I Never Got Over Bojack Horseman
By Emily Nunez
October 31, 2024
Redeemability versus familiarity in a masterpiece cartoon
“You are all the things that are wrong with you,” says Todd, the adorable sidekick and roommate, once his unending patience meets its match: Bojack Horseman’s incredible ability to keep screwing up.
Hurt people hurt people, who hurt people, who hurt people. My head spins at the thought of the misery cycle. It spirals into infinity, the source of the pain becoming more and more indiscernible with every person wronged, dignity molested, and life blundered. We need blame as we do air and water. Every evil is only an unlucky child, rotted and staled, dogged and oxidized into something bitter; or does that only make bad people easier to digest?
Did you mean that, Todd? After all we’ve been through, are we the problem?
“I’m poison. I come from poison. There is poison inside me.”
As I was watching Bojack Horseman for the first time, and simmering in the heights of melancholy, I wished he would get better. Diane, the ghostwriter for Bojack’s autobiography, became perhaps the closest thing to a best friend that Bojack could have hoped for as they acquainted themselves throughout the project, one whose care was unconditional and tolerance unmatched. She came to know him like few others did. And like Diane, I wished for his recovery, because the good moments they shared were too profound to let go of, despite the downward spiral that followed their short-lived existence. Recovery from oneself, as if he were his own disease. As if all his mistakes were something other than himself, and why even call intentional decisions mistakes when they’re wrong? As if his behavior was not a product of his own consciousness, but a reaction to all his damage.
Was he malicious? Well, no. Not malicious. Careless? Maybe. But that’s making his case too easy. Surely he was some sort of in-between; purgatory manifested in a man. We coddle him as a sick man instead of a sick man, who finds pseudo solace in self-pity. We feel that under all the trauma and drugs and depression that our protagonist-antagonist was really the thoughtful, charming person (horseman?) we wanted him to be.
He’s almost there by season six, isn’t he? Bojack’s infuriating decisions and fragile mental health increasingly wreck havoc on his life throughout the show, from his sinking career as a 90s sitcom star to his addictions to every last interpersonal relationship he manages to contrive. In the show’s final season, Bojack finally checks himself into rehab, lands a job as an acting professor, and does some time in prison. Things finally seem to be falling into place. But does this character development cancel out all the lives he irrevocably stained? The narcissist with self-esteem in hell — the utmost manipulative sort, the abuser, the predator, the killer — if you will; do all these versions of him get to rest in peace because “rehab was supposed to be a fresh start?” Is confronting your issues really salvation enough?
Bojack was a friend — a bad one — and a bloodless father — a worse one. Yet those relationships must have been born from some good essence, floating around Bojack and escaping him with every breeze. Sometimes the essence returns in fleeting moments. There, he manages to apologize, but the good in him is only a distraction from his way of being; it is the nicotine that tethers his loved ones to what is truly a transactional relationship. lt’s hard for him, maybe hardly possible, to care about people for their own sake. People, to him, are almost individual experiments to distract himself from chronic existential dread, whether they serve him briefly, or for all the best years of their lives, like Princess Caroline. She was his loyal lover and agent of nearly a decade whom he never took more seriously than the next woman. Down the line she confesses to Bojack, with an air of acceptance of the course of her life, “I have loved you for 25 years, and I never loved anyone better.” Bojack’s truth, on the cynical other hand, was “I don’t love you. You don’t love me. We’re just two lonely people trying to hate ourselves a little less.”
It is his way of being, much more than his way of life, that dooms Bojack to destroy everything he touches. And despite it all, as an audience we are just as foolish as his friends; we love him anyway. He became the face of a timeless question — a lovable and despicable dichotomy: is Bojack redeemable only because we know him so well? Does our history together, from his starring role in Horsin’ Around to his final career at Wesleyan University, trick us into forgiving someone unforgivable, or does it give us some true insight into Bojack’s goodness, deep down? I can’t shake the truth to the forefront of my mind.
Human judgment is hopelessly biased, like the last images Bojack sees as he sinks deeper and deeper into the mansion pool. His eyes are bloodshot from the alcohol and chlorine water, halfheartedly squinting up toward the rippling, darkening, receding surface. Those blurry moments between life and death, they may just be the clearest we can see things when we cling to the memories of a person, to the potential, to the idol. In those moments, we yearn to save them, to fix them. One can rationalize their behavior in countless ways, until it's impressive the excuses we conjure up. Clarity comes from being conveniently just outside of the relationship, to hear their wrongdoings and write them off without a second thought.
