‘Breaking Bad’ Creator Vince Gilligan Urges More Good Guys in Stories Now That Bad Guys Have Taken Over the World: ‘God Help Us, They’ve Become Aspirational’

https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/breaking-bad-creator-vince-gilligan-good-guys-walter-white-1236309604/

17 comments

  1. > Gilligan admits that the “bad guys” in pop culture have become too appealing — and that has perhaps been sending the wrong message. “I really think that, when we create characters as indelible as Michael Corleone or Hannibal Lecter or Darth Vader or Tony Soprano, viewers everywhere, all around the world, they pay attention,” he said. “They say, ‘Man, those dudes are badass. I want to be that cool.’ When that happens, fictional bad guys stop being the cautionary player that they were created to be. God help us, they’ve become aspirational. **So maybe what the world needs now are some good, old fashioned, Greatest Generation types who give more than they take. Who think that kindness, tolerance and sacrifice aren’t strictly for chumps.”**

  2. I might have even been okay with a White (pun intended – Walter White) leader.

    God help us, we got the Salamancas!

    (No ethnic offence intended, I am talking 100% from the show perspective)

  6. Help us, Vince, you’re our only hope

    write a cool good guy. please. PLEASE.

  7. I’m not a creator or creative, but as a consumer, I’ve noticed the trend for a long time (decades) of humanizing psychopaths to grab at the audience’s engagement with the character. Was that not a great move? I don’t know.

    As one famously sympathetic and swoon-worthy serial killer said, “Movies don’t create psychos, movies make psychos more creative.”

    If Obama and Trump watched *Schindler’s List*, which is not a movie with empathetic baddies, they’re still going to get two different lessons: one would want to save people when he could and one would want to contract & exploit prison labor with no government oversight.

  8. How about more uplifting movies and tv shows instead of people intentionally writing everything to disappoint the audience because “it’s more realistic”

  9. I genuinely hope that Superman & Fantastic Four are examples of this kind of storytelling that 1) are good, and 2) do well. We really need optimistic stories about what is possible.

  10. An inspirational faux cooking show with Walt Jr. serving up breakfast.

  11. I’m just intrigued because I love his work. Plus sci-fi? Win win really.

  12. Both the stories he has produced, his “grey” guys got what they deserved and noone felt like they were “punished”.or disrespected which is a rarity with grey characters in today’s media

  13. a few years back i was really hoping that the new perry mason was going to be like this but no, they had to give him a dark origin story to try and make him an anti hero of sorts…i couldn’t keep watching after 2-3 episodes.

  14. WORD. obsessed with “the Diplomat” and “Conclave”. side note: was thinking the other day, young uns/students could watch “the Crown” and be smarter for it.

  15. I agree. Get rid of the “appealing” antiheroes. We need to stop cheering the bad guys on. I’ve been thinking that exactly since Trump got elected this time. I think that is, in part, a consequence of this long term trend in our culture. I personally am done with antiheroes; I no longer find them attractive or appealing so I avoid them.

  17. Audiences always loved a good hero.

    But good guys are much harder to write for now. Social media is always ready to tear them down. They don’t do the shocking things necessary for today’s short attention spans.

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