#bojack horseman critical

[bojack-horseman-datingsim]

let's make the worst dating sim to ever exist

[guardianjameslight]

People should learn at this point that just because the trailer is comedic doesn't mean the movie/show itself won't be emotional.

[soulfulazrael]

Stella being Beatrice of Helluva Boss is pure idiocy at this point in the show.

Hello there. I am posting something. That's a new. Reminded myself "Oh yeah this site exists" and decided to post some shait about HB. Why not?

Drawn by wholetthemonst1

There was something I came across some time ago in Helluva Boss community and that is the idea that Viv wants to make Stella into a character reminiscent of Beatrice Horseman from Bojack Horseman. And as someone who loves Bojack and respects Bojack and I can probably say now HB is my Becker (wink, wink, nudge nudge WATCH BOJACK IF YOU HAVEN'T) I have to say my piece about it.

But first let's start with Beatrice Horseman herself (careful, there will be spoilers for the 4th and 5th season of Bojack Horseman if you are still going through it). So... Beatrice Horseman. Who was she? What was her deal? Well she was a horse born in 193- okay, okay I am not doing that whole bit. Sorry. Let's get into it. Beatrice Horseman. She is probably one of the most despicable and yet complex characters in the whole of Bojack Horseman. A show known for complex characters and stories. It's a show that many people would say is unfair to compare to Helluva Boss, but given that apparently Viv wants to compare one of her characters to the ones from that then it's free game, wild west baby so let's get on with it already.

Again. Beatrice. Despicable, abusive, terrible, terrible person that is contributor to the kind of man Bojack is in the show. There is no beating around the bush that she was a horrid person that one could say at first glance is not too disimilar to the Stella we know and boy isn't that just the perfect test for who watched that show and who didn't. Because I did and I can say for certain if they were doing that from the start, it's already a complete failure for two reasons.

First off. The photo from The Circus. If there is something Beatrice wasn't, it was being terrible from the start. She was not, everyone who watched the show will tell you with 100% certainty that she never begun as this terrible person. She went through a lot, doesn't excuse the abuse she put her own child through, but we know for certain she did not start like that and this is a big problem with the photo shown in the Circus.

Because nothing speaks sweet and nice than a complete psycho strangling puppies. Yeah I am not going to sugar coat. This photo single handedly made me about 90% done with Helluva Boss. I could see everything that was going to happen the moment I saw and so far I was not too far off. And this is a major failure on HB's part. Making Stella a psychopath who strangles puppies from early childhood. And I get that it's supposed to be funny, but Bojack itself never sacrificed narrative coherency for some dumb unfunny comedy. Especially did not sacrifice depth of the character that Beatrice was.

And one may say "Well the first times we saw Beatrice she was a despicable one note villain as well" and to that I say... no. First time we see her is where she is clearly dissatisfied with her marriage with Butterstoch who seems to be even more terrible than she is at that point and nothing points towards her being some terrible Satan like figure. We do see pieces of abuse she put Bojack through, but she never enters the realm of being so horrid that it becomes too cartoony. Aside from some obvious things like the argument of hers with Butterstoch (I still have I'M EXITATING live rent free in my head). But those moments never made Beatrice into someone who is just evil for the sake of being so. At least there was always this lingering feeling that she is the way she is not just because this is simply how she is. There were already reasons for it given to us in the very first season.

And you know what. They actually started it okay. In first season we saw Stella being more passively dismissive if not just uncaring about Octavia's crying, but it was not something that got across her being some terrible monster, just someone very tired and someone who probably is not there of their own volition. Makes her still terrible, but you can work up from there, but HB never did. I say what they gave her in Season 1 while cartoony in many ways like her screaming so much and hiring hitman did not kill the potential for her to be complex as much as that photo of hers did in Season 2 which again, I think already sank any potential for her to be complex.

But some other people will say "Well we do not know the context of that photo". What context? You want to add context to a girl strangling and beating puppies? Really? Because let me tell you no matter what you do, it will NEVER work. Adding any sort of context to make this kind of photo feel like it makes sense for any sort of complex character will result in laughable at best results that will make it feel like this show doesn't know what the hell it's doing.

Because you do not make this kind of photo for a character you want to be perceived as complex. It just doesn't work.

And there is a second issue beyond that photo. Her motivations, big part of which we saw in Western Energy. Because as far as we see she only wants to bring torment to Stolas, she keeps saying that, she keeps being shown to be too dumb to think of any other reason or how that can screw her over and that also destroys any semblance of chance that this character could be complex. Because Beatrice while terrible had a very good reason for why she was like this. Having your lobotomized mother at such young age telling you to not love anyone will definitely screw you in the head and even then what we see in the show despite such morbid origins is nowhere near as stupidly 1 dimensional as Stella was for 2 seasons already and in Season 2 of Bojack we already saw her being more complex too. Something this show only destroyed further with Stella. Kind of going in the opposite direction of starting in more complex manner and gradually destroying those illusions of depth Stella could have had.

And honestly I do not know if I have to add anything beyond those two reasons. No matter how you look at it Stella doesn't feel remotely as a character designed to be complex. And just so you all know before you start typing essays comparable in length to this horse shait. No, complex doesn't mean redeemable, doesn't mean a character is good or worthy of redemption. It means they can feel like actual PEOPLE! Not some caricatures. Because so far Stella is just that, a caricature. A hate sink. And NO, it is NOT challenging at all to make a character like that and her being so easy to hate is not sign of good writing, it is LAZY.

