Television Breaking Bad

Eboue said:
Who said I was surprised? How they view me is their problem. I stand by what I said. People who bitch about every female tv character that dares go against their awful husbands are idiots.
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Yeah, everyone who thought Skylar was annoying is an idiot. The fact that these female characters are married to bad guys makes them automatically likeable, right?
 
What if I think Skylar is okay, but I hate some other character similar to her. Does that make me half as intelligent as Eboue?
 
I can see where Eboue is coming from. She was very passive-aggressive in a bitchy way but you can't say it wasn't justified with the husband she had.

I think the main reason why people got annoyed with her is that she is the kind of character who is stalling the plot, preventing Walt from truly breaking bad, which is what most viewers wanted to see.
 
Eboue said:
The dumber section of tv watchers often hate wives that get in the way of anti-heros. Skylar, Carmela Soprano Betty Draper, Margaret Schroeder, etc
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Carmela was alright, it was Janice that I wanted to drown in acid.
 
Carmela was alright. Skylar was a whiny bitch, I think I might just hated her face more than anything. Or the fact that she made a drama after she thought Walter smoked a doobie.
 
Eboue said:
The dumber section of tv watchers often hate wives that get in the way of anti-heros. Skylar, Carmela Soprano Betty Draper, Margaret Schroeder, etc
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Hating Margaret Schroeder doesn't make anyone dumb. She was an awful character. The rest of them were all annoying and hypocrites at that but at least they were well written.
 
I liked Carmela and Skylar.
Rado_N said:
Carmela was alright, it was Janice that I wanted to drown in acid.
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God, I hated her. Even the mother had one or two redeeming qualities but Janice was a fecking grade a bitch!
 
sizzling sausages said:
I liked Carmela and Skylar.

God, I hated her. Even the mother had one or two redeeming qualities but Janice was a fecking grade a bitch!
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The mother was annoying but she was meant to be, she also appeared entirely in CGI for her last scene, which is cool.
 
Rado_N said:
The mother was annoying but she was meant to be, she also appeared entirely in CGI for her last scene, which is cool.
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Only watched the show for the first time in 2008 and didn't know that she had died, thought I was losing my mind when I first saw that episode.
 
I hated Skyler's face and her insistence on butting in and trying to take control of Walt all the time. Don't blame him for doing what he did with her as a wife.
 
Not really. There's a lot of back up for it, in a lot of shows. Even Gilligan has said he hated the reaction to Skyler. So if the writer wasn't intending for you to hate her, but you do, the problem probably doesn't lie with the character.
 
Mockney said:
Not really. There's a lot of back up for it, in a lot of shows. Even Gilligan has said he hated the reaction to Skyler. So if the writer wasn't intending for you to hate her, but you do, where do you think the idiocy logically lies?
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So what you're saying is, he wrote her to be liked. Some people didn't like her. Those that didn't are dumb. How is what you're saying logical? Especially in a show with such moral ambiguities such as BB, having an opinion on a character that was meant to be liked that's different to the writer doesn't make the viewer dumb.
 
Uzz said:
Me thinks you're defending your mate for having an idiotic opinion, which is quite sweet.



This article still doesn't explain how you think dumb viewers don't like the character Skyler.

If you want to change your statement to 'viewers don't judge Skyler with the same standards as they do Walt' I'd agree with you.
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No, I'm content with what I've said. Viewers who dislike the wives of antiheros for getting in the way of the obviously bad intentions of said antihero/protagonist are idiots.
 
Eboue said:
No, I'm content with what I've said. Viewers who dislike the wives of antiheros for getting in the way of the obviously bad intentions of said antihero/protagonist are idiots.
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Mockney said:
Idiots?
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Would you, subconsciously or otherwise, judge an apathetic, egomaniacal drug lord in the same way as a suburban housewife?

Note: it does not make you an idiot/dumb if you answer yes or no to this question.
 
Uzz said:
Would you, subconsciously or otherwise, judge an apathetic, egomaniacal drug lord in the same way as a suburban housewife?

Note: it does not make you an idiot/dumb if you answer yes or no to this question.
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Why do you not like Skyler?
 
Uzz said:
I do like Skyler. In none of my posts on BB, have I mentioned dislike for Skyler. I just don't like that anyone who doesn't like her can be branded dumb, which is dumb in itself.
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Well it's a pointless debate then.

I found Skyler a bit annoying but you can't say her actions aren't understandable given what her husband gets up to.
 
Uzz said:
Would you, subconsciously or otherwise, judge an apathetic, egomaniacal drug lord in the same way as a suburban housewife?
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What about suburban school teachers? I'm lost on what your point is. It's ok to judge decent people doing vaguely questionable things worse than bad people doing murderous things because....something?

Note: it does not make you an idiot/dumb if you answer yes or no to this question.
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It does if you judge the housewife worse, obviously.
 
Mockney said:
What about suburban school teachers? I'm lost on what your point is. It's ok to judge decent people doing vaguely questionable things worse than bad people doing murderous things because....something?

It does if you judge the housewife worse, obviously.
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I haven't mentioned about judging her worse. I actually think Skyler was one of the most pressured characters as she was in the middle of both Walt and Hank, through no fault of her own. She was selfless to both her husband and to her family. Willing to take abuse from Walt Jnr as well.

