Heartbreaking: the best show you've ever seen got co-opted by incels

The "Bojack Horseman Effect" and the decline of media literacy

I finished what I'm estimating was my sixth rewatch of Bojack Horseman yesterday. It's been one of my top 5 favorite TV shows since I watched it the summer after graduating college- it's one of my desert island picks, with little contest. Whenever anyone asks me why I like it so much even though it's so depressing (which is often) I have to stop myself from gushing about the complex view of the human condition that was packed into it so neatly by subverting expectations with the animated style, or how it deftly navigates the gray area many humans occupy- not necessarily good or bad, but just trying not to get hurt or hurt others as we wade through the unknown.

I think it's one of the best shows of the 2010s- so why is it constantly claimed by some of the worst people on the internet?

I call it the "Bojack Horseman Effect"- when a character meant to be seen as a cautionary tale and a satire of certain behaviors becomes so celebrated that the appreciation for that character becomes misinterpreted as approval of their behaviors. Bojack is not a good guy- he's an addict who refuses to get help and allows his addiction to hurt those closest to him, he's selfish, he's arrogant, and he borders on predatory. As the show's creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg once shared in an interview with Forbes, even though he sees Bojack Horseman as an "optimistic" show about a person's ability to change, he was very conscious of the fact that "the damage accumulated" with Bojack's poor treatment of other people, and wasn't scared to make his titular character the bad guy.

Though calling it the "Bojack Horseman Effect" is the term that demonstrates the phenomenon most clearly to me, it's certainly not the origin- people have been misinterpreting things for as long as we've been on the planet. The right-wing co-opt of the term "snowflake" comes to mind- now a derogatory term meant to insult "soft", often left-leaning, people, stolen directly from "Fight Club", a movie that aimed to satirize the ludicrous nature of toxic, hyper-masculinity.

Another victim is the film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' chilling American Psycho, directed by Mary Harron with the direct intent to critique and parody the behavior of a man with an overblown sense of entitlement and the capitalist environment that inflated it. Harron has always held to the ground on her perception of Patrick Bateman, saying in an interview with Little White Lies Magazine that, "the one thing you couldn't do was think Bateman was in any way cool." Christian Bale himself has been very outspoken about the clear satire underscoring what is arguably one of his most iconic roles, yet there is an equally outspoken subset of the film's audience that see Bateman as someone to aspire to- his cutthroat, emotionless demeanor bringing him success and women.

The same is true for Vince Gilligan's drug-fueled bender of a gritty drama, Breaking Bad, a show that, in my opinion, could not state more clearly that its protagonist is one you should not align with. So many characters are thrown against Walter White to demonstrate just how cruel and abusive he is, his long-suffering wife Skylar bearing the brunt of it. And yet, for a specific population of Breaking Bad's audience, Skylar has become the object of hate and vitriol for standing in the way of Walter's methamphetamine empire. Anna Gunn, the actress behind Skylar, wrote about the staggering hatred for her character, and herself, in a New York Times op-ed, citing one disturbing online post in particular that read, "could somebody tell me where I can find Anna Gunn so I can kill her?"

There is, of course, no one correct way to interpret any piece of media- an individual's life experience will always influence their perception. In the same vein, it's reasonable to expect an audience to form a bond with the protagonist of a story- after all, they're the character we spend the most time with, there has to be something that fuels the desire to stay with them. This particular trend, however, signifies two equally upsetting possibilities in my opinion:

1. Media literacy and critical analysis have declined so much that people can no longer recognize satire when they see it.

2. The worst fans of these pieces of media do recognize that they are satire, but the characters are so well-written and the stories so beloved and praised that they see it as a twisted justification for bad behaviors.

Maybe it's neither- though I think that it's a little bit of both. No matter the answer though, it speaks to a broader cultural issue. A lack of willingness to put critical thought into the media we consume has invented the need for filmmakers to say exactly what the point of a character or show is, all the time. And the call comes from both sides: I've seen just as many keyboard warriors question actors who take on antagonistic roles with evil traits and assign them to the actor with no evidence- Robert Pattinson's performance as a pedophile preacher in The Devil All the Time comes to mind.

It's a lesson that you would never think has to be taught, that a well-written and compelling character does not by any means equal a good character.

There's no one way to teach that lesson, and I do think for many, myself included, the following is true: you don't like Bojack Horseman himself, but you like the feeling that you're not alone in the things that make you kind of shitty.

But enough people don't feel that way, and I think it's clear in light of these patterns that there is a need to challenge people and their perceptions. A need for media that makes people work to peel back the layers of a character, rather than placate them by putting everything on the surface.