And this makes me really feel like Stella was NOT planned to be this complex Beatrice like character and in fact I feel like what is going on now is a response of Viv (one of many) to the criticism (at least she listens to them this time I guess... progress?). Basically I think she saw people dunk on Stella's character for being pretty much equivalent of a wall with some mean things sprayed on it, she now starts to go in completely different direction without any semblance of idea of how to make this work. Purely reactionary action.

And to me that reflects another issue I see when compared to Bojack. Here is the clip from it that I think describes this issue I have. This one being from Free Churro. My favorite Bojack episode.

This I think is what ticks me off about the writing of HB as a whole. They think big gestures in writing like giving this one character a le sad backstory will make them sympathetic and complex and oh so well written. That this one act of non douchebaggery makes that POS already well on the path of being better despite them doing the same garbage all over again. That one moment of complexity that you repeat over and over again is enough to make the show complex. That this small piece of text or scene makes a relationship great or make sense. No. Writing doesn't work like that. Stories don't work like that. You need to be consistent, you cannot just throw one scene and immediately expect that people will eat up that this character or this story is more than it is. You need to put in the effort for more than one minute or one episode. You need to try your damn hardest to make your story complex if you want it to be so. It is not something you get participation trophy for. It is something you need to commit to. Or hire a better writer. That helps as well.

Okay. That got a bit derailed. Sorry for that. It was pretty long rant and yet somehow I feel like it wasn't long enough. Stella Goetia. Who is she? What is her deal? She is a victim of terrible writing that made her into a hate sink when she had so much more potential and now that this ship is well on it's way to Davy Jones's locker only NOW this crew of misfits and not very good writers try to salvage what I will say is already unsalvageable. Stella is not Beatrice, she will never be Beatrice. She could have been. She really could have been, but the direction they went with in Season 2 was equivalent of dropping a bomb on a baby and trying to see if it's alive... The best you will find is ashes. But I guess they will be of some reminder of what could have been.

Honestly I don't know why I wrote so much for it. I don't even want to watch this show anymore. I watch shorts, but... they are short. I write my own version of this universe as well, but it's something I do now because like Bojack once said in this clip

And I feel the same thing. This show had all the right pieces right there, but it can never put them together and it bums me out to see and leaves me only with passion for what it could have been. It really depresses me. Because I want to love this show and I already spent around 5 years watching it and pouring my heart into work about it, but now... Now I feel empty. And it feels bad.

I don't like Helluva Boss and everything is worse now.

[endearing-dalliance]

My two cents on Jayce's final speech

While I do not consider myself disabled, I have chronic health issues that are sometimes disabling. And I'm used to having to live my life with that in the back of my mind. Not in a self-hating way, simply pragmatically. I need certain medications and technology in order to function in a way I find worth living for. While I certainly don't speak for the entire disabled community, I'm not unfamiliar with the struggle™.

TLDR: they really, really needed a sensitivity reader or disabled person's input. A for the idea, F for the execution

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You've always wanted to cure what you thought were weaknesses. Your leg."

Jayce: *breaks leg* *leg can now no longer support his weight* *builds brace to compensate for leg weakness* *proceeds to shame Viktor for wanting a permanent fix for his own leg issue*

"Your disease."

Last season, when Viktor's disease was actively killing him, Jayce got Heimerdinger voted off the Council so Viktor could keep researching what Jayce himself joyfully admitted was a potential cure. How hard did this man's head hit the bottom of the pit?

But you were never broken, Viktor.

Why is Jayce the one getting to say what is and isn't broken? Broken is literally defined as "damaged and no longer in working order". The man was in chronic pain, visibly wasting away before our eyes, and born with a body that was not functioning as it should. Viktor describes his body as "eroding". He has never said that it makes him feel bad about himself as a person. Even when he called himself a cripple, its one of a list of obstacles he’s had to overcome to get where he is now. He isn't ashamed, he's proud. And Jayce is inspired by it enough to not to give up on his work. Or his life.

Side note: Some neurodivergent and disabled people use the term broken in a non-offensive way. For some, its a reminder that they the *person* are not broken. For others, its simply a fact of life they adjust to. But that doesn't mean other people get to label them as such.

"There is beauty in imperfections."

Sure, in the same way they used to call tuberculosis "consumptive chic" because it made you pale and thin with red lips. Death isn't beautiful, its devastating.

"They made you who you are, an inseparable piece of everything I admired about you." 

Except, Viktor wouldn't be any less brilliant or determined or humorous if he wasn't disabled. Instantly made me think about this scene from Bojack:

Over and over I have watched the disabled community patiently explaining, passionately advocating, or righteously, ragefully, unceasingly insisting that they are more than their disability. That their disability doesn't define them. To see past it to who they are as a person. That regardless of your personal opinion, they have the same inherent value as an able-bodied person.

I get what Arcane was going for here. I really do. It was a nice idea in theory. But what they ended up with was a well-meaning, able-bodied, privileged person assigning labels to a disabled person's own opinion of himself, tell him what he should and should not do with his body, and then tie this deeply questionable conversation about Viktor's body to Viktor as a person.

And for once true to his S1 character, THAT DID NOT SWAY VIKTOR AT ALL. The last time he saw Jayce, he got soundly rejected. The next scene of them is him continuing to "evolve" Jayce. Ekko's device gave Jayce the opportunity tell Viktor how much he wanted him and THAT made the difference.

