Why Vince Gilligan’s Anti-Trump Rant Got One Thing Right
'Breaking Bad' creator dissects key problem plaguing TV and movies
It’s awards season and Donald Trump calls The White House home.
The math practically does itself.
Awards show after awards show is smiting President Trump this time of year.
This is how democrats lost the election. Now Judd is trying to lose his audience.https://t.co/OUQoA4mTab
— Peter Sauer (@CoffeeAddict40) February 9, 2025
The latest example? Saturday night’s Writers Guild of America (WGA) awards ceremony in Los Angeles. The gala featured several artists taking jabs at President Trump.
The evening’s honoree, “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan, used his time accepting the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement to do the same.
He also expanded the conversation to take a long, hard look at Hollywood content. And he made a point that people across the political spectrum should heed.
“In our profoundly divided country, everybody seems to agree on one thing: there are too many real-life bad guys, it’s just we’re living in different realities so we’ve all got different lists.”
He made it clear that the current President is one of said bad guys. He didn’t stop there.
“As a writer, speaking to a room full of writers, I have a proposal; it certainly won’t fix everything but I think it’s a start. I say we write more good guys … For decades we made the villains too sexy,” with Darth Vader and Hannibal Lecter as examples, and “viewers everywhere, all around the world, pay attention. They say here’s this badass, I want to be that cool. When that happens, fictional bad guys stop being the precautionary tales they were intended to be. God help us, they’ve become aspirational.”
He’s right.
You can name check his “Breaking Bad” antihero Walter White or Tony Soprano, for starters. What about Ray Donovan? Dexter? Don Draper? Jax Teller? Vic Mackey?
And let’s not even start on Hollywood’s love affair with hit men. How many movies ask us to root for professional killers?
Too many.
Gilligan also shared a note of caution. The task at hand won’t be easy.
“Made-up bad guys are fun and they’re easier to write well.”
Yes, it’s more challenging to write Boy Scout-style characters. It’s one reason the recent iteration of Superman hasn’t been a complete success. The late ’70s version struck the perfect note, with Christopher Reeve capturing the aw, shucks DC Comics hero.
Henry Cavill’s Superman was darker and more conflicted. It’s all modern writers know how to pen. Perhaps that’s why director James Gunn is rebooting the character later this year.
We do need more heroes on screens large and small. Yet there’s a resistance built into the equation. Remember how the media savaged the fact-based story “Sound of Freedom,” involving the heroics of Tim Ballard?
We live in a deeply cynical age where heroes are often treated shabbily or framed as corny or fake.
Great writers can upend that notion. Maybe Gilligan, famous for “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul,” should lead the way.
Walter White, Tony Soprano, Ray Donovan, Dexter, Don Draper, Jax Teller, Vic Mackey
These guys were actually heroes who destroyed the scum around them.
We just call them villains because they did not work for the government . . .
I’ve never watched any of those shows, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul, Sopranos. Why do we glorify evil people. They are just conflicted, they are evil. Anyone who sells drugs to kids is evil, anyone who sells drugs to anyone is evil. Why glorify that? I never understood it. I’ve watched the Godfather 1 & 2. They are overrated. There is not a likeable person in any of those movies. Why do I want to watch a movie about people who I would detest if I met them in real life.
Gilligan’s Island again. Gilligan gets it wrong, likely on purpose. The bad guys Hollywood loves so much are not meant to be cautionary tales they are intended to be Heroes. The spate of super villains being reconstructed as heroes goes well back to the 80s if not before. John Gardener wrote Grendel, which turns the world on it’s head as the Monster becomes the heroic victim of hatred and bigotry. Today, Venom, Kraven, Joker, Deadpool, and others get their own movies and fans. We live in a sick and twisted world because leftist writers and entertainers have made it excusable or honorable to be Evil. Even our heroes are now wrong. Antman and Spacelord are criminals. Captain America questions patriotism. Superman kills. These are intentional, not accidental or misinterpretations. It begs the question, why? What was the reasoning and goal in doing this? Clearly, the intent was to undermine our culture and society, to actually create the conditions we currently live in.
“Let’s start writing about good guys instead of bad guys….” He made his money off of writing about bad guy….crying all the way to the bank.
A “good guy” for these people will be a fully rainbowed, DEI nightmare. How is that any better?
One isn’t allowed to live and work in Hollywood unless one can prove his TDS bona fides.
Communist Hollywood would like their enemies to return to their old ineffectual ways. Trump is willing to play dirty, unlike any Republican leader in generations. The Communists know that they will have more successful when dirty play is a one side game. In other words, they’ll keep their dark heroes and try to impose the pseudo-virtue of failure upon the Right
Mr. Reeve was the NICE GUY Superman! I’m old enough to remember the TV Superman – very similar! All us boys used to “be Superman”! We’d tie a towel around our necks and pretend to FLY!! It seems like all the shows back then were good, decent, American loving shows. I haven’t watched “network tv” in a LONG time – mostly watch old movies and old tv series! Leave it to Beaver, My Three Sons, Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, The Jeffersons, All in the Family, Good Times, and several other should be REQUIRED for school! I know All in the Family might be a tad much as would The Jeffersons’ ANTI-ARCHIE take, but both shows had awesome casts and lessons to learn!
Kids might benefit from Bugs Bunny and Road Runner cartoons more than Beavis/Butthead and Southpark! Hey, I’m old and remember the simple things in life!
There are few male heroes these days because the writers are intent on depicting men in a harsh light. The new unspoken rules require that men are never any more heroic in any TV or film these days than the female characters with the possible exception of Tom Cruise movies. Viewers need to be reminded about sexism, misogyny, abuse, infidelity, racism, homophobia, toxic masculinity; and all the other crimes men commit in almost every production. Even shows targeting a male audience like Reacher have to be somewhat balanced by adding a female character that only appeared in a few of the Reacher novels.
As a result, men are written as villains. Rom-coms are a thing of the past; marriage after all is a product of the patriarchy and women should be discouraged from marrying since there are so few good men. We don’t have male heroes because of the writers left-wing views about men and masculinity.