You'd have to be an idiot to think it's anything less than pure, unbridled hatred of women. So now cue the dickless shrill pus-festering asshole MRAs.

This online misogyny is why Mary-Louise Parker is quitting acting.

See, to some tiny extent I can see someone disliking MLP or Anna's characters at ~some point~ both of their roles involve some amount of negative traits, but eventually 1) If you hate entitled white lady who sells drugs and shows her boobs to get out of trouble, you should probably stop watching Weeds (I never finished the last season or two and have no idea how it ended.) 2) If you still hate Skyler after Walt completed his slide into becoming a psychopath, you are probably not a good person.

Skyler was written pretty carefully to become a more sympathetic character and illustrate that Walt was in fact ~not~ a good husband/person. But, again, you can only hand-hold so much when writing a good show. Idiot fans will be idiot fans and come to their own conclusions independent of intention and obviousness hitting them smack in the face.

To get a little armchair psychologist here, I don't think it's about hatred of women qua WOMEN. (That's like "The Turrurists, they can't stand freedom!") I think it's more to do with Skyler's role as a brake on Walt's crazier ambitions. She's tough, outspoken and even occasionally unreasonable, but she's the only one who can match Walt. Yet, as the antihero of the show, you're supposed to root for Walt. I'd argue that those most vocal against her have someone in their life who they see as their own brake, someone holding back their ambitions. Even if those ambitions are just to eat microwave burritos and browse Reddit all day long. They're frustrated, bored, unhappy and looking for someone to blame. And because annonymity + audience = total dickwad, you get the Skyler hate. It's not about her, it's about them.

The kind of person who would post such insane, unadulterated rage against a character like Skyler is likely a failure of a person who rages at the fact that the world won't recognize their genius.

In other words, the kind of person who would idolize Walter White and hate anybody who might take him down.

Slight disclaimer: I've just started watching BB, and I'm only about two and a half seasons into the show...so this opinion might be slightly misinformed.

I think the reason people hate Skyler is because women in general are written pretty horribly on the show. Don't get me wrong, I love the show (so far)...but for all of its critical acclaim, the critics seems to overlook this pretty serious flaw (again, I'm new though, so maybe this has been touched on...I just never heard about it). The women are conniving, bitchy, and hypocritical (just like the men)...but for whatever reason the men's behavior is glorified (in the Tony Soprano sort of way), and often comedic; while the women are presented in a disdainful manner.

Anyway, it's an unfortunate flaw in an otherwise great show.

I've never watched Breaking Bad, but this news is devastating, worst news I've heard all year, makes Syria seem like tiddlywinks.

Speaking of which, Seth Green is staging a Swim To Syria For Peace fundraiser. Paul Constant has already signed up, happy to finally put his doggie paddle to good use. Join these brave men, today.

@5: The two are not incompatible. The two hatreds feed each other in the form of Reddit MRAs who think THOSE BITCHES are eternally keeping them down.

I suggest you reconsider the "hatred of women" in light of them not really seeing women as people or giving a shit about them aside from what women can do for the MRA flock.

On the Jenji tip, I also don't find Chapman very sympathetic in Orange is the New Black, but I still watched.

Also, I was somewhat happy to hear that the real life bases weren't as cloying as they were in the drama- http://www.autostraddle.com/how-real-is-…

@7: "I think the reason people hate Skyler is because women in general are written pretty horribly on the show."

Not disagreeing with you there, but it gets better as Walt's character shifts.

It seems to be the same type of guys who apparently get rage-boners when you say the name "Pelosi" (which I've yet to understand)

Admittedly, I haven't watched past the first season, but I hated the character (not the actress, I could give a fuck) right off the bat. The few snippets I've seen of her since then have done nothing to reinforce my view of her.

As a female, I reacted to the fact that she was a terrible fucking female character. She felt like a comedian's impression of a wife instead of a human with reason. What kind of woman berates her husband, who she has just found out has cancer, for going off to be alone for awhile? It was lazy writing, and it was framed as though it was a justified reaction. So yeah, a feminist female here who hates Skyler White. Enough to keep me from watching the subsequent seasons.

@12: You're missing the point. The character has developed past the first season. The MRAS still see her as a "bitch cunt" after being psychologically abused and repeatedly terrorized and hate her MORE since she grew more of a personality.

While #7 is correct, the women are poorly written, it is a bit deeper than that, and is certainly rooted in misogyny.

One of the oldest misogynist tropes is that women destroy the works of men. Because their beauty is way too tempting for us mens, it can distract us from doing work. So women were barred from the work of men. This is why their menstrual blood is said to wilt crops in dumb cultures, and why it is claimed to be bad luck to have a woman on a ship. They ruin the works of men.