[almacambiondaughterofsaleos]

Bojack The Manbaby Vs Stolas The Manbaby

Bojack and Stolas are basically immature men who base their beliefs on stuff they glean from fiction. They often ruin their own relationships when people don't comply with their fantasies which often clashes with reality. They also feel entitled to relationships with others because they feel that will make them feel fulfilled after years of feeling unloved and abused. As a result, this has turned them into toxic people who use and leech off of people without really giving anything back while thinking grand gestures can. The biggest difference where Bojack is called out for thinking life can end like a sitcom Stolas is constantly validated and ends up living his romantic fantasies. Even if the show gives him a lack of clarity, he soon is given narrative favoritism and gets what he wants. His self-centeredness is never challenged and he's pitied for being a selfish pos who doesn't think about others' needs. Again the opposite of Bojack who constantly gets punished for his selfishness rather instantly or at a later date.

[sludgekludge]

what even was the point of wanting to make helluva about 'messy romance and complex characters' if they can't commit to that at even the most basic level. the narrative will just decide that a character has done wrong without explaining what or how, it'll completely ignore or justify legitimately dubious things, it's so desperate to tell you exactly how to feel about certain characters...

stella's dialogue is so cartoonishly on-the-nose evil and she has no actual motivations. none of stolas' mistakes are acknowledged until now, 2 seasons in (and even then, they're trying to justify them), half the stolitz-related conflicts are almost comically childish. blitz yelled at stolas, which is mean. instead of looking at this with nuance, blitz is in the wrong, and stolas is not. there is a wrong party and a right party, every time. there are no shades of grey.

where's the complexity? these characters range from cardboard to slightly thicker cardboard with maybe a drawing of a frowny face on it, except the frowny face changes colours every time you look at it because the writers worship inconsistencies.

[archivedblog16]

Helluva boss is bojack horseman from another universe but instead of warning us of bad things and its consequences it paints abusers as good people for being "selfless" and "hurt" and victim blaming you for being tired of their bullshit

It’s interesting because Vivziepop is a fan of Bojack and takes inspiration from it. (cough, cough: Stella’s backstory is going to be inspired by Beatrice Horseman). Anyway, as I saying: I don’t think Vivziepop learned anything from watching Bojack Horseman. I can’t wait for Helluva Boss potential ending where Stolas, despite losing his status and power, still gets his daughter back and the man he abused throughout the 4 seasons. 😂

[tocomplainfriend]

Did you know that in BoJack Horseman, they only use the word "fuck" once per season to signal a serious situation? In season one, Herb uses it as "get the fuck out of my house", after not accepting Bojack's shitty apology. Saying that he needed BJ to stand up for him, and now is too late.

And any use of sexual humor, or swearing in HB is really childish like a 12-year-old. Meanwhile, in S3 E6 is about abortion. In small explanation, Diane is getting an abortion and accidentally tweeted in a celebrity's account (she was working for) that she was getting an abortion. Instead of an explanation of the accident, the singer makes a song about getting an abortion. The lyrics are crazy. The song is really grotesque, and that's the point.

Then this happens in the news:

Diane is really annoyed at how Aquafina treated the situation, but when she is at the waiting room for the procedure. Another girl that there says how she likes the song cause it makes her feel brave- to see another woman taking her situation less seriously and so openly.

I live in a country where abortion is completely out of the table, the mention of it is really heavy in some groups. Is a really religious country too! Hearing this episode really shocked me in how they talked about a situation, at the time i never ever heard anyone talking about it like this. -It made me confident in my own experiences and believes on it. This show made an actual point about abortion in that hole episode!

I don't think every joke ever made in BJ is perfect, but this episode is so good.

[crooked-wasteland]

The Anti-Bojack: Anti-Intellectualism and the Death of Substance

In the blog essay “Staging Philosophy: the relationship between philosophy and drama”, Kristen Gjesdal opines on the home of philosophy. Many today would consider philosophy a relic of a bygone era with names such as Keikegaard, Voltaire, and Neitzsche. Many don’t know, however, of the close relationship philosophy has always held with the arts. Gjesdal mentions Ibsen in the article, discussing how many playwrights of the time were avid students of philosophy and how many philosophers regarded the arts highly. Nietzsche spoke of social leaders, specifically the religious leaders of his day in Beyond Good and Evil when he wrote, “Men, not great enough, nor hard enough, to be entitled as artists to take part in fashioning man.” Frankly denouncing the power and influence held by the religious men which he felt was more appropriately left in the hands of artists. In fact, Nietzche considered art the definition of culture and hence why he says that artists are the ones who should be responsible for shaping society and defining what it means to be “man”. As such, the expressions of art, poetry to cinema, is a definition of man and inherently a philosophy.

Bojack Horseman is an openly philosophical series that plays with existentialist schools of thought. Having liked several tweets endorsing the comparison of her work to that of Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Vivienne Medrano demands her work be valued the same way. From being favorably compared to Bojack Horseman to being praised as the “Anti-Bojack”. Which begs to question, what does that even mean? First let’s discuss the Philosophy behind Bojack Horseman, then compare the tweets Medrano liked and her series to that of Bojack directly, and then study the overlapping themes and why Medrano’s style of writing makes her storytelling a mockery to the art.

Existentialism in particular has been the darling of the theater for about the last 150 years, though generally ridiculed by “proper” society. For a philosopher to be labeled a nihilist or existentialist was often a denouncement of their school of thought, often for their general rejection of fundamental social structures like ethics. In 1942, writer Albert Camus published his essay The Myth of Sisyphus, rebranding traditional existentialist concepts as Absurd philosophy.

