Plenty of people thought that Don Draper and Walter White were heroes.
Walter White was an antihero. The US healthcare system was the villain.
The healthcare system was just a catalyst for his transformation into Heisenberg. He had multiple opportunities to stop during the first seasons. His greed and pride wouldn’t allow him to do so.
I’m pretty sure the rush of it was his addiction.
In all honesty, I haven’t watched it again since it first came out. When did he have opportunities to pay for his treatment? I don’t remember that. I definitely remember the megalomaniacal development that you mention in his character arc.
The best opportunity was when he meets up with his former partners, Gretchen and Elliot. They feel sorry for Walt’s diagnosis and the fact that he left the company the three of them started before it became profitable, and offer to fully pay for his cancer treatment.
He then lies to his wife, saying that they are paying while he continues to make meth and sell it to fund his treatment.
There are others, but this one happens early on (around S2 I believe).
You’re right. I remember that now. I think I’d enjoy a second watch through.
The only episode I’ve watched multiple times is The Fly. It has almost nothing to do with the story, but it’s a legitimately brilliant standalone art house short story.
The Fly was definitely a polarizing episode. My biggest complaint about it was that it completely threw off the pacing of the story that season.
If you haven’t seen it yet, I would highly recommend you check out the spin-off series Better Call Saul. I ended up enjoying it even more than Breaking Bad, although it does spend a long time setting up the pieces before everything starts falling into place.
I really should. I’ve been a fan of Bob Odenkirk since Mr. Show. I’ll give it a watch.
Funny story. The show was over budget so they had to do something cheap. ‘The Fly’ let them do a bottle episode with an existing set and no new actors.
“Bottle episode” comes from Star Trek TOS. They once had an episode where the ship was trapped in a bottle because of budget.
I really need to go back and watch the whole thing, but I remember in one of the first two seasons there’s another point where his wife discovers some duffel bags that he’s stashed that are just absolutely stuffed with cash. Like, tens of thousands of dollars, if not a six-figure number. And when she confronts him about it (I think she knew what he was doing and he had promised to stop?), he says that he wants to make sure that she and the kids are taken care of after he dies.
But he was lying through his teeth. What started out as a desperate attempt to save his life quickly spirals into a power trip, and his ego can’t let him stop even when he has no need to keep going. The money is just a side benefit at that point.
I highly recommend a rewatch. You’ll notice what a piece of shit WW is very early on, now that you know what to look for.
No. Regardless of the healthcare system, White had the option of going to the people at Grey Matters and asking for help. There were plenty of times he could have just walked away with a boatload of cash. He was a cold blooded killer.
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Didn’t he stab or suffocate Krazy 8 to death in the first season?
He killed Emilio with some kind of gas, strangled Krazy-8 with a bike lock, ran over and shot the two drug dealers that killed Combo, arguably killed Hector and Gus, and poisoned Lydia.
Didn’t he eventually kill the kid, too? Jessie’s girlfriends son. At first it looked like he did, but didn’t actually do it. Then later he poisoned him for reals. It’s been awhile though.
Nope! He poisons Brock, but it doesn’t kill him. Brock survives the series. Maybe you are thinking of the tarantula kid (Drew Sharp), but that one was Meth Damon.
Jane? Also, Mike? Fring?
Planning a murder is just as bad as pulling the trigger.
They dropped the whole cancer plotline by season 2.
Plenty of people thought that Don Draper and Walter White were heroes.
In our defense, I’d like to say that we have been living in a society that has been teaching us from birth to worship - no, fetishize is a more accurate term - the Don Drapers and Walter Whites of this world for hundreds of years now.
It’s not an excuse… more just a mitigating factor that should be taken into account.
Walter White was a classic anti-hero. He started out with a just cause, and was ultimately corrupted by the power brought on by his own self righteousness.
I disagree. White had a simple choice; he could go to his old partners at Grey Matters and ask for help or he could get involved with murders. He never had a just cause, just the desire to prove he was smarter than everyone in the world.
There’s important context about his old partners though: Walter was in love with one of them when she betrayed him, got with the other guy and then they cut Walter out of the same company that Walter’s research turned into a mega success.
Was Walter prideful about their offer to pay for his cancer treatments? You bet. I probably would have been as well in the same situation.
Was he prideful there because he wanted to be a drug kingpin? I don’t think that was his primary motivation.
He walked away from her because she was rich and made him feel inferior.
