Breaking Bad

people probably hate skyler because she comes across as callous at times, but i don't think their dynamic is boring at all. the only thing i don't like about the show is the timeline of events. there's no way all this stuff happens within a year.

Drinsic_sl said:

Yep, but I think one of the points was that we were misogynists (instead of the writers I suppose) for thinking Skyler is a turbocunt. Skyler sucks, hard. So much fat, jaw, and bitching.

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Yeah, and I still think it is misogyny for the most part. A similar male character would not be judged near as harshly, and there is a pattern of female characters across many shows being treated much the same way. I don't know where this stuff stems from, but I do not believe it is the writing. Overall I think her character is believably written and the actress portrays her as the writers intended. But she isn't our drug-dealing child-murdering hero so we don't sympathize with her.

Tuco_sl said:

It's like the writer's individually sat down to think of a character and thought, "I'm going to model this out of everything I hate about women."

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I don't see that. Really, if anything I think Skylar's reaction to all of this shit happening in the span of a couple of months was pretty reserved. I think she served to highlight the hypocrisy that lives in a lot of people regarding issues like these and that is something the writers wanted to explore. She and the fan reaction to her remind me of Betty from Mad Men, people seem to have the irrational hatred of their characters. Maybe because they work counter to our "hero" so that pisses us off, they are an obstacle, I don't know. Last time I brought this up with Mad Men, Lithose berated me for pages about how wrong I am, but whatever, I DON'T GIVE A FUCK LITHOSE.

It's not misogyny to dislike an intentionally bland character whose only defining characteristic is being a turbocunt. It's misogyny to write a character who's sole characteristic is being a turbocunt.

We all know a few turbocunts IRL. Well, I assume. I know three. Do you dislike them because they're women, or because they're turbocunts?

Same thing.

I've seen plenty of male characters "like" skylar -- but they're short shot devices, not full on supporting characters. And they've even tried to turn skylar into a main character if you credit the arcs and screentime given to her.

It's acceptable, I'll watch the second half of the last season. But it's really not good. Of course then again it's free -- so bang for my buck even with Skylar's lacklusterness is quite good.

BrutulTM_sl said:

Nerds only like women that act like men. If you find a female character that is popular on this board it's because she carries a sword and kills people. When they act like real women, everyone here hates them. We've been through this all before of course.

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This is exactly how the conversation went before. Now, tell me what makes a "real woman", what traits define them as opposed to male characters. Last time, you guys essentially assigned every trait that was good (Rationality, critical thinking ect) to "masculine", while assigning a bunch of weak/flaws to "female" characteristics. But somehow you're not the misogynists for believing that because a woman wields a sword, she is "acting like a man." (Just think about that for a minute).

Give me a break.

Skylar isn't liked because she is written like an irrational, hypocritical, shallow and ultimately weak character. Almost every course of action she has taken to resolve her dilemmas has been poorly thought out, completely ineffective and completely absent any critical thought to consequence. The writers do this because the trope of assigning women these qualities is accepted as what is inherently female. It is the epitome of misogyny.

Iannis_sl said:

It's not misogyny to dislike an intentionally bland character whose only defining characteristic is being a turbocunt. It's misogyny to write a character who's sole characteristic is being a turbocunt.

We all know a few turbocunts IRL. Well, I assume. I know three. Do you dislike them because they're women, or because they're turbocunts?

Same thing.

I

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It is definitely misogyny to boil down a female character to a single base aspect, ignoring the further years of character development.

Lithose_sl said:

This is exactly how the conversation went before. Now, tell me what makes a "real woman", what traits define them as opposed to male characters. Last time, you guys essentially assigned every trait that was good (Rationality, critical thinking ect) to "masculine", while assigning a bunch of weak/flaws to "female" characteristics. But somehow you're not the misogynists for believing that because a woman wields a sword, she is "acting like a man." (Just think about that for a minute).

Give me a break.

Skylar isn't liked because she is written like an irrational, hypocritical, shallow and ultimately weak character. Almost every course of action she has taken to resolve her dilemmas has been poorly thought out, completely ineffective and completely absent any critical thought to consequence. The writers do this because the trope of assigning women these qualities is accepted as what is inherently female. It is the epitome of misogyny.

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I wouldn't say "real woman" I would say "real person." It isn't as if she is the only one on the show to make poor decisions, shit, if you made that same statement about thinking out dilemmas about Walt or Jesse it would be mostly correct.

chaos_sl said:

I don't see that. Really, if anything I think Skylar's reaction to all of this shit happening in the span of a couple of months was pretty reserved. I think she served to highlight the hypocrisy that lives in a lot of people regarding issues like these and that is something the writers wanted to explore. She and the fan reaction to her remind me of Betty from Mad Men, people seem to have the irrational hatred of their characters. Maybe because they work counter to our "hero" so that pisses us off, they are an obstacle, I don't know. Last time I brought this up with Mad Men, Lithose berated me for pages about how wrong I am, but whatever, I DON'T GIVE A FUCK LITHOSE.

