Goodbye and Good Riddance, Angry Little Men Who Hate Skyler White

There’s a lot I’ll miss now that Breaking Bad is over. I’ll miss Jesse’s boyish swearing, Hank’s percussive heh-heh laugh, Marie’s purple everything, baby Holly’s hats. My confusion over how hot I find Bob Odenkirk as Saul Goodman. The entire cast’s virtuosic performances, the script’s brilliance, the colors and clear blue brutality of the show’s New Mexican backdrop. Hell, I’ll even miss the vague feeling of mounting existential dread I feel as 9 pm approaches on Sundays. Here’s something I won’t miss, though: angry little men who hate Skyler White.

First, people hated Skyler White because she threatened to ruin Walter White’s burgeoning meth empire. Then people hated Skyler White because she stood up for herself and left her husband. But even after Skyler White gave “bad fans” what they ostensibly wanted and surrendered to her husband’s metastatic ego, anti-Skyler sentiment persisted.

Skyler’s not TV’s first female punching bag for jerks, and she won’t be the last. But the vitriol directed at her — and, creepily, at Anna Gunn, who is a person who was paid to pretend to be Skyler White and isn’t actual Skyler White — was so intense that it moved Gunn to write an op-ed in the New York Times last month. Skyler became the proxy for unfulfilled manchildren and their unresolved hatred for their own mothers or sisters or ex girlfriends or pretty classmates who wouldn’t fuck them, like Betty Draper or Carmella Soprano or every woman on The Walking Dead. Skyler hate even persists through the show’s laborious attempt to bash its viewers over the head with her blamelessness.

Here’s a good example of anti-Skyler man-hysterics, from some douchebag’s blog a few weeks ago (not linking to it; if you want to find him, google a line of text). Is Sykyler White a cunt? asks the blog’s author. (SPOILER ALERT: Yes!) But she’s not a very realistic cunt.

…in real life, mid-level bean counting women are not smarter at accounting than their CEO bosses. Women don’t become hateful upon finding out their husbands are running a massive profitable drug empire, they become filled with tingles and respect for him.

Breaking Bad’s writers pedestalize women through Skylar. She is given accounting smarts that women don’t have, and a laundering acumen that rivals the mob. She is shown to resent a man who would engage in dangerous or evil activities to protect her and her family, on the sheer principle that drugs and killing is bad.

In real life, women do not have business wiles and have no problem fucking men who are bad for society if its opportunistic for them. Walt’s turn to a dark empire would make Skylar less likely to cheat on him, not more. In real life, she probably cheats on him the first time Ted makes a pass at her while her husband is an unsuccessful beta chemistry teacher. Breaking Bad’s world is backwards. Sorry, Vince Gilligan.

Huh. So she’s a cunt, but a little bit of an undercunt because real cunts are way cuntier than that cunt. Or something.

Here’s another cool guy who absolutely shouldn’t be seeing a therapist regularly to work out his debilitating UGH SHUT UP MOMMMMM issues, marveling at the hotness of Anna Gunn at last week’s Emmy’s.

This is the same frumpy, old bitch that busts Walter’s balls for selling a little meth? She looks all skinny and hot and shit. Honestly, if she looked like this on the show I wouldn’t hate her at all. If you’re hot, you’re allowed to act all cunty. That’s a law. If Skyler looked like this in Breaking Bad there wouldn’t even be a show. It would be one episode. Walter starts selling meth then his hot wife tells him to stop so he does and that’s it. Roll credits.

This guy probably honks when he cries.

Facebook’s got plenty of places for people who want to complain about Skyler White’s SKYLERITY with like-minded Skyler haters. Here are some cool screenshots.

You get the idea.

Yes, I will miss the characters of Breaking Bad in an embarrassingly real-feeling way. And yes, if I ever met Vince Gilligan in real life, I would personally hug him and look deeply into his eyes in a way that made him uncomfortable and thank him sincerely and from the bottom of my heart for indulging my paranoid belief that every mundanity obscures a David Lynchinan moral horrorscape. But there is a silver lining to culture’s loss: at least now there will be no more Why Can’t That Bitch Just Die? post in Twitter feeds, in Facebook feeds, no more UGH SKYLER conversations on the train, no more contrarian Ackshully I Hate Skyler White And I Am Not a Misogynist (pushes up glasses) pieces on newsfeeds. Breaking Bad is over, Skyler haters will never have their way; the show left her alive, and her husband dead, as it should have.

So goodbye, and good riddance, angry little men who irrationally hate Skyler White. And best of luck in finding a new Mean Mommy to hate.