Go back and rewatch. He knows exactly what he’s doing from the very beginning. He has chance after chance to get out. Each time he makes the choice to double down, knowing that what he’s doing will hurt somebody, and he does it all for his own self aggrandizement.
Draper wasn’t as much a villain as White. Draper was just a fraud.
I’ve seen people unironically and without self-awareness admire Draper and want to “be like him”. I don’t get it.
They never did figure it out. They had to be told. Conservatives are really bad at seeing the obvious much less any level of nuance.
That would be because, by and large, conservatives are fucking stupid
That’s what happens when you tout that learning and education is bad and for the devil.
It’s a huge swathe of masses who envies the knowledge of others and fears that they do not understand. Rather than admit their faults they double down on “learning is for dummies”
Don’t get me wrong, there are many learned republicans, but the smartest ones are the ones who get elected. They fuck everybody else over for their own gains while being worshipped.
Obviously.
I just said it plainly so they, too, can understand.
No chance of that. They can’t see themselves as stupid because they did their own research.
Where are you published?
“Not that kind of research!”
Oh, so you looked some shit up. Got it.
I’d say lazy more than anything. If you asked one about what is actually in the bible they’d get all offended over having to do the work of reading it in order to defend it. They’d just sink into staunch reaffirmation without lifting a finger.
Conservatives love pastiche. So they can just take shit at face value and have a great time.
No introspection, because that would ruin the fun.
Wait, what is this about? Are you saying that there are some people who can’t figure out that homelander is the bad guy? Can you point me to one of these people?
Just go look through any The boys discussions and you will find those that think he is just doing whats necessary. There you have been pointed.
Just go look through any The boys discussions
I just had a discussion about it with my friends, some of which are conservatives, and none of the people there were confused as to him being a bad guy, so you’ll have to be more specific than some vague waving around in the air.
That being said, I get that people might side with him. Just like people side with the joker and Tyler durden. But how do you know they’re conservatives?
Go away troll. No matter what I say you will just come back with some other lame question. Go read the threads and find out. I’m out.
You’re inability to defend the claim is not my fault. It’s easier to call me a troll than admit that maybe the claim is straight up bs.
Of course there are some conservatives who think homelander is the good guy. Some percentage of every group is just f****** stupid.
But if you’re looking for examples, the top comment here is an easy one. There will of course be more out there because conservatives aren’t some monolith who all have the same opinion. https://www.reddit.com/r/TheBoys/comments/1djocb4/comment/l9cld4p/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Of course that’s not representative of all conservatives. The ones you know are probably very fine people.
Of course there are some conservatives who think homelander is the good guy. Some percentage of every group is just f****** stupid.
Yeah, agreed. I shouldn’t speak in absolutes. There are probably also people from the left who think he is the good guy.
But I agree with the sentiment of that comment itself: they idolize him because he does what he wants. I would also add that he projects himself as outwardly strong, which is another train they probably admire. But I don’t think they are confused into believe this is the good guy. I think that thread is actually pretty good evidence of what I suspect - that this isn’t really a thing - because the only thing in that thread that points to any type of evidence is that picture. . .which is certainly open to a ton of interpretation outside of “Homelander is the good guy.”
My guess as to what has happened is that some people were idolizing him for his projected strength and arrogance, kind of like how they idolize Trump, maybe even tongue in cheek a bit, and people thought “only conservatives could be that dumb” and then it morphed into “conservatives think Homelander is the good guy.”
I don’t it’s solely conservatives that have trouble seeing the obvious.
But maybe I’ve spent too much time on lemmy arguing with tankie socialists.
I disagree. It’s the most obvious you can get, like judging a book by the cover without even reading the blurb on the back of it. Why open the book when what it’s about is obvious? No effort, analysis, or thought required.
Reminds me of my stepfather who is deeply conservative and an huge supporter of the military but his favorite movie is full metal jacket. I’ve tried to discuss what he thinks the point of the movie is and it seems like he never got past the “it looks cool” part.
You can’t have a good war movie that’s also a parody, because people just take the cool/funny parts as approval of the atrocities.
And nothing is safe. You’ll have sitting American Congressmen putting out hacked up Attack on Titan videos with zero context, because David v Goliath is just a cool image and you want to make teenager shock troops fighting hideous (((monsters))) on top of a big wall look Based.
Your enemy is always an existential threat and doing war crimes is incredibly cool. So yay fascism!
