Zwischen Vater und Mann. Die Krise von Familie und Männerrolle in Breaking Bad.
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Date
2015-08-31
Authors
Müller, Maike
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
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Publisher
University of Waterloo
Abstract
In my thesis I examine the crisis of masculinity and family in AMC’s TV series
Breaking Bad. In prior research, the protagonist Walter White has been analyzed as a
man who wants to escape his responsibilities and the disappointments of his family life.
However, in this thesis he will be shown to be simultaneously an advocate for the idealized
family as well as for the idealized role of a man. The crisis of the masculinity
therefore originates in the incoherency of the new idealized role of father and the idealized
role of the man. Following the introduction and the research overview, the first
chapter of this thesis is about the family in Breaking Bad. Therefore, a detailed analysis
of the conditions of the Whites’ family life and an examination of Walter White’s dissatisfaction
with these structures will be given.
For this purpose the theories regarding the idealized family, and the change
thereof, from Stephanie Coontz, Robert Hettlage, and Christine Zimmermann will be
employed. The second chapter will examine Walter White’s break-out from these conditions
and how it impacts the family life of the Whites. To this effect, theories about
masculinity and power by Heinrich Popitz and Christoph Kucklick will be used to describe
and analyse Walter White’s role as a man and why idealized masculinity and the
family structures cannot be combined. For the analysis I inquire different scenes from
the whole series.
I conclude that the crisis of the masculinity in Breaking Bad shows a mutual relation
between family and role of the man. On the one hand, the crisis is released because
of the non-existence of the idealized family and it therefore destroys the idea of
the idealized role of the male. On the other hand, the pursuit of the role of the male destroys
the family structures as a whole. Does the insecurity of the man in a time of
changing roles turn out to create an “immoral gender”?
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Keywords
Breaking Bad TV-show masculinity family