Which leads us to perhaps the most interesting and gender-charged word on Breaking Bad: B****. Yes, yes, its just a word. But its also coded with some very gender-specific ideas about power and dominance who has it and who takes it that are fundamental to the conflict at the heart of Walts transformation.
In short, calling a man a B**** is designed to diminish his power by comparing him to a woman. It implies that women are weaker and less powerful, and also that they are to be used and dominated. B**** is linked to exploitation, to submission; if you make someone your B****, you force them to submit to your will, in one way or another. (Despite being the most famous and popular insult of Jesse Pinkman, its worth noting that Jesse almost never uses the word to describe women.)
Similarly, p**** is a word used almost exclusively against men, for the very reason that it reduces them from masculine to feminine, from a higher level of power to a lower one. What these words tell us is that men arent just defined by what they are; theyre defined by what theyre not supposed to be. Over and over again, men in Breaking Bad send and receive the message that the last thing they want to be is women.