Camus begins his work poised with the question of suicide and whether life is worth living at all. He argues that life is inherently meaningless, an idea originating with Kierkegaard, but while the latter sided with finding purpose in constitutions like religion, Camus argues that religion itself is a philosophical suicide. In the Routledge encyclopedia of philosophy by Charles Guignon, he writes of the criticisms levied against existential and absurdist philosophies in a society awash in moralist anti-intellectualism. He opens this section by saying, “Existentialism has been criticized from a number of different angles. One line of criticism holds that the emphasis on individual freedom and the rejection of absolutes in existentialism tends to undermine ethics; by suggesting that everyday life is ‘absurd’ and by denying the existence of fixed, binding principles for evaluating our actions, existentialists promote an ‘anything-goes’ view of freedom that exacerbates the nihilism already present in contemporary life.” Which comes from this negative misreading of nihilism.

In their video Nihilism: Are We Missing the Point, youtuber Michael Burns of Wisecrack tells an anecdote of his time in grad school where he paraphrases his professor as saying, “This idea of the constant misreadings of Nietzsche’s writings on Nihilism leads to, his words, angry seventeen-year-old atheists.” Which tends to be the issue when discussing concepts such as nihilism, existentialism and absurdist philosophy. Nietzsche, the credited father of the school of thought, is often taken out of context or his views distorted by society’s sensibilities. For one, the quote given earlier extends further into a condemnation of religion by saying, “Such men, with their "equality before God," have hitherto swayed the destiny of Europe; until at last a dwarfed, almost ludicrous species has been produced, a gregarious animal, something obliging, sickly, mediocre, the European of the present day.” Which many an angry seventeen-year-old and moralist has seen as an endorsement of the might-is-right philosophy that nihilism is credited with.

To a lesser extent, Camus writes in The Myth, “I must say what counts is not the best living, but the most living”. It feels like it should be rather straightforward then, the concept of the thought. More equals better, and Camus practically says as much when he later writes “Why should it be essential to love rarely in order to love much?” However, if one follows the first quote to its natural conclusion, he continues, “The most living; in the broadest sense, that rule means nothing. It calls for definition.” His wording may come off confusing as the essay is translated and the theories involved are dense, but Camus clarifies that “most” could mean the sheer number of experiences or the depth of the experience. He is not saying one or the other is the correct answer, but that both are equally valid ways to live one’s life. The focus, then, is not on directing anyone how they should live, but in the manner they should do so. He says, “It is not up to me to wonder if this is vulgar or revolting, elegant or deplorable … Suppose that living in this way were not honorable, then true propriety would command me to be dishonorable.”

Camus, and even Nietzsche, argue that truth is the only ultimate value. It throws back the moralist dilemma by arguing that living to a code of ethics or values when one is not truly that sort of person is to live reprehensibly. Better is it to live authentically “without appeal” as Camus says, than it is to live the lie of following the rules.

Thomas Polzler from the University of Graz in Austria wrote a 2014 article titled “Absurdism as Self-Help: Resolving an Essential Inconsistency with Camus’s Early Philosophy”. Personally, I fundamentally and adamantly disagree with his assessment that there is any sort of inconsistency in Camus’s writings. Camus’s books of The Stranger, The Plague, and The Fall are not inherently inconsistent, but depict his philosophy in layers.

Like water painting, Camus starts with a thin veneer of color, a loose and almost detached protagonist in Meursault from The Stranger. He is a man aware of the absurd as an individual, the story maintaining the focus of a man living aware his life means nothing and thus seems to have an almost neurodivergent disinterested in the world beyond himself. What he feels in the moment is all that matters, so when he commits murder out of feeling uncomfortable from the heat of the sun and the painful blinding of the light, he is then juxtaposed with the ethical society he exists simultaneously within and outside of. Meursault is held up as a sociopath for not wishing to see his mother’s body the night before her funeral and smoking by her coffin. Because he does not cry at her passing, he is deemed a danger to society. Because he goes on a date to a comedy picture the day after, he is denounced as a menace. None of which has anything to do with the man he killed. The trial highlights the absurdity of ethical society and how the moralists demand the appearance of values over actually having them.

In fact, the trial of Meursault closely resembles that of Bojack and Sarah Lynn. The end of season 3, Bojack and Sarah Lynn go on a cross-country drug-fuelled bender to apologize to people Bojack has hurt in the past, stopping at the Griffith Observatory where Bojack has a profound revelation. He talks about living in the moment and how neither the past or future really matters at all. What you did and your legacy don’t matter if you cannot exist now. It is this moment that he realizes Sarah Lynn is not responding. It isn't until season 6 that it is shown that Bojack waited before calling the police and thus played a hand in Sarah Lynn's death. He is taken to civil court by Sarah Lynn's mother and step-father and made to pay them a fine for his involvement. However, is it really justice when Sarah Lynn's mother exploited her in the business and never once supported Sarah Lynn for what she wanted and what her dreams were, or even just who she was? Can one argue that it is justice when Sarah Lynn was sexually abused by her step-father throughout her childhood? Yes, Bojack does have responsibility in Sarah Lynn's death, but so do her parents. The absurdity of it all being that in no way could there ever be justice for Sarah Lynn.

Brief mental health sidebar. While I have to expressly disagree with Polzler’s reasoning, I do agree with his conclusion. Philosophy and especially Absurd existentialism are powerful tools in the journey to self improvement. It is both the line from Bojack where Diane says "That's the thing. I don't think I believe in 'deep down'. I kind of think all you are is just the things that you do." And Dr. Wong in Rick and Morty when she says, “You seem to alternate between viewing your own mind as an unstoppable force and as an inescapable curse. And I think it is because the only truly unapproachable concept for you is that it's your mind within your control … You are the master of your universe.”

