was so shaky all the time! She had to be led by a man past all the dead bodies as she covered her eyes.
In my dream, we would see her being so nervous in front of the men, but when we saw her alone in her office, we’d see her completely in control. I wanted her to totally be knowingly playing those men, taking advantage of their (self-admitted) sexism.
But no. She was a basketcase even when she was alone.
I don’t want to say that women aren’t allowed to be weak. Sure they can. They can be basketcases. They can be scared. They can be all sorts of things… But not when they are the sole woman involved in an absolutely humongous drug trade.
The one and only person who represented my gender in 5 seasons of a television show is the only person who can’t get it together?
Sure, you might say Jesse struggled. Yes he did. He got to have tons of interesting arcs because he got to be a main character. Sure, sometimes he was a basketcase. Sometimes he was a little psycho. Sometimes he was incredibly strong. And he was everything in between.
Of course we didn’t get that with the women. (For the record, as much as I LOOOOOVED Aaron Paul’s acting, I would’ve liked to have seen a version of this show where the brilliant, interesting, ever-evolving meth makers were women.)
I don’t want to sound like I have some kind of overly male-judgey blog. Men make up a large percentage of the population. I admire and respect Vince Gilligan and his writing (and his staff, and everyone else involved in Breaking Bad.)
I’m just saying, there were so many riveting men on the show. The lack of females, and interesting females at that, was very distracting to me.