But not so fast. How can the judgment of the outsider be any closer to the truth than one’s own, when they don’t know him like we do? And just like that, the debate lives eternally on through Bojack’s sympathizers. His pain, his regret, it means something to us. We’re people that will forgive anything as long as our betrayers express some remorse. Or, maybe, it is the self-worth that never runs deep enough to reject the apology. We forgive you, Bojack, for Penny, for Gina, for Hollyhock, for Herb, for Sarah Lynn, because you hate yourself, you poor thing.
That can’t be right…
There’s an obsession in cinema now with the antihero — and this seems necessary. We can’t get enough of sympathizing with our demons. Pitiful yet piercing sound snippets from Bojack are reused tirelessly online:
“What happened, Bojack?”
“The same thing that always happens. You didn’t know me. You fell in love with me. And now you know me.”
*
“One day, you’re gonna look around and you’re gonna realize that everybody loves you, but nobody likes you. And that is the loneliest feeling in the world.”
*
“I spend a lot of time with the real me, and believe me, nobody's gonna love that guy."
This speaks to the real reason why we can’t hate Bojack. It’s not because we forgive him, or condone him, or admire him. We relate to him. Not to his life, but his dark hours, his self esteem, the way he really does try sometimes, doesn’t he? The way he is stuck with himself. We watch Bojack because few shows capture the bleak truth to the same extent. Because somehow those hybrid animals are so human that it hurts to watch, to be forced to acknowledge our shitty tendencies and blue minds. Through Bojack, we relive the last time we ever spoke to someone, the repressed parts of childhood, the things we uttered and still wish to take back. The very moments that mutate our brain chemistry unfold to “Mr. Blue” as long-time friends become strangers in the show’s final scene, to “Wild Horses” as everything good happens elsewhere, to “Stars” as a beaten soul finds freedom in the possibility of death, stepping on the gas and letting go of the steering wheel. And from this cartoon, I keep the characters and songs that became my galaxy, the one I transport to when my thoughts vignette my eyesight as they take me far away. We watch Bojack to finally hear our internal monologue aloud, and “fetishize [our] own sadness” right beside him. ■
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“You are all the things that are wrong with you,” says Todd, the adorable sidekick and roommate, once his unending patience meets its match: Bojack Horseman’s incredible ability to keep screwing up.
Hurt people hurt people, who hurt people, who hurt people. My head spins at the thought of the misery cycle. It spirals into infinity, the source of the pain becoming more and more indiscernible with every person wronged, dignity molested, and life blundered. We need blame as we do air and water. Every evil is only an unlucky child, rotted and staled, dogged and oxidized into something bitter; or does that only make bad people easier to digest?
Did you mean that, Todd? After all we’ve been through, are we the problem?
“I’m poison. I come from poison. There is poison inside me.”
As I was watching Bojack Horseman for the first time, and simmering in the heights of melancholy, I wished he would get better. Diane, the ghostwriter for Bojack’s autobiography, became perhaps the closest thing to a best friend that Bojack could have hoped for as they acquainted themselves throughout the project, one whose care was unconditional and tolerance unmatched. She came to know him like few others did. And like Diane, I wished for his recovery, because the good moments they shared were too profound to let go of, despite the downward spiral that followed their short-lived existence. Recovery from oneself, as if he were his own disease. As if all his mistakes were something other than himself, and why even call intentional decisions mistakes when they’re wrong? As if his behavior was not a product of his own consciousness, but a reaction to all his damage.
Was he malicious? Well, no. Not malicious. Careless? Maybe. But that’s making his case too easy. Surely he was some sort of in-between; purgatory manifested in a man. We coddle him as a sick man instead of a sick man, who finds pseudo solace in self-pity. We feel that under all the trauma and drugs and depression that our protagonist-antagonist was really the thoughtful, charming person (horseman?) we wanted him to be.
He’s almost there by season six, isn’t he? Bojack’s infuriating decisions and fragile mental health increasingly wreck havoc on his life throughout the show, from his sinking career as a 90s sitcom star to his addictions to every last interpersonal relationship he manages to contrive. In the show’s final season, Bojack finally checks himself into rehab, lands a job as an acting professor, and does some time in prison. Things finally seem to be falling into place. But does this character development cancel out all the lives he irrevocably stained? The narcissist with self-esteem in hell — the utmost manipulative sort, the abuser, the predator, the killer — if you will; do all these versions of him get to rest in peace because “rehab was supposed to be a fresh start?” Is confronting your issues really salvation enough?