So here we have Skyler White "ruining" Walt's work and his efforts to provide for his family, by being a sort of "weak link" in his chain, and trying to force him out of his criminal life. The same old tropes just keep playing themselves out. Of course, this ignores all she has done to protect his story. The car wash, the gambling fake out, etc.

So these guys ignore that Skyler is trying to protect her family in the same way Walt is, it is just she has a way different (and logical) way of going about it.

@12 and @14: I agree with both of you. The female characters are poorly written, especially Skylar, AND the reaction to her growing complexity is misogynist. It's a twofer. And I hope it's not condescending to say how much I appreciate it when men notice these things; thanks, for the post Paul!

Hmmm...I've been frequently annoyed by her character but I can't imagine hating or raging about it. But still. (I genuinely dislike Walt now and but that's probably the point.)

I think Sarah Wayne Callies (Lori) faced this too in the Walking Dead?

I don't think there's much question that- to most folks- Skyler is an annoying and very dis-likable character. What's kind of ridiculous is when people can't put her flaws and actions in perspective to those of other characters on the show, and yeah, I think in a lot of cases misogyny is behind that.

***SPOILERS BELOW***

Yeah, Skyler is kind of bitchy. On the other hand Walt is responsible for or implicated in something like, what 20 murders at this point, he poisoned a small child, set off a bomb in a nursing home, manufactured and distributed thousands of pounds of a drug that ruins people's lives, endangered his family to the point where they easily could have been axe murder victims, and wasted a perfectly good giant pizza. I mean let's have some sense of scale here.

@15 - you nailed it - very succinctly put.

I have met actual live guys who profess this very point - that women "have power" over men. Sheesh, what babies.

Paul - I agree with your analysis here. I had read this yesterday in the NYT as well, and was surprised to hear about the Skylar hate as I was catching up on the show over the last two months.

That said - I think you wrote a few weeks back that there were no good female characters in this show. At that time, I was just at the point where Skylar was becoming aware, and then complicit - and I just couldn't have disagreed more. I think her journey in the show is significant, and has the same logical choice after choice that leads her to her hell, in parallel with Walt's. I really like her character as a reflection and as the anchor of reality that gets snapped loose along the way.

Haters gotta hate, but I think she is every bit as compelling of a character as Carmella Soprano, and with far more agency.

Funny, I attributed my dislike of Skyler to a failure of the writers to create sympathetic female characters on the show. I've only begun to watch the series, but the moment she threw Walt out of the house and attempted to bar her son from EVER seeing his father again (before even learning what Walt was doing and without any explanation to either party), I was done with her. Walt has done terrible things, but I couldn't ever see him doing the same to her.

For me (and I'm only into season 2), this shows the sexism and misogyny of the writers, not the viewers. Even Jesse's girlfriend was detestable. I'm hoping that some decent, unselfish female characters come up somewhere in the series. The male protagonists (so far) appear to be motivated to some degree by love and an earnest longing to connect.

That this kind of writing brings out the shitty misogynists on the internet message boards is no surprise. I'm sorry for Anna's experience, but she's delusional if she believes that a reversal of the genders on this show would yield a reversal of viewer sentiment.

i've always been kinda so-so on skyler myself. she has her admirable moments and non-admirable moments, but is generally well acted and plays a necessary/important role on the show. i don't totally buy the "bb has poor roles for women" argument either, both skyler and marie get pretty damn compelling by season 3. i'll agree they both drove me the most nuts (which, in the grand scheme of things, wasn't nuts at all, ie i didn't ever think about it outside of while watching the show), in BBs first two seasons.

gunn's article points out similar reactions to carmela soprano & betty draper, which adds interesteing depth and accuracy to the article. the betty point is particularly close to me as i've long maintained (and still do) that in seasons 1+2 (or at least up until she divorces don) betty was the show's most interesting, well written and well acted character; an opinion shared by few if any. sure she wasn't "unique" or "complex" like say a walter white is, but for a documentary-style character study of the plight of the early 60s suburban housewife, january jones and the mad men writers did a terrific job, and the crap she got for it always bugged me. perhaps my inclination towards betty isn't surprising in that i find shows like "the wire" the most compelling of any/all on tv (the documentarian/voyeuristic approach rather than the narrative driven morality play approach of BB), but anyhow, yes: more skyler/better/carmela love.

I am a woman and I have not found any women on the show to be sympathetic (they are written terribly.) I love shows with strong women and netflix has noticed. This is not one of those shows.

So I hate Skyler most of the time. But I take turns hating most characters in this show anyway! My favorite character ever was blown half away... ;)

all this foorah over a fictional character? mercy.

I was formerly anti-Skyler, although I'd never waste my time hating a fictional character. Now though I'm anti-Marie. That baby snatching bitch.

@22,

See also: Sansa Stark.

I didn't realize Skyler Hate was a thing. But then again I don't spend much time immersed in the exaggerated feelings of Internet cesspools.

