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Populär Culture Review
Towards the conclusion o f the pilot episode, Jesse Pinkman and
W alter have a brief discussion conceming the chemistry teacher’s
atypical decision to begin a criminal lifestyle:
JESSE. Teil me why you’re doing this. Seriously.
W ALTER. W hy do you do it?
JESSE. Money, mainly.
WALTER. There you go.
JESSE. Nah, come on man. Some straight like you, giant
stick up his ass all o f a sudden, at age sixty is just gonna
breakbad? [...]
WALTER. I am awake. (“Pilot”)
Breaking Bad, at its very core, is a show about socialization and society’s
views o f success. Achieving hegemonic masculinity through economic
productivity serves as a focal point for plot and character development in
the series, as the corrupting influence o f the American Dream pressures
W alter to only think in terms o f financial success (Stephenson 211).
Because he fails to meet criteria required by society’s aspirational
references (i.e., the culturally defined goals and interests o f a particular
population), the need for financial stability becomes an alienating social
construct that forces W alter into a socially strained existence. Summing
up this experience, W alter bemoans,
my wife is seven months pregnant with a baby we didn’t
intend. My fifteen-year old son has cerebral palsy. I am
an extremely overqualified high school teacher. When I
can work I make $43,700 per year. I have watched all of
my colleagues and friends surpass me in every way
imaginable, and within eighteen months I will be dead.
(“Bit By a Dead Bee”)
Throughout the show’s five seasons, wealth becomes analogous to
freedom and financial stability becomes a crucial factor for keeping
W alter alive following his diagnosis o f terminal lung cancer. Desperately
desiring autonomy, W alter awakens from his socially induced intolerable
Situation by circumventing the institutionalized means for obtaining
economic security through deviant channels.
Robert K. Merton, in his seminal work “Social Structure and
Anom ie,” provides a theoretical framework for understanding both the
life W alter desires and the social strain he endures on a daily basis: