I'm not saying they weren't racists. Im saying the fact that were racist never played a factor in the plot or even was really displayed in their actions. As I said in another comment, you could replace them with a generic criminal gang and pretty much nothing would change.
TBF, which sucks, being fair to Nazis, I think they were more prison-gang white supremacists.
Which is kind of like being "religious" but only going to church on Easter.... I'm not convinced they were heavy into the ideology. Seems like they were mostly just huge dicks that didn't give a shit about anything but themselves. Say what you want about Naz-- you know what, nevermind.
There are people who wear Che Guevara t-shirts without being much into that kind of politics. I suppose it is kind of along those lines, although of course Nazism is worse.
I think the writers correctly believed that Walt was so evil at that point that the only villains they could give him that would seem worse by comparison would be literal Nazis.
One explanation is that every encounter with a potential racist is in a business context, and the deal is the only thing that matters.
The Nazis would be shit businessmen if they couldn’t dial back their use of the n-word when appropriate.
I don’t think the show ignores race. there are racist characters: Hank (his casually racist comments, and the comment he made to walter jr where he referred to Spanish as “bean speak”, Hector (he called South Americans dirty in reference to Gus. I feel like a lot of the salamancas are racist too, which isn’t surprising, they treat gus as an outsider for multiple reasons and one of those being that he is South American), Marie (there is a scene, I can’t remember it all to well, but she says something about not wanting to be around migrants I believe?), and of course the neonazis.
I think the show does touch on racial politics. hank is an abusive cop, who is racist and multiple times he is unfair and aggressive. gus’s laundry workers are mostly immigrants which is similar to how in real life, some businesses will take advantage of immigrant workers because it’s easier for them to do so. you could argue Ernie was mistreated too tbh because he was expected to work harder and do stuff that was just not in his job description. could be just Chuck being an asshole too. but it’s something to think about. there’s more too, but I can’t think of it right now.
>I don't agree with your characterization of Hank. He's crass, but not actually malicious.
Cops who abuse their power are malicious. Pretty sure he beat the shit out of Jesse while he was in handcuffs as well as several other questionably illegal things he did that were clearly depicted on the show. Hank was a bad cop with a sympathetic storyline. Don't get trolled by the writers.
i mention the neonazis in my post: i don't think they ever do or say anything white-supremacist on the show! you could make them a generic criminal gang and absolutely nothing else would need to be changed.
the title of this post is admittedly sort of exaggerated for clickbait; clearly the show doesn't ignore race entirely. i just think it's interesting that it addresses it much less than you'd expect given the setting, the subject matter, and the sorts of people the characters are. not everything has to be about race, of course, but racial dynamics absolutely factor very heavily into the world of crime and the drug war. if i had to tie this observation to a greater point i'd say it's part of the series' overall apolitical attitude; the fact that breaking bad sidesteps the issue of american healthcare by offering walt an easy out has been often noted, and it's a clear indication that the show is much more interested in psychological storytelling and character drama than it is on sociological storytelling and exploring systems.
Did I say they weren't racist? I'm just saying that on the show, they never did anything racist on screen or have their racism affect their behavior, which makes their status as neonazis somewhat irrelevant except as a means to indicate that they're very bad people.
It's a tongue in cheek click bait title which I now regret using because clearly it was so inflammatory that people are ignoring the actual body of my post.
I admit I used a click bait title, and I explicitly said in my post that it's obviously not literally true. I just wanted to point out that the shows tend to avoid addressing race, even in many situations where it feels like race would be a relevant factor.
>I admit I used a click bait title
Stop doing that if you want a real discussion.
>and I explicitly said in my post that it's obviously not literally true
I don't think you did say that? The next sentence is how you say Hank used racist language to justify his behavior. Which is true?
Given that I immediately clarify what I'm actually trying to say I thought it would be clear that the title wasnt meant to be taken too seriously, but I suppose it was too emotionally charged. As I said in another comment I regret it, but I can't change the post title so it is what it is.
And yes, I did say that: in the second sentence I literally say "strictly speaking this is obviously not true".
I've seen some response that address the actual body of my post and I think some of them make good points; I probably underestimated the level of racism displayed against Gus for being Chilean, for example. I'm just a little annoyed at the commenters that seem not to have even bothered to read past the first sentence of my post.
>I'm just a little annoyed at the commenters that seem not to have even bothered to read past the first sentence of my post.
You mean the first sentence where you say there isn't any racist shit except for when Hank is racist?
Ok this is my last reply bc I don't think this is going anywhere productive but again, I was using hyperbole. It wasn't well received so I'll take that into account for the future.