But that said in BB all the characters are sympathetic to one degree or another but they are also nearly universally all total scumbags at one point or another.

People I talk to about the show that exhibit strong reactions to a character or who don't like the show are the typical "ideological" viewers. People who require that thier entertainments be perfect check listed reflections of thier own world view. BB will not do that. Anything well written from a genuine expression will not do that.

Walt is a terrible immoral criminal. He doesn't just have cancer, he IS a moral cancer. Skyler eventually becomes tainted, as well. It's the god damned point.

The entire show is about the immoral choices our society makes for convenience and how we rationalize those choices as necessary. There are consequences.

@ Well. Then there are upsides.

@22,27

... but then compare those characters with Arya Stark, Snoop on The Wire, Debra Morgan on Dexter, President Roslin on Battlestar Galactica - characters who do things instead of only suffering things being done to them. There's a severe dichotomy on BB between male and female characters. The men are nearly always active*, the women either passive or active in wholly bland, uninteresting ways. Walt blows up people on a regular basis, Skyler fudges numbers in books. Hank gets in firefights with drug lords, Marie gets an entire episode devoted to kleptomania at open houses. In sticking entirely with the same traditional gender roles that we always see, the show is reinforcing the same misogyny that it's criticizing.

* - Notable exception: Ted. Was I the only person who cringed every single goddamn time he came on the screen? This also gave me a negative opinion of Skyler's character - not that she cheated on Walt (who cares?), but that so much time was devoted to this total fucking bore of a B story.

I'm more than a little curious how this Lydia character develops this season. The one from Madrigal's head offices who appears to be stepping into the "kingpin" role. Then again, I'm sure some would hate the "strong decision, hate seeing blood/bodies" characterization.
http://breakingbad.wikia.com/wiki/Lydia_…

@29, reading your excellent opening list of female characters makes me think of the purposeful setting of BB. The deliberately humdrum middle-class settings for the family households of Walt & Skyler and Hank & Marie are key to launching and sustaining the story. Skyler and Marie are both characters the storytellers purposely keep rooted in those settings in order to give them their full Greek-chorus function.

Horrifying to see asshole men being real-life shitty to an actual actress who performs her role so well.

I think you're supposed to hate Skyler, at least as the show begins. As she gets dragged into Walt's life of crime, you realize she's the good guy in all of this mess, and Walt's no longer such a good guy. The fact that people have such a strong reaction to Skyler just shows what a talented actress Anna Gunn is.
Also, the writers are messing with our emotions in making us root for Walter, then turning him into a total shit of a person.

@33,

Yeah, he only put her at risk of being murdered by drug dealers.* What's the problem?

*How quickly the Skyler-haters forget the two Mexicans (who slaughtered an entire van full of immigrants to cover their tracks) who went into Walt and Skyler's house to kill Walt.

the mysogeny is obvious of course. but i think being so emotionally vested in any media or entertainment 'persona' to have these kinds of feelings is itself very very sad, and juvenile/childish.

how can one be so divorced from reality and immersed in a fictional world to take the time and effort to express 'hate' or 'love' of a tv character with such passion and effort? surely it takes away from that person's real relationships. its all very sad.

breaking bad is pretty good, most of the time, but it is just a tv show. when its over there will be another. like The Wire, Sopranos, Dexter etc. Xfiles. ther's no shortage of them.

Anna Gunn thinks Skylar White is "a flash point for many people’s feelings about strong, nonsubmissive, ill-treated women." "Misogyny?" Nonsense!
Look at the enormous popularity of Lisbeth Salandar and the "Dragon Tattoo" trilogy. No tidal wave of hating on her! Ill treated and nonsubmissive enough? Bad enough men in Her life?
Fans love a strong female character, however flawed, or even villainous. Think Kalinda Sharma, Jane Tennyson of "Prime Suspect," Mags Bennett of "Justified," "Nurse Jackie," Ruth Wilson as a serial killer in "Luther," or Nancy Marchand playing Tony Soprano's mother. Melissa Leo, abandoned and fighting for her kids' survival in "Frozen River," "Vera," Alicia Florrick, Kima Greggs, "Thelma and Louise." Addicts, killers, a torturer, drinkers, drug dealers, sexual outlaws, failures at domesticity, cheating, cheated upon. Hurt, angry, scary, smart, loving, fierce, sexual, funny, trying to connect or escape. All too human, but with depth. You can care.
Skyler White is smug, shallow, and irritatingly controlling of her husband and son from the beginning. She's intolerant of the needs or desires of others, including her son, whom she infantilizes as much as she does her husband. The baby is a prop. She's humorless, hypocritical and judgmental. Strong? She's boring, cold, a terrible parent, and just as annoying when she gets greedy. Her "sexy" scenes (Happy Birthday, Mr. President) (the audit) are cringe-worthy. The character is one-dimensional, no fun at all, and poorly cast. (I think another actress might have given the writers something to work with.) I can't stand Gunn's Skylar, and she's no foil for Walter White. Too bad!!
It's not me, Skylar, it's you!