It may be shocking to know that Medrano was not a fan of Dr. Wong, considering the scene all about telling and not showing Rick’s problems. However, this is after two and a half seasons of witnessing Rick’s shortcomings and Dr. Wong is not telling Rick’s problems, but rather identifying the solution. In both the words of Diane and Dr. Wong, who we are, comes down to the choices we make. There is no moral argument being made with either of these comments. Bojack asked Diane to tell him that he’s actually a good person deep down. That he means to be good, that despite his actions he doesn’t want to hurt anyone and that his bad behavior is the fault of his emotionally unavailable and narcissistic parents. So really, he isn’t a bad person. Whereas Dr. Wong calls out Rick’s behavior as a choice because Rick knows he is making these choices.

The difference between Rick and Bojack is the level of personal awareness and responsibility. Rick knows he has the power to change, but simultaneously so miserable but is so afraid of change that he turns himself into a literal pickle and risks his own death over confronting his own choice to stay the way he is. It is easier for him to justify his lack of trying by simply claiming this is just what it means to be as smart as he is. Whereas Bojack feels helpless. Bojack was not set up for success as a child, his success was never validated by his mother and thus he never valued himself, and every time he tries to change he has no internal fortitude to keep from backsliding at the first sign of defeat. Rick knows everything that is making him miserable is himself. Bojack externalizes his misery and thus also externalizes the solution to his problems, which is why he lets himself return to square one whenever things don’t go his way.

Absurdism is the recognition that life is meaningless and thus we have two choices: Live or die. But these concepts are not so straightforward when discussed. To live, in Camus’s philosophy, is to live authentically to oneself. That may sound like Rick’s situation of accepting things as they are, but that is only true in the case of the individual genuinely wanting to be that way. Authenticity is a dichotomy consisting of both how we behave and how we feel. In the case of Rick he lies, cheats, manipulates, and behaves cruelly towards his family. However, it is implied and later revealed that Rick genuinely cares about his family, but is too afraid of experiencing loss to really let them in. So he’s abusive and insulting, keeping his family at an emotional distance that keeps them around, but never too close, making Rick miserable. He really wants his family, so his feelings are at odds with his behavior. So in reality, him claiming “this is just how things are/who I am” is just as weak an excuse and removes agency over oneself as Bojack saying “It’s because my mother was never there for me.”

The actions both Rick and Bojack partake in are what Camus would call a philosophical suicide. Concisely put, to commit a philosophical suicide is to remove one’s sense of agency in their own life. How can one claim to be living when they have no effect on anything including themselves? You would exist in a void no different than a dreamless sleep. Your actions are meaningless, your thoughts are meaningless, your feelings are meaningless because you are a passenger to the act of living. Everything else has power, everyone else can influence you, so you may as well be nothing. Camus includes religion in this section of his philosophy, as living for something other than yourself is the same as not living at all. And this encompasses Ethics.

There is a massive difference between being kind because you are supposed to, and being kind because you want to. This delves further into living inauthentically and how that mere act alone results in misery. Even if one is to behave in a way deemed “right” without making the choice, they will inevitably become resentful. There is no such thing as faking it until you make it. One has to actively choose and change themselves on a fundamental level to find happiness, and that takes work. Just as Dr. Wong says, “It’s just work. And the bottom line is some people are okay going to work and some people, well some people would rather die.”

Which gets to the main point.

Medrano’s liking of a series of tweets calling Blitzo the Anti-Bojack has both infuriated and confused me. I suppose that I should be embarrassed at the latter since it's obvious both Vivienne and her fans lack basic media literacy. It’s actually rather spectacular just how badly they misrepresent the situation of the characters in the narrative. I can only break this down comment by comment.

For one, Bojack’s entire character is that he doesn’t intentionally hurt others. He has his reasons that fundamentally comes from a weak sense of self associated with a child who never had the emotional support he needed growing up. Those aren’t excuses, those are the reasons. Bojack has an unhealed inner child who wants to be a good guy, but he is so caught up in his self-loathing and resentment that he doesn’t do anything about that inner child. Instead he indulges these immature emotions through self medicating with drugs and alcohol, lashing out, promiscuity, and careless spending. These are the symptoms of the problem, the problem does lie in past trauma. The issue is Bojack doesn’t see the solution as himself, but someone or something else. In my post comparing Bojack and Todd’s relationship to Blitz and Moxxie, I pointed out how Bojack and Blitz treat their “closest friends” exactly the same by verbally abusing them and tearing down their abilities. While not always consciously intentional for Bojack, it is to keep Todd feeling codependent on Bojack and thus never leaving him which is abusive and manipulative. For Blitz, the narrative says it's because he is aware of his behaviour and is intentionally pushing Moxxie to be better, which is abusive and manipulative.

My point herein being that these are the same people. There is no Anti-Bojack happening here. If anything, Blitz is more malicious in his abuse seeing as he appears actively aware and intentional in how he mistreats Moxxie. Bojack is abusive towards Todd, but in a way that is a reflection of Bojack. And the series acknowledges how Bojack's inability to be alone actively harms his other relationships. Not just Todd.

In one way, however, Blitz absolutely is the Anti-Bojack. Blitz externalizes the source of his behavior to a character failing on Moxxie's part. And the series reaffirms and justifies Blitz's abuse as okay.

The other misconception of this post is thinking that an explanation is an excuse. Creative Screenwriting did an interview in 2019 with Raphael Bob-Waksberg’s process and philosophy of writing Bojack Horseman, quoting him for the title of the article, “Characters should be understandable in their vulnerabilities.” What Medrano’s fans fail to do, fundamentally, is understand. Their opinions and twitter orations are so barren of understanding that one must ask if they simply choose to ignore what does not serve their narrative or if they really are just incapable of comprehension.

