Breaking BadShriya, Shreya, Sophie, Suraj and Mo

Breaking Bad - AMC

• AMC – originally stood for ‘American Movie Classics’• Launched – October 1st 1984• Part of a conglomerate owned by AMC Networks INC• Sister channels – IFC, Sundance TV, WE TV, BBC America – horizontal

integration as the channels show similar programmes.• Ideology – ‘Something More’ • Regulated – Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Netflix in the

UK is regulated through Ofcom• Social interaction and self promotion through Websites/

trailers/twitter/facebook.

Breaking Bad

• Created by Vince Gilligan

• Director & Writer’s – Vince Gilligan, Thomas Schnauz, George Mastras

• Air date- Jan 20th 2008 – 2013

• 5 seasons which all aired in the US and on Netflix in the UK

• Target Audience & demographic – Fans of…crime/thriller genre, contemporary western, Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul. Teens and adults, ranging from 15 – 35. Wide age range applies to many people because of Bryan Cranston’s previous work e.g. Malcolm In The Middle

• Themes – Family, Drugs, Money, Health (cancer) , Infidelity, Greed, Disability

• Gender roles and representations – Skylar – Busty Blonde/ American Mom but didn’t always conform to a typical stay at home, she tried to take control of Walt to get him on the right path.

• Walter White – Becomes more patriarchal, not part of the subculture that he deals to, not ethical, has cancer represented to be weak at times, 50 years old/frail.

• Jessie Pinkman – Ex –student, drug dealer and user, is part of the subculture that he deals to, sometimes like an excited child/puppy.

Ethnic Diversity

• Latinos – stereotyped as Drug dealers/ criminals (guns, cars, clothing)/ immigrants (dry cleaners above the lab). Marginalised - only one police officer (Gomez) and the rest are drug dealers. Reinforced as criminals. • White people – Superior to other ethnicities, especially Walt trying to undermine

Gus, Hank ordering Gomez about. • Black People – tokenised as only black person who has a speaking role. Ditsy

bodyguard (Huell) who is hired to help with the money laundering.

• Stereotypes – Latinos are into drugs, white people are somewhat superior, women conform to the American stay-at-home mom.• Dominant Ideology – Challenges dominant ideology of women as they

are not push overs, can have careers. Challenges the idea of drugs being bad because Walt starts making Meth to get money to support his family. Reinforces the idea of drug dealers being Latinos and criminals e.g Gus, Hector Salamanca, Tio/Tuco Salamanca etc

Men and Women in Breaking Bad

• More men than women but both genders have something to do with the drug cartel.

• Men – usually take the leading roles with the series, strong ,dominant, but can sometimes be represented as weak. E.g. Walt being depressed, Jessie breaking down after death of Jane etc these representations can relate to the target audience because not all men are macho and they do have their downfalls.

• Women – although men take the leading roles the women are there to support them. They have roles in where they are not reinforcing the dominant stereotypes of women and are challenging them by taking lead when things go wrong and trying to double cross the men. E.g Skylar coping with Walt’s lies, and Lydia with the drug shipments. Marie reinforces the stereotype of women because she cares about Hank etc. Relates to the target audience to empower women especially with the rise of feminism.

Audience

• Readings – Negotiated readers would use their own cultural experience to respond to the text, in context to breaking bad the audience would understand the ideas of breaking bad and how different factors can have an impact on everyday life.

• Preferred readers would decode the text and it was encoded and would watch breaking bad for just pure entertainment and escapism. These readers can feel like they can relate to some of the characters.

• Oppositional readers make decisions on text based on their own life experiences. So they could oppose the text as they may think that drugs is represented too positively within the series.

• Through various characters the audience is positioned in many different ways. The producers would have done this so that the audience can see each characters view point of different things that are going on. Eg Walt Jr getting bullied fro his disability.