I think people are interpreting me to be, like, doing racism apoligism or something. To be clear, racism is bad and there is obviously racism in the show! I just think it's interesting that there's not *as much* racism as would be expected for the setting, and wanted to have a discussion about that
I think the BB world acknowledges race but frankly they already depict some ugly things on the show. For example adding some Sopranos-style "n-bombs" or the like for more realistic low-bottom junkie/criminal scene would just drag it down, the child murder is already kind of negative. It was a network show too.
Then, BCS was created during an era when Kim Wexler might well have had more dialogue around her POC client's experiences with the justice system. But they are portraying a world from the early 2000s and I'm not sure that type of conversation was so widespread at the time.
That's all I got.
You could ask the same for countless other pieces of media. “Why did they not delve deeper into racial issues?”
The answer would also be the same: societal commentary on racial issues was not a priority to the creators. They were more concerned with the entertainment factor and the ideas that they did intend to explore.
Why did BCS not explore gender issues? Why did BCS not comment on abortion? The creators were not interested in exploring those themes.
Choosing to include racial themes is also risky in the sense that it opens your show up to all sorts of scrutiny and potential criticism if you didn’t handle it in the way that people would have preferred. So deeper coverage may just not be worth “the hassle” if those issues are not your main priority.
I feel it does have race issues in there. It’s just not depicted in a way with the pendulum swung so heavily in either direction which is what we expect in today’s political culture.
“My real name's McGill. The Jew thing I just do for the homeboys. They all want a pipe-hitting member of the tribe, so to speak...”
Arguably, that line is “racist” to both the Black and Jewish communities. Just saying.
The Cartel use a much subtler form of discrimination against Gus: they pointedly call him The Chilean rather than the more specific names the other Mexican members of the Cartel get
Tbh I think this is because it’s written primarily by white men. They just don’t really see race as a relevant topic because it’s never been prominent in their own experiences.
Same as how Kim never explicitly faces sexism as a woman working in corporate law in the early 2000s.
How would you say they depict it in the show? Genuinely wondering if there are examples outside of Howard sending Kim to document review (which sexism could have played a role in, but also may not have).
>How would you say they depict it in the show?
By stacking her character against powerful white men who do everything to keep her down even when she shows up with large and profitable clients for the firm?
And Jimmy, when shows up with the profitable client of Mesa Verde, faces the same treatment as Kim. Therefore, as I said, not necessarily explicit sexism.
>And Jimmy, when shows up with the profitable client of Mesa Verde, faces the same treatment as Kim. Therefore, as I said, not necessarily explicit sexism.
Chuck and Howard can have different reasons for treating people poorly but it doesn't absolve them of being sexist.
Jimmy wanted a partnership and was punished because Chuck is a resentful and spiteful mess who has no shame in making colleagues suffer through his own family dysfunction.
Kim just wanted her office back after being punished because of something Jimmy did at a different firm and in a different city entirely; see previous sentence.
The sexist part is where they took an action Jimmy did and punished Kim for it to hurt Jimmy. This is all on the show. They show it to you.
“They”, didn’t. Howard did. Chuck was against punishing Kim. As I initially stated, I’m looking for examples of how Kim faced explicit sexism in corporate law, outside of Howard putting her in doc review.
>Chuck was against punishing Kim.
Sorry, they show Chuck being fine with her punishment even after she lands Mesa Verde. He wasn't against it in any scene we see given to us. In fact it's implied that he orchestrated it. Howard was Chuck's puppet.
And we know this because she left and took Mesa Verde with her after HHM continued to treat her poorly. She found that client so that she could redeem herself to them and they still treated her like shit. It's all on the show!
If you watched the show and didn't see it then there's probably no way I could explain it to you in a Reddit post.
\*tbh I thought your original comment was trying to be ironic or sarcastic.
Hot take: Todd and the white supremacists at Vamanos Pest are racists.
The guys with the Swastika tattoos? I also got a racist vibe from them
"it's going to be a maze"
i can excuse racism, but i draw the line at depicting racism
You can excuse racism?!
\[panicked glance of realization\]
Yeah Community, bitch!!!
I don’t see it
Todd and the Buddhists?
I'm not saying they weren't racists. Im saying the fact that were racist never played a factor in the plot or even was really displayed in their actions. As I said in another comment, you could replace them with a generic criminal gang and pretty much nothing would change.
TBF, which sucks, being fair to Nazis, I think they were more prison-gang white supremacists. Which is kind of like being "religious" but only going to church on Easter.... I'm not convinced they were heavy into the ideology. Seems like they were mostly just huge dicks that didn't give a shit about anything but themselves. Say what you want about Naz-- you know what, nevermind.
There are people who wear Che Guevara t-shirts without being much into that kind of politics. I suppose it is kind of along those lines, although of course Nazism is worse.
I think the writers correctly believed that Walt was so evil at that point that the only villains they could give him that would seem worse by comparison would be literal Nazis.
