This Technicality Episode is brought to you by Squarespace.
Hey guys, I’m here, let’s get technical.
Lemme set the scene for you: I was sitting on this futon, binging BoJack Horseman on
my computer for the first time.
It was a couple days after Season 4 dropped, and Netflix was promoting the show left and
right, so I thought to myself “Might as well check this out.”
I was on the eighth episode of the first season of the show, The Telescope, and the climactic
monologue, performed by Stanley Tucci as Herb Kazzaz, hit so close to home it literally
had me in tears.
This was the moment BoJack Horseman became my favourite TV show, and The Telescope still
to this day remains to be the most impactful and thoughtful piece of television I’ve
ever witnessed.
While many questions about BoJack Horseman have intrigued me over the years, no question
has more so than Why is JD Salinger in BoJack Horseman?
This has been on my mind for so long because JD Salinger is my favourite author.
Would you look at that, my favourite author is in my favourite TV show?
How perfect is that.
Just *hand kissing*
So today, especially since I’m so hyped for BoJack Horseman Season 5, coming out this
Friday, September 14th, I wanna answer that question.
This is why JD Salinger is in BoJack Horseman.
Spoilers ahead.
First, we could take his appearance on face value: it lends itself to comedy.
A serious and well-respected author, who famously would not allow his work to be adapted into
a movie, creating a GAME show that’s vapid, silly, and dare I say, phony is a pretty
funny premise and makes for good absurdist comedy.
Not to mention, it comes with a plethora of nice one-liners.
However, I think there’s a deeper connection than just “it’s kinda funny,” mainly
because if Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the creator and showrunner of BoJack Horseman, wanted
this absurdity, he really could’ve gone with any ol’ well-respected author.
Admittedly, it may not have packed the same punch as Salinger, considering how much of
a social recluse he is, and, you may have to do a small bit of restructuring when it
comes to the story to make sure everything makes sense, but, more or less, it would’ve
worked just as fine.
So the question now becomes why JD Salinger in particular?
What’s special about him?
Turns out, there’s actually quite a lot of parallels between the works of JD Salinger
and the show BoJack Horseman.
Today, we’ll study 3 of Salinger's works, A Perfect Day for Bananafish, Zooey and Franny,
and the Catcher in the Rye in hopes of examining the similar themes and ideas portrayed in
each piece of art, and, in doing so, understanding the message and meaning of them on a deeper level.
A Perfect Day for Bananafish was originally published in January 1948 in the New Yorker,
which would go on to be where much of Salinger’s work was published.
The plot of A Perfect Day for Bananafish can basically be divided 3 parts: First, a conversation
between Muriel Glass and her mother about the mental state of Muriel’s husband, Seymour
Glass, a World War II veteran who appears to have PTSD.
Second, Seymour’s interaction with Sybil Carpenter on a beach where they chat and look
for bananafish.
And third, Seymour’s subsequent suicide.
The most apparent connection between Bananafish and BoJack is in that second part, where Seymour
explains to Sybil what Bananafish are and how they act.
"They lead a very tragic life," he said.
"You know what they do, Sybil?"
She shook her head.
"Well, they swim into a hole where there's a lot of bananas.
They're very ordinary looking fish when they swim in.
But once they get in, they behave like pigs.
Why, I've known some bananafish to swim into a banana hole and eat as many as seventy-eight
bananas."...
"Naturally, after that they're so fat they can't get out of the hole again.
Can't fit through the door."
"Not too far out," Sybil said.
"What happens to them?"
"What happens to who?"
"The bananafish."
"Oh, you mean after they eat so many bananas they can't get out of the banana hole?"
"Yes," said Sybil.
"Well, I hate to tell you, Sybil.
They die."
This metaphor could mean a couple of different things in the context of A Perfect Day for
Bananafish.
The interpretation I like the most is that the Bananafish represents Seymour, or really
soldiers as a whole, before and after the war.
They enter the militia fine and normal young men, are gorged with the effects of violence
and fighting, which they then find hard to escape from and return to their old life.
