4/18 assignment:

Bojack Horseman is the current show that I am binging on Netflix and I love it. The show revolves around this has been 90’s tv star of a family sitcom and struggles to stay relevant in modern times.  The show takes satirical takes on current events, politics, celebrities, and the business side of showbusiness. While also being a very funny and well-done comedy show it also has its drama moments that almost becomes too close to reality. Even though being a cartoon, there has been moments in the show that deals with depression, relationships, self-destructive behaviors, and emotions that I have experience making it a very relatable show, even too relatable to my comfort. The show includes all 7 of topics we discussed in class, one way or another, including; exoticism, othering, ideology of difference, tokenism, assimilation, stereotyping, and exclusion.

And Of course, this blog contains SPOILERS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

Bojack and Diane 

 Exoticism is to romanticize other cultures and foreign lands. And so far, as I have seen, the show has only one use of exoticism and that is with the character Diane Nguyen. Being one of the main roles in the show, she serves as an important plot device as both Bojacks best friend and a love interest (only in first season). Diane is Vietnamese and in cinema and television, Asian women are exotic and desirable for romance. But I don’t know if Diane being Vietnamese was purposely or just a coincident in the creation of the show. Diane has no connections to her Vietnamese culture and only mentions once or twice of her heritage. Despite being Vietnamese, she is a typical American woman that is also a successful book write, college graduate, love interest, and a social activist that happens to be Vietnamese. But despite all this, her affection is fought over early in the show by both Bojackk and his rival/friend Mr. Peanutbutter. Making this a convincing example that Dianne is being exoticized for being Vietnamese.

Othering is defining a minority in relationship to the majority and marginalizing them. An example of this in the show is how the show deals with homosexuality during the 90’s flashbacks. When one of Bojack’s friend/producer of the show that Bojack was staring is what caught of a homosexual act, he was fired as the studio was afraid of the negative publicity the show would receive.

Bojack and Sarah lynn before her drug overdose

Ideology of difference is a basic difference in opinions about what is right and what is wrong. This show has many ideologies of differences between drug use, depression, relationships, lies, politics, and many more. The main one I want to focus is how the show deals with drugs. The show uses drugs as both a prop and a plot device. Bojack uses drugs as a comedy relief in some scenes and as an escape from his problems. Through out the early episodes of the show it goes on about the negative impacts of drugs while also backing down on those negatives as the next scene progresses. In a later episode in season 3, one of Bojacks friend, Sarah Lynn, dies from overdosing from taking many types of drugs(one of the gags of overusing drugs), same character that throughout the show Bojack has tried to convince to stop taking drugs but always backs out. After this event, Bojack blames himself and doesn’t forget this traumatic moment.

Tokenism is the exception of a social rule. Bojack is a token because he was a nobody stand up comedian in the 80’s and somehow got lucky enough to become a star in one of the best family sitcoms in the show.

Bojack and Diane at a strip club

Assimilation, in the textbook term, is basically “white washing.” I believe the entire show is assimilation if we use the textbook definition. There’s almost no ethnic characters in the show, besides Diane and this could be do to exoticism, as the show is in a world where people are either humans or anthropomorphic animals. And most of the main human cast are seen as being Caucasian, with the exception of Dianne, while a majority of the anthropomorphic animal casts are vastly diverse from all kinds of species from the animal kingdom.   

Bojack with Diane and her family

Stereotyping is the misleading and reductionistic representation of a cultural group. I really can’t find any stereotypes in this show. Most stereotypical roles such as waiters, cleaners, etc. are often represented with an anthropomorphic animal that its kind of hard to find an example. The producer that was caught in a gay scandal was never depicted as a stereotypical gay man in Hollywood. Though it can be a stereotype joke that the gay friend of bojack got rectal cancer, a joke on how gay man take it in the butt. Dianne or her family were never shown any Asian stereotypes, its reverse Asian stereotypes for Diane’s family as her family are really Americanized as Diane’s family only care for football and are depicted as all her brothers are shown to be dimwitted (an opposite of the stereotypical Asian that they are all smart). Overall, its really difficult to find a stereotypical moment. Actually there is stereotypes, but it reside to animal stereotypes with anthropomrophic animal characters. Such as how Mr. Peanutbutter, a dog, despises mailmen and loves playing fetch. Or a scene in a drug induced party were mostly conceived with lemurs, a animal with abnormal large eyes that could identify one who is intoxicated. 

Exclusion is annihilating a cultural group or is under-represented. Again, very hard to find an excluded group in this show as the show is mainly about the high life and dark side of Hollywood. Like stereotypes, this show doesn’t really focus on any cultural group besides the life of celebrities and the business of showbiz.