BoJack Horseman S5 is here and creators talk about forgiveness in Hollywood
‘BoJack Horseman’ Creator Talks About Hollywood and Forgiveness https://t.co/4OwKKR7k4X
- The New York Times (@nytimes) September 16, 2018
BoJack Horseman, the Netflix original released its fifth season on September 15th, and it tackles some of the current issues inevitably in the show's context.
The creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg talks about Hollywood and forgiveness, in the sense that BoJack has done some terrible, terrible things and yet, is not necessarily a bad person.
This season deals very explicitly with the theme of disgraced celebrities. How did the current news cycle influence you?
The connection to #MeToo was more coincidental than intentional. The creator said: “We actually kind of backed into it, because we started talking about this season last summer, it didn’t start from a place of ‘O.K., this Time’s Up thing is happening, how are we going to respond to that?’ It really was more organically thinking about what’s happening in BoJack’s life, but also in the life of Los Angeles, right now.”.
The current season deals heavily with disgraced celebrities. Raphael Bob-Waksberg says it stemmed from his agency had signed Mel Gibson, he felt personally found repugnant. It lead to him thinking "What is the proper amount of time before we, as a community, decide to forgive a person? What hoops do they have to jump through - which is a very cynical way of putting it - for us to forgive them? I found myself, in this particular case, really unwilling to forgive. But also, I am someone who does believe in the power of forgiveness, generally."
There are a lot of references to previous seasons - BoJack’s questionable interactions with Charlotte’s daughter, Penny, for instance - which also suggest that he hasn’t learned much from his mistakes. Is that a creative challenge for you, figuring out how to keep this character that hasn’t fundamentally changed interesting?
He says one of the main things that keeps coming forward through the seasons is “What does BoJack really need to do in order to change? He needs to get sober and get therapy. That’s what this guy needs. His refusal to do that is the thing that’s holding him. It felt like if we want to move this character forward, we need to get him to the place where he’s willing to do those things."
The fact is at the end of Season 4, he thinks he’s in a good place and why would he change anything about himself? He feels like, “I’ve climbed out of this hole, myself.” Which makes up a big part of this season, the fact that that you don’t have to do it yourself. In fact, this idea that you should do it yourself is harmful. BoJack feels that to ask for help from other people is a sign of weakness, and that it’s dragging people down, trying to get them to care about his problems. That’s something that’s deeply ingrained in him.
source
Ahhhhh ONTD have you binge watched S5 ? Do you relate to the show or any of the characters ?