"That's cool that you think I'm cool.
I don't care or anything, but, you know, it's cool."
Diane Nguyen is a person of contradictions.
She’s a diehard feminist whose best friend can be a womanizing asshole.
"Rehab is not a cure-all that's gonna suddenly make you
not an asshole."
She embraces selfless causes with so much single-mindedness
it can make her self-centered.
"Do you know you're breaking the law by giving everybody water?"
"It's okay, I want the water."
"Yeah, we all want water.
That's not the point."
She wants to make a difference,
but she settles for writing think pieces for a vapid online blog.
"I thought I was gonna be doing really important work.
You know, writing stuff that makes a difference.
But then you kind of fall into one thing and then another."
And she doesn’t want to hurt people, but she encourages her ex-husband
to cheat on his new girlfriend with her.
While Mr. Peanutbutter can be summed up in the word “optimistic,”
"I'm just gonna go with the flow and leave everything up to destiny."
Princess Carolyn “driven,”
"Laura, hold my calls, cancel everything!
Ahab's got a white whale to catch, baby!"
and Todd “carefree,”
"Why so gloomy, roomie?"
Diane struggles to pinpoint a fixed personal outlook or philosophy.
Diane often finds herself in a similar position
to Bojack Horseman’s audience:
clear-eyed and certain in one moment,
"You don't think this is incredibly disrespectful to the women
who actually get abortions?"
only to question her stance
and become unsure how she should feel in the next.
"That was surprisingly tasteful."
"And educational, right?"
"Yeah, weirdly educational!"
Diane -- with her high-mindedness, neuroses, and contradictions --
reflects the outlook of the show itself:
its dark honesty, its conscience, its desire to make a positive impact
coupled with the cynicism about the world we live in,
even its ambivalence about its own star, Bojack.
"I really wanted you to like me, Diane."
"I know."
So while many viewers may see themselves in Bojack,
it’s Diane whom the show wants us to really listen to.
The voice in Bojack’s head and in ours, Diane is the show’s soul.
So let’s look at how this character reveals to us Bojack Horseman’s deeper outlook,
values and philosophy.
"Do you think I'm a good person, deep down?"
"That's the thing.
I don't think I believe in deep down.
I kind of think all you are is just the things that you do."
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"Either you know what you want and then you don't get what you want.
Or you get what you want and then you don't know what you want."
One of Diane’s defining characteristics is that she’s crippled by uncertainty.
"And that way everybody knows what I want, and I know what I want--"
"Uh..."
"Which is what everyone wants and it's really clear,
and nobody is confused by anything."
Even though she achieves lofty feats with relative ease,
she waffles over what to do in her career.
She keeps changing her mind about her relationships,
and doubts she can ever really be happy.
"I don't know if I believe in it, real, lasting happiness."
She tries to make change in the world,
but she also gets scared, in over her head, and gives up.
"I really thought I could do it.
I thought I could go far away
and help people, and be this best possible version of myself."
"Then what happened?"
"I couldn't.
I wasn't the person I thought I was."
It’s exactly this sort of flip-flopping that makes Diane such a relatable character.
"I don't know what I'm doing.
I can't be a trusted news source,
or an authority, or a role model, for anybody."
Like many of us, she can be so sure one moment,
and then everything changes in the next.
"Why would you do this?"
"It's what you always wanted, right?"
"It's too much!
I didn't want it like this?"
"Like what?"
"I don't know."
She wants to hold firm to her principles, but her circumstances keep changing.
She herself keeps changing.
"Because maybe I am cool, sexy Diane, or really-in-touch-with-her-feelings Diane,
or possibly other Dianes we don't even know about yet."
TV characters are traditionally a lot more consistent
in their stances and opinions.
"And remember, if I am harsh with you, it is only because you're doing it wrong."
But Diane’s back and forth is closer to how life works for a lot of people.
"Do you know how much trouble we can get in?
There's a policeman in our front yard!"
"Uh-oh.
Here comes the responsible suburban housewife."
"You're right.
Let's get out of here."
"So now you're just gonna do whatever a teenage girl says?"
Diane’s desire for the ease of certainty
is a big part of her attraction to Mr. Peanutbutter.
She loves that Mr. Peanutbutter is uncomplicated, optimistic,
and completely lacking self-doubt.
"Honey, relax.
Getting married is easy!"
But time and time again she also pulls away from him because of that very simplicity.
"I don't wanna be one of those couples that settles into a routine and never changes."
"Well, I don't know what to say.
Because I'm an old dog and I'm not gonna change."
Diane struggles most of all with how to deal with Bojack --
who’s so similar to her in some ways.
"You know, I think we're alike in a lot of ways."
"Yeah, it's funny, I always tell people you're like the not-cool version of me."
"And sometimes that's great, but it also means we can bring out
the worst in each other."
On the one hand, Diane believes it’s important to hold Bojack responsible
for his bad behavior;
"Explain to me how Sarah Lynn's overdose was really rough for you."
"Shut up!"
"You feel a lot of guilt about that?"
and on the other, she understands him better than anyone else does --
"But you're my best friend, and you need me."
she feels his pain and wants to support his desire to be better.
"The last time I saw you, you said you still believe
I could be a better person.
Do you still believe that?"
"I do."
Both of these viewpoints are valid and right, which tells us:
the source of Diane’s constant waffling isn’t some lack of a backbone.
It comes from the fact that she’s a complex thinker
who sees things from all sides, and the truth is many-sided.
"I think there's more to the story.
What are me missing?"
If you make the effort to look that deeply into the nuance in any situation,
like Diane, you’re going to end up driving yourself into a state of paralysis
a lot of the time.
Staring at the complexity and contradictions of life is
exactly what Bojack Horseman the series is doing, too --
and it’s often using Diane’s eyes to do it.
