Social Stratification In Breaking Bad

Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache use their film The Intouchables (2011) to manipulate their audience in relation to a contrast between a stereotypical black and white social class. The directors cast Omar Sy as Driss, who is of Senegalese descent, since he is in stark contrast to his employer Phillipe who is a white French aristocrat. This film is based on a true story and the individual who was originally Philippe’s caretaker was Abdel Sellou and was of Arabic ethnicity. Omar Sy is of Senegalese descent and therefore has darker skin than Abdel, making the racial differences between him and Phillipe more prominent and observable. This contrasting theme is present throughout the film, and is particularly evident in three scenes that crystallise the directors’ key idea of the contrast between two different social classes. The scenes include ‘the paragliding’, ‘Driss’s interview’, and the introduction of Phillipe and ‘Driss’s house scenes’. Toledano and Nakache uses film techniques such as mise-en-scène, lighting, sound track, dialogue, musical score, camera techniques and angles throughout these scenes to manipulate the audience in relation to the black and white contrasting social class

Individuals within a society are grouped into certain rankings that is based on their wealth, income, race and education known as the social stratification. Sociologist use this to determine the social standings of individuals within a society. Social stratification can also appear in much smaller groups. These groups such as the work place, schools, and businesses can “take the form of a distribution of power and authority down the ranks”. (Cole, 2017) The Caste system is also another form of stratification that one does not get a choice in. They are born into it and regardless of their talents will hold positions that are given to them their whole life. Social mobility is the ability for individuals to move about their social standings.

In my research of Austin, Texas I found out several interesting facts regarding the demographic makeup of the city. For example, the racial breakdown by race is whites 68%, blacks 8%, Hispanic are at 35% and foreign-born 18% The makeup is obviously different when you compare Austin to the US as a whole, however, it is interesting to see the “total picture”. The following is the breakdown for the US whites 72%, black 12.6%, Hispanic 17%, and foreign-born 13%.

Walter is an African American chauffeur for a white family but he does not like that one bit because Walter see's all these white people with their own business and since he sees it almost everyday he feels like that's all that matters in the world.Walter see's how all these white people are happy with not a worry in the world because of the money. When Walter said "No it was always money, Mama. We just didn't know about it." this meant that all life it has been about money they were just African americans so they couldn't see it because they were slaves and never had it. In order to have money back then I suppose you had to be white.

driven by a force to prove himself but also to get revenge on his father, Walt, whose past continually

Walt was good at his job and doing well to perform his duties, but then few things happened around him, which changed his whole life. The first thing or event was corruption, which he was seeing around him in his company. The second thing was to see the superiors also doing corruption and looting money from the company accounts. And third thing was customers of the company. He saw that even customers don’t pay up their money to the company, but still company is bearing them, so he thought if customers are free to do so, then why he cannot do so. He saw that rules are being broken everywhere, so he thought to do so as well. These three events became the major factors for Walt to think about committing a crime

On some level he knows he can't control others, and that learning fills his edginess. In "The Fly," Breaking Bad's most clearly ruminative scene, Walt miracles provided that he can uncover a way out of the profound mess he's in. “I truly believe there exists some combination of words,” he tells Jesse. “There must exist certain words in a certain specific order that would explain all of this. I just can’t ever seem to find them.” Walt imagines that provided that he can uncover a succession of expressions as flawlessly requested as the gem designs he uncovered in graduate school, he can legitimize all his movements to Skyler and repair his broken family — maybe much adjust the unalterable wrongs he has done. However Nietzsche's cautioning about dialect rings a bell again: expressions can't catch what we without a doubt feel, and we can't control how others will hear even the most.

In recent years, a New Yorker artist posted a caricature that depicted a cop speaking with an inmate saying “I am neither a good cop nor a bad cop, Jerome. Like yourself, I am a complex amalgam of positive and negative personality traits that emerge or not, depending on the circumstances” (Stevens, 2007). Being diagnosed with incurable cancer, Walter White began his metamorphosis from an outstanding citizen into an egotistical drug lord. He was a good man who was led to commit immoral choices due to the situation he was put in. Throughout the series, society judges Walter, some say he is a hero for doing the things he did for the greater good of his family whilst others, justify his actions. Although wrong to judge people for committing unlawful or immoral acts in a stressful situation, it is required in order to keep society from collapsing.

