Page 7 - IAV Digital Magazine #554

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
‘Breaking Bad’ Statues Shine Light On Actors, Albuquerque
By Morgan Lee
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Bronze statues of mythi- cal methampheta- mine cookers Walter White and Jesse Pinkman were installed at a convention cen- ter in Albuquerque on Friday to cele- brate the “Breaking Bad” TV series and its entertainment legacy, winning applause in a city that played its own gritty sup- porting role.
Local politicians including Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller mixed with “Breaking Bad” stars Bryan Cranston, Aaron
Paul and director Vince Gilligan to help unveil the artwork, donated by Gilligan and Sony Pictures.
The 2008-2013 show and its ongoing prequel “Better Call Saul” helped fuel a ren- aissance in film- making across New Mexico, while also cutting close to Albuquerque’s real-life struggles with drug addic- tion and crime.
Gilligan said he recognized that the statues of “two fictional, infamous meth dealers” won’t be universally cher- ished in New Mexico.
“In all serious- ness, no doubt some folks are going to say, ‘Wow, just what our city needed.’ And I get that,” Gillian said. “I see two of the finest actors America has ever pro- duced. I see them, in charac- ter, as two larger- than-life tragic fig- ures, cautionary tales.”
Still a fixture on Netflix, AMC’s “Breaking Bad” follows the fiction- al underworld tra- jectory of a high- school science teacher, played by Cranston, and a former student, played by Paul, as they team up to produce and distribute meth
amid violent, cliffhanger plot twists.
The show and its iconic lead char- acters already are lionized on T- shirts and airport merchandise, while tour guides in Albuquerque shepherd fans to former film loca- tions in a replica of the RV from the show that doubled as a meth lab.
New Mexico has long struggled against the toll of addiction, with more than 43,000 deaths linked to alcohol and drug overdoses in the last three decades. Albuquerque also currently con- tends with a record-setting spate of homi- cides.
Surging overdose deaths from meth and fentanyl sur- passed heroin and prescription opioids as the leading causes of drug overdose deaths across the state in 2020.
Keller heralded the positive eco- nomic impact of “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul” on
Albuquerque, acknowledging the dollars and delight it brings to a city he jokingly called “Tamale- wood.”
“While the stories might be fictional ... jobs are real every single day,” Keller said. “The city is also a character. ... We see ourselves in so many ways, good and bad.”
Republican state Rep. Rod Montoya of Farmington said he admires Cranston as an actor but that the statues bring the wrong kind of attention.
“I’m glad New Mexico got the business, but really?” Montoya said. “We’re going down the road of literally glorifying meth makers?”
He also ques- tioned the logic of the tribute after Albuquerque in June 2020 removed a statue of Spanish con- queror Juan de Oñate.
Demonstrators tried to topple that bronze artwork in denunciation of Oñate’s brutal
treatment of Native Americans roughly 500 years ago. A fight that broke out at the protest resulted in gunfire that injured one man.
New Mexico politicians, includ- ing Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, have pinned their hopes on the film industry to boost economic oppor- tunity in a state with the highest unemployment rate in the nation.
New Mexico’s film and TV industry recently hit a new production peak, with record-set- ting in-state spending of $855 million for the fis- cal year ending in June. Recent video projects drawn to the state include the Netflix series “Stranger Things.”
New Mexico offers a rebate of between 25% and 35% of in-state spending for video production that helps film- makers large and small underwrite their work. Incentive pay- ments crested at $148 million in 2019.
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