My favorite show on television is about the manufacture and distribution of crystal meth in Albuquerque. Yeah, go figure.
The show, Breaking Bad, centers around a high school chemistry teacher, Walter White (played by Bryan Cranston) who receives a diagnosis of lung cancer. Walter, fearing financially for his family which includes a pregnant wife and a fifteen year old boy with cerebral palsy, decides to use his chemistry skills to cook crystal meth just for a little while.
I really enjoy this show for many reasons. The acting is first rate and the story telling enthralling. But mostly I enjoy it because it is a character study, it dives deep into the character and nature of sin.
I have never seen a show which portrays the addictive and destructive nature of sin better than Breaking Bad. Walter White uses the very good desire to provide for his family to justify some very bad behavior. At first, Walter convinces himself that while he is doing a bad thing, he is not a bad guy. He just can’t see himself as the bad guy.
What makes the show so brilliant, in my estimation, is how the story telling stays true to the title of the show. Becoming bad is a process. The Walter White we meet at the beginning of the show literally breaks bad as a consequence of his actions during the course of the show’s three seasons.
What the show also does extremely well is that it shows, with unflinching reality, the effects that sin has on those around us. At first Walter tries to convince himself that what he does isn’t hurting anyone and that those who choose to take the drug would do it whether he provided it or not. But the reality of the lives destroyed through drug use is vivid and unavoidable. Beyond that, the show brilliantly shows the unintended consequences of sin and its destructive force on the completely innocent, including the family he sought to protect.
As we move along we see that even after Walter has saved enough money to provide for his family, sin is no longer the means but the end.
The amazing part of the show is that you know that the show will, nay must, end is disaster. The wages of sin is death and Breaking Bad would have it no other way. For that reason, it is my favorite show on television.
Breaking Bad is on AMC and is for mature audiences only.
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I really can’t believe you find a show like this fascinating but then you have obviously lived a very sheltered life. I have not been sheltered and would never want to watch a show like this because there is so much sin right in front of my eyes everyday, why would I want more??? I yearn to be around good and holy people rather than a drug addict or an alcoholic or a dysfunctional family or people who do not turn to God and turn to the worldy addictions. I have spent my entire life getting rid of addictions, father alcoholic, brother OD from prescription drugs and alcohol and anti-depressants (you can’t mix the two) a boyfriend a heroin addict in the 70’s. I have seen so much evil, why would I be interested in a show like this? My husband who has not had a life like mine and is pure, wouldn’t want to watch a show like this either. Ask Fr. Corapi if if would want to watch a show like this or ask Bill Donahue. You just need a dose of evil in real life to make you run from TV like this.
I think, JR, you’re missing the point.
So much on TV nowadays doesn’t nothing to show what the real, honest to God, wages of sin offer. To have a show that is honest with such a topic is unique.
JR,
I agree that you wouldn’t want to watch the show. I’m not much interested in it either, even though I’ve led a pretty sheltered life. However, from reading Matthew’s review of it, I wonder if I should show it to my teenage son, who has led a much more sheltered childhood than I.
Living a sheltered childhood is not a bad thing, I think, but it can lead to a certain naivete. If a show like this can disillusion the viewer, all the better.
The only way you can help the world and the evil that surrounds us and others is to be HOLY and WISE and be and live an example of prayer and love of God. We all fall short but we try.
In charity, I say - A person of Catholic spirituality would not watch this show nor would they promote it in full knowledge. The cop tv shows, the judge tv shows, the soap operas, Two and a Half Men etc., and the daily news; all teach you enough evil and their consquences. This latest show is a most cunning guise. This show is a trick of the devil - it is a ‘decoy’ that will bring much confusion into the mind, soul and the home, it will eventually rear its true rotten head soon enough but by then, havoc will be advanced.
You and your children will have learned so much evil from the secular world, that satan will have its hold on you and next thing you know, you will be excusing yourself from sin because ‘everyone does it’ or because gee, ‘I’m not so bad as this one or that one’. When you advance in the spiritual life (and this is from the great writers); as you progress in virtue, you will ‘see’ evil much clearer and saintliness much clearer also. Advance in the virtues, and through holiness, you will enlightened about the devil, ‘see’ his ways, even if you have not been exposed to it and have led a somewhat sheltered life.
