The Color Palette of Breaking Bad... Again!

After researching and giving serious thought to the immense amount of color usage in Breaking Bad, I haven’t been able to help but keep thinking about the subject.  The show is so heavily layered with color representation that I have decided another blog post is appropriate.  Although not as rampant as Walt or Jesse’s character color coding, other characters still have their repetitive hues that help describe where the plot and that person is standing.

Skylar, although his wife, is for all sense of purposes, the overall protagonist for the show.  Walt goes in and out of dealing with hardcore, scarier criminals, but his wife is always there causing conflict with Walt’s constant decision making.  In the beginning of the series, Skylar can be seen wearing a lot of blues, this emphasizes her characteristic that is present in here name. Skylar as a character, combined with blue, can be easily correlated with the actual sky.  This is significant and very representative: as I said before, Skylar is always there creating conflict for Walt, just how the sky is always constantly above us.

One thing I forgot to mention in my last post was an extra thought on Jesse Pinkman.  I stated that criminality can be correlated with red, since he saw himself as a full-fledge criminal (which he finds later is not so much the case).  So Jesse wearing red constantly shows his mindset, he displays himself as a criminal.  However the color in his name is pink, he is a criminal, but he also has a lot of good traits within himself.  Jesse, who has a less absolute mindset than Walt (who sees himself as good always: White) is constantly in conflict of identity between a good guy, and a bad guy: Pink, the mix of red and white.

One that I cannot so much figure out is the connection with Gus, and the color yellow.  He can be seen in his light yellow dress shirt, usually when he is not displaying his criminal self.  Somehow related and yet contradictory, Walt and Jesse’s hazmat suits are yellow while cooking for Gus.  I plan to follow this relationship as we see more and more from Gus in this here fourth, and gut wrenching season.

Thanks again!