Better Call Saul is an American crime and legal drama series created and produced by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. There were also 11 other producers including Bob Odenkirk, who played the criminal lawyer Jimmy McGill A.K.A. “Saul Goodman”. The show first aired in 2015 and ended in 2022; It is also a prequel spinoff to the famous Vince Gilligan series, ‘Breaking Bad’.

*Note: For this series, I will approach it differently as it is full of rich characters and important messages to talk about. In order to keep this from being too long of a read I will not throw everything into a single blog. However, I may return to the series and talk about messages and ideas that I might not get into in this blog!

The Morality of the McGills

The show’s entire premise is about the origins of the snarky lawyer who assisted the drug kingpin Walter White in money laundering and a lot of other criminal activities; Now how could this ever be a show about good morals? Well, the thing about this show is how it depicts morals and ethics. It shows us how it isn’t always ‘morally good’ and ‘morally bad’, but it shows us the grey area in the middle and even the parallels between those meant to be moral and immoral. Jimmy McGill constantly skips along the lines of right and wrong. When he was younger he would steal from his father’s register, pull scams on people, and commit other crimes to satisfy his lust for money which he developed after seeing his father getting pushed around and taken advantage of. This behavior would obviously be seen as the unethical behavior of someone with bad morals. His older brother, Chuck McGill, is the one who tried to get Jimmy out of this kind of life, and it worked for a period of time Chuck often tries to present himself as ‘morally superior’ to Jimmy due to his career as a lawyer, but he too has issues with morality. After Jimmy put aside his life of crime, he tried to make the people in his life proud by becoming a lawyer. However, Chuck kept him from joining his law firm as he didn’t believe Jimmy could be a ‘morally good’ lawyer because of his past.

You could argue that Chuck judging Jimmy for his past and refusing him the opportunity to change is unethical. Chuck’s disdain for his younger brother eventually caused the two to have a falling out, and Chuck’s firm ended up stealing two of Jimmy’s high-profile clients. This led to Jimmy forging legal documents in order to make the clients fire Chuck as their lawyer. However, this wasn’t just a petty attack against Chuck, because Jimmy actually wanted the clients to fire Chuck’s firm and hire his love interest Kim Wexler as their lawyer. Chuck McGill does not believe that Jimmy can be a morally good person, ironically being unethical when he tries to stop Jimmy from being a lawyer like him. Jimmy McGill on the other hand, is an immoral person due to his greed, but he has done ethical things to support the ones he loved. When Chuck was suffering from a mental illness, Jimmy was the one who took care of him for years. When Chuck’s firm stole his clients, Jimmy took them back, but not for himself; Jimmy directed the clients toward his love interest, Kim Wexler. This show greatly depicts how morals and ethics are not black and white, you can have good morals and still behave unethically just like you can have bad morals but ethically behave.

Works Cited 

(2015). YouTube. Retrieved February 17, 2023, from https://youtu.be/ImJ9i0TC_Jg.

IMDb.com. (2015, February 8). Better call saul. IMDb. Retrieved February 17, 2023, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3032476/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1

Fight Club (1999) is an American drama and thriller film directed by David Fincher and based on the novel written by Chuck Palahniuk. The film stars Edward Norton as the unnamed Narrator and Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden.

Outlets

Prior to watching Fight Club, I had a similar impression of the film that many people share. Many fans of the film have attributed the film’s message to be about going against the status quo. While that is true, the ‘status quo’ that the film portrays has been misinterpreted. Some fans have said that the modern-day status quo portrayed in the film is the feminization of men and shaming of masculinity; Others say the status quo that is portrayed is the modern-day capitalist system pushing people into living unsatisfied lives, being overworked until death, and there will be people who wish to revolt. In reality, the latter perspective is closer to the actual meaning which I will get into more later.

We are introduced to the film’s Narrator who is meant to be your ‘Average Joe’ that works a typical ‘9 to 5’ job. The Narrator develops insomnia, which hinders his ability to emotionally connect. He starts attending support groups, pretending to suffer from the same life-altering diseases and disorders as the rest of the group. These groups are meant to be an outlet for the Narrator, it helps him sleep, emotionally connect, and escape from his work life.