It’s probably a good time to mention that JD Salinger himself fought in World War II.
He was drafted in the spring of 1942, and fought in numerous battles, entered a liberated
concentration camp, survived being on Utah beach on D-Day, and made the rank of Staff
Sergeant.
As John Green puts it,
>> JOHN GREEN: J.D. Salinger saw more combat in World War II than almost any other American.
After the war, Salinger was checked into the hospital for a couple weeks on account of
“Combat stress reaction,” something similar to PTSD.
Knowing Salinger’s history and relationship with war, on top of what I can deduce from
the actual text, this explanation for the metaphor makes the most sense to me.
I’ve also heard represents people and the bananas are materialistic pleasures.
However, this metaphor could also be applied to BoJack Horseman.
How BoJack is affected by fame and Hollywood is a constant theme throughout the show.
Before gaining notoriety on Horsin’ Around, BoJack was a pretty happy go lucky guy.
He was a humble bartender who did stand up comedy in hopes of larger things but didn’t
really have anything except for his good friends Herb and Charlotte.
And, well, we all know what happened afterwards.
BoJack became the narcissistic, depressed, alcoholic jerk the shows chronicles.
BoJack is a bananafish, an innocent dude, tempted by fame, who gorged on bananas, and
now is stuck in the hole.
The show itself actually uses a very similar metaphor to the bananafish metaphor when describing
BoJack and fame in the season 1 episode “The Telescope,” mentioned earlier.
In A Perfect Day for Bananafish, it’s hole full of bananas, and in BoJack Horseman, it’s
a tar pit, but the metaphor, meaning, and message is the same.
Franny and Zooey is a collection of two short stories (titled Franny and Zooey, shockingly)
originally published separately in the New Yorker in 1955 and ‘57 respectively.
Franny documents the story of Franny Glass and her relationship with the Jesus Prayer,
and Zooey expands on that story by adding in Zooey Glass’s reaction for Franny newfound
religious spirit and putting the whole thing in the context of the Glass family.
Ooh, sidenote, you may have recognized the last name Glass from earlier; Seymour Glass.
These aren’t the only stories the Glass family shows up in, they actually show up
quite a bit in Salinger’s writing, and Seymour’s suicide is an important factor in the short
story Zooey.
The relationship between Franny and Zooey and BoJack Horseman can be found on the very
last pages of Zooey.
See, each of the seven children of the Glass family were frequent guests on a show called
“It’s A Wise Child,” a show where gifted, intelligent children answer questions posed
to them by the audience.
In that way, the Glass family was sorta famous for having SEVEN kids who are all “prodigies.”
At the end of the short story, Zooey recounts the time he was on “It’s A Wise Child”
many years ago.
His older brother Seymour (same Seymour from before), told him to shine his shoes before
going on.
Zooey, reluctant to shine his shoes, cuz, you know, what kid wants to shine their shoes?,
pushed back against Seymour’s request:
“I was furious.
The studio audience were all morons, the announcer was a moron, the sponsors were morons, and
I just damn well wasn’t going to shine my shoes for them, I told Seymour.
I said they couldn’t see them anyways, where we sat.
He said to shine them anyways.
He said to shine them for the Fat Lady.
I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, but he had a very Seymour look on his
face, so I did it.
He never did tell me who the Fat Lady was, but I shined my shoes for the Fat Lady every
time I ever went on the air again...
This terribly clear, clear picture of the Fat Lady formed in my mind.
I had her sitting on this porch all day, swatting flies, with a radio going full blast from
morning till night.
I figured the heat was terrible, and she probably had cancer.
But I’ll tell you a terrible secret—Are you listening to me?
There is an anyone out there who isn’t Seymour’s Fat Lady.”
What Seymour was conveying with the Fat Lady is that no matter how moronic, or obnoxious,
or self-centered you find someone, everyone deserves to see shinned shoes, or, in other
words, everyone deserves love.
