Netflix’s animation has always addressed the toughest of subjects. From depression to alcoholism and from motherhood to feminism. It has tackled everything. And Bojack Horseman is one such show. Living in the cynical landscape of modern Hollywood, nothing is as it truly seems. A humanoid horse, BoJack Horseman, desperately trying to get a comeback into the Hollywood limelight has a complex and has a bitter past that still haunts him. Although he would give it all to get his career back on track and to find little rays of happiness, he always gets into something worse while trying to get over his previous pain, bad behaviour and life events.

There is no one way to describe the denominative horse. He is a narcissistic raging alcoholic suffering from depression and has done a lot of terrible things in life. May it be tanking careers in order to save his own or hurting a man with cancer. He has done it all. But deep down, however, as the show beautifully progresses, we get to know and live the life of the complicated horse, as he navigates the trauma of a troubled childhood, depression, drug abuse, lost loves and friendship.

The show has showed it’s main character getting off the hook and recovering at the expense of those about abuse and power. It has reminded the viewers about all the ways in which everyone of them have been hurt or used up by BoJack. It has also showed about his selfish actions and how that had real and devastating effects on the people around him. And the end is as incriminating as it can get.

Bojack horseman can be touching and intense. It will make you laugh at times and then catch you off guard. You will feel sorry for him. The crushing isolation he went through to the family trauma that gets passed down through the generations. From losing friends and lovers to always failing at making things right. He had it all. The helplessness he felt is something we can all relate to at some time in life. Everyone who is depressed has felt that feeling of worthlessness as their inner monologue criticize their every move. They would do anything to silence that evil voice in their head, and drinking until you black out does that perfectly. This is something that individuals deal with every single day.

By the end of the show, you won’t be wondering why you feel emotionally attached to this cartoon alcoholic horse man. Even though he is deeply damaged and depressed we can relate to him. We all do things like him in real life. We mess up. And he is changing the stigma by showing that not every depressed and neurotic individual is out there trying to intentionally harm others. We just do it because we don’t know how not to. BoJack Horseman isn’t unsympathetic to his victims.

Bojack horseman has got it all. The fame, fortune and glory. But as we get to know Bojack better, we are served glimpses of his childhood in beautifully cut montages. His old friends turned on him, while existing friendships quickly turn sour. Bojack gets bitter and unbearable with every episode and just when you are about to give up on him, he does something that every person, gone through all the terrible things does. He tries. But the show never glorifies him. And this is where the show shines. The show also treatise on depression, anxiety, motherhood, feminism and impostor syndrome are handled with heart-breaking sensitivity.

It has beautifully portrayed the complexity of life and how life goes on after making many atrocious things. It has manifested a story about mental health and how celebrity fosters and protect toxicity to a story about a powerful and abusive celebrity. But what do you do when you let your demons get the best of you? Can you find redemption after all the awful things you have done? Can you forgive yourself? May be not. But the one thing you surely know is that life’s a bitch but you have to keep struggling and be okay with whatever life provides you with. The show is all about contemplating life’s bitter mystery.

Perhaps there is honesty in the show. Life isn’t a bed of roses. It isn’t neat, and being good don’t always work out. But even after all the things Bojack has done, I could find a way to wish BoJack, the all-time screw-up, all the best in his life, even if I didn’t want him in mine any longer.

And at last, Arnett persuasively expressed a horse’s existential woes. “That voice – the one that tells you you’re worthless and ugly and stupid,” said BoJack once. “It goes away, right?” When this horse talked, I had no problem understanding him.

http://www.rtdjournal.com

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/jan/31/bojack-horseman-a

https://rtdjournal.com/shershaah-movie-review-sidharth-malhotra-masterfully-reenacts-the-powerful-colourful-life-of-vikram-batra/