Accompanying Essay:

Netflix’s Bojack Horseman examines self-identity through the life of its titular character, an anthropomorphized horse who, back in th e ‘90s, was in a very famous TV show. His residuals and residual status following the success of the family sitcom, named Horsin’ Around, fuel the self-destructive lifestyle he lives in the present, where he mutes his unresolved trauma and regrets through substance abuse, deflection, and distraction. James Baldwin rationalizes this natural aversion to self-reflection in his essay “The Creative Process,” admitting that there are “so many things one would rather not know” about oneself (669). However, Baldwin recognizes its necessity, describing the outward manifestation of our inner turmoil as an unavoidable result of its presence. For Bojack, this turmoil manifests itself in week-long benders and spirals of regrettable decisions, each, in part, the result of an attempted escape from the many before it. Baldwin suggests that the inevitable expulsion of inner forces becomes destructive due to a lack of understanding, explaining that “we do the things we do, and feel what we feel, essentially because we must -- we are responsible for our actions, but we rarely understand them… if we understood ourselves better, we would damage ourselves less” (Baldwin 671). Bojack is unable to escape this cycle because he simply refuses to understand his feelings. He would rather not admit the truth because “the truth about us is always at variance with what we wish to be” (Baldwin 671). However, throughout the series, Bojack comes to realize that simply denying the truth does not change it, and ultimately, he is how he is. While having a conversation with his friend Diane, Bojack asks her if she thinks he is a good person deep down. Diane answers “I don't think I believe in deep down. I kinda think that all you are is just the things that you do” (“Later”). Bojack initially sees this celestial objectivity as an obstacle to change, but throughout the series, he begins to understand that it actually affords him the freedom to improve without the burden of the desire to be good deep down, to tip some universal binary of morality. Most “moral issues also involve vagueness” (Williamson).

Timothy Williamson investigates the sorites paradox, one that shows the vague undefinability of our world by imagining a collection of grains of sand, and asking how many individual grains constitute a heap. “The trouble is that we don’t have such a definition. The word ‘heap’ is vague” (Williamson). Similarly, there is no tipping point at which Bojack will be firmly placed in the category of either good or bad, and learning this allows his focus to shift from letting his bad actions define him to adding more good grains of sand, individually. “Often, we know there’s a heap; often, we know there isn’t one. Sometimes, we don’t know whether there is one or not.” (Williamson). Bojack’s fear of being a bad person deep down is washed away after learning that his actions have happened and can’t be changed, so all he can do is learn from them and try to make gradual improvements.

I wanted my creative piece to reflect this idea of our identity being made up of a collection of smaller particles, so I designed an installation that uses a camera to take in a video input, which is fed through a series of real-time filters that grate the signal into particles. The manipulated video is then projected back onto a board right next to the camera to reproduce the effect of the board reflecting whatever is in front of it: a pointillist mirror. The artistic technique of pointillism came to mind as it exemplifies how many miniscule, individual points can represent a larger concept, one that can really only be understood when viewed as a whole, after having taken a step back, and not by hyper-focusing on each individual detail of the painting. However, a mirror is not a painting. A painting serves as a static imprint of a moment or idea, carrying the weight of permanence that a mirror simply doesn’t. Reflections are constantly in flux. They reflect the moment that’s happening as it’s happening, and then instantaneously depart to the next. While Bojack initially sees his life as a damaged painting, in constant need of meticulous restoration to present an intact image, he learns that there is no artist; his life is a mirror, a direct representation of what he does in front of it. Everything that happens, once reflected, is gone, but is forever in a state of having been reflected nonetheless. Bojack can’t change his past, but he’s liberated by this attitude, saying that “in the great, grand scheme of things, we’re just tiny specks… it doesn’t matter what we did in the past… the only thing that matters is right now” (“That's Too Much, Man!”). He shifts his focus towards granular change, the kind that, on its own, is drowned in a sea of shameful acts, but causes changes to his heap of virtue when viewed as a whole.

That is not to say that these grains don’t exist, or are to be ignored. After all, they are the sole elements of a heap. However, treating any one grain as if it’s at odds with the collective of others rather than as a component that can be used to better define that collective diminishes its potential value. The destructive “forces are there, we cannot will them away. All we can do is learn to live with them” (Baldwin 671). A good grain cannot negate a bad grain; there is no net sum of morality, but each grain affects the collective perception of the heap, either working to help define or muddle its ambiguity. The closer you get to the pointillist mirror, the more your image becomes atomized, a series of nonsensical grains with no individual vitality; it’s only after stepping back that you can view a complete reflection of yourself.

Works Cited

Baldwin, James. “The Creative Process”. Collected Essays, 1998.

“Later.” Bojack Horseman, season 1, episode 12, Netflix, 22 Aug. 2014. Netflix, https://www.netflix.com/watch/70298941.

“That's Too Much, Man!” Bojack Horseman, season 3, episode 111, Netflix, 22 July 2016. Netflix, https://www.netflix.com/watch/80073227.

Williamson, Timothy. “On Vagueness, or, When Is a Heap of Sand Not a Heap of Sand?” Aeon, Aeon, 15 Nov. 2016, aeon.co/ideas/on-vagueness-when-is-a-heap-of-sand-not-a-heap-of-sand.

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