The conclusion of the film was extremely dramatic and effective at reiterating the neighborhood’s increased confidence over the gang activity.  Walt began the confidence building by standing against the gang publicly.  This brought the neighborhood to think of him as a hero and shower him with gifts of praise.  It was befitting that he would martyr himself in the end.  Lying on the ground dead like Jesus nailed to the cross.  His essential “suicide by gang” was not the only possible solution to the problem.  Though conflict resolution through communication with gang members would more than likely fail, neighborhoods in similar situations have stood firm as a community against gang violence and intimidation.  Using the latest technology, they have driven gang elements away.  By joining neighborhood watch and documenting illegal behaviors from gang members, neighborhoods have made themselves less attractive for gangs to reside.  “The gang's power increases through their use of fear and violence to intimidate rivals and citizens alike. This tactic can be countered by citizen action groups such as Neighborhood Watch. A neighborhood that is united in the goal to stop gang crime and violence can be an effective force in curbing gangs”.  (Orange County Sheriff Office, 1992, p.1).

Social stratification involves various inequalities within a gender, race, class. When considering the role of gender, race, and class in the social stratification system, it affects the organization system which is known for disparity based on the families’ income statutes, lack of resources, organization activity, and systematic inadequate government law. In the following essay I will focus how social stratification inequality effect families and individuals in the United States based on a gender, race, and class. Society has lived over decades experiencing different types of inequality. For example, gender inequality has been around since our ancestors. Informing society and continuous advocating about inequality is vital for positives changes

Another concept where we see Walt fighting the concept of ageist is his role to ‘man’

America is known as the land of the free and home of the brave. When thinking of this you think about all the opportunities presented to people and all the freedom. An idea of America is that we’re a meritocracy, which means anyone can be able to to become anything they want as long as they work hard playing by the rules. Along with that many people believe that diversity will bring together the country and unite us all but that’s not the case. America is not a meritocracy.

Even without being consciously aware of it, the use of some sort of scale when interacting with others is quintessential. This is because it represents a basic need of defining the self through the means of the others; knowing one’s place in society, as well as the positions of fellow individuals, ensures an orderly functioning of said system. For the sake of this essay, the definition of social stratification as a society’s categorization of its people into rankings of socioeconomic tiers based on factors like wealth, income, race, education, and power (Pearce, 2015), will be used.

Social stratification can be simply defined by stating that it is a system in which a society ranks categories of people in a hierarchy (Macionis, page 224). The concept of social stratification is based on four central principles, which are social stratification is a trait of society, not simply a reflection of individual differences, it carries over from one generation to the next, while it is universal, it is also variable, and social stratification involves not only inequality but beliefs as well (Macionis, pages 224-225). The first principle, that social stratification is a trait of society, not simply a reflection of individual differences, basically says that children born into wealthy families are more likely to be of good health, do well in school, succeed in a career, and live a long life (Macionis, pages 224-225). An example of this first principle can be seen in the what happened to the Titanic. The first-class passengers survived not because they were better swimmers than the second- and third-class passengers, but because of their privileged position (Macionis, page 224-225). The second principle states that the concept of social stratification is one that carries over from one generation to the next (Macionis, page 225). This concept is essentially stating that the social standing of a person is partially determined by their parents. Most people’s social standing remains constant throughout their lives (Macionis, page 225). While social stratification is

Social stratification defines any structure of inequality that persists in a society across generations. Social strata are groups of people — who belong to the same social class or have the same social level. Social strata are organised in a vertical hierarchy. In the early societies people shared a common social standing. In the hunting and gathering societies there was little stratification: men hunted for meat while women gathered edible plants. The general welfare of the society depended on the mutual sharing of goods between all members and no group emerged as better off than the others.