“Always the desert …”: a content analysis of the key role of the desert in the narrative seriality and visual storytelling of Breaking Bad (AMC, 2008-2013). Speakers: Dr Jane Lovell (CCCU) and Dr Ken Fox (CCCU)

The worldwide success of the AMC series Breaking Bad focused much attention on the long form television series as a method of twenty-first century storytelling that captured the zeitgeist but also extended the range of the telling and the tale.
In this paper Jane Lovell and Ken Fox argue that key to understanding the narrative structure’s seriality in Breaking Bad and the story’s visual power is the role played by the desert in the unfolding drama.

Following Beck’s* (2001) analysis of the desert as trope and terrain we will employ a content analysis of the series to examine when and how the desert is used to develop the narrative, confirm or disrupt seriality, and focus on its use for symbolic and intertextual layering.

* Beck, J. (2001) “Without Form and Void: the American Desert as Trope and Terrain” Nepantla: Views from South, Volume 2, Issue 1.