Casting Martin Shkreli as the lone villain in a drama of drugs and greed - Breaking Bad meets Wolf of Wall Street - is not only about affordable healthcare, it's also about how we expect the one per cent to behave.
On Thursday morning, the former CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals fronted US Congress to answer questions about why he had raised the price of Daraprim - a drug used to treat toxoplasmosis, a disease that can be fatal to H.I.V. patients - from under $20 to $750 per tablet.
Shkreli, you'll remember, has the title of most hated man in America. Even Donald Trump has lined up to take a swing. Trump, the son of a wealthy New York property developer, called Shkreli, the son of an Albanian janitor, a "spoiled brat".
A bit like Trump, Shkreli seems to enjoy playing the villain - his media persona is unrepentant, outspoken, almost self-parodying. The 32-year-old broadcasts online videos from a darkened corporate headquarters and comes across as brainy and awkward. In a time of lingering dismay about the excesses of American capitalism and the causes of the Global Financial Crisis, Shkreli, a former Wall St hedge fund manager, seems to personify everything that is wrong with the system - he is arrogant, rude and smug, a tech-heavy dude bro throwing down lighting bolts without compassion for the peasant class below.
But worst of all, he doesn't pander to our need to believe in corporate social conscience. He doesn't perform his compassion. He seems bemused by our naivety.
On Thursday, this seemed to reach its absurd conclusion, with Republican and Democrat senators lecturing Shkreli on his bad behaviour, while the "pharma bro" came across as something between Superman's Lex Luthor and Austen Powers' Dr Evil - smirking at the elected representatives, mocking their august institution, and showing utter contempt for liberal platitudes....
http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/hating-on-pharma-bro-martin-shkreli-is-a-distraction/7146032