Ask yourself some questions, does this tv show teach you how to do evil, YES-does this show teach you how to overcome evil?..NO..Does this tv show teach you how to avoid evil and be protected from evil?..NO….ST. BERNADETTE, ST. THERESA OF THE LITTLE FLOWER; MOTHER THERESA, THEY KNEW THE WORKS OF THE DEVIL BECAUSE THEY WERE ENLIGHTENED THROUGH HOLINESS.
Through holiness, love of God, people like you and me can become saints and that is what God wants. You can learn & know about evil and its deeds, and also know and realize the consequences of sin but without holiness, you will become subject to the evil by bombarding your mind, souls and life with it.. Fr. Paul O’Sullivan said that the secret to holiness is to love God. The more you love God, the more you will know about God. Holiness teaches you the tricks of the devil.
There is a book called SIN AND ITS CONSEQUENCES by Cardinal
Archbishop Henry Edward Manning in which he states ‘the holier you become, the more you recognize sin. Holiness which is love of God is the protection from evil.
Have you & your children read the life of Saint Benadette Soubirous, by Abbe’ Francois Trochu, since the devil ways and the saintly ways are in there very clearly. The saints spent their time growing in virtue with prayer and sacraments etc., that is what we are called to do with our time. I have many friends who Catholic homeschool and their children are ‘somewhat sheltered’ but when you talk with them, they know good from evil very clearly, it is fascinating how wise they are, for they grow in virtue.
Please read more people, If you want to read about the tricks and decoy ways of the devil, then read Peter Kreeft books, THE SNAKEBITE LETTERS, ANGELS AND DEMONS—EVIDENCE OF SATAN IN THE MODERN WORLD BY Christiani—THE DEVIL by Delaporte—SPIRITUAL WARFARE by Rev. Kosicki—DELIVERANCE FROM EVIL SPIRITS by Scanlon & Criner—SPIRITUAL WARFARE FOR CATHOLICS by Fr. Steffon—THE SPIRITUAL COMBAT by Dom Lorenzo Scupoli and please listen to FR. CORAPI and his tapes. Teach your children the truths of Catholicism BUT NOT ABOUT EVIL THROUGH THIS SHOW OR ANY LIKE THEM.
The book, THE SPIRITUAL COMBAT is a famous classic on the strategy for achieving spiritual perfection and salvation. First published in 1589, it was the favorite book of the great St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622), Doctor of the Church and master of the spiritual life; he carried a copy in his pocket for 18 years, read from it every day and recommended it to everyone under his direction.
Vigorous, realistic and full of keen insight into human nature, The Spiritual Combat consists of 66 short chapters based on the maxim that in the spiritual life one must either “Fight or die.” It shows the Christian how to combat his passions and vices with an intelligent method, in order to arrive at victory, rather than run¬ning around blindly beating the air. Fr. Scupoli explains how to concen¬trate one’s energies in order to make constant progress in acquiring virtue, with particularly specific advice for overcoming the vices of impurity and sloth.
The Spiritual Combat is a book of time-tested strategy for achieving spiritual victory; it is a great guide on which to form one’s soul and launch it firmly on the way of solid virtue. The Spiritual Combat is one of the all-time greatest and best-known clas¬sics on the spiritual life and is a book that will inspire and instruct today just as it has for over 400 years.
TO ME, YOU ARE JUST LIKE A “PELOSI”..WHO SAYS SHE LIVES THE WORD OF GOD.
BRING BACK TRUE CATHOLICISM PLEASE!
So, the guy sells drugs so his family will have enough money to live on when he dies? He has no consideration for the people whose lives he is ruining? That is being very self-centered. I know of a family, the father an alcoholic, the mother on drugs, she has three children and these children are suffering for their parents behavior. (besides the extended family) DRUGS DO NOTHING BUT BAD THINGS TO EVERYONE’S LIFE. Maybe a writer, or psychologist can decipher this type of program to the good, but most addicts would find it as an excuse for what they are doing. So in the end the guy dies anyway, but do they show what happens to all the people he sold the drugs to?
That is the point of the show! He does these things thinking he isn’t hurting anyone but the show is unflinching in showing how much damage he is really doing.
No addict would find any excuse here. The show is about as anti-drugs as you can get. Lighten up.
This sounds like a good show to show to a kid who thinks that “it’s not hurting anyone, so it doesn’t matter.” So many of the shows/movies/music trivialize or even glorify sin, it’s good to have the message out there that sin kills. I used to like country music for that reason (it’s cliche, but “my wife left BECAUSE I was a jerk and cheated on her and now I"m sad”). I dislike country music now because it’s no longer sending that message.
