It’s hard to believe, but it’s been nearly five years since Breaking Bad wound up, as [spoiler for the super slow on the uptake] Walter White’s run as a meth overlord finally met a bloody end.
Many accolades have been lavished upon the critically-acclaimed show during and after its run, but buried under all that praise was a polarising point of contention that some Breaking Bad fans stubbornly kept throwing out like a badge of honour: Skyler White is a bitch.
Show creator Vince Gilligan has stated on several occasions that his intention was to turn Walter White from a protagonist to antagonist. But Gilligan’s intention backfired somewhat as certain fans kept rooting for the Very Bad Man to succeed at doing crimes, and some quickly took issue with how Skyler was standing in the way of Walt’s path to doing more and bigger crimes.
But why was this a problem? Why was Skyler’s understandable objection to Walt’s criminal activity met with such contempt instead of support? I mean, wouldn’t you be pissed if your partner was making meth behind your back?
Needless to say that this reasoning behind the vitriol was just as perplexing as the chemistry behind Walt’s blue meth – none more so than to the actress portraying Skyler, Anna Gunn.
During a recent 10-year Breaking Bad reunion celebrating the anniversary of the show’s premiere episode, Gunn spoke about how surprised she was to the backlash towards Skyler and how much it ‘shook’ her, pointing out how it all was seemingly rooted in a “combination of sexism [and] ideas about gender roles.”
From her fellow cast members’ own confusion over the criticism to fans directly asking her why Skyler was ‘such a bitch’, Gunn endured quite the emotional rollercoaster throughout Breaking Bad‘s run but she still managed to find some positives in the experience.
Recalling that the Skyler backlash created a ‘seismic shift’ in her life, Gunn said she realised that all the criticism was really about how fans were connecting to Walt, how people still hold onto older ideas of ‘what a woman or a wife should be,’ and ultimately how change isn’t always comfortable.
While Gunn noted that the opinion towards Skyler started to shift by the time the finale rolled around, it’s been the societal change over the past couple of years that has really shifted fans’ opinions.
She certainly has a point there. When Breaking Bad‘s finale aired in 2013, toxic fandoms existed across all entertainment circles. Fast-forwarding to 2018, these toxic fandoms still exist – but people are starting to call out questionable behaviour rather than normalising it.
In the wake of a number of high-profile incidents – the #MeToo movement, the Rick & Morty Sichuan sauce debacle, Gamergate – society has been forced to tackle issues such as sexism, women, and misogyny head on. It’s been jarring for some, but it has helped open many people’s eyes in distinguishing what’s acceptable behaviour and what’s not.
As for Gunn, she notes how the passing of time have changed fans’ perspective about Skyler, saying that it is ‘incredibly gratifying’ to see how much strongly Skyler’s plight is affecting fans now thanks to the big shifts happening in society.
It’s good that fans finally understand how all that Skyler criticism was unfounded, but the fact that it was even a thing in the first place and that it took nearly five years for some people to realise it means that there’s still a long way to go before we reach a place where a female character won’t get slammed for trying to stop her criminal husband from making meth.