Bojack was a friend — a bad one — and a bloodless father — a worse one. Yet those relationships must have been born from some good essence, floating around Bojack and escaping him with every breeze. Sometimes the essence returns in fleeting moments. There, he manages to apologize, but the good in him is only a distraction from his way of being; it is the nicotine that tethers his loved ones to what is truly a transactional relationship. lt’s hard for him, maybe hardly possible, to care about people for their own sake. People, to him, are almost individual experiments to distract himself from chronic existential dread, whether they serve him briefly, or for all the best years of their lives, like Princess Caroline. She was his loyal lover and agent of nearly a decade whom he never took more seriously than the next woman. Down the line she confesses to Bojack, with an air of acceptance of the course of her life, “I have loved you for 25 years, and I never loved anyone better.” Bojack’s truth, on the cynical other hand, was “I don’t love you. You don’t love me. We’re just two lonely people trying to hate ourselves a little less.”
It is his way of being, much more than his way of life, that dooms Bojack to destroy everything he touches. And despite it all, as an audience we are just as foolish as his friends; we love him anyway. He became the face of a timeless question — a lovable and despicable dichotomy: is Bojack redeemable only because we know him so well? Does our history together, from his starring role in Horsin’ Around to his final career at Wesleyan University, trick us into forgiving someone unforgivable, or does it give us some true insight into Bojack’s goodness, deep down? I can’t shake the truth to the forefront of my mind.
Human judgment is hopelessly biased, like the last images Bojack sees as he sinks deeper and deeper into the mansion pool. His eyes are bloodshot from the alcohol and chlorine water, halfheartedly squinting up toward the rippling, darkening, receding surface. Those blurry moments between life and death, they may just be the clearest we can see things when we cling to the memories of a person, to the potential, to the idol. In those moments, we yearn to save them, to fix them. One can rationalize their behavior in countless ways, until it's impressive the excuses we conjure up. Clarity comes from being conveniently just outside of the relationship, to hear their wrongdoings and write them off without a second thought.
But not so fast. How can the judgment of the outsider be any closer to the truth than one’s own, when they don’t know him like we do? And just like that, the debate lives eternally on through Bojack’s sympathizers. His pain, his regret, it means something to us. We’re people that will forgive anything as long as our betrayers express some remorse. Or, maybe, it is the self-worth that never runs deep enough to reject the apology. We forgive you, Bojack, for Penny, for Gina, for Hollyhock, for Herb, for Sarah Lynn, because you hate yourself, you poor thing.
That can’t be right…
There’s an obsession in cinema now with the antihero — and this seems necessary. We can’t get enough of sympathizing with our demons. Pitiful yet piercing sound snippets from Bojack are reused tirelessly online:
“What happened, Bojack?”
“The same thing that always happens. You didn’t know me. You fell in love with me. And now you know me.”
*
“One day, you’re gonna look around and you’re gonna realize that everybody loves you, but nobody likes you. And that is the loneliest feeling in the world.”
*
“I spend a lot of time with the real me, and believe me, nobody's gonna love that guy."
This speaks to the real reason why we can’t hate Bojack. It’s not because we forgive him, or condone him, or admire him. We relate to him. Not to his life, but his dark hours, his self esteem, the way he really does try sometimes, doesn’t he? The way he is stuck with himself. We watch Bojack because few shows capture the bleak truth to the same extent. Because somehow those hybrid animals are so human that it hurts to watch, to be forced to acknowledge our shitty tendencies and blue minds. Through Bojack, we relive the last time we ever spoke to someone, the repressed parts of childhood, the things we uttered and still wish to take back. The very moments that mutate our brain chemistry unfold to “Mr. Blue” as long-time friends become strangers in the show’s final scene, to “Wild Horses” as everything good happens elsewhere, to “Stars” as a beaten soul finds freedom in the possibility of death, stepping on the gas and letting go of the steering wheel. And from this cartoon, I keep the characters and songs that became my galaxy, the one I transport to when my thoughts vignette my eyesight as they take me far away. We watch Bojack to finally hear our internal monologue aloud, and “fetishize [our] own sadness” right beside him. ■
Graphic by Ariana Perales
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