Although, I think there could be two endings to this show. The tragic one you mentioned, and a redemptive one. Like the loss of his family leaving him without his “excuse” and forcing him to really see what he’s become. Can you let those of us with TV’s know how it ends? (actually, even if I had a TV, I would use it to escape from drama not to enter into more of it).
Did you all read his review of the show? He never says that it glorifies evil, or that it shows evil as good. He never says that it shows drug addiction as good. He says just the opposite.
Where are you getting this from? What I got from the review is that it’s a show like those showing what happened during the Holocaust or a war. It shows the dark reality of evil, and therefore WARNS you not to enter into the same reality.
found this online at Catholic Entertainment—
Picture this: You and your family are relaxing in your living room and suddenly a foul mouthed adolescent, his father and uncle burst into your home and begin making lewd comments about casual sexual encounters with a semi-nude young woman. Would you be alarmed and quickly rush your young children from the room? Or would you keep watching Two And A Half Men?
Would you invite your children to make friends with an emotionally-stunted middle aged man who dabbles in homosexuality and blasphemy? Or would you keep watching the cartoon show American Dad?
How would you react to finding your family room filled with mutilated bodies of young girls who have been sexually assaulted in ways you could never imagine in your worst nightmares? Wouldn’t you be filled with disgust and rush your family away, hoping against hope that the images didn’t remain with them? Or would you keep watching CSI Miami?
Every time you turn on the television in your home, you run the risk of being inundated with a barrage of media that seductively presents the most morally offensive behaviors as normative for our age. Indeed, it seems that each week another line is crossed and the borders between decency and obscenity are further obliterated.
Commercials are no better, and are often worse. At least when you watch a television program you have some idea of what’s coming on, what to expect. Not so with commercials, which are designed to seduce in a matter of 15 or 20 seconds. You can pick out those that actively promote unhealthy lifestyles - like this one for Belvedere Vodka which seems to be getting a lot of airplay. (Take a look and try to tally up the multiplicity of unsavory behaviors displayed in the blink of an eye.) Overt sexuality is also inserted into seemingly harmless commercials as well. Pelvic thrusts seem to be almost mandatory. Like in this Kia commercial. Both are “funny.” Both, we think, are little bits your children don’t need to see.
There is a real danger in your living room - and with televisions now placed throughout the house, it has come into your bedrooms, too.
The assault comes in the form of “family entertainment” - prime time television programming, video games filled with violence, foul language and sexual content. Nearly every American family owns a DVD player and renting movies is now commonplace. Even if you check the ratings, there’s no guarantee that the content won’t go against the grain of the Catholic values you’d like to promote in your home.
I will never forget one particular evening when my husband and I went to Blockbuster to rent a movie to get our minds off missing our son who had just entered the minor seminary. Not surprisingly, it was difficult to find something that wasn’t crude or offensive. On one of the lower shelves we found one that looked interesting. It was called “Priest.” The case read:
“Father Greg Pilkington arrives in Liverpool parish where hypocrisy reigns among the other priests and the congregation as a whole. In a misguided attempt to improve matters, Father Pilkington visits his parishioners at their homes, only to have them repeatedly reject him.”
What we saw was so completely nauseating it defies description. To make matters worse, the USCCB gave it a rating of A-IV: “limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling” and not the O - morally offensive - that it deserved.
“We are no longer able to
hear God. There are too
many different frequencies
filling our ears.”
- Pope Benedict XVI
In 1908, Father F.X. Lasance, a well loved Catholic priest and author of many excellent devotional books, advised the readers of “Happiness in Goodness” about the importance of having good books in the home - and the dangers of racy novels. When it was written, 100 years ago, he couldn’t possibly imagine the breadth and depth of the assault on our senses today.
“Oh, it’s just a television show.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You’re over-reacting.”
If we, as Catholics, are to invite Christ as the unseen Guest into our homes - or if the Blessed Mother were to come for a visit - would you invite either of them to watch television with you?
Junk in. Junk out.
It’s your choice.
Choose well.
I support Christina’s support of Pat’s opinion. Though I haven’t seen the show, Pat’s description made it seem interesting. It sounds a little Flannery O’Connor-esque in its depiction of sin. There’s nothing wrong with portraying sin in art so long as it’s portrayed as a negative and not a positive. In a morally relativistic world, that’s a rarity so kudos to “Breaking Bad” for showing it like it is.
new book out…FULL OF GRACE, by Christine Watkins…
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