Knowing this, the film actually seems to be portraying men who are looking for outlets to escape from their everyday lives. In recent decades there has been an increase in young men who, similarly to the Narrator, have been looking for an outlet from their lives. Some end up finding themselves in rabbit holes on the internet that promote primarily misogynistic beliefs. These unhealthy outlets have led to actual acts of violence around the country. The film actually shows something similar to this with the concept of ‘Fight Club’ where men literally fight each other as a means of using violence to escape from their frustrations in life.

Disaffecting

While the film’s message has been misinterpreted with time, there is one thing that most people get right about the message: Dissaffecting from the status quo. The Narrator is stuck in his day-to-day life working at a corporate job, fully immersed in consumerism, and suffering from both insomnia and an inability to connect. While Tyler Durden has some hyper-masculine politics he does say some very important things about the myths of capitalist America:

“We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact.” – Tyler Durden

This is a great representation of the myth of the American Dream, where we are taught that we all can be as rich as the wealthiest people today. In reality, there are those propped up by the privilege and generational wealth that others lack; There will always be a ruling class and a lower class in a capitalist society. While Tyler Durden does spread the idea of modern society emasculating men, which is probably why many do not get the real message, he also has some good thoughts on consumerism and materialism:

“You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your fucking khakis. You’re the all singing, all-dancing crap of the world.” – Tyler Durden

With this last quote, I leave one final thought as well. Consumerism has caused people to care more about material possessions and view them as a means of improving their self-image. We do not need to buy and own the fanciest and most expensive outfits, cars, or other accessories to be happy. To be happy is to be free, but when we are obsessed with our self-image we cannot be free.

Works Cited

Baker, P. C. (2019, November 4). The men who still love “fight club”. The New Yorker. Retrieved February 10, 2023, from https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-men-who-still-love-fight-club

David Fincher. Fight Club by David Fincher (989CI) – Atlas of Places. (n.d.). Retrieved February 10, 2023, from https://www.atlasofplaces.com/cinema/fight-club/

IMDb.com. (1999, October 15). Fight club. IMDb. Retrieved February 10, 2023, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/?ref_=ttpl_ov

Who knew a talking, sword-wielding cat could provide such deep insight into the anxieties we have about our own mortality? Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022) is a sequel to Puss in Boots (2011) a spin-off of the Shrek franchise. The film was directed by Joel Crawford and Januel Mercado; It was written by Paul Fisher, Tommy Swerdlow, and Tom Wheeler.

The Fear of the Inevitable

A cat with nine lives usually has no reason to fear death, until they reach its last life. That is the plot of Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, a swordsman cat seeking a way to literally avoid Death himself by finding the magic wishing star in order to regain his nine lives. However, when given the opportunity to regain his nine lives at the end of the film, he declines; Why is that?

At the beginning of the film, Puss in Boots encounters a scythe-wielding wolf and loses in a duel with him. This strikes fear into the feline as he just came close to his final death, thus causing him to go into retirement. That is until he learns about a wishing star that could grant him his nine lives back. He sets out on the journey with a new friend and an old lover, but still fears the idea of encountering the wolf again.

It isn’t until the three travelers come so close to the star that Puss in Boots realizes that the wolf is Death himself, coming to take his last life. At their final encounter, Puss in Boots has come to the epiphany that he cannot run from his inevitable mortality. Death realizes that Puss has changed from the egotistical cat who believes they will never die and allows him the opportunity to make his wish. However, Puss has come to terms with the inevitable and chooses to destroy the wishing star to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands. He realizes that he only needs one life to spend with the people that he loves.

Final Thoughts: Legacy

While it is grim to think about our inevitable death, it opens our eyes to the life that we can live. Like Puss in Boots, many people worry about the legacy they leave after death. We tend to think that legacies have to be of heroism or great inventions. In reality, legacies can be memories and experiences that live on with our loved ones even after we die. Our lives are a part of a larger web of family, friendships, and relationships that are connected by our shared lives. This web lives so long as there are those that remember us fondly. That is the lesson of Puss in Boots, our impact does not need to be absolutely legendary, but if we have a positive impact on at least one person…that is a great legacy left behind.

Works Cited

IMDb.com. (2022, December 21). Puss in Boots: The last wish. IMDb. Retrieved February 3, 2023, from https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3915174/