They see Blitz’s mother’s death as a reason for his attitude more than his behavior. His behavior then necessitates that it needs to be excusable. As such, Blitz cannot actually make mistakes. Things happen by chance rather than a deliberate choice on any of the characters’ behalf. The fire in Oops wasn’t a mistake made by Blitz, if it is anyone’s mistake, it is the no-named imp who lit the candle before getting to the room. Blitz didn’t intend to bump the other performer, he just happened to turn at that moment. His mistake, then, is one that only makes sense on a metanarrative aspect. His mistake was deciding not to confess his feelings to Fizz. Which… no. As novel as the concept of the butterfly effect was in 2015, the fundamental nature of something inconsequential being attributed to a disaster negates blame. No one is going to blame the butterfly for a hurricane. Similarly, Blitz’s decision to not confess has nothing to do with the fire, in fact the fire itself is not even his accident. His contribution begins and ends with accidentally bumping the other imp; a situation that would have been entirely harmless if not for another character’s unrelated decision made off-screen.

Additionally, Blitz is a heinously insufferable individual who has been nothing but insulting and abusive to his “friend” throughout the series. He sexually abuses Moxxie in Harvest Moon by touching his penis against his will. He threatens to rape Moxxie and Millie in Murder Family. Blitz humiliates Moxxie through emasculation by masculinizing Millie over Moxxie, mocking Moxxie’s anatomy through his weight and genital size, and degrading Moxxie’s hobbies and abilities. Often without any prompting whatsoever and for Blitz’s own personal enjoyment. Blitz simply is a malicious individual, and at one point the series seemed to know that. The issue isn’t that Blitz is an awful person, it’s the lack of acknowledging that fact. The fans and Medrano conveniently ignore who this character is and what he has done to justify him instead of seeking to understand him. This is a running theme throughout the show.

I also briefly compared the scene in Oops to Herb and Bojack in this post, but I didn’t focus so much on the characters and more the metanarrative reason why Bojack worked and Helluva Boss didn’t.

Here, let’s look at why Bojack went to see Herb: Because Herb told him to. Unlike the scenario between Fizz and Blitz where they didn’t see each other for fifteen years and then conveniently run into each other and just so happen to be spotted by Crimson and Striker who, for some reason, know all about Fizz and Ozzie being a thing and they just keep Blitz around because … he’s the main character. Sure, one could argue both Crimson and Striker have a personal thing against Blitz, makes you wonder why they didn’t, you know, do anything to him? No torture or revenge of any kind, he’s just there now. Conveniently tied up and kept with Fizz instead of literally anything else they could have done with him. There is no internal logic to the characters as to why things turn out this way. As seen in the Mammon episode, it's a metanarrative compulsion to make sure Blitz is in every episode regardless of whether it makes sense or goes anywhere, or not.

Another sidebar, but the fact that so much of the series is not able to be explained within the narrative and requires an understanding of how Medrano and her team formulate a script is a huge issue. It removes the ability to properly dissect the characters as individual people and necessitates a reading of them that is how Medrano wants the audience to think about them. When it comes to the character dissections, it is effectively impossible to have a complete or coherent reading in regards to the literary philosophy of the Death of the Author. You have no story or character if you remove Medrano. The world as a whole completely falls apart unless you inject it with her metacommentary and narrative intention like one would preserve a corpse through glycerin. There is absolutely no substance here. And the longer she goes on, trying to compile the whole show into a coherent narrative of its own is like building a skeleton with a human ribcage, an ostrich spine, an elephant skull and the lower half of a barbie doll.

Bojack calls Herb after finding out he is dying from cancer, Herb tells Bojack to come visit him. He refuses to talk to Bojack any other way, and Bojack is compelled to go by his guilt, not ego. Herb calling him to his house obliterates Bojack’s ego, this is Herb’s home and he is the one being summoned. This is where Herb has the most power compared to, say, over the phone. This is not only a move of superiority on Herb’s part, but an act of submission on Bojack’s. Herb forces Bojack to come to him. Once again, this is what power dynamics look like. But, despite the resentment and awkward bitterness, he does want to see Bojack.

I don’t know how many times I can articulate this. Herb is the one in control and he is the one who wants to see Bojack and he is the one calling the shots. Not at all comparable to Fizz being kidnapped, forced to interact with Blitz and then wholly reliant on him due to the narrative in order to facilitate this forced reconciliation. Herb and Bojack are people with complex feelings and agendas. Blitz and Fizz are two dolls being smashed together and held in place by the will of a childish god.

Second, the reason Bojack calls Herb is because he feels guilty, not for abandoning Herb but because he betrayed Herb. He told Herb he would stand with him and walk off the show if they tried to fire his friend, but according to Bojack, he was a coward and didn’t keep his word. He feels guilt for that, he regrets it. But when he apologizes to Herb for it, Herb corrects him. It isn’t because Bojack didn’t keep his word, like the horse man thought, it was because he thought the betrayal was more important than their friendship.

He’s a coward, but not for staying on Horsing Around. He’s a coward because he didn’t believe in their friendship. They were together for years and Herb thought that meant something, but Bojack avoiding Herb and never reaching out to him showed how little their friendship meant to him. And it wasn’t because Bojack didn’t care, Herb knows that. And that fact is necessary to understanding the sequence. Bojack didn’t value the friendship because he thought he was valueless. He avoided Herb because he thought Herb would never forgive him, because that is how little Bojack thinks of himself. Him calling Herb is the active display of him still not forgiving himself, so he needs Herb to do it for him. And Herb knows all of this.