A huge portion of American men are only as tough as the things they own.
In Texas they call it “all hat no cattle” Skaters just call them “posers”
It’s like Paul Ryan (Republican politician) being a Rage Against the Machine fan. Even the band members were like dude, you don’t get it.
I remember really liking their music on the radio when I was like 12-14, and I knew my conservative parents wouldn’t buy my that record. With Rage Against The Machine on the front and songs about cops being kkk, and homeless people hanging out with the ghosts of guys who died for the working class, and saying “wake up” but not like in a ‘‘you gotta get ready for school’’ type of way. No sir. They wouldn’t be down. You don’t have to know much to understand they weren’t talking about the washing machine.
Growing up, one my my classmates favorite movies was FMJ, but yeah he was super conservative and said his dream was to die for his country. Idk what goes through these people’s minds.
Pick up a US or World Hstory book as an adult and two things will dispel the illusions you may have about Americans and the human race: First, the rest the world hates us for very good reasons, and the things we did on a smaller scale in previous centuries are now much more widespread. Second, our species is infinitely more capable of evil than you were made to understand.
The rest of the world doesn’t hate the US. Most of the world is just kinda annoyed at how Americans can be ignorant and very loud about it.
I go to Vietnam and see people wearing Captain America T-shirts. The Vietnamese would have good reason to hate America, but they generally don’t.
America is mostly hated in just the fashy parts of the world where the government tells people that everything is America’s fault to avoid responsibility. And even then I think it’s mostly just to loyal minions that actually hate America.
Just get rid of the Electoral College so we don’t have to worry about Bushy Trumpy Presidents anymore and we’d be all good.
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2024/06/11/views-of-the-u-s/
US viewed favorably by the rest of the world is at 54%.
Unfavorably only at 31%.
The US wasn’t even close to the worst offender when it came to imperialism or colonialism though. In fact we were quite bad at it, and actively stood against it for much of our history. The US actually played a big role in getting the European powers to give up their colonial claims after WW2.
This is just a quick list I can think off the top of my head: the trail of tears, slavery, Jim Crow laws, fighting Mexico to gain the west coast, fighting Spain to gain the Philippines, Florida, Cuba, and Puerto Rico, deposing democratically elected governments in Central and South America for cheaper bananas, isolating Cuba from the rest of the world when it turned communist but still keeping possession of Guantanamo Bay, putting down the Boxer Rebellion in China, invading Middle Eastern countries for their oil, fighting the communists in Korea and Vietnam, deposing the Hawaiian government and then annexing it for cheaper pineapples, and leveraging its position at the end of WWII to solidify its hegemony throughout the world via the petrodollar. I’m sure there are plenty of other things I’ve forgotten. The only other imperial power that would compare is England up until WWII.
Britain (which you mentioned), France, and Spain all have pretty awful imperial histories too. Not saying that to diminish the atrocities of the US by any means, but let’s not pretend the rest of Europe didn’t get up to some bullshit.
The reason that London has such great museums lol
We got screwed over, didn’t even get good museums out of the horrors and atrocities perpetrated by own government.
We got an entire beautiful, resource rich country from some of our horrors and atrocities so that’s something.
Also the most museums per capita in the world with some absolutely amazing ones OP just hasn’t been to.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1203021/museum-density-worldwide-by-region/.
Sure, most of them are tax dodges, however
And the Dutch! Don’t forget about the Dutch
Kek
You thought that was a joke in Austin Powers?
No. Nigel Powers saw what they did in the Congo.
It’s why he was so happy to aid in the Boer War-
Wait
Nigel Powers saw what they did in the Congo.
That was Belgium - which TBF is just a bunch of French-speaking dutch people.
Sorry, all Frisians look alike to me
Good thing they’ve let go, like New Caledonia! ;)
fighting the communists in Korea and Vietnam
I would add dropping most of the bombs left over from WWII (literally!) on Vietnam’s neighbors because reasons.
The only other imperial power that would compare is England up until WWII.
This is underselling Spain which wreaked havoc in the Americas (and elsewhere - like the Philipines) for centuries before they got supplanted by us in the havoc-wreaking department.
Wow. That’s a long list.
A lot of this firehose is pretty marginal. The Boxer rebellion for example, the US was a minor player. Puerto Rico won self rule via the US fighting the Spanish so it’s kind of weird to quote both. Also Spain is in NATO. Korea was a UN action. Hawaiians voted to become a state to escape the plantation owners from imposing new feudalism. Nobody is saying the US is without sins but these pale in comparison to things the major European powers did.
