Tonight the TV series "Breaking Bad" airs its series finale. Most people have heard of the show even if they have not watched it. There is uncertainty as what will happen (I'm betting that it ends like Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch" or DePalma's "Scarface") but who knows? Will good triumph over evil? Will the lesser of two evils triumph over the greater evil (i.e., Walter White triumphs over the White Supremacists Aryans)? Or is there no moral order in the universe and some horrendously massive death event sweep everyone into a state of entropy (e.g., like in the episode where there was a collision of two jets which killed so many people because the flight controller was overcome with the grief of the loss of his daughter Jane due to a heroin overdose as Mr. White watched her choke to death)? What would be completely unexpected is an ending like that in Takashi Miike's "Dead or Alive" #1 which ends in unexplainable destruction (if you are unfamiliar with this film, locate it and try to understand the artistry involved; it is one movie in the Dead or Alive Trilogy, a genre crossing/bending series).
However, there seems to be a certain amount of discussion, apparently online (I don't participate; I got enough things to do) that speculate on the morality of "Breaking Bad" and there is even a "Team Walt" that supports what the chemistry teacher turned methampethamine kingpin has done. Vince Gilligan has expressed some surprise at the "Team Walt" position (which may be an indicator of how he intends to end the series, that is, traditional Hollywood good wins/bad is punished or Old Testament justice where all are judged and all who have sinned must pay for their sins) but perhaps this is guile or a blind spot that he has (perhaps a little like D. W. Griffith who did not realize that he would resurrect the KKK with his movie "The Birth of a Nation" -- actions do have consequences). The topic is the focus of an Op-ed in the NY Times that tries to analyze the "Team Walt" phenomena and it may be of some interest to Tipsters; see: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/opinion/sunday/douthat-the-world-according-to-team-walt.html?_r=0 Be sure to read the comments too. Underlying themes of the series are "What will one do for one's family" as well as "How important is the family to an individual". The lengths that one will go to for one's family have been examined previously in films such as "The Godfather" trilogy, the Tony Scott 2004 version of "Man on Fire" (but here family is all important to the kidnapper known as "The Voice"), and on TV in The Sopranos, and so on . The real question is why? Why is the family so important? As the NYT Op-ed, points out, this family centric view is an old view, a tribal view that really can not operate in the modern world where it is universal values shared by all that are important and not "family values" where "Family Uber Alles" trumps all. For a somewhat related but different view of family views, see the movie "Winter's Bone" which made Jennifer Lawrence a star before she was in the "Hunger Games" and shows what the consequences of dealing meth can be. -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=28197 or send a blank email to leave-28197-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