I don't hate Skylar and I'm a male. She's annoying yes, but in terms of ethical transgression and resultant hate, Walt takes the cake.

It's bizarre that everyone here just assumes it's male hate and jumps to misogyny when there's absolutely no gender breakdown of Skylar hate statistics anywhere here in this posting. Just another shoddy jounalism pogrom?? Paul?

I don't hate Skylar and I'm a male. She's annoying yes, but in terms of ethical transgression and resultant hate, Walt takes the cake.

It's bizarre that everyone here just assumes it's male hate and jumps to misogyny when there's absolutely no gender breakdown of Skylar hate statistics anywhere here in this posting. Just another shoddy journalism pogrom?? Paul?

whoops, it occurred to me that misogyny itself is gender non-specific, so I guess women can hate themselves, which is kind of weird, but so is a lot of our culture and life...

Skyler is a "strong woman"?

since when?

@36: "Look at the enormous popularity of Lisbeth Salandar and the "Dragon Tattoo" trilogy. No tidal wave of hating on her! Ill treated and nonsubmissive enough?"

"Raped, kick-ass" is apparently a tolerable trope. The MRA crew has no beef with that, apparently. I'm sure they all loved "I spit on your grave [Year of the Woman]"

@40: She has handled the enormous horror of her life as well as any mortal could. She's found a grounding in trying to protect her family in a much more honorable way than Walter ever could.

I find the comparison to the wife in Dexter not entirely analogous,but similar. She was pretty annoying and dippy at first, but as she became a better character and someone you were ~supposed~ to sympathize with in her death (versus Dexter, the psychopath), the "fans" of the show hated her all the more. It was pretty gross.

@38: "It's bizarre that everyone here just assumes it's male hate and jumps to misogyny when there's absolutely no gender breakdown of Skylar hate statistics anywhere here in this posting."

The way in which she is discussed as a focus of hate and the particular manner determines misogyny. Sure, women can internalize the stuff in the whole "I'm a girl who doesn't like other girls, they're terrible!" annoying manner, but it's still misogyny.

And yes, numerically it does tend to be more the guys spewing bile online.

Anna Gunn herself misunderstood the reason for the Skylar hate, which was based, NOT on the character's Strength, Ill-treatment, and Non-submission (Gunn's words,) but on Skylar's hypocritical and condescending treatment of every character, and her smug sense of her own rightness, however wrong she was. As the kids say, "It's all about her." From which credit card to use to which car to like to which money laundering scheme to adopt.

Many actors, male and female, receive death threats based on characters they play. Hugh Bonneville recently received them for his role on "Downton Abbey." That's not unusual. Breaking Bad has a huge audience.

You will notice more and more articulate female writers, in every medium, expressing their dislike of the character as written by Gilligan and others, and as played by Gunn. It is not only pathetic, misogynist males who can't stand the character. I'm an older woman, a feminist, and great fan of good movies and quality television. I can't stand Skylar. I hate her, as a character. I haven't finished the series, but I'm close, and I see no reason to feel sympathy with her other than the theoretical.

I used the Salander character as an extreme example, and it fills Gunn's own declared parameters perfectly, but there are so many other female characters that are strong, have experienced bad treatment at hands of evil or corrupt men (or women,) and have fought back with power. We don't hate them for that. We usually love them. Often, too, we can find a connection to female criminal characters.

Skylar may have said that she was acting in her family's interest, but she expressed no real warmth or concern for her immediate or extended family. At best, she just ordered them around, and she did drag the baby carrier from place to place. Motherly? Not on my t.v. Loving? Strong? Sexy? Soulful? A Moral Compass? No Way. I wouldn't want a daughter or granddaughter of mine to take anything from her. Skylar's just got nothing to like, and certainly nothing to admire.

I don't have to be a misogynist to say so. I WANT strong female roles.

I think there is a writing problem and a casting problem. Since writing is ongoing and fluid, better casting might have served. The male casting on Breaking Bad, even in the small roles is far stronger than the female casting.

@43: "her smug sense of her own rightness, however wrong she was"

I swear to goodness, so many persons must have not watched the last two seasons and yet they post.

"Skylar may have said that she was acting in her family's interest, but she expressed no real warmth or concern for her immediate or extended family"

No, Walt's been saying that through a series of awkward,evil lies, and Skyler's been the one doing what she feels necessary to ~actually~ take care of her family in the only ways she sees possible. Her character is delightfully gray, and how anyone could be disgusted with her actions in the last few seasons is beyond me. Being "shrill" justifying the abuse and constant gaslighting she's received is not fucking ok.