david lee alm thesis final draft

99 Pages·2016·0.58 MB·English

by  David Lee

What's the Matter with Walter? The Privatization of
Everything in Breaking Bad
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Lee, David. 2016. What's the Matter with Walter? The Privatization of Everything in Breaking Bad.
Master's thesis, Harvard Extension School.
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What’s the Matter with Walter?
The Privatization of Everything in Breaking Bad

David R. Lee

A Thesis in the Field of History
for the Degree of Master of Liberal Arts in Extension Studies

Harvard University
November 2016
© 2016 David R. Lee
Abstract

Television is the quintessential medium of popular culture. As such, its content
can provide an important window into the cultural dynamics in a given period for a given
society. Vince Gilligan’s award-winning Breaking Bad is one of those shows that
powerfully engaged with its moment. Gilligan created a compelling protagonist in the
deeply flawed yet charismatic genius Walter White. He had Walter build an illegal drug
business at which he had savant-like skills, and situated Walt in a family characterized by
dysfunction. In showing how and why Walter traded a quiet but economically marginal
existence as a high school chemistry teacher for a violent but wealthy life as a drug lord,
Breaking Bad offered a compelling critique of one of the most insidious economic policy
initiatives of late-20th/early-21st century America: neoliberalism. Neoliberalism refers
primarily to the 20th century resurgence of 19th century ideas associated with laissez-
faire economic liberalism. These ideas include extensive economic liberalization policies
such as privatization, fiscal austerity, deregulation, free trade, reductions in non-defense
government spending, and dismantling of the welfare state in order to enhance the role of
the private sector in the economy. The insidiousness of the policy initiative lies in the
manner in which neoliberalism has influenced behavior in almost every facet of life. This
thesis locates and analyzes three spaces in society where Breaking Bad offers its critique
of neoliberalism: gender roles, law enforcement, and business. The thesis examines how
the show reveals neoliberalism to be ineffectual and destructive in the domains in which
it claims to be most efficient.
Dedication

for ryan

iv
Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my research advisor Dr. Donald Ostrowski. His support at
various phases throughout this process has been much appreciated.
A very special thanks to my Thesis Director, Dr. Steven Biel, to whom I am
deeply grateful. Steve agreed to take on my unique project and to say his stewardship has
been invaluable is a gross understatement. He has shown me what kindness, wisdom,
patience and intellect look like. I’m happy to call him mentor and friend.
I’d also like to thank my family: my wife Anne and son Nick. Their individual
successes in life have been truly inspiring. I hope I’ve done you both proud.

v
Table of Contents

Dedication…………………………………………………….………………................iv
Acknowledgements………………………………………….……………………….......v
I. Introduction...……………………..…….……………………….………….…...…..1
II. “Cancer Man”…….……………………..….……………………....…..….........…...9
III. “I See You”………………………………...….……………...……..……..…...…..32
IV. “Blood Money”…………….……….………………………...……..………...……58
V. Epilogue…………………..…………………...……………………..……………..81
Bibliography……………………...……………………………………………………...89

vi
Chapter I
Introduction

A pair of khaki pants floats in suspended animation against a painfully bright blue
sky before landing on a desolate desert road, only to be run over by a speeding recreation
vehicle. The RV’s driver appears to be a middle-aged man wearing a gas mask and
dressed only in white briefs. In the passenger seat a younger man, either passed out or
dead, also wears a gas mask. As the Winnebago hurtles down the dirt road two bodies
slide lifelessly across the floor of the RV—which, along with the two bodies, is covered
with liquid and broken glass—until it crashes into a ditch. The driver, a somewhat
disturbing figure in his underwear, stumbles out of the Winnebago, which is apparently
thick with noxious fumes. He hastily puts on a dress shirt, then goes back in the RV to
retrieve a video camera and a gun. He records a brief, emotional farewell message to his
family, then stands defiantly as he prepares himself for oncoming sirens with a gun in his
hand. The pilot episode of Breaking Bad begins with this surreal sequence. We soon
discover through a series of flashbacks how three weeks earlier the man, Walter White,
came to be in this comically dangerous situation.1
Walter, played by Bryan Cranston, is a fifty-year-old, mild-mannered, highly
intelligent, economically marginalized New Mexico high school chemistry teacher, who
begins producing and selling crystal methamphetamine, or meth. He enlists the help of
former student Jesse Pinkman, played by Aaron Paul, to help him sell his high-end

1 Breaking Bad, “Pilot,” Written and directed by Vince Gilligan, Sony Pictures
Television, Inc., January 20, 2008.
1
product to large illegal drug distributors in Albuquerque. We soon find out that Walter is
suffering from lung cancer and has been given only a few months to live. He takes stock
of his life and realizes he has very little to show for his many years as a teacher. He also
discovers that his City of Albuquerque medical insurance does not provide adequate
coverage to properly treat his illness. Caught unaware by his cancer diagnosis, Walter
decides that the best way to make lots of money quickly is to take his experience as a
chemist and apply it to making high-grade meth. While this may seem like an odd choice
for a man who is a seemingly well-respected member of his community, it is actually a
rational decision given his skill set and grim diagnosis.
Walter White personifies the central organizing principle of American economic
and political life in late-20th/early-21st century America: neoliberalism. This project
contends that nearly forty years of neoliberal economic and political policy-making has
resulted in a society rife with Walter Whites. Whether it be at the corporate,
governmental, or individual level, neoliberalism, and its attendant proclivity toward
privatization, has permeated American society. Breaking Bad, through the vision of its
creator Vince Gilligan, confronts the expression of nearly forty years of neoliberal
policy-making at several crucial points: the evolution of gender roles, crime prevention,
and contemporary business and the workplace. Gilligan engages neoliberalism as a
capitalist catastrophe that penetrates nearly every aspect of modern life. The show’s arc
examines failed economic initiatives, governmental policies, and individual enterprise
culminating in a monopolization of prosperity for an exceedingly small part of society,
and in misery for the rest.
2
As recently as 2009 American President Barack Obama regarded the 2008
financial crisis as neoliberalism run amok.2 The object of the President’s criticism—the
neoliberal ideal of a “self-regulating market” as the main engine powering the “wealth of
nations”—has been a core tenet of classical liberal economists since the late 18th
century.3 The historical background of neoliberalism grew from liberal opposition “to the
mercantilism of monarchs who exercised almost total control over the economy in their
efforts to amass large quantities of gold for largely bellicose purposes.”4 Adam Smith is
credited with creating the Scottish Enlightenment concept of homo economicus—
economic man: the idea that people are isolated, rational individuals whose actions reflect
mostly their financial self-interests.5 According to this view, economic and political
matters occupy separate spheres of influence, “with economics claiming a superior status
because it operates best without government interference under a harmonious system of
natural laws.”6 The main tenet of the neoliberal world view is that “the state is to refrain
from interfering with the economic activities of self-interested citizens and instead use its
power to guarantee open economic exchange.”7

2 Manfred B. Steger and Ravi K. Roy, Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2010), location 388, Kindle Edition.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid., loc. 390, Kindle Edition.
5 "Homo economicus, n,". OED Online, New York: Oxford University Press, accessed
November28,2015,http://www.oed.com.ezpprod1.hul.harvard.edu/view/Entry/33678755?redirect
edFrom=homo+economicus.
6 Steger and Roy, Neoliberalism, loc. 390, Kindle Edition.
7 Ibid.
3