![]() “What happened to Gary Cooper?” he asks in the series’ pilot episode, “The strong silent type. Tony is a man who cares deeply about his families (both the traditional and criminal one) and seems to yearn for a simpler time in American history. The character that is routinely identified as breaking the traditional ‘hero’ mould is Tony Soprano – the central character in HBO’s The Sopranos. And at places like HBO, Showtime, AMC, FX and other cable networks the line can be just about anywhere, as long as the story behind the transgressive behaviour is compelling and the actions the characters take are, in some way or other, justifiable.” Maureen Ryan, television critic of the Huffington Post, sees the moral compass of these characters as far less fixed than their forebears, “Now, there's much more flexibility on where even mainstream comedies and dramas can draw that line. Networks gave programme-makers freedom to create content that didn’t need such wide appeal, and allowed programme-makers to push the boundaries of what could be shown. Why the change? The moral shift in television characters was undoubtedly facilitated by the rise of American TV cable networks. “Characters seem to get worse and worse – the fact that it seems hard to believe that there was a time when protagonists of TV series were, by and large, unambiguously heroic points to just how much has changed.” This trend was in evidence as early as 1993, with the airing of police drama NYPD Blue, a series that was described by the American Family Association as “soft-core porn” and featured in Andy Sipowicz a central protagonist who struggled against his own alcoholism, sexism and bigotry. So how has it come to pass that a drug-dealing, murderous sociopath is now the lead character on a primetime American television show? A show that has only become more popular as Walt has descended further into the moral abyss?Īs Daniel D’Addario of entertainment website Salon points out, the portrayal of leading TV characters has altered greatly over the past two decades. The show’s creator, Vince Gilligan has said the plan was to tell a story about a man who transforms from “Mr Chips into Scarface”. For the uninitiated, Breaking Bad follows the actions of Walter White, a high-school chemistry teacher who, on being told he has lung cancer, decides to ‘break bad’ and start making crystal methamphetamine to provide money for his family. It’s the show that has already been labelled by many critics as one of the greatest ever made – and it has only two episodes left to air.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |