My Bojack Horseman Experience

On a rainy fall day, I laid, sprawled out on my couch, cocooned in several blankets with a heating pad across my lap. I had no particular reason to be feeling down or lazy, aside from the usual post-graduate, post-apocalyptic anxiety that ruled my life on a daily basis. I scrolled through Netflix, not particularly stirred by any new titles, my mind continuously running through the jobs I want and will never get, the books I want to write but “never have the time” and so on. Eventually, I landed on the adult, animated, series, “Bojack Horseman.” I clicked play in hopes that the show would provide me with a peaceful environment where I could spiral about my future with occasional animal puns to bring me back to the current moment.

If you have ever seen Bojack Horseman, you would know that it is not the kind of show that helps someone alleviate feelings of inadequacy, purposelessness, or career anxiety.

Here are the characters we are working with (mind you, the word, “Hollywoo” is not a typo:

Bojack Horseman: a fifty-something year old horse with existential dread, childhood trauma and substance abuse problems that supply him with a short-temper, abusive tendencies and a knack for hurting the people closest to him which, in turn, contributes to his guilt, shame, and more substance abuse.

Diane Nguyen: a thirty-something year old human writer with childhood trauma, social anxiety and underlying depression that she uses as a technique to fuel her to write important stories in the fight against gender inequality in an environment, Hollywoo, that proves time and time again that there will always be a big corporation or famous actor who can get away with abusing women with a simple, “pro-feminism”, interview, thus, deepening her depression.

Princess Caroline: a forty-something year old cat with childhood trauma who worked her way up through the ranks, tirelessly, to become a Hollywoo agent where she gets constantly taken advantage of by her clients, regardless of her dedication to them.

Todd Chavez: a twenty-something year old human with childhood trauma who is constantly embarking on whimsical adventures, often with the intent of helping out his friends who rarely notice his efforts, meanwhile, struggling to figure out his identity and asexuality.

Mr. Peanut Butter: a forty or fifty-something year old golden retriever with a MASSIVE golden retriever complex.

Throughout the show, I found myself exceedingly empathetic of the protagonist, Bojack Horseman, despite all of the terrible things I watched him do. After seeing him continuously take advantage of Princess Carolyn, sabotage Todd’s rock opera, sleep with (or almost sleep with) women who were vulnerable or under the influence, SNEEZING ON MARISA TOMEI!!! i was still empathetic towards his struggles, hoping he would turn things around, or at least try, which, I guess, would somehow make up for all of the unforgivable mistakes he had made.

There would be days that I would snuggle up on the couch, take a deep breath, and turn on the show, hoping that maybe this would be the episode that Bojack decides that it’s time to take responsibility, not just for his actions, but for being the one to make his life better. If you’ve ever seen the show, you know those moments are few and far between. Yet, I watched until the very end.

After the final episode, I found myself bawling hot tears over these animated characters, half of whom were colorful, talking animals. I wondered how this platform could create such real and tragically relatable characters that left me feeling somehow sorry and grateful for my own life and my potential growth.

As a twenty-something year old writer with childhood trauma and existential dread, Bojack Horseman offered a relatable experience and the powerful message that we and we alone are responsible for the change we want to see in our lives and ourselves.