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I was actually going to respond a little while ago with. (BEFORE Brutal's post)

"Watch, the next post is going to be how we only like females because they are written like men."

I didn't though, meh, because I'm slammed in work, lol.

But on the whole, this conversation went the exact same way last time. And we dissected pretty well how Skylar's reactions, while having a rational origination, were handled with the ineptness you'd find in a high functioning chimp. And somehow, those qualities, the inability to doanythingright, ironically, except for when she acted like a bimbo/idiot (I can't make this up, remember the IRS scene) are just "inherent female qualities".

But somehow when we point to characters like Joan, who are very feminine, but also loved here, we are still assigning male traits because Joan is ultimately extremely rational. It really comes down to a deeper perception of women. Most "feminists" on here view them as inherently weaker. As if their irrationality is an obvious side effect of them having a vagina, and if you dislike that irrationality, you're just a super-secret chauvinist!

So obviously the only reason Peggy, Arya, Joan, Ava Crowder (Justified) and a slew of other strong female characters are enjoyed is because we believe their strength comes from fictional penis placement in the writing. It's so absurd that it almost boggles the mind that otherwise rational posters feel this way.

The IRS scene was complete retardation, granted. THAT was poor writing. I get what they wanted to show with Skylar abandoning her intellectualism and putting on a facade or whatever, but it was just hard to watch.

how is skyler an irrational character?

chaos_sl said:

I wouldn't say "real woman" I would say "real person." It isn't as if she is the only one on the show to make poor decisions, shit, if you made that same statement about thinking out dilemmas about Walt or Jesse it would be mostly correct.

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I wish this was still FoH, remember, I got into huge thread destroying debates with how Jesse was being a douche in Season 4, so yeah, I'm absolutely hard even on well liked male characters (I also posted about how shitty Rogers reaction was at the end of Mad Men.)...But the fact is, male characters tend to make those "god that was stupid" mistakes a lot less.

Typically, "male character" mistakes happen because a foil of equal intelligence stops them, forces the mistake in an otherwise rational plan. Women characters though, are often written so the very weight of their bad decision brings to fruition the consequence of their mistake. It's a very different form of bad decision. One is like watching someone lose a game of chess, the other is like watching someone lick lead off old chess pieces. Both people "lost", but it's a very different form of losing.

Women are written poorly more, because it seems like we expect them to make thesekindsof mistakes. When women aren't written like that, when they are written with some major critical thinking skills, they are said to be "written like men".

How is she even a developed one?

How is Skylar any different in her "I guess I'll just go drown myself in the pool" episode than she is in episode 1. The character is entirely flat. She only shows a hint of being examined twice. Shut up and I fucked Ted are her best lines for a reason.

Bro, if you think storage room full of money Skylar is the same as episode 1 henpeck my husband Skylar, you either aren't paying attention or just don't care. Just because you don't like the character doesn't mean she hasn't been developed and given depth.

Trollface_sl said:

yeh, but if you look at other shows, it shows that women are illustrated as smart, well thinking individuals while men are portrayed as bumbling fools. it's not really simple as you make it.

http://patrickwanis.com/blog/how-stupid-are-men/

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Not trying to argue, but not sure what you're trying to say here. I agree, there is some massive bias against men in commercials and a lot of comedy in general. But they are written with different goals, meant to appeal to different consumer markets. Like the article says, commercials are written for women--and I think most commercials have a huge "anti-male" bias, to the point of being terrible sometimes. Like how violence against men is a funny outcome because the man buys his wife a vacuum. I mean, imagine seeing a commercial where a woman winds up in the hospital because the man opened a power saw for Christmas, but that commercial actually exists--except it was a woman who got an iron, and the man was in the hospital. (I suppose spousal abuse is funny when it's men being burned with irons)

But those are mostly comedy and targeted at specific, mostly female audiences. I'd say it's hard to judge the standards of one medium (Drama), as with another (Comedy, targeted specifically at women). But yeah, absolutely commercials are ridiculously misandric, and short comedies tend to be also. In Drama though, "cheap" drama fromdumbdecisions? Tends to flow from women.

With some major exceptions, Justified, for example, doesn't really ever use the women=dumb/weak trope. Also, you could argue GoT season 1, Ned was the source of bad choices. But that was pointed out, heavily, by the S1 thread--so again, the point stands, I don't think the audience is being sexist by calling this shit out, because people took Ned through the ringer for derping, I just think it's more consistently written into women characters, so we tend to see it more as a reaction to certain female characters. (Like Cat was essentially Ned, but for three damn seasons.)

Which was the point. Can you say the audience is being sexist for hating on a disproportionate amount of female characters? Or are female characters disproportionately written to be sources of stupid, irrational and short sighted decisions? I'm firmly in thelattercamp.