’Horsin’ Around’? #MeToo, the Sadcom, and BoJack Horseman

Kurzfassung/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.