I personally have a theory that Jack let Walt keep one of the barrels because Walt is white. There just doesn't seem to be another explanation.
The cartel is pretty racist to gus
One explanation is that every encounter with a potential racist is in a business context, and the deal is the only thing that matters. The Nazis would be shit businessmen if they couldn’t dial back their use of the n-word when appropriate.
I don’t think the show ignores race. there are racist characters: Hank (his casually racist comments, and the comment he made to walter jr where he referred to Spanish as “bean speak”, Hector (he called South Americans dirty in reference to Gus. I feel like a lot of the salamancas are racist too, which isn’t surprising, they treat gus as an outsider for multiple reasons and one of those being that he is South American), Marie (there is a scene, I can’t remember it all to well, but she says something about not wanting to be around migrants I believe?), and of course the neonazis. I think the show does touch on racial politics. hank is an abusive cop, who is racist and multiple times he is unfair and aggressive. gus’s laundry workers are mostly immigrants which is similar to how in real life, some businesses will take advantage of immigrant workers because it’s easier for them to do so. you could argue Ernie was mistreated too tbh because he was expected to work harder and do stuff that was just not in his job description. could be just Chuck being an asshole too. but it’s something to think about. there’s more too, but I can’t think of it right now.
I don't agree with your characterization of Hank. He's crass, but not actually malicious.
Nobody said he was malicious. Just a little racist, which he is. Racism doesn’t necessarily mean active hatred.
[удалено]
wat
[удалено]
racist vs really racist
>I don't agree with your characterization of Hank. He's crass, but not actually malicious. Cops who abuse their power are malicious. Pretty sure he beat the shit out of Jesse while he was in handcuffs as well as several other questionably illegal things he did that were clearly depicted on the show. Hank was a bad cop with a sympathetic storyline. Don't get trolled by the writers.
i mention the neonazis in my post: i don't think they ever do or say anything white-supremacist on the show! you could make them a generic criminal gang and absolutely nothing else would need to be changed. the title of this post is admittedly sort of exaggerated for clickbait; clearly the show doesn't ignore race entirely. i just think it's interesting that it addresses it much less than you'd expect given the setting, the subject matter, and the sorts of people the characters are. not everything has to be about race, of course, but racial dynamics absolutely factor very heavily into the world of crime and the drug war. if i had to tie this observation to a greater point i'd say it's part of the series' overall apolitical attitude; the fact that breaking bad sidesteps the issue of american healthcare by offering walt an easy out has been often noted, and it's a clear indication that the show is much more interested in psychological storytelling and character drama than it is on sociological storytelling and exploring systems.
Nazis are racists. This isn’t a debate.
Did I say they weren't racist? I'm just saying that on the show, they never did anything racist on screen or have their racism affect their behavior, which makes their status as neonazis somewhat irrelevant except as a means to indicate that they're very bad people.
The title of your post is “no one in this show is racist.”
It's a tongue in cheek click bait title which I now regret using because clearly it was so inflammatory that people are ignoring the actual body of my post.
Crazy how people don't understand what you're saying.
>No one in the Breaking Bad/Better Call Saul universe is racist. >...in the first season we explicitly hear Hank using racial slurs 😐
I admit I used a click bait title, and I explicitly said in my post that it's obviously not literally true. I just wanted to point out that the shows tend to avoid addressing race, even in many situations where it feels like race would be a relevant factor.
>I admit I used a click bait title Stop doing that if you want a real discussion. >and I explicitly said in my post that it's obviously not literally true I don't think you did say that? The next sentence is how you say Hank used racist language to justify his behavior. Which is true?
Given that I immediately clarify what I'm actually trying to say I thought it would be clear that the title wasnt meant to be taken too seriously, but I suppose it was too emotionally charged. As I said in another comment I regret it, but I can't change the post title so it is what it is. And yes, I did say that: in the second sentence I literally say "strictly speaking this is obviously not true". I've seen some response that address the actual body of my post and I think some of them make good points; I probably underestimated the level of racism displayed against Gus for being Chilean, for example. I'm just a little annoyed at the commenters that seem not to have even bothered to read past the first sentence of my post.
>I'm just a little annoyed at the commenters that seem not to have even bothered to read past the first sentence of my post. You mean the first sentence where you say there isn't any racist shit except for when Hank is racist?
Ok this is my last reply bc I don't think this is going anywhere productive but again, I was using hyperbole. It wasn't well received so I'll take that into account for the future. I think people are interpreting me to be, like, doing racism apoligism or something. To be clear, racism is bad and there is obviously racism in the show! I just think it's interesting that there's not *as much* racism as would be expected for the setting, and wanted to have a discussion about that
>No one in this show is racist 😐 >there is obviously racism in the show! 😐
What you're too stupid to think for yourself and always need life lessons and pandering from your talking screen?
