"Say You Want This": A New Breaking Bad Thread

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > "Say You Want This": A New Breaking Bad Thread

Pepe Silvia Browne: Jan 1, 2007

syscall girl posted:

Maybe I just don't understand what that ridiculous phrase meant.

I think this scene from Better Call Saul really sums up the concept of what it means to break bad in the way that fans use that phrase.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYaXYPi2N4E

In this scene, Mike is laying out for another character that he has now "broken bad." It's a seal that can't be unbroken. All of his decisions from that point forward have to take the fact that he broke the law under consideration, or he will get caught. He is a criminal now.

Also, here's a TIME article about the title of "Breaking Bad" and what it means:

quote:

Show creator Vince Gilligan has said (as in the video above) that he had thought it was a commonly used phrase when he decided to use it as a title, not knowing that the expression was a Southern regionalism from the area in Virginia from which he hails. It means �to raise hell,� he says, as in �I was out the other night at the bar�and I really broke bad.�

But, while the gist of his definition is pretty widely accepted, Gilligan�s use-it-in-a-sentence definition of the phrase is an incomplete accounting of its meanings. In general, �breaking bad� connotes more violence than �raising hell� does. A glance at the bevy of definitions at user-sourced Urban Dictionary reveals that different contributors think the words possess a wide variety of nuances: to �break bad� can mean to �go wild,� to �defy authority� and break the law, to be verbally �combative, belligerent, or threatening� or, followed by the preposition �on,� to �completely dominate or humiliate.�

Reference books back up that third meaning seen at Urban Dictionary. The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English gives a definition of �to act in a threatening, menacing manner�; American Slang gives a similar definition and traces the phrase to 1970s black usage. Cassell�s Dictionary of Slang says it�s African-American slang from the �60s that means �to become angry or aggressive��and that on 1980s college campuses it could (perhaps in a �bad equals good� sense?) mean �to perform well.� The Facts on File Dictionary of American Regionalisms labels the phrase as Southern slang that means �to behave in a violent manner for no good reason.�

One of the earliest instances of the phrase appearing in the New York Times backs up the definition (to turn violent unnecessarily) and history (black, Southern, 1970s) suggested by those lexicographers. In a 1980 excerpt from John Langston Gwaltney�s Drylongso, a Self-Portrait of Black America, an oral history of African-American communities; in describing his view of race relations, a black man from rural Missouri told the author that �if a white man was to come over here and ask me anything, I wouldn�t break bad with him.�

But, while that idiom matches the one appearing in many dictionaries, there�s an even earlier appearance of the expression with a very different sense to it, suggesting the violence now implied by the phrase came later. In a 1919 overview of goings-on on Wall Street, the writer suggested that �the average speculator will not take a position in the highly speculative industrials for over Sunday, but because he can�t stay out of the market altogether, gets into the rails at the end of the week in hope of making a successful turn and with confidence that if things �break bad� over Sunday rails will feel the shock less than the industrials.� That older use of �break bad,� meaning �to go bad,� requires little knowledge of regional slang, and it makes enough sense that anyone might come up with or at least understand it.

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Pepe Silvia Browne: Jan 1, 2007

Secular Humanist posted:

Man I have to say that as good of an actor as Cranston is, it's really hard for me to watch him in anything post-BB. His roles prior to BB I can still get into because he physically looked quite a bit younger on Malcolm and Seinfeld but I saw that Trumbo movie, and I don't know what it was but something about him in that irked the poo poo out of me, and I think it's just because I'm now just wired to see him as Walt. Kind of a testament to the show really, it's so good it was able to typecast an already well established actor. He's just Walt now.

If you have HBO, you should check out All The Way. He disappears into the role of LBJ.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2016 16:40

Pepe Silvia Browne: Jan 1, 2007

Harold Stassen posted:

Your husband is dying of cancer and you're going controlling psycho over him and his acquaintances smoking pot uh yeah what's not to like, obviously you're a confirmed woman hater if you're not gung ho for that

The pot thing was a lie to cover up for the fact that he was cooking meth. It also happened before he told Skyler that he had cancer.

e: You don't have to be gung ho about it. There's a middle ground where a character's actions can be understandable but still recognized as the wrong thing to do.

Pepe Silvia Browne fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Aug 11, 2016

# ¿ Aug 11, 2016 19:16

Pepe Silvia Browne: Jan 1, 2007

Also, I understand that Skyler comes off as controlling, but do you ever stop to ask why she's controlling? How she came to be in the position where she's telling her adult husband which credit cards he can and can't use?

Walt is shown to be pretty bored with his normal life. He's basically on auto-pilot up through the scene where he gets the news about his cancer. Hence, "I am awake" afterwards. Walt has been putting himself in the backseat of his own life because he's resigned to the fact that he blew it. He had potential and he squandered it because he couldn't swallow his own pride (this isn't explicitly shown, but it's heavily implied in the scenes with Gretchen), and now he's just this regular dude with a boring life. He cares about his kids, and he cares about his wife, but he's detached. So Skyler is the one who has to be more engaged and pay attention to poo poo like knowing which credit card is the one we just keep for emergencies.

# ¿ Aug 11, 2016 19:29

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > "Say You Want This": A New Breaking Bad Thread