Skylar, Betty, and Sexist TV Fans
Sometimes it’s hard for me to understand the vitriol that people have for certain female characters on some of my favorite shows. The main examples that I’m thinking of are Skylar on “Breaking Bad” and Betty on “Mad Men.”
Granted, both those characters can be super annoying at times. Betty, especially, has done some pretty horrendous things in the last season or two of Mad Men (mainly in regard to her parenting methods). Regardless, I don’t understand some of the literal hate that I hear directed towards these characters. I literally find it hard to discuss these two shows with other fans without at least one person that I’m talking with going off on some sort of “I hate (fill in the blank)” tangent. BTW, these fans that hate Skylar or Betty are ALWAYS male.
An inherent form of unconscious sexism??? Who knows… All I can see is that these two women characters are often reviled, while their male counterparts, Don Draper and Walter White, are considered super-cool badasses. Don and Walt may be two of the best characters on TV, but they are also two of the most reprehensible characters on TV. Don Draper is a womanizing, sexist, alcoholic asshole and Walt, also an asshole, is a drug dealing, manipulative murderer.
But let’s keep on hating those women.
