On May 28, 2014, the Pittsburgh news showed video of a local man who had just been arrested for cooking methamphetamine. Upon encountering the news cameras, he said two words: “Breaking Bad.” AMC’s hit television show has achieved cult status since its premiere in 2008 and has been hailed as “groundbreaking” by countless news outlets and blogs. But the central idea (excuse?) in the show—a parent who will stop at nothing for the sake of the family—is hardly new. Nearly seventy years separates Bertolt Brecht’s iconic play Mother Courage and Her Children and Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad, but the two projects share many eerie similarities that beg investigation into their widely different receptions.
Brecht’s groundbreaking political theatre sought to raise consciousness about the rise of Fascism in Europe. He put forth the character of Mother Courage as a cautionary tale for those who sought to profit from the war. Gilligan’s character Walter White also appears to serve as a cautionary tale, yet fans around the globe revere him and champion his cause.
My analysis initially addresses the metaphorical “wasteland” in both pieces: the war-ravaged face of Europe in Mother Courage and a cancer-ridden existence amid the New Mexico desert in Breaking Bad. Both pieces engage in the idea of desolation as the site of opportunity, where poverty and probable death lead to the surrender of morals for survival’s sake. This leads to an interrogation of the role that both theatre and television mediums play in our perception of the world around us, prompting us to ask, “Why is Brecht’s enduring creation a call to political action, while Gilligan’s massively popular series a resounding cheer for depravity?”
About the presenterKristi Good
Dr. Good is a professor of script analysis and dramaturgy at Carnegie Mellon University. Her primary research interests include theatre and the cognitive sciences, Irish theatre, and global theatre of trauma & human rights. Her most recent article on Marilyn Monroe can be found in Theatre History Studies and she contributes regularly to the American Conference for Irish Studies, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and the Mid-Atlantic Theatre Conference.