“You know what your problem is? You wanna think of yourself as the good guy. Well, I know you better than anyone else and I can tell you that you're not. In fact, you'd probably sleep a lot better at night if you just admitted to yourself that you're a selfish goddamn coward, who takes whatever he wants, and doesn't give a shit about who he hurts. That's you. That's BoJack Horseman."

Bojack has no value in himself, leaving him extremely fragile. So he took what he wanted, he took their relationship and defined it for both of them. He ran away, protecting himself while determining that this is what Herb would want, and left Herb alone and powerless even in his closest friendship. Which is why Herb demands Bojack come to see him, it’s Herb reclaiming his power in the relationship. And all of this only has any meaning if you clearly define the fact that Bojack apologized for the wrong thing.

There’s an alternate universe where Bojack doesn’t go back and apologize at all, and he and Herb rebuild their friendship anew in Herb’s last days and they simply, quietly agree to start over. Because that’s not off the table. Herb still values the telescope. He still values their friendship. Bojack, once again, takes it away. And Herb, a dying man, fights viciously to keep hold of it. Him not forgiving Bojack is not wanting his friend back, if anything, it’s because he desperately wants Bojack back that he won’t forgive him.

The telescope isn’t just a metaphor when it breaks. It's the symbol of their friendship the entire time, and the physical actions taking place over it are a screenshot of what happened. Bojack took their friendship and left with it. But it meant something to Herb, and you would only know that by how he fights over it now. And when it breaks it shows that, because of Bojack and his cowardly need to run away from his problems, their relationship is now, finally, beyond repair. Not because Herb didn’t forgive him. It wasn’t over when Herb didn’t forgive him. The telescope is literally on the shelf the entire time.

Bojack ended it, not Herb.

But just like Bojack, Medrano and her fans believe that forgiveness is the end all of the story. It’s why so many people were not invested in Fizzarolli and Blitz makeup. Because Fizz just forgiving Blitz makes everything they went through meaningless.  It strips the characters and what they went through of depth and nuance in a single moment. It also validates Bojack's general mindset in the belief that one moment can fix a systemic problem. In this case, Medrano isn't the Anti-Bojack, she just is Bojack.

The issue between Herb and Bojack wasn’t the job, or even the time. It was Bojack. And it is the failure of Bojack identifying the part of himself that resulted in this outcome, and not making the choice to do anything different that results in the end of everything. Maybe Herb would never have forgiven the Bojack who left him. But that’s why Bojack needed to be a different Bojack. And he wasn’t.

Wrapping this back around to the start of the essay and how Absurdist philosophy plays into Bojack intrinsically, Herb says exactly that truth to Bojack. That if Bojack was only honest to himself and lived authentically, maybe he would be able to sleep at night. Because being good is less important than being real.

This reminds me of Jean Baptiste Clamence from Camus’s The Fall. A Frenchman in the seedy center of Amsterdam, a city encircled by canals like the rings of hell. He spends his nights in the bar just outside of the red light district, drunk off his ass, it is uncertain if he is actually telling his story to anyone at all. Over the course of four nights, he tells his story of his fall from grace. His self exile to Hell after being unable to cope with his guilt. He tells so many stories of himself, egotistically claiming he has the lost panel of the Ghent Alterpiece in his apartment, the piece titled The Just Judges. 

Even his name is a plea for repentance. John. Baptist. Clemency. He claims to sleep with Judges looming over him. Words endlessly flow from him and he confesses his sins.

It’s when he fesses to witnessing the suicide of a young woman in Paris that he explains why he ran away to Netherlands. He says how she called for help after jumping into the water, but he quickly fled the scene, hearing the splashing below become eerily silent. One could argue that he couldn’t do anything. In the Paris winter, the freezing water of the canal could kill them both, let alone the dangers of trying to save someone who is drowning. The main concern being the victim drowning their savior in a frenzied panic of keeping themselves above the water. It could be said that he did the only thing he could. However, he knows she was aware he was there, so she called out to him specifically when she came to her senses. No one witnessed the incident or knew he was there but her, and no one could fault him for doing nothing.

But he feels the guilt in himself, and thus runs away.

Jean-Baptiste, Bojack and even Diane all have the same mentality. They fetishize their misery and trauma, making themselves important through the loops of suffering they inflict on themselves. Thinking that because the events happened to them, it must mean they are somehow special. That their damage meant something out of all the other people on this planet who suffer. That because they felt alone and responsible, they are a mythical chosen one selected from the masses to do something. They find value in the negative self-image they have, their pain being their purpose.

Because if it didn’t matter, why did it happen to them?

This is where I normally would keep just ripping apart the arguments, but frankly, there isn’t one anymore. For one, the original poster just blatantly lacks any fundamental understanding of Bojack as a series since the entire premise of the show is every season Bojack tries to change.

On a narrative basis, the lack of intentionality on Blitz’s part absolves him from needing forgiveness. Fizzarolli forgiving him holds no weight because Blitz didn’t intentionally set the fire, he didn’t see Fizz in the explosion when he ran away, he didn’t not try to see Fizz in the hospital and then Medrano puts the cherry on top about how Fizz’s life is actually better because of everything that happened. It’s equal parts boring and vile. The conflict is artificial, the resolution is repulsive and contrived. There is no depth to these characters and Medrano actively removes depth, either because she herself lacks the ability to comprehend it or because she knows her fans are incapable of doing so.

Also, let's just not comment on how this line explicitly overshadows Fizz's trauma. Everyone knows you don't end an apology with "but". That negates the whole apology. This is literally "I'm sorry you got hurt and I can never make that up to you, BUT my mom's dead so you don't even know what it's like being me and feeling responsible for that."

