A Liberal
Dose
April 20,
2023
Troy D.
Smith
“Breaking
Bad and the Receding American Dream”
Recently, I wrote about Michael Douglas’s character in Falling Down, William Foster. Foster was a middle-class engineer who had
followed all the rules throughout his life, but just as he was on the verge of
middle age the world changes (the end of the Cold War) and his job becomes
obsolete. His wife has left him, he is unemployed, and everything he worked for
has slipped through his fingers. The American Dream that he had felt was
promised to him did not materialize, and he felt cheated and cast aside. One
hot day, he snaps and goes on a rampage.
I noted that the film, released thirty years ago, said a lot
more than people realized at the time about the emotional state of the American
middle class. The film came out, by the way, right at the same time as the Los
Angeles riots which divided, not only the city, but the country. There was a
lot of anger under the surface -middle class and poor, black and white alike
were frustrated by the dissolution of the American Dream, perhaps made even
worse by the fact the “bad guys” (Soviets) had fallen and everyone was supposed
to live happily ever after.
1993 was the year of the Waco standoff, which a lot of
middle-and-working-class white folks, then and now, pointed to as proof you
can’t trust the government. Perhaps people were starting to conclude you can’t
even trust your vision of America.
Fifteen years later, we were introduced to a 21st
century version of William Foster. On Breaking Bad, we met Walter White
(Brian Cranston.) On the day after his 50th birthday, White learns
he has terminal cancer. He is a high-school chemistry teacher whose insurance
won’t pay his medical bills. In fact, he is already having to demean himself by
have a part-time job washing cars, where the younger managers treat him like
dirt. But it didn’t have to be that way -in his youth, he’d been a brilliant
chemist whose research helped establish a company that White and his best
friend ran. White’s girlfriend left him for the best friend, and in his
depression Walter had sold out his share for a mere $5,000. Now the company was
worth many millions -and he was washing cars and dealing with arrogant
students.
His American Dream had become a nightmare.
We know what happened. He partnered with an ex-student who
was now a meth dealer, and started using his superior skills to create
high-quality meth… to pay his medical bills and make sure he had something to
leave his family.
Once he made that decision, we all knew he was doomed- but
we could understand his feelings. Like the guy in Falling Down, we
sympathized with him (at least at first). In one of the most memorable images in the series, Walter
is standing in the desert in his underwear pointing a gun at the rival meth
dealers who attack him and his partner Jesse. He is screaming in desperation.
The underwear highlights how vulnerable and exposed Walter feels.
Interestingly, both Walter White and William Foster have an
encounter with an annoying fly. The fly is a symbol, too -of how each man
yearns desperately to gain control over the mundane irritations of his life,
irritations that take away his peace.
The American Dream, when deferred, sometimes explodes -so
said Langston Hughes. He was talking about Black America, and the fact that all
the promises made to them never materialized. White and Foster represent a
middle-class America of recent decades who had no reason to ever DOUBT their
dreams would come true- but they didn’t. This, too, can lead to a slow-burning
fuse of rage.
I think we have seen that rage these last few years. Taking
the time to look from a different perspective can at least give us a handle on
where that rage comes from, even if we oppose it... and even if we recognize that, in the end -unlike William Foster -Walter White really was evil.
--Troy D.
Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at
Tennessee Tech. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.
A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE
Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com
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