Why We Need More Characters Like Marie Schrader On Television

We all know the psychology of each single character on Breaking Bad could fill the pages of a medical journal without question. However, one particular character stayed with me above all else. The reason? I believe that her most powerful secret was a complete friggin' accident.

It took a lot of convincing and a rough week with mono for me to finally succumb to the phenomenon that is "Breaking Bad". And sure enough, I was hooked -- no pun intended. The more I watched, the more I discovered how this show dealt with the complexity of human nature, and of the human psyche. Throughout the course of the show, Vince Gilligan demonstrates the power of a character living with demons completely antithetical to their presentational self. If you've watched the show, there's no doubt a character you love, hate, or even relate to. To my surprise, a woman clad in shades of purple struck a chord of my heartstrings that I had never experienced before.

Marie Schrader is the "uptight" wife of a DEA agent, who shares her number of issues with her fellow characters. Marie clearly has obsessive compulsive habits, as well as a desperate need for control. She is condescending at times, always ready to have the last word, and suffers from kleptomania. But while we don't learn much of Marie's backstory, her relationships are clearly defined as standing in the other person's shadow. She lives in the world of the second fiddle to her husband, constantly put down when she does nothing more than attempt to please him whenever possible. When we first meet Marie, her sister Skyler is pregnant with her second child…and it becomes obvious that Marie and Hank haven't had borne any fruit of the loins yet. It's clear Marie's character suffers from a lack of validation, and probably imagined her life as being a whole lot different. However, the more I watched the show, the more I realized why I *really* loved her character so much.

At first I wasn't sure if I was just nitpicking for the sake of fangirling, so I asked many of my fellow BB fans if they noticed anything in particular about Marie as well. They asked me what the hell I was talking about, and only then was I truly impressed with Gilligan's writing. While I speculate this to be unintentionally obvious, "Breaking Bad" gave the world a character suffering from an eating disorder….and that's something I hadn't ever seen done so well on television. Such a move was no doubt daring, and made sense when given the tone of the show, as well as the tendency to confront pretty much every mental illness under the sun. Yet, this disease is still misconstrued all too often for a choice rather than a legitimate mental disability; Gilligan clearly understood and respected this. As someone in recovery from an eating disorder, I couldn't believe how accurately she was portrayed. Marie's character is the prime example of someone deep into the disorder that is able to mask her problem with several other small ones. Her external traits mask the disorder raging inside of her, but directorial choices by Gilligan prove to be brilliant and meticulous.

Right from the first episode, Marie exudes this terrifying reality: when hidden under the cloak of more obvious "problems", it is easy to ignore the real disease. And even more so, I had to wonder if this was deliberately done. Given that Gilligan is no doubt an incredibly smart writer, I wonder if he even meant for her character to have such an exorbitant amount of depth. Was I simply being contrived? But from Marie's abruptly delivered first line of dialogue: (i.e. her sister Skyler's barely visible baby bump: "She's showing a little."), it's clear there's an issue Marie has she insists on hiding. She takes great pride in displaying her self-control over food, asking about fat content and calories, and never failing to change the subject when confronted with her discomfort. Now, of course all of this could be written off as simply "bitchy". It's easy to gloss over the look on her face when Hank offers Marie a cube of cheese, only to immediately-and embarrassingly- try to shift focus. But over and over again, Marie's relationship with food, weight, and health consciousness are referenced. In each scene, there's an obvious air of inner conflict with Marie. She projects this struggle, though, into obsessive-compulsive habits, steals small tokens from people's houses, and even delivers some of the most degrading lines about weight/body image/food. I pondered the idea that I was looking in to her character too hard, but then a certain scene from the third season confirmed my hypothesis. In the scene (Season 3 episode 8), the White family sit with Marie in the hospital cafeteria, all clearly traumatized by the aftermath of Hank being attacked. As the family encourages her to eat with them, Marie stares down at her plate of fried eggs. The camera cuts to a close-up of the greasy food, and then to Marie, who immediately picks up a fork and begins a rant about dirt that no one else can see. As her family tries to discourage her from going apes*** at the hospital staff, the tension in Marie rises and her OCD takes center stage.