An appeal to hypocrisy doesn’t hold water here. Also, getting the Europeans to get rid of their colonial claims opened those former colonies up to our economic and strategic exploitation. There was nothing altruistic about it.
Ikr? As if anyones trying to dress up “removing the competition” as a good or noble act.
The US wasn’t even close to the worst offender when it came to imperialism or colonialism
LOL, what a super apologist argument.
Seriously. Here’s a map of US military installations across the world, plus the US has a stranglehold on large portions of South America. They may not treat everyone as poorly as the British did, but they sure love to kill brown people to get their natural resources.
Not going to defend America. We’ve done a lot of terrible things.
But when it comes to our military bases? Just imagine the world if we weren’t there.
It wouldn’t be a utopia. I guarantee that the regional power in that area would be grinding those people under their heels.
Especially the Emu. They faught a war against them. The Emu won.
Do you really want to live in a world with Emu hegimony!?
Do emus even have heels?
Not sure if I want to find out.
While you’re dodging the beak, they’re treating you asunder!
Especially the Emu. They faught a war against them. The Emu won.
Do you really want to live in a world with Emu hegimony!?
Damn, I this is not what I expected
The raptors from Jurassic Park clearly took inspiration from the Emu. It’s probably where the “farting into a Pringles can” growls came from .
These are basically dinosaurs of today…
The US Military is in those countries at the invitation of those country’s governments. Yup, even Iraq could tell the US to leave, and it’s a contentious issue there whether or not they should. But like many countries on that map there’s concerns that a neighbouring country might cause problems if the US leaves. And the countries that don’t fall under that category are allies.
And how many of those governments are only in power because they are backed by US military power, otherwise their population would have removed them? Or were put into power by the US in the first place (either with direct military intervention or indirect military, intelligence, and covert op support)?
The US Military is in those countries at the invitation of those country’s governments.
If you actually believe that, I have a bridge you may be interested in purchasing.
Its a map with red spots. I didn’t know we controlled the UK or Australia? You are really stretching the idea of imperialism or colonialism to include where the US has bases. Ironically counter to your statement the map has very little of south america in red. Also or a another point of humor your map doesn’t include Liberia. A country the US took over and dumped as many former slaves as they could there. One of main proponents of this action was Abraham Lincoln. Who preferred shipping former slaves back there rather than they remain in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberia
Truth is the UK is responsible for more independence days around the world than any other nation. There is a meme about it
I don’t get what your point is. Your comment is primarily disjointed, rambling criticism. Are you just doing the ol’ Reddit “I have nothing useful or interesting to add to this conversation, so I’m just going to criticize some comments so I can feel better about myself”?
I’m curious, what parts of thier comment confuses you?
Their reply was cogent, interesting, informative and importantly, correct.
So I haven’t watched after season 2. What did Homelander have to do for conservatives to realize he’s not the good guy?
Did he become an environmentalist or something? Because sociopathic narcissism, kidnapping, mass murdering innocents and being an allround asshole didn’t do that, not even mentioning his literal nazi girlfriend.
I don’t think it’s Homelander’s actions so much as Kripke saying in interviews that he and the writers are trying to be as obvious as possible that Homelander is the bad guy and based on Trump. And following up by saying if people think Homelander and his followers are role models then those people are not the fans they want.
The fact that he had to spell it out loud because media literacy is dead and most people are incapable of reading nuanced subtext is appalling. Some people actually believed that it was nothing more than a gory satire of Marvel and DC comics.
It stopped being nuanced after season one. Each season since has been an exercise in how far they have to go for some people to figure it out.
It’s more that this season they have abandoned almost all the nuance and are really rubbing their face in it. There was a whole episode about how Homelander supporters are big into all the conspiracy shit that modern conservatives are
They have a guy hold the place up demanding to know where the kids in the basement are lol They definitely abandoned any subtlety about who they’re making fun of.
Would that be the Russian counterparts?
History told:
Real history:
Who the fuck the first guy is and why I have never seen him?
Because you’re too cool to like Marvel
Wait, you’ve never heard of the legend of the Winter Soldier, but you know about Love Sausage? How naughty.
I didn’t know about Love Sausage before you mentioned either.
Jesus. Are you guys gonna do.this every season?
610 uplemmies
Jesus
This… is genius.
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