While the writers of Bojack sought to make their characters understandable and thus empathetic, they at no point excused or retconned the behavior. The writers on Bojack didn’t do anything to justify their characters in order to control how the audience felt about them. They were showing that the characters were well rounded, had reasons, why they had those reasons, what core memories made them who they are today. And the audience had the choice in how they responded to the characters. Medrano needs her audience to feel the same way about her characters as she does in order for the story to work, because she has never put forth the effort of actually telling this story.

One does not need the interviews with Bob-Waksberg to understand his cast and their story. Everything a viewer needs to know can be found in the show proper. There are not huge points of context happening just over there, off screen, between episodes and relegated to background details. Everything relevant to these characters and their stories is in the show. That has not and at this point never will be the case for Helluva Boss. So in many ways, yes. Helluva Boss is the anti-Bojack.

That's not a good thing.

[peachi-blossom]

None of hazbin and helluva characters would survive in bojack horseman because how the bojack cast would easily call out any hh/hb character for being shitty and awful

[chaifootsteps]

Beatrice works because even if we knew she was an antagonistic force in Bojack’s life, the show made it clear that she was still a complex person underneath as early as her second formal appearance, and built on that as we saw more of her and her life story. That’s why episodes like The Old Sugarman Place and Time’s Arrow are so tragic, we poignant, we know that Beatrice wasn’t always this heartless monster, and she still isn’t. She’s just a shitty person fucked up by her upbringing. If Viv wrote for Beatrice, she would’ve just been a total prick from the get go, with none of the nuance because she can’t seem to apply it unless she projects onto a character she likes. And she doesn’t even do that well.

Really, from the very beginning, Beatrice was more complex than Stella is allowed to be; the first we see of her, we learn she and Butterscotch are mutually unhappy and that they got married because Beatrice refused to get an abortion.

Can you imagine how much less effective The Old Sugarman Place and Time's Arrow would have been if Beatrice were never portrayed as anything but a puppy strangling old crone, if Raphael Bob-Waksberg spent considerable time on social media getting angry at viewers who sympathized with her, and then "Haha, actually she had a sad backstory! What a twist, right?"

[theoddest1]

In a recent interview Viv said Stella’s backstory is inspired by Beatrice Horseman and that she’ll remain a villain but have her perspective put into light. 💀💀

How tf she gonna say this after having Stella be some of the most basic villains ever made in the show and painted her clearly in a bad light so her lil bb Stolas won't catch strays [which he does anyway, as he should]

If this was her plan all along, she either fucked up the original build up we WOULD have seen [Her being hurt by Stolas cheating], or just spewing bs. Beatrice Horseman is a very complex person who the audience can feel sorry for AND still acknowledge how horrible she is due to how well showcased her backstory was along with her personality. Her parents and brother, her husband, and who could have been. But not only that, her behavior was realistic, AT LEAST to a good amount. It wasn't exaggerated for shock value. It wasn't contradictory to past actions, as far as I can tell. And she still had other characteristics to her that we're not solely tied to one fucking thing. So Viv needs to sit her ass down, talking about some Beatrice Horseman.

[ssaltlicker]

Genuinely fuck whatever arcane writers decided to make Vi the Meg of arcane. Genuinely wishing the worst for whoever decided that.

[angelicheaven12]

my twt moots is stolas defender and viviziepop apologist keep hating on wish saying how it bad as movie like....as if she was fawning over show whom literally had terrible writing and yeah wish is wasn't that good especially atleast it wasn't created by problematic creator but it was that bad show like helluva boss and she had audacity that wish is worse despite she literally stanning helluva boss whom had inconsistent writing and oh god....stolizt arcs is very terrible writing an often babying stolas on narrative, she can be hypocrites whether she liked and sometimes i hated how she keep shitting on my faves movie while she literally liked helluva boss whom terrible show with terrible message if im had honest and me be like :

[flower-boi16]

Viv claims her show is like bojack but bojack's recurring message of "Just because you've been hurt doesn't excuse you being an asshole and you're not instantly forgiven just because you said sorry" over her head like imagine if Bojack's former friends gets demonized for not forgiving him despite how Bojack treat them like shit, that's helluva boss with Stolas

I have not seen Bojack Horseman but from what some anons have been telling me about it, Bojack sounds like everything Stolas SHOULD have been, a character not coddled by the narrative and is actually held accountable for his actions, and NONE of the characters would be demonized for calling him out.

I really need to check out Bojack someday cuz man, that show sounds like it does everything that I want HB to do and more.

[almacambiondaughterofsaleos]

Why Stella Will Never Be Like Beatrice

I heard in the next season that we will get Stella's backstory and it will be an attempt to make her into the next Beatrice Horseman. However, the problem with that is there is nothing to build for Stella to do that. And so far, all they have done is make her a one dimensional plot device to have Stolas be pitied so that it can excuse his infidelity and protect him for being called out for his shitty actions. With Beatrice, the marriage between her and her husband was mutually toxic and it wasn't one sided as portrayed with Stolas and Stella. Also despite how shitty Beatrice could be the narrative never treated Butterscotch's affairs as justified just because he was unhappily married to her and even more so Bojack catching him in the middle of one his flings was treated as a traumatizing event instead of laughs like in Helluva Boss. If they portrayed Stella and Stolas' marriage as mutually toxic with both of them having been miserable by the system that set them up, then she would have earned being compared to Beatrice. However, all she's going to be is a pale imitation because Vivziepop copies beats of stories she likes but doesn't have the skill to pull off the execution because she misses the point they were trying to make.