"Does money create monsters?" You're goddamn right.
If you haven't seen Breaking Bad you're seriously behind the times. Some fans might be able to sympathize with Walter White but as we watch him "break bad" and slowly transition into his alter ego known as Heisenberg over the course of five seasons, I become a lot less sympathetic.
When we first meet Walter White he is a brilliant chemist who is seriously over qualified for his position as a high school chemistry teacher. He works hard to provide for his pregnant wife and disabled son. His students, family members, and manager at the car wash disrespect him, but he keeps his head down and doesn't complain. Despite being a good man he gets dealt a shitty hand and finds himself diagnosed with terminal cancer. Not wanting to leave his family overwhelmed with medical bills he decides to team up with an old student of his, Jesse Pinkman, to sell meth. Walter knows the chemistry, and Jesse knows the business.
So at first you're thinking Walters not a bad guy, he's a man who's out of options and needs to provide for his family, everything he's doing is for his family. We all know this changes, he continues to make meth even though he has more money than he can count. He'll do anything to protect his money, but more importantly, to protect his status of being the very best in the business. He becomes a murderous monster, blinded by greed, and in the mean time he loses his family, gets his brother-in-law killed, and eventually he gets himself killed (sorry for the spoilers, but if you haven't seen the show by now it's really your own fault).
He starts out as a family man who vows to stop making meth as soon as he makes enough to cover his treatment and leave his family comfortable if he dies, but changes into a man who doesn't blink at the thought of murdering anyone who gets in his way. He comes up with many ways to justify what he does, besides "providing for his family" he also justifies it by saying that people are going to get meth one way or another, at least with his meth they're getting a good product. It isn't until his final moments in life where he admits that everything he did was because of his own selfish ego.
I debated long and hard if I wanted to write this blog post about a fictional or non-fictional person because I really want to express that greed creates real-life monsters, but I just thought Walter White was too perfect for this assignment. Instead I'll just quick write about Stewart Parnell to get my point across. Parnell was the CEO of Peanut Corporation of America who was recently sentenced to 28 years in prison and was convicted on 68 counts involving felony fraud, conspiracy, and knowingly allowing contaminated food to be sold to the public. Their peanut butter tested positive for salmonella and yet he allowed it to hit the market because the company needed the money. Consequently, 714 people got sick and nine people died. I think to myself, what if he had just recalled that peanut butter, their business would have taken serious financial toll and maybe even have gone bankrupt, but to him personally what would have happened? Just like Walter White, Parnell probably had more money than he could count, the man is 68, you know he had some serious savings, so worst case scenario he goes into a forced early retirement. So why did he need his company to make more money? Because eventually it gets to a point where it's not about money, it's about being the best in the business, about making a name for yourself and you'll do whatever it takes to get there. Well, Stewart Parnell, congrats, you made a name for yourself.
If you haven't seen Breaking Bad you're seriously behind the times. Some fans might be able to sympathize with Walter White but as we watch him "break bad" and slowly transition into his alter ego known as Heisenberg over the course of five seasons, I become a lot less sympathetic.
When we first meet Walter White he is a brilliant chemist who is seriously over qualified for his position as a high school chemistry teacher. He works hard to provide for his pregnant wife and disabled son. His students, family members, and manager at the car wash disrespect him, but he keeps his head down and doesn't complain. Despite being a good man he gets dealt a shitty hand and finds himself diagnosed with terminal cancer. Not wanting to leave his family overwhelmed with medical bills he decides to team up with an old student of his, Jesse Pinkman, to sell meth. Walter knows the chemistry, and Jesse knows the business.
So at first you're thinking Walters not a bad guy, he's a man who's out of options and needs to provide for his family, everything he's doing is for his family. We all know this changes, he continues to make meth even though he has more money than he can count. He'll do anything to protect his money, but more importantly, to protect his status of being the very best in the business. He becomes a murderous monster, blinded by greed, and in the mean time he loses his family, gets his brother-in-law killed, and eventually he gets himself killed (sorry for the spoilers, but if you haven't seen the show by now it's really your own fault).
He starts out as a family man who vows to stop making meth as soon as he makes enough to cover his treatment and leave his family comfortable if he dies, but changes into a man who doesn't blink at the thought of murdering anyone who gets in his way. He comes up with many ways to justify what he does, besides "providing for his family" he also justifies it by saying that people are going to get meth one way or another, at least with his meth they're getting a good product. It isn't until his final moments in life where he admits that everything he did was because of his own selfish ego.
I debated long and hard if I wanted to write this blog post about a fictional or non-fictional person because I really want to express that greed creates real-life monsters, but I just thought Walter White was too perfect for this assignment. Instead I'll just quick write about Stewart Parnell to get my point across. Parnell was the CEO of Peanut Corporation of America who was recently sentenced to 28 years in prison and was convicted on 68 counts involving felony fraud, conspiracy, and knowingly allowing contaminated food to be sold to the public. Their peanut butter tested positive for salmonella and yet he allowed it to hit the market because the company needed the money. Consequently, 714 people got sick and nine people died. I think to myself, what if he had just recalled that peanut butter, their business would have taken serious financial toll and maybe even have gone bankrupt, but to him personally what would have happened? Just like Walter White, Parnell probably had more money than he could count, the man is 68, you know he had some serious savings, so worst case scenario he goes into a forced early retirement. So why did he need his company to make more money? Because eventually it gets to a point where it's not about money, it's about being the best in the business, about making a name for yourself and you'll do whatever it takes to get there. Well, Stewart Parnell, congrats, you made a name for yourself.
I really hope you don't think I copied you for this blog assignment, because it wasn't until after I posted my response that I realized the blog post right before mine was also about Breaking Bad haha! You however brought up some great points that I missed in my blog post. I had forgotten that Walter constantly gave himself excuses for the bad deeds he does, and routinely went back to the, "I'm providing for my family" cop out. I really like how you tied in the story of Stewart Parnell as well. Both him and Walter were in very similar circumstances, but what is much worse is that the story of Stewart Parnell is not fiction. It's truly sad that money can make a person become so careless for their actions as long as they stay rich. It really makes you wonder though, is he a psychopath? Or was it the money that made him turn into this type of person? It'd be interesting to know what kind of person he was when he was younger to see if he has changed at all.
ReplyDelete