Okay, let's nitpick this for a minute. Why would Gilligan choose to show Marie in a moment of vulnerability in this particular setting? Why not reveal her emotional nakedness by giving us a klepto scene in the hospital gift shop? Well, this is because Gilligan's motif for this show is to give blatant authenticity, not vulnerability for the sake of sympathy. In their moments most raw, Gilligan's characters are stripped of their guises and the viewer is given permission to see the character for who they really are. We are then allowed to bond with the character. When Marie began the monologue about the fork's water spots, my eyes filled with tears because I finally felt like someone got it right… Seeing Marie struggle with the right words to distract her family broke my heart with empathy. I related to her in a way that I found incredibly raw. Regardless of the show's candid nature, Marie's inability to give this part of herself a voice was even more of a demonstration as to the destructive role the eating disorder plays. What's more, her strength to keep the secret at bay presents itself in a way that really makes Marie unlikable at times. However, for those of us who have/had an eating disorder, you'll agree when I say that that's something we know all too well. When it comes to keeping all of your triggers, all of your behaviors, all of your worries and moments of self-doubt, at bay and in silence? At best, it's enough to make you feel damn near psychotic. In Marie Schrader, I saw a woman with personal demons I could relate to. But wouldn't Gilligan want to make this more obvious for a desirably profound impact? Why not confront the issue directly? Why not put this trait of Marie's front and center? To put it bluntly, because the effect wouldn't have been as hard. We wouldn't have appreciated Marie as a character as much. Sadly, the stigma around eating disorders would prevent the viewers from taking Marie as seriously. This is because eating disorders are still feared rather than understood.

When I began my own journey into recovery in 2012, I was more like Marie than I realized. Even though I'm almost 20 years younger than her character, I related to the secrecy, the ability to pull focus from behaviors I was too ashamed to confront, and I truly believed that I was merely admirable for my willpower towards "health-consciousness". I became paranoid that people simply wouldn't understand my disease because of the amount of ignorance still attached to it. Desperate to resolve the issue on my own, convinced that I didn't really have a problem, I became manic and depressed. I began to develop OCD, and I lost many relationships as a result of trying to keep my eating disorder a secret. After years of struggling and secrecy, I have finally gained insight into the dangers of my disease. I never understood how easily one could fall into the trap of one until I took the time to recognize what made my own Ed tick.

The more I went through my own recovery, the more I realized the oxymoronic reputation eating disorders have gained. Triggers remain everywhere, all around us, 24/7. They cease to diminish, especially in a world where (sadly still) there's a focus on the external self. I learned that the most dangerous part of having an eating disorder is not realizing you have one until it is too late…and for many, it's often brushed off as a diet gone too far. We gloss over magazines that promise us a happy future as long as we lose that last 15, all the while disguising destructive criticism as praise. We applaud one another for meals we've skipped, we challenge to up the intensity or resistance on the elliptical, and let's face it: we have ALL looked up to see if the South Beach Fat Flush from "Mean Girls" actually works. (No, it doesn't.) But even at my sickest, something still just made no sense to me. I didn't understand how we could live in a world full of such hypocrisy and secrecy, where so many people feel forced to live in shame because of the fact that eating disorders are still glorified as the ultimate form of self-control.

The fact of the matter is, eating disorders will always end in death unless dealt with in proper terms of recovery. They are enticing, destructive, and every bit as deadly as Walter White's blue crystal. What I saw Vince Gilligan achieve was among the impossible; he gave awareness to an issue without directly addressing it. Thankfully, the battle against eating disorders seems to have gained more ammunition over the past few years; thanks to advocates in the celebrity world like Demi Lovato, or astounding authors like Jenni Schaefer. The tireless effort of those in the eating disorder awareness community is beginning to finally unravel the reality of what an eating disorder is.

In Marie Schrader, I believe the world of Hollywood is finally beginning to take steps in giving eating disorders the validity that they deserve. This hidden part of Marie's character makes her all the more powerful in the world of television. She reveals to us the truth that demons reside in all of us that we refuse to reveal to anyone; more importantly, she is fully manifested proof of how dangerous eating disorders can be. Complementary to the secrets that every one of our characters hide in the show, I believe this is a giant step towards mental illness being addressed (as well as portrayed) in the media. Well played, Gilligan. Well played.