Bad in the Bones:How Walter White Found His Inner Sociopath. Walter may have wanted us to believe — and may, at moments, have convinced himself — that he was a decent man driven by desperate circumstances to do terrible things, but that notion was either wishful thinking or tactical deceit. Viewed as a whole, in optimal binge conditions, with the blinds pulled down and the pizza boxes and chicken wrappers piling up around the couch, “Breaking Bad” reveals itself as the story of a man mastering his vocation and fighting to claim his rightful place in the world. Its dark, morally scandalous vision has been imposed on the kind of tale that is, more conventionally, an inspiring parable of entrepreneurial gumption. This formula turns out to be well suited to the times. Walter was, right from the start, a disenfranchised member of the nerd aristocracy, exiled from his place in the elite by his own stubborn pride and the treachery of his erstwhile partners. He was a mighty empire builder out of an Ayn Rand novel, biding his time amid the weaklings and plotting his revenge. But the series is nonetheless a sustained and stringent critique of entrepreneurial ideology in the form of an unsparing character study. Walter is almost as good at self-justification as he is at cooking meth, and over the course of the series, he has not hesitated to give high-minded reasons for his lowest actions. In his own mind, he remains a righteous figure, an apostle of family values, free enterprise and scientific progress. That’s an old song. We all know the words. But Uncle Slayton’s version might be more honest. He likes that money, he don’t mind the smell." nytimes/2013/07/28/arts/television/how-walter-white-found-his-inner-sociopath.html
Posted on: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 20:16:59 +0000
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