A breakdown of how Bojack Horseman deals with mental illness (TW: Abuse)
If you are looking for a fun, colorful, and silly cartoon to watch as a way to destress, I would absolutely recommend that you don’t watch Bojack Horseman. While this show lures you in with its captivating animation, witty jokes, and amazing animal puns, it ends up giving you an existential crisis. Despite being an animated show, it remains to be the most realistic show that I have ever watched. It deals with many heavy topics that exist in the real world. It questions what actually makes a person (or horse) good, highlights toxic trends in the film industry, and depicts a very realistic take on mental disorders. There are several reasons why Bojack Horseman does a better job of depicting mental illnesses when compared to other shows who claim to spread awareness about mental health. One such reason is that the protagonists’ personalities are not merely formed around their mental illness, but instead, they are well-rounded characters who are facing mental health issues.
From the outside, it seems that Bojack is living the perfect life. He was the star of a popular sitcom, he has a luxurious abode overlooking Hollywood, and he is financially comfortable enough to pursue his dream projects. However, he has this persistent feeling of inadequacy and unhappiness which he thinks is due to the fact that he has never done anything meaningful in his life. Even after getting the lead role of Secretariat, which had been his dream ever since he was a kid, his underlying sadness does not go away. Bojack keeps looking for something that will finally make him happy, but this only makes his depression worse, as this is not something anyone can achieve. In real life happiness is transient and life is full of ups and downs, in Diane Nguyen’s words, “every happy ending has the day after the happy ending”.
Bojack had a broken childhood and much of his toxic attitude can be attributed to the distress he experienced as a child. Up until season 4, we see Beatrice, his mother, as an antagonist who has been nothing but awful and abusive towards Bojack since his childhood. However, it is then revealed that Beatrice herself had had a miserable childhood. She loses her brother in World War II and in the process loses her mother who is so succumbed by grief that her father ends up getting her lobotomized. In fact, the advice she receives from her grieving mother is to never love anyone as much as she had loved Beatrice’s deceased brother. This advice leads her to be cold and distant towards Bojack her entire life. This is a case of intergenerational trauma, and according to Tabitha Mpamira-Kaguri, trauma that is not transformed is transferred. We see a cycle of trauma that starts with Beatrice’s abusive and misogynistic father, which affects her and how she treats Bojack, this trauma even reaches Sarah Lynn through Bojack.
While Bojack’s behavior can be explained by the trauma of his childhood, it does not excuse it. Bojack continuously fails in making any progress emotionally, as he does not acknowledge the root of his problems. We see how he tries to have a brand-new attitude in season 2 but this does not last, as he has made no real changes. This idea is seen once again in “The Old Sugarman Place”. We see how Bojack escapes to his grandparent’s old lake house after the death of Sarah Lynn and as he tries to fix minuscule problems in the house, like fixing the taps, another problem comes up. This represents how Bojack is fixated on solving the smaller problems, which isn’t useful until the foundation is fixed. This reflects the way in which he deals with his mental health.
In the end, Bojack is finally able to make progress, after going to rehab he changes his attitude for real and not just for the approval he gets from others. This shift in behavior is best showcased when he goes to meet Diane in Chicago in season 6. Diane seems to be experiencing depression as well and her house is a complete mess, Bojack is there for her as a friend and cleans up her house before leaving, he does not wait for her praise and doesn’t expect any credit, as he has simply done this to help her.
When everything seems to be going well and we think Bojack has finally gotten his happy ending, we are once again reminded about the show’s core principle, which is that life is an ongoing process and there are no happy endings. When his past catches up with Bojack and he has to face the consequences, he once again relapses into his old toxic behavior. He finally ends up going to jail as a result. This acts just like rehab did for him and gives him time to reflect and improve his behavior. While he is out of jail for one day to attend Princess Caroline’s wedding, his talk with Todd reflects how he is afraid that he will relapse once again when he is out of prison and has to make his own choices again. This is a fear that many people with depression face, as depression can never be “cured”, it can only be treated and the end goal is remission. The chance of recurrence of depression is actually at least 50 percent. However, Todd says that if Bojack relapses again he will also find the strength to turn around his life once again as he gives inspiring advice, “You do the Hokey Pokey and you turn yourself around. That’s what it’s all about.”