This exact sentiment is directly reflected at the end of BoJack Horseman season 4 episode 6.
BoJack, regardless of all the terrible things he’s done in his past, still deserves love,
just like the Fat Lady, just like everyone else.
The Catcher in The Rye is Salinger’s most well-known work.
The story documents Holden Caulfield and his journey after being expelled from Pencey,
a prestigious preparatory school.
Throughout the book, Holen complains about a number of things, notably “phonies”,
or people who act disingenuously to appeal to others, and the movies.
He really hates the movies.
To prove this, I have a quote. "If there's one thing I hate,
it's the movies."
Oh is that not enough for you?
Here we go.
“I hate the movies like poison.”
“I go to the movies as seldom as I can.”
“I figured that anybody that hates the movies as much as I do, I'd be a phony if I let them
stick me in a movie short.”
“When somebody really wants to go [to the movies]... it depresses hell out of me.”
and finally “I went to the movies at Radio City.
It was probably the worst thing I could've done.”
Now, I know what you’re thinking, I’m not really reading those quotes straight this
exact page in this book; I’m really watching the 2004 hit movie Shark Tale, but my point
still stands.
I just realized the version of Shark Tale I have is dubbed in Spanish.
I have so many questions
I don't know why this is, but it's...
Now the question becomes why does Holden dislike Hollywood?
For the answer to that, we can looks to the middle of the book when Holden hires a prostitute
for $5, decides he only wants to talk with her, pays her $5, and then this dude, Maurice,
who brokered the transaction, claims it was supposed to be $10, and forcefully takes 5
more dollars from Holden.
Afterwards, Holden fantasizes about getting back at Maurice.
For many sentences, he describes in great detail getting his revenge and concludes with
thought with “The goddam movies.
They can ruin you.
I'm not kidding.”
This perfectly encapsulates why Holden hates Hollywood: not just because of the phonies
who make up it, but also phony narratives they push.
Narratives like the protagonist always wins, or you’ll get back at them, or it’ll all
work out.
And these false narratives aren’t fun and games; they have real consequences.
Expecting they’ll come true will, in the end, only leave you disappointed or worse.
That’s what he means when he says “They can ruin you.”
This is one of the central themes and messages of BoJack Horseman.
Narratives pushed by sitcoms and Hollywood establish everything will be wrapped up cleanly
at the end of an episode or a movie.
Everyone forgives everyone else painlessly and easily, and the story ends happily, only
for a new story to start in the next episode.
However, real life works nothing like this.
At all.
It takes work to earn forgiveness, and the story doesn’t always end happily.
Heck, the story doesn’t necessarily end at all; in real life, there’s no beginnings
and endings, there are just moments.
BoJack, because of Hollywood, expects life to work like how it does on TV; in the perfect
Hollywood manor.
When he does bad things and simply apologies for them, he expects everyone to be okay with
it and move on.
When it
inevitably doesn’t work out, not only does he feel bad that things weren’t resolved
cleanly, but he also feels bad for expecting them to be resolved cleanly, only making things
worse.
Will Schoder has a phenomenal video essay on this, like, if I had to pick, it’s gotta
be one of my favourite videos on all of YouTube, no exageration, so I strongly recommend you
check that out.
Holden Caulfield, and BoJack Horseman, the show, offer the exact same critique of Hollywood:
it pushes phony, fictitious narratives, and these narratives aren’t just fun escapism.
It you expect them to be real life, you’ll only end up disappointed.
BUT HEY that’s just a theory, a film the... no I’m just kidding.
So, is this THE reason why JD Salinger’s in BoJack Horseman?
No, no no no no no.
The only person who can say for sure is Raphael Bob-Waksberg, or anyone he’s told, I guess.
However, the works of JD Salinger are my favourite pieces of literature, and BoJack Horseman
is my favourite TV show, so, to me, it’s incredibly interesting to explore the numerous
and prevalent parallels between them, and, in doing so, find out more about why they’re
so important to me and why I like them so much.
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