Ensley F. Guffey - Wanna Cook?: The Complete, Unofficial Companion to Breaking Bad

CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN

There is a term used in critical analysis of television called emotional realism. First used by Ien Ang to describe the lure of the original Dallas, emotional realism basically means that while we know that the show is a work of fiction, we can be carried away by it because it feels real. We identify with characters experiences because we or someone we know has experienced something similar, or because the world of the TV show shares points of similarity with the real world we inhabit every day. In the case of Breaking Bad, hopefully very few (if any!) viewers have experienced the specific situations in which the characters in the show find themselves embroiled, but the world they live in is our world, complete with crystal meth, drug cartels, medical bills, missed opportunities, and family ties. We know Walts world intimately, so it feels real.

But... how many of us have responded to devastating news like a diagnosis of lung cancer by deciding well go into the illegal drug trade, with all of its inherent risks and deadly violence? Its not exactly the expected reaction, no matter what the family financial situation. So why do we believe the transformation from milquetoast, sad-sack Walter White to dangerously unstable, murderous Heisenberg? Or the wannabe-gangsta Jesse Pinkman of season into a hard, calculating killer with a conscience? Or good-ol-boy Hank Schrader, DEA badass, to a guy whos looking forward to being out of the cop business to furiously bitter disabled mineral-hound to truly brilliant detective? We accept these radical changes in behaviors and personalities in fictional characters because creator Vince Gilligan, the Breaking Bad writers, the crew, and the magnificent ensemble cast manage to show these changes happening in a very realistic, recognizable way.

This brings us to Dr. Lonnie Athens, the sociologist and criminologist who, in 1995 , published his theory of dramatic self-change, which describes the process by which all of us undergo significant and fundamental alterations in the way we view and interact with the world and society based upon personal experience and social reactions to those experiences. According to Athens, this process is extremely difficult and can take a long time, so it usually only occurs in response to sudden and/or significant changes in our lives or living situations. The unexpected death of a loved one, say, or maybe a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer, or seeing a bunch of people get blown to hell by a booby-trapped severed head on the back of a tortoise. These situations happen to everyone (well, maybe not the tortoise thing), and usually more than once in a lifetime, so they are things with which we are all thoroughly familiar. Athens theorizes that dramatic self-change occurs in five stages: fragmentation, provisional unity, praxis, consolidation, and social segregation. Since this type of self-change is one of the central themes in Breaking Bad, we thought wed look at the process at work in Breaking Bad and its characters, and hopefully shed some light on why it is that we are able to buy Walts, Jesses, Hanks, and others journeys as being real.

Each of us has an unconscious collection of what Athens calls phantom companions, which in their simplest form can be thought of as the voices of our experience. This is the reservoir of experience and advice we accumulate throughout our lives and from various social interactions. This includes everything from Moms advice for safely bundling up in cold weather to Dads tips on preparing the perfect steak to what to wear to a funeral all of the various information we possess that allows us to deal with life as it occurs, accrued through our own experiences, particularly social ones. The first step in dramatic self-change occurs when we experience something so completely outside of our normal frame of reference that no combination of this phantom community allows us to effectively deal with the current situation. When the self is faced with something it is unable to deal with in its present form, it fragments. Whether the experience in question is generally deemed positive, like winning a $ million lottery, or negative, like losing a limb, the end result fragmentation is traumatic. For Walt, the traumatic event that destroyed his worldview is, of course, his cancer diagnosis. Nothing Walt has ever experienced, no voice from his past or present, has prepared him to deal with this, and he is, in the end, unequipped to handle the situation.

Jesse Pinkmans great traumatic moments occur with the death of Jane, and again when he murders Gale in Full Measure. Hank Schrader experiences fragmentation several times during the series. First when he begins to suffer signs of PTSD after shooting Tuco Salamanca, a situation exacerbated by his experiences in Mexico, then again in the aftermath of his shoot-out with the Salamanca cousins, and finally as he begins again to dig into the mysterious Heisenberg. For Skyler, fragmentation occurs through two separate events. First when she discovers the web of Walts lies and then with the revelation of what hes actually been up to. For Marie, the pivotal events are Skyler learning about her shoplifting, and Hanks shooting. All of these characters are presented with situations that they are simply unable to navigate successfully using their old selves the usual collection of experiences and advice and so they find themselves confused and adrift in strange and frightening circumstances.