My point was its unfair to generalise all those viewers who don't like her as 'dumb'. They could make valid points as to why they don't like Skyler. We all watched the same show and had our own opinions on the deeply layered characters.
 
So rather than debate the consistent and verifiable trend of wives/women in anti-hero dramas being disproportionately picked on by fans, we're debating the semantics of the word dumb?

Fighting the good fight.
 
Skyler clearly wasn't a likeable character. We are meant to feel sympathetic to her plight, but she was never likeable.
 
More staggering is the whole Jesse vs Walt thing. Anyone with a normal moral compass should've hated Walt by the end of Season 4.
 
Mockney said:
What about suburban school teachers? I'm lost on what your point is. It's ok to judge decent people doing vaguely questionable things worse than bad people doing murderous things because....something?



It does if you judge the housewife worse, obviously.
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Because they're more entertaining? It's a TV show after all not a reality show where you choose who you want to be mates with.
 
There's obviously a difference between liking the cool character of Walt more, and the outpouring of hate the Skyler character (and even actress) received.

And I think it's perfectly reasonable to conclude a lot of this was down to people with dodgy attitudes to women (or, you know, idiots). Not all of it, obviously, but the strength, proportion and similarity of it clearly indicated a problem. Enthrenched in the wake of things like gamgergate.

If you didn't like her that much, coolio (I wouldn't rank her in the top 10 characters myself) but if you found yourself palpably antagonised by her, I reckon you've at least a burgeoning talent for idiocy.
 
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Mockney said:
There's obviously a difference between liking the cool character of Walt more, and the outpouring of hate the Skyler character (and even actress) received.

And I think it's perfectly reasonable to conclude a lot of this was down to people with dodgy attitudes to women (or, you know, idiots). Not all of it, obviously, but the strength, proportion and similarity of it clearly indicated a problem.
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Finally, we got some semblance of an argument from one of you two, rather than calling people idiots.

I can't make comments on the other characters, as I haven't watched the shows in question.

But, I think it has more to do with a stronger, blind to reason, affinity to the protagonist than anything else.

I do agree-there are idiots out there who are personally attacking the actress for her portrayal.
 
Uzz said:
Finally, we got some semblance of an argument from one of you two, rather than calling people idiots.

I can't make comments on the other characters, as I haven't watched the shows in question.

But, I think it has more to do with a stronger, blind to reason, affinity to the protagonist than anything else.

I do agree-there are idiots out there who are personally attacking the actress for her portrayal.
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My argument is that those people are idiots.
 
Eboue has not said that anyone who hates Skyler is an idiot. What he said was...
Eboue said:
People who bitch about every female tv character that dares go against their awful husbands are idiots.
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It was not specific to Skyler's character and i'm sure he accepts there are valid reasons for not liking her.

It's very obvious that there are a significant portion of people that genuinely dislike any strong female character who stands up to the morally reprehensible male lead character. Redcafe has some of these people.

That said, when someone says "Skyler deserves everything she gets for cheating on her man" when "her man" was on the verge of raping her, regularly threatened her, put her and her family in grave danger on numerous occasions...well, it's not a huge leap to call them a misogynistic idiot.
 
In the kitchen when she was still pregnant. Just after he strangled crazy 8, maybe? Not sure.
 
I remember not really minding Skyler for the first couple of seasons despite having heard people hated her, as I thought she was a decent character, a good counterpart to Walt etc who helped highlight his struggle to be a more dominant, masculine figure.

I found it a bit strange and cold when she suddenly just sort of left Walt before he'd really explained much of what he'd done, although I suppose it can be considered justified when you remember that he was ultimately dealing drugs, just because he enjoyed doing so.

As for female wives of anti-heroes, Skyler kind of falls in the middle for me. I thought she was well-written at times, although extremely annoying at others. BB was never the strongest show for female characters though when you consider the only other prominent one was Marie...and Lydia in the last season, who I actually thought was an okay character. I really disliked Margaret in Boardwalk Empire although thought her plots were often terrible, and thought Carmela was an excellent character in The Sopranos.
 
Mockney said:
There's obviously a difference between liking the cool character of Walt more, and the outpouring of hate the Skyler character (and even actress) received.

And I think it's perfectly reasonable to conclude a lot of this was down to people with dodgy attitudes to women (or, you know, idiots). Not all of it, obviously, but the strength, proportion and similarity of it clearly indicated a problem. Enthrenched in the wake of things like gamgergate.

If you didn't like her that much, coolio (I wouldn't rank her in the top 10 characters myself) but if you found yourself palpably antagonised by her, I reckon you've at least a burgeoning talent for idiocy.
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Well yeah, but any abuse the actress got doesn't really have correlation to disliking other TV show wives or the intelligence of those who don't like them. Yeah, I'm sure some will just hate women. There's plenty of backward people out there after all. Of the ones initially mentioned I'd say Skylar was the least annoying. She was just a little dull.

If you can accuse people of their opinions on a certain TV character being evidence of their misogynistic attitude then I'd say you'd have a burgeoning talent yourself.
 
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