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Comment by piltdownman | Hacker News Reader

"But I guess a show making that particular social critique isn’t going to get funded by a major studio or tech company."

You've never heard of Breaking Bad? More recently, Emily the Criminal is an absolutely superb movie and great example of exactly this - Aubrey Plaza's best role in fact.

""Saddled with student debt and unable to find work, a college graduate becomes involved in a credit card scam, acting as a dummy shopper and buying increasingly risky products with stolen credit cards.""

For the medical debt angle, the macabre and outrageous 'Repo Man'(2010) is a pitch-dark and fascinating examination of the end-game of medical insurance.

""Set in the near future when artificial organs can be bought on credit, it revolves around a man who struggles to make the payments on a heart he has purchased.""

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> You've never heard of Breaking Bad?

Breaking Bad does not feature medical debt, or even medical costs that fhe character does not have ready access to funds to pay.

It does feature hubris, the traditional central feature of tragedy, though.

It's been a while since I watched it and I'm pretty sure he wasn't in debt but I thought the reason he decided to do it was to help pay for the treatment so he didn't go in debt and to leave a nest egg behind for his family when he died. It may not be exactly what the OP stated but it's a pretty similar situation.

That’s the reason he states but he was given multiple opportunities and chances to have his medical care covered for but opted for continually selling drugs instead.

Every goal he wanted (getting enough money to pay for college for his children, paying living expenses for a decade, etc) he met and still continued.

He even says so in the last episode, he did it because it made him feel alive.

He absolutely becomes that person by the end, but it's unclear whether it would have happened were it not for mountainous medical expenses for treatment.

Elliot Schwartz offers to pay for all of Walter's medical treatments in episode 5 and Gretchen does the same in episode 6 of season 1. The show is about pride, not desperation

I think it's about megalomania. Walter White is entertaining but deplorable.

True, but government provided affordable healthcare is different from charity. Turning down your friends' donations out of pride is one thing, refusing your healthcare provider covering your expenses I would find hard to believe.

I'm not convinced that changes my point. Whether you look at it as an excuse to become that person or not, the excuse would not exist in an alternate version where healthcare was not ruinously expensive.

I watched the first 4 or so episodes and got to the one where the rich friend offered to pay for everything but he declined. I was like "this guy's an ass." and didn't have any motivation to keep watching.

You have understood the point correctly then.

> but I thought the reason he decided to do it was to help pay for the treatment so he didn't go in debt and to leave a nest egg behind for his family

The initial diagnosis is that it is terminal and without useful treatment options and his rationalization for cooking meth is to leave a nest egg. The high cost treatment comes up later and he immediately turns down an offer of no-strings payment in favor of cooking more meth to pay for it (Epsiodes 4-5).

The only medical service he pays for out of drug money before turning down the offer to pay for all treatment is the initial evaluation with the highly-rated oncologists that his wife schedules on her own without a clear plan of how they’ll pay for it from which the treatment plan originates.

> Breaking Bad does not feature medical debt, or even medical costs

But it is the story of a father doing everything possible to make sure his family is taken care of after he is gone.

"Everything" except allowing help from the people who want to help, I suppose.

Found Gus Fring's account.

"Walter, diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer, conspires with Jesse to cook crystal meth to pay for his treatment and provide financial security for his family."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_Bad

Watch the show. He is given multiple opportunities to walk away while getting everything he wants but continues making meth because he is an arrogant man.

All the despicable actions he did during the show (watching his partners GF OD and not intervening, running over two people with a car, poisoning a child, letting a child get murdered, collaborating with neo nazis, and selling Jesse into slavery) were not done to help his family but for his own selfish gains.

That’s like the entire point of the show, selfish man wants his own nut at the cost of his loved ones.

He started out on that path because of the medical issues, but it's absolutely true that he continued it because of selfish reasons (that grow larger until the very end of the show).

Admittedly, the focus on debt was very small. The Korean shows put a lot more emphasis on it.

I've seen it three times beginning to end, most recently during the pandemic.

I get his evolution as a character as that's the primary theme, but it never would even be a thing is he didn't have cancer.

You remove this factor, no Heisenberg. Full stop.

meh, you see this is where I disagree. We know how slighted Walter feels about leaving Gray Matter. A company that only succeeded due to his ideas. He wanted something himself to control, the cancer was just a catalyst. If it wasn't that it would have been something else.

The Gray Matter storyline happened at least 20 years before the events of the show began. There's no indication he would have broken bad/lashed out due to this, by all indications he led a normal life since then and is seen by everyone he knows as a upstanding, somewhat meek but respectable person with no outward character flaws.

The cancer diagnosis and its implications for him and his family is what sparked this. And he continued further down that path due to believing he was going to actually die. If you recall when he decided to get treatment and found out he was in remission, there was a moment of "wtf have I done" for his character.

The Gray Matter backstory, and his former cofounders re-entrance in his life due to perceived medical bills explained the peeling the onion that led to his shift.

> For the medical debt angle, the macabre and outrageous 'Repo Man'(2010) is a pitch-dark and fascinating examination of the end-game of medical insurance.

I really hate the twist ending in that movie. Please, screenwriters stop doing that, it ceased to be original like 30 years ago. Aside from the ending, good movie.

I'll have to check out Emily the Criminal, because I'm convinced her best role was as Lenny in Legion.

Repo Men is the 2010 film; Repo Man is the 1984 one.

To stay on topic, Repo! The Generic Opera (2008) is another film - a musical, even! - that covers a very similiar topic.

Zydrate comes in a little glass vial...

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