It’s awards season and Donald Trump calls The White House home. The math practically does itself. Awards show after awards show is smiting President Trump this time of year. This is how democrats lost the election. Now Judd is trying to lose his audience.https://t.co/OUQoA4mTab — Peter Sauer (@CoffeeAddict40) February 9, 2025 The latest example? Saturday … The post Why Vince Gilligan’s Anti-Trump Rant Got One Thing Right appeared first on Hollywood in Toto.
It’s awards season and Donald Trump calls The White House home.
The math practically does itself.
Awards show after awards show is smiting President Trump this time of year.
This is how democrats lost the election. Now Judd is trying to lose his audience.https://t.co/OUQoA4mTab
— Peter Sauer (@CoffeeAddict40) February 9, 2025
The latest example? Saturday night’s Writers Guild of America (WGA) awards ceremony in Los Angeles. The gala featured several artists taking jabs at President Trump.
The evening’s honoree, “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan, used his time accepting the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television Writing Achievement to do the same.
He also expanded the conversation to take a long, hard look at Hollywood content. And he made a point that people across the political spectrum should heed.
“In our profoundly divided country, everybody seems to agree on one thing: there are too many real-life bad guys, it’s just we’re living in different realities so we’ve all got different lists.”
He made it clear that the current President is one of said bad guys. He didn’t stop there.
“As a writer, speaking to a room full of writers, I have a proposal; it certainly won’t fix everything but I think it’s a start. I say we write more good guys … For decades we made the villains too sexy,” with Darth Vader and Hannibal Lecter as examples, and “viewers everywhere, all around the world, pay attention. They say here’s this badass, I want to be that cool. When that happens, fictional bad guys stop being the precautionary tales they were intended to be. God help us, they’ve become aspirational.”
He’s right.
You can name check his “Breaking Bad” antihero Walter White or Tony Soprano, for starters. What about Ray Donovan? Dexter? Don Draper? Jax Teller? Vic Mackey?
And let’s not even start on Hollywood’s love affair with hit men. How many movies ask us to root for professional killers?
Too many.
Gilligan also shared a note of caution. The task at hand won’t be easy.
“Made-up bad guys are fun and they’re easier to write well.”
Yes, it’s more challenging to write Boy Scout-style characters. It’s one reason the recent iteration of Superman hasn’t been a complete success. The late ’70s version struck the perfect note, with Christopher Reeve capturing the aw, shucks DC Comics hero.
Henry Cavill’s Superman was darker and more conflicted. It’s all modern writers know how to pen. Perhaps that’s why director James Gunn is rebooting the character later this year.
We do need more heroes on screens large and small. Yet there’s a resistance built into the equation. Remember how the media savaged the fact-based story “Sound of Freedom,” involving the heroics of Tim Ballard?
We live in a deeply cynical age where heroes are often treated shabbily or framed as corny or fake.
Great writers can upend that notion. Maybe Gilligan, famous for “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul,” should lead the way.
The post Why Vince Gilligan’s Anti-Trump Rant Got One Thing Right appeared first on Hollywood in Toto.
