Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul: Struggling and Living in Liquid Times.
AMC's TV series Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul both feature protagonists who can be seen as victims of institutions that do not appreciate their talents and abilities. Walter White in Breaking Bad, who once won a Nobel Prize in chemistry, is an under-appreciated and underpaid high school chemistr...
| Publicado en: | Canadian Review of American Studies Vol. 51; no. 3; pp. 213 - 225 |
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| Formato: | Film/TV Criticism and Review |
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University of Toronto Press
Winter2021
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| Sumario: | AMC's TV series Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul both feature protagonists who can be seen as victims of institutions that do not appreciate their talents and abilities. Walter White in Breaking Bad, who once won a Nobel Prize in chemistry, is an under-appreciated and underpaid high school chemistry teacher who must work a second job to support his family. Jimmy McGill, a con artist–turned–lawyer who will eventually change his identity to Saul Goodman in Better Call Saul discovers that because of his earlier criminal exploits and non-traditional legal education, he will never be fully accepted within Albuquerque's legal community. These series exemplify several core concepts from Zygmunt Bauman and Martin Shuster's works, including liquid modernity and late capitalism, the loss of normative authority and deinstitutionalization, the process of individuation and identity formation, and the centrality of family in living and struggling in liquid times. Les séries télévisées de AMC Breaking Bad et Better Call Saul mettent toutes les deux en vedette des protagonistes qui peuvent être perçus comme étant des victimes d'institutions qui n'estiment pas leurs talents et habiletés. Walter White dans Breaking Bad, qui a jadis obtenu un prix Nobel en chimie, est un enseignant du secondaire sous-apprécié et sous-payé qui doit avoir un second emploi pour soutenir sa famille. Jimmy McGill, un arnaqueur devenu avocat qui va finir par changer son identité pour Saul Goodman dans Better Call Saul, découvre qu'à cause de ses exploits criminels antérieurs et de son éducation juridique non traditionnelle, il ne sera jamais complètement accepté par la communauté légale d'Albuquerque. Ces séries illustrent plusieurs concepts clés élaborés dans les œuvres de Zygmunt Bauman et de Martin Shuster, notamment la modernité liquide et le capitalisme tardif, la perte d'autorité normative et la désinstitutionnalisation, le processus d'individuation et la formation d'identité ainsi que la centralité de la famille lorsque l'on vit et a des difficultés dans un temps liquide |
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