Abstract
The animated series BoJack Horseman has garnered much critical acclaim for its mix of tragic and comic portrayals of its eponymous protagonist, washed-up actor and cynic BoJack, and his friends in the anthropomorphic Hollywoo setting. The term “sadcom” has been applied to BoJack and other series that operate on similar premises—an interesting response to larger critical investigations of the intersections of tragic and comic modes of humor that find expression, for example, in the awkward and in cringe. This article investigates how this mixture comes to bear in season 5 of the series from 2018, which deals with several topics related to the #MeToo movement. Through several formal elements as well as plotlines that lay bare superficial performances and complicitness in a sexist system, the season supports notions of authenticity and solidarity that lie the heart of sadcoms, which invites closer inspection not just of BoJack Horseman but the genre as a whole.
Highlights
In season 5 of BoJack Horseman, issues of community, communal suffering, and authentic solidarity are brought to a head by exposing their perceived opposites, i.e., discord, complicitness, or performed solidarity, through the Hollywoo version of #MeToo
Through the investigation of the protagonist’s abuse of power, sexual harassment of women, women’s roles in the entertainment industry, and more, season 5 eventually forces BoJack to begin a process of self-reflection and of coming to terms with his behavior
The season operates around the binary oppositions of authenticity versus performance and solidarity versus complicitness, which complicates any simplistic judgment of the characters along clear-cut lines
Summary
Solidarity is crucial not just for the larger #MeToo movement but in season 5 of BoJack Horseman. It explores the collapse of solidarity with victims of sexual harassment, the collapse of solidarity among the women of Hollywoo themselves, and asks not least, whether there can be solidarity with the protagonist BoJack, who has been testing this feeling in his fellow characters as well as audiences since the beginning of the show.
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