One of my favorite shows as of late is Bojack Horseman. Yes, I know I’m very late - the show first aired on Netflix in 2014 and ended in 2020 after a six-season run. I went into the show only having heard of the show’s critical acclaim, and that it was officially added to the canon of adult comedy cartoon programs. I did not expect the astute, timely, relatable portrayals of depression, anxiety, addiction (of any kind, to any substance or feeling), and trauma within the show.
As a quick recap, Bojack Horseman centers around an anthropomorphic horse of the same name, in an alternate universe where humans and animals live side by side for some reason.
Bojack is a “Horny Unicorn’! Son of Butterscotch and Beatrice! Husband to no one! Father to none, that we know of! Standup comedian, actor, crippling alcoholic! A talented charmer and a stupid piece of shit,” to put it lightly. His ~extensive~ Hollywood career, his selfishness, his ~impeccable~ decision making (/s), and his past trauma that continues to emerge have made him into the man (??) he is today. He’s shitty, but he’s real, and the same can be said about virtually all of the characters to the degree on this soulful fever dream of a show.
There are characters that did resonate with me more than others. Although I found myself relating to some of Bojack’s trials and tribulations, I really don’t consider myself to be that oblivious and self-destructive. I found myself more within Diane Nguyen, a 30-something-year-old Vietnamese-American woman from Boston. She goes through a series of significant life changes throughout the show, including a marriage and divorce from the wealthy Mario Lopez-esque Mr. Peanutbutter (a yellow lab), getting an abortion, and working her way from celebrity gossip columnist to consulting writer and producer on a high-profile television show.
Through it all, she deals with lingering trauma from the verbal abuse and routine humiliation she underwent as a child at the hands of her family. From her brothers playing a cruel prank on her by essentially catfishing her and having her sent to her prom with a homeless man, to her father generally being an all around loser who, according to Diane, was “a mean, sadistic alcoholic who never supported anything [she] did and actively delighted in seeing [her] fail”, she was put through the ringer by her family, and she carried this with her for the rest of her life. As someone who can most definitely relate to the struggles of a dysfunctional, avoidant family, I resonated deeply with Diane’s character.
Throughout the show, Diane went on an incredible character arc that mirrored the one I’m currently going through in my own life. Feeling the weight of the world on our shoulders because of the anchors of our past, letting it weigh us down well into the present and even unseen future. Letting our good relationships be sabotaged and letting the bad ones go on for longer than they ever should have. Creative and dynamic and quirky at our best, self destructive toward ourselves and others at our worst. Hating yourself for being too much yet simultaneously lamenting the idea that you may never be enough.
The past 3-4 years have been such a defining period in my journey, and I don’t think myself or Diane have really stopped to appreciate where we’ve been or look back on it proudly. Especially on the moments that were not my brightest, the moments where poor decisions were made in full consciousness. Like Diane, I’ve been struggling a lot with wanting to allow myself to be seen and to be loved - things that are so central to the human experience yet incredibly difficult for us to admit to ourselves that we want to experience. The chains of our past hold us back from those who are reaching out to touch us, to hold us.
When Mr. Blue comes, he stays, and it takes a lot for him to leave, even if only temporarily. In other words, when it rains, it pours.
When you’ve spent so long being denied those things, it’s hard to believe you are capable of reproducing them, or that you’re capable of giving them to someone else. It takes a lot of courage to let yourself exist and live, and to let yourself love and be loved. These are things I’m still kinda teaching myself how to do…and how to do them gracefully, with a sense of gratitude.
“There's no such thing as "bad guys" or "good guys." We're all just guys who do good stuff sometimes and bad stuff sometimes. And all we can do is try to do less bad stuff and more good stuff, but you're never going to be good. Because you're not bad. So, you need to stop using that as an excuse.”
Bojack: “Yeah, well, life’s a bitch and then you die, right?”
Diane: “Sometimes. Sometime’s life’s a bitch and then you keep on living.”