Because…
We’re bored.
Just kidding. This is a serious animated series, suitable for people who feel disillusioned with real life but don’t want to immerse themselves too deeply in the meaningless silliness of the fictional world.
I know that everyone needs entertainment after a long day at the lecture hall or the office; some may even have had to try hard not to strangle a customer. At times like that, you need something cheerful. BoJack Horseman doesn’t quite provide that—or only partially, if your sense of joy comes from dark, sarcastic humor.
It is an American animated series with heavy investment in content, humorously yet profoundly reflecting existential issues, cultural differences, individualism, marital conflicts, and the tension between “what I want” and “what I need” through “bizarre” characters that some people may find ridiculous. But trust me, it forces you to think a lot.
Of course, there are elements of substance use and sex in this series (very characteristic of American animation).
We can approach philosophy in a new form.
Plato once said: “(actually, I don’t remember what he said after some time reading Plato in 60 Minutes),” so I chose to watch BoJack Horseman, a series that provides me with basic insights into the signs/conditions of humans losing direction, feeling confused, or terrified when facing a meaningless, absurd world. Or it sketches an uncontrollable chaos existing alongside the rules of a country heavily shaped by liberalism.
What happened to BoJack—a bad-tempered old horse, a washed-up yet wealthy and crude actor—can only be understood by watching the seasons, going through events that at first glance seem very STUPID, yet they form philosophical links between individuals. Not only BoJack—every character has problems with their own sense of existence in this life. For most of their lives, they fumble through patchwork events and careless interactions within relationships, only to realize emptiness and alienation when they are alone.
We live in a life that appears chaotic, with complex, overlapping structures, yet it turns out that lives connect with one another, so that one person’s personal problems become directly or indirectly entangled with another’s. Before trying to explain that structure, why don’t we take a simpler approach by watching each episode of BoJack Horseman? Through the way they confront things, we realize that the events around us are not superficial or isolated at all—they are layers upon layers of dependent origination.
For those who have child issues, childhood trauma, or something similar.
When you are beaten, you cry. When you are scolded, you cry. If you are a well-behaved enough child, living with and accepting outdated social prejudices, you may grow up to become something like a “human being,” yet not brave enough to face the wounds from the past and overcome them.
*Spoiler warning*
So what about a child born from a mistake, growing up in a family with addicted parents, carrying abandonment issues, living in material abundance but never being acknowledged… (not just BoJack). Well, the series shows us the differences between generations in how they deal with childhood issues (oh, so maybe BoJack’s father and mother also went through childhood trauma, and everything is simply the continuation of behavior across generations?!?), but their lives, overall… suck. Some say the show criticizes deviant parenting behaviors; others say it simply reflects reality.
In my personal opinion, even if you grew up in an environment more toxic than a radioactive dump affected by Chernobyl, in the end you still have the autonomy to grow up and change yourself for the better—and out there will always be people with wounds like yours; they will share them, and everyone will heal together… wrong script. Everything is still very bad, because family factors seriously affect behavior; they truly suffered for a long portion of their lives. Look at how Diane Nguyen deals with her marriage—could it be influenced by the toxic life in her seven-person household? *Oops, spoiler again.*
If you have Asian parents, you can watch two episodes with them every Friday night—who knows, maybe you’ll only be subjected to verbal abuse instead of having to endure physical abuse as well.
It’s sarcastic enough for people to see it as “cool.”
I judge a certain group of people: they believe that mocking anything automatically makes the subject of mockery seem cooler. People easily move from satire to attack, and then, almost like an innate dark instinct, humans gang up and take pleasure in watching a weaker individual being viciously attacked.
But that’s not the kind of “cool” I’m talking about. Although it caters to the tastes of part of the audience, I’m talking about the kind of cool that comes from seeing satire woven in with elegance. People feel a real connection between the satirical situation and the object being satirized, and it leaves viewers with open-ended perspectives that force them to think about it. That’s when satire is effective and human intelligence is not wasted. Each character has their own distinct sarcastic mannerisms. Perhaps the character who delivers the most irony is BoJack. He’s awful, selfish, constantly drunk, which makes us easily associate him with washed-up stars and their shallow, naive statements. But BoJack Horseman is more than that; perhaps thanks to film and television, he has developed a fairly complete worldview about life (even if that worldview is somewhat melodramatic), and at the same time he is quite “deep” and has stances on social issues: feminism, right-wing policies, and so on. However, I would argue that Herb is actually the true symbol of irony and satire; BoJack’s satire comes from Herb, I think so.
Anyways, there are some particularly striking satirical lines that I can quote here to show you how valuable they are in the context of the show. For example, the way Diane Nguyen and the mouse Stefani talk about Diane’s moral absolutism:
“You know what your problem is? You hold everyone to an impossible standard, including yourself. It’s super helpful for writing heartache shakedowns, and clickbait takedowns—but totally toxic for your personal life and internalized sense of self-worth, girl.”
The media is truly wonderful.
You need to be able to see redemption.
It’s quite humorous how people expect redemption from specific individuals while vaguely brushing aside their own mistakes—doesn’t that way of living satirize the very meaning of our existence? Returning to BoJack Horseman, you’ll also realize that it’s never too late for people to try to become better. BoJack is an addict, an asshole, a scoundrel… but he feels remorse for his actions, even though that remorse has remained like a prematurely dead caterpillar trapped in a cocoon for decades. Still, this middle-aged man can start over—what matters is whether he’s ready to start over.
When I first watched the show, I didn’t find BoJack’s character design particularly unlikable—or maybe I suck too, so I sympathize (?). In general, though, this guy is quite irritating to some people. It seems BoJo only knows how to complain and then look for escape in drug highs and drunkenness. But then he chooses to change—not a sudden transformation, but a process of questioning himself day by day. After each mistake, he becomes aware of it and tries to reclaim his own sense of responsibility. He even makes the effort to go to rehab. I’m not sure you’ll redeem your health (back pain at 18?) after watching this show, but at least you might find a way to reconcile with your guilt-ridden patterns of thought.
Besides that, there are a few other humanistic reasons which, if I wrote them out, you’d probably think, “Wow, is this the Film Recommendations section on People magazine back in the 2010s?” But I’ll tell them anyway:
You never know who will become important in your life: BoJack, a washed-up actor; Todd, a 25-year-old unemployed guy crashing at someone’s place for years after a Halloween party; Diane Nguyen, a freelance writer completely unknown to the public, tormented by her “socialist” ideas (just imagine me using air quotes with two fingers to make it more ironic); Princess Carolyn, BoJack’s ex-girlfriend and agent, working her whole life and unable to have children despite trying so hard… What makes them connected to one another when they share almost no common traits in their defining personalities? They hold each other up amid the countless absurdities of life.
“It takes a long time to realize how truly miserable you are. And even longer to see that it doesn’t have to be that way. Only after you give up everything can you begin to find a way to be happy.”
When we place too many expectations on the other person, we become disappointed. The love we give them is sometimes blind in that way. On the other hand, we unintentionally hurt each other through concealment (in the name of “protecting him/her”). Conflict is fine too—we can work through it. That’s not how movies operate; it’s a belief that guides how we act.
Above are a few (not all) reasons why I chose to watch BoJack Horseman. If you also have time to burn like I do, burn it on BoJack.