I've been watching Breaking Bad, just finished season 1. And I've watched Weeds. The shows are strikingly similar. Parent gets in the drug game to help struggling family.
But the more Breaking Bad I watch, the more I get mad about Weeds. I quit watching Weeds at the end of the 3rd or 4th season, when Nancy screwed over that Mexican drug lord and it would've turned out really bad except....She was pregnant with his baby! That was sort of the last straw for me. The constant theme I had noticed in the show was that Nancy Botwin was always being bailed out of trouble by some man who wanted to and/or was fucking her. It bothered me that the show couldn't let the character do for herself. The implication being that ladies always need a knight in shining armor to save them. And you only get saved if you are pretty and sexual.
Breaking Bad is different. Walter White, a nerdy high school teacher, is no more intimidating than a suburban housewife. But when he wants to get something done, he gets shit done. He doesn't need an army of admirers saving him. Don't cross him. He'll blow up chemicals in your face. But he is a man, so that makes it ok.....
Walter White is everything I had hoped Nancy Botwin would be after watching the first season of Weeds. He is independent and solves problems using his smarts. It frustrates me how easy it is for writers to portray a male character that way, but how hard it seemed for the Weeds writers to let the Nancy character have anything but her sexuality as her saving grace.
We are so much more than just sex objects! But judging from the media portrayal of women, you wouldn't know that.
I think you have some valid points there. I too have watched both shows (Breaking Bad first, so might be biased but whatever). I find that Weeds was good a few seasons but now I'm on season four and it's going downhill and I too am bothered by the fact that she's fucking left and right like it's nothing. OK, good for you. You have a vagina. How about using your brain. Or do you have one?
ReplyDeleteI'd say you're a bit wrong here. I've watched neither show, but can tell you straight off the top that the writers could have made Nancy an independent woman if they wanted to... but were trying to appeal to the phallic nature of men.
ReplyDeleteRealize that the enemy is not producers or writers... but Capitalism. Good old-fashioned greed is what drives producers to create such horrible Female characters. To specifically pick the most pathetic women for their "reality shows." To otherwise shape the media and create the impression that women have not earned their rights.
Sounds like whiny feminist crap.. I'm sorry but if you want me to be straight with you, then that's all this is.. just some rant.
ReplyDeleteBut you had to be super brave and post anonymously. Way to go, coward. When was the last time you seriously considered the words of some stranger lurking in the corner like a predator? And yet, there you are.
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