Gender Roles in Breaking Bad

One of my favorite TV shows of all time is Breaking Bad, in which women do not play a very large role. The show focuses greatly on Walter White and Jesse Pinkman and the people they meet and interact with while cooking and selling meth. Walter White evolves into a very intimidating, hard drug dealer who does not show much emotion. In the earlier seasons of the show, Walter was more family-oriented man who lived a very plain life. Jesse Pinkman does not play a stereotypical male character, rather a man who is broken and shows a lot of his emotions. As the show nears the falling out of the pair, Jesse can be seen crying very often and showing the audience his feelings. Jesse also changes throughout the show because Jesse used to be a harder character. Another male character in the show is Hank, Walter’s brother in law who is also a DEA agent. Hank’s character is very stereotypical of hegemonic masculinity as he never speaks or shows emotion, not even after traumatizing things happened to him during work. Hank refuses to speak about what he saw or is feeling, but it is very obvious to the audience and other characters that he is struggling. The women in Breaking Bad are a lot of spouses or partners. Walter’s wife Skylar is a stay at home mom for much of the show and see can be seen worrying about Walt a lot. Towards the end of the show Skylar begins to take a bigger role in the “business” and go back to work. Jesse also has some female characters that he interacts with but again in is mostly in romantic relationships. Breaking Bad is heavily male based, with few female characters in major roles.