The End of American Exceptionalism Through Two Family Sagas: Breaking Bad and Ozark in the Face of Neoliberal Collapse
The End of American Exceptionalism Through Two Family Sagas: Breaking Bad and Ozark in the Face of Neoliberal Collapse

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to investigate, following a film-philosophical methodology, the politics of two extremely popular North-American TV series. Thesis of the paper is that, by mapping particular narratives and aesthetic patterns concerning family-dramas and the desire of economic emancipation and social mobility, as well as the crisis and decay of the male bread-winner, Breaking Bad and Ozark describe a critical and cynical attachment to the modern American Dream. Passing from the “tragic” arc of Walter White to the dejected and melancholic struggles of the Byrdes, it is possible to detect a declining faith in the individualist, family and ownership-oriented values that have informed the neoliberal ecology and a consequent pervasive sense of loss in the longstanding tenets of American Exceptionalism.

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