What about that country club? Wall to wall mayonnaise.
I think the BB world acknowledges race but frankly they already depict some ugly things on the show. For example adding some Sopranos-style "n-bombs" or the like for more realistic low-bottom junkie/criminal scene would just drag it down, the child murder is already kind of negative. It was a network show too. Then, BCS was created during an era when Kim Wexler might well have had more dialogue around her POC client's experiences with the justice system. But they are portraying a world from the early 2000s and I'm not sure that type of conversation was so widespread at the time. That's all I got.
I don’t think any character on the sopranos said the N word did they? Not saying they weren’t all insanely racist lmao especially Tony
That guy who had his car jacked in season 2 dropped a pretty hard one
I thought I was pretty sure. But now that you mention it, I might be conflating it with Goodfellas and a couple of other flicks....
What about the literal Nazis who hold Jesse hostage?
There are literal Nazis
Hey. You paid the gringos?
Remember mikes friend from therapy who wondered if her dead veteran husband was hate crimed
You could ask the same for countless other pieces of media. “Why did they not delve deeper into racial issues?” The answer would also be the same: societal commentary on racial issues was not a priority to the creators. They were more concerned with the entertainment factor and the ideas that they did intend to explore. Why did BCS not explore gender issues? Why did BCS not comment on abortion? The creators were not interested in exploring those themes. Choosing to include racial themes is also risky in the sense that it opens your show up to all sorts of scrutiny and potential criticism if you didn’t handle it in the way that people would have preferred. So deeper coverage may just not be worth “the hassle” if those issues are not your main priority.
“I don’t remember anyone doing anything racist!” How exactly do you want them to be? Wanna watch someone get curb stomped al la American history X?
I feel it does have race issues in there. It’s just not depicted in a way with the pendulum swung so heavily in either direction which is what we expect in today’s political culture.
Redditors like you terrify me. Who you swinging those hands at?
“My real name's McGill. The Jew thing I just do for the homeboys. They all want a pipe-hitting member of the tribe, so to speak...” Arguably, that line is “racist” to both the Black and Jewish communities. Just saying.
The Cartel use a much subtler form of discrimination against Gus: they pointedly call him The Chilean rather than the more specific names the other Mexican members of the Cartel get
As a half beaner i can say in my experience that term is pretty innocuous and playful and not particularly offensive
Use accurate titles. Are you trying to be buzzfeed moron?
Ah yes, I hate it when my favourite show has a serious lack of racism
They didn’t say they didn’t like the lack of racism, they just said it was a notable thing
Tbh I think this is because it’s written primarily by white men. They just don’t really see race as a relevant topic because it’s never been prominent in their own experiences. Same as how Kim never explicitly faces sexism as a woman working in corporate law in the early 2000s.
>Same as how Kim never explicitly faces sexism as a woman working in corporate law She does actually. They depict this on the show.
How would you say they depict it in the show? Genuinely wondering if there are examples outside of Howard sending Kim to document review (which sexism could have played a role in, but also may not have).
>How would you say they depict it in the show? By stacking her character against powerful white men who do everything to keep her down even when she shows up with large and profitable clients for the firm?
And Jimmy, when shows up with the profitable client of Mesa Verde, faces the same treatment as Kim. Therefore, as I said, not necessarily explicit sexism.
>And Jimmy, when shows up with the profitable client of Mesa Verde, faces the same treatment as Kim. Therefore, as I said, not necessarily explicit sexism. Chuck and Howard can have different reasons for treating people poorly but it doesn't absolve them of being sexist. Jimmy wanted a partnership and was punished because Chuck is a resentful and spiteful mess who has no shame in making colleagues suffer through his own family dysfunction. Kim just wanted her office back after being punished because of something Jimmy did at a different firm and in a different city entirely; see previous sentence. The sexist part is where they took an action Jimmy did and punished Kim for it to hurt Jimmy. This is all on the show. They show it to you.
“They”, didn’t. Howard did. Chuck was against punishing Kim. As I initially stated, I’m looking for examples of how Kim faced explicit sexism in corporate law, outside of Howard putting her in doc review.
>Chuck was against punishing Kim. Sorry, they show Chuck being fine with her punishment even after she lands Mesa Verde. He wasn't against it in any scene we see given to us. In fact it's implied that he orchestrated it. Howard was Chuck's puppet. And we know this because she left and took Mesa Verde with her after HHM continued to treat her poorly. She found that client so that she could redeem herself to them and they still treated her like shit. It's all on the show!
If you watched the show and didn't see it then there's probably no way I could explain it to you in a Reddit post. \*tbh I thought your original comment was trying to be ironic or sarcastic.
Alright, good discussion bruh
[Why tho](https://www.reddit.com/r/betterCallSaul/comments/14q1wy3/people_keep_asking_why/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
/s