LESSONS FROM MY FAVORITE SERIES THIS YEAR BOJACK HORSEMAN
By: Daniel Ajiboso
Tags: Netflix, 2020, BoJack Horseman, Life, TV Series

This year 2020 was a different year to say the least, but one of if not the most defining moment of this year was the lockdown period where the entire world shut down and a lot of people had time to do whatever it is they wanted. For me, that was watching as many movies and series I could get my hands on, and in this article I’m going to highlight the series that impacted me the most this year

Bojack Horseman:

SPOLER ALERT: IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED BOJACK HORSEMAN STOP READING NOW!!!

A humanoid horde, Bojack Horseman- Lost in a sea of self loathing and booze- decides it’s time for a comeback. Once the star of 90’s sitcom, in which he was the adoptive father of three orphaned kids (two girls and a boy). The show was the hottest thing around, and then suddenly, was cancelled. Now 18 years later, Bojack wants to regain his dignity. With the aid of human sidekick and feline ex-girlfriend who is his agent, he sets out to make it happen. But Hollywood is vastly different from those days, and getting used to stuff like Twitter may take time. This first animated series from Netflix- with plenty of references to sex, drugs, and alcohol- is not for the little ones.

This was the description from Google and it doesn’t even begin to describe how incredible and powerful this series is. This animated series had the biggest impact on me this year, and while I didn’t start watching it in 2020, I stopped at season 1 because it got a little too dark for me but with a full on lockdown I had nothing better doing

Nothing fits the description tragicomedy better than Bojack Horseman; it has a way of making you cry and laugh at the same time, with so many lessons to pick up along the line.

After watching each season, I’d spend the whole next day debating the themes of the seasons. The saddest part of each season was watching Bojack mess up everything that was going so well for him.

No matter how well the season went, it often ended on a very sad note, usually with Bojack trying to find some form of redemption.

The first thing I’ll talk about is Bojack Horseman himself, he was raised in an abusive family, and while that would drive anyone to depravity, Bojack in his 30’s wasn’t a terrible person.

He was a terrible comedian but with the help of his friend Herb, he became the star of a hit sitcom, and that’s where his journey downhill really started. Bojack embraced the worst parts of himself neglecting Sarah Lynn, betraying his best friend who lost his job after being revealed to be gay.

Then his show got cancelled and he became former news, lost the fame, and drowned himself in alcohol to avoid the drench his life became. We see Bojack do some really really terrible things, from sabotaging Todd’s rock concert so that Todd would have to constantly have to rely on him because Bojack was scared of being alone.

If you think that’s bad what comes next is worse, it always is, Bojack leaves the set of his dream role and goes to New Mexico to be with his friend, Charlotte who he realizes is married with a daughter, Penny.

He spends a good time with her family, he becomes one of and it seemed like nothing could go wrong until Penny’s prom where Bojack offers to take her. Bojack gets one of her friends alcohol poisoned and abandons her even though he was supposed to be the adult.

When they get home he tries to have sex with Charlotte who refuses him and asks him to leave, Penny, a 17 year old who had tried to have sex with him earlier then approaches him again and this time he seems to give in until her mum catches them.

He was going to take advantage of a 17 year old, a man in his 50’s, and by his own admission knows how wrong it was, his friend who had welcomed him to her house and treated him as part of her family, and he was going to take advantage of her daughter.

The worst thing Bojack does in this entire show, Bojack’s greatest sin was Sarah Lynn, Bojack had the opportunity to impact a young child who was being pushed into fame by her mother and, she looked up to Bojack her TV dad as though he was her real father.

But Bojack was neglectful and gives her an advice to “always keep dancing” which then pushes her into drugs and other terrible behaviors. And many years later when Bojack could have helped her get help, he instead has sex with her.

But the worst thing he did to her was when she had been clean for 9 months takes advantage of her weakness and takes her on a bender, after which she overdoses on heroin and dies. In season six we find out it’s even worse, Bojack waited for 18 minutes to call the paramedic that could have saved her life, he let her die because he didn’t want people to find out that he was the one who gave her the Heroin that could have killed her.

Sarah Lynn’s story is a tragic one, a story about a girl who wanted to be an architect but was forced into a life of fame at a young age, and into the arms of people who destroyed her life, into Bojack’s arms.

This does beg questions about child stars, should child stars exist, and we force these children into the limelight and use them for our entertainment at the expense of them getting a normal and most times healthy childhood. Many times they end up falling prey for drugs and other issues, from Justin Bieber, to Macaulay Culkin to Edward Furlong and several others.

While Bojack had a big role in her death, it was inevitable at the point, at season one she said that she was going to die from overdose, she was a product of system that had condemned her from the beginning.

The truth is that Bojack is a product of a system, his parents were terrible down to their deaths, and Bojack became a terrible person, but that doesn’t absolve Bojack of the things he did, there needs to be accountability, and we see that in season 6, where even after Bojack had changed, his past still caught up to him, and he wasn’t spared just because he had changed, the damage he had inflicted were irreversible, and he had to answer for them.

The sad thing is that in our quest to hold people accountable, we don’t give them a chance to change.

Bojack, unable to forgive himself believed he deserved to be punished, so rather than take responsibility for his life, he does terrible things just so he can be “held accountable”.

Many people believe they are undeserving of forgiveness, and continue to perpetrate such acts, they claim what they have done is unforgiveable so they don’t need to change and continue to do these things. And while no one owes you forgiveness, you owe yourself taking responsibility for your own life, and like Bojack did in season 6, you must begin to hold yourself accountable, rather than punish yourself, why don’t you try to become a better person.

The thing about Bojack Horseman is that we see a lot of these characters in ourselves, we see our sad lives being played out to us and unlike most other shows, things don’t get resolved, they rarely ever get better, and people just keep living. Just like Diane says “Life is shitty and the only thing we can do is keep on living”

And I guess that describes 2020 for a lot of us, life is shitty and the only thing we can do is to keep on living, we try to find happiness and meaning out of a meaningless existence, and that’s all we can ever do.

Bojack Horseman brings out a lot more uncomfortable topics, like how billionaires are given a free pass to do whatever, or gun control, how women would feel safer with guns but it then opens a pathway for people to use guns to do whatever.

The show highlights depression in Diane and her quest to get better, or Mr. Peanutbutter’s many marriages and how he keeps on dating women in their 20’s while he never grows, and this ends up ruining his marriages, it talks about suicide, death, toxicity and several other issues. If I started talking about all of them I wouldn’t be able to stop, and it does all these while being really funny, but don’t be deceived this is no Simpsons or Family Guy, it is very dark.

At the end of the day, Bojack Horseman is all hits and no misses, an incredible watch for anyone, and it was my favorite show for 2020.