So the series encourages us to try on Diane’s glasses for size.
She isn’t sure where she’s going, or how she’ll get there,
but she’s not going to gloss over the truth
or be satisfied with some simplified, reductionist view of the world.
"I don't want you or anyone else justifying their shady behavior
because of the show."
And she’s not giving up.
"I'm not giving up.
There's gotta be someone who'll talk."
Here is Diane’s greatest strength:
she always tries to operate under a code of selflessness.
"This is what's wrong with society."
"Diane..."
"Nobody thinks about the world outside themselves."
Diane speaks out against wrongs.
She makes grand gestures.
She fights to steer her friends and her society toward her morals,
often at great personal cost.
"Those are death threats.
People want to murder my wife because of what she's saying on the news."
She speaks out about misconduct allegations against Hank Hippopopalous,
"What do you have against Hank Hippopopalous?
Everyone says he's really nice guy."
"Good point."
"That's exactly the problem.
Because he's so nice,
people don't want to think he's capable of awful things,
so they let him off the hook."
even though this threatens her husband’s new job at a point
when they’re having money troubles.
"Hey, do me a favor.
Please don't make a big thing out of this.
It's really not a good time, you know, with my show about to launch."
But Diane’s driven by an innate instinct to do what she thinks is right first --
and only think about self-preservation, or what she gets out of it, later.
Of course, Diane’s humanitarian pursuits don’t mean she can’t be selfish.
Diane’s focus on her principles frequently makes her self-absorbed
and insensitive to those around her.
"You are my friend, and you hurt my feelings.
And it's weird you never apologize for that.
And that you still won't."
In Mr. Peanutbutter’s eyes,
going after Hank Hippopopalous is a betrayal of him.
"This game show is a really big deal for me.
And I know that sounds stupid to you, small, but I need this to go well."
Others might call it a self-destructive streak.
"Oh I'm gonna drop it alright.
They don't even know how much I'm gonna drop it."
"The way you said that kind of make you sound like you're not gonna drop it."
And like Bojack, Diane does have a tendency to slip into vicious cycles of negativity.
"Why can't I be happy?
Am I busted?"
But whereas Bojack’s selfishness often drags him down
into repeating the same mistakes,
Diane finds a strength in fighting for her ideals
that balances her impulse to self-sabotage.
Her will to do good gives her a sense of purpose;
"But then I think about Sebastian St. Clair and going to work with him,
helping people and making a difference.
And I feel like I have a reason to get out of bed."
it allows her to value herself and pull herself up from low points.
Diane captures the type of the modern liberal intellectual youth --
a sort of person who’s very likely to be watching this show.
"I'm Sarah Koenig.
This is one ringtone told over the course of several rings.
And the story it's telling you is to answer your phone."
Her convictions about the world make her relatable for a lot of millennials
who share her opinions on feminism and social justice.
"Well, the bar for men is depressingly low.
Just sprinkle a few words like intersectionality or microaggressions
and Vice News will name you feminist of the year."
On the surface, Diane’s politics seem to align easily
with dominant stances in today’s politically correct world,
and she’s often perceived as self-righteously annoying by those around
her.
"They're adorable, not that I value them based on their looks.
Because, of course, children in society today are often reduced to their cuteness.
I can't wait to get to know your children as people,
so I can specifically compliment them individually
on the foundation of their character--s."
But she really believes in these ideals,
and she’s been trying to change people’s minds
for a long time to no avail --
so to Diane, these efforts more often feel like a losing battle.
"This is not over.
When people hear wh--" "Give it a rest.
It's over.
You lost."
After her speaking out against Hank Hippopopolous leads nowhere,
the episode ends with this moment.
"Hey.
Smile!"
Notably, not just this Season 2 moment, but even all of Season 5,
was written before the #MeToo movement.
So she’s far from just going along with what’s in vogue in her times.
And no matter how many times she gets knocked down,
she finds a way to bounce back.
"I think we made a difference.
A small one, but a difference."
Sooner or later, she’s seized with the energy to fight for another cause
that just might help change the world -- even though it probably won’t.
"You just passed sensible gun legislation."
"I can't believe this country hates women more than it loves guns?"
"No?"
She is the conscience of Bojack Horseman,
always trying to follow her moral compass towards true north.
But while we can applaud Diane’s righteous crusades,
even more admirable is her ability to forgive.
After discovering Bojack’s most shameful past,
Diane is there for him -- bringing him to rehab
and explaining her philosophy that makes way for his redemption.
"There's no such thing as bad guys, or good guys.
We're all just guys who do good stuff sometimes,
and bad stuff sometimes.
And all we can do is try to do less bad stuff and more good stuff."
Diane can at once condemn his behavior and forgive the actor,
because she believes in moving forward from past mistakes.
In Diane’s eyes, we are all people who have done good and bad things,
and who are capable of so much more.
She encourages Bojack -- and us -- to try harder to be better.
"You need to take responsibility for yourself."
For all the uncertainty in her life, when it comes to her craft,
Diane has a writer’s instinct for brutal honesty.
"I think the truth is worth pursuing no matter what."
She’s a shrewd observer who calls it like she sees it.
"You listen, nod, and say all the right things when you tell you our stories,
but you still can't actually know what it feels like
to constantly have your guard up."
When Sebastian St. Clair lures her to Cordovia to bring him some good publicity,
what comes out of her pen is instead a savagely candid portrait
of this do-gooder’s narcissism.
"The second thing you notice about Sebastian St. Clair is
how much he talks about himself."
And of course, in Season 1, she and Bojack fall out
because she insists on telling the truth,
warts and all, in his book.
"Well, I realize the best way to capture you, warts and all--"
"This isn't warts and all.
It's just warts.
Where's the all?
I come off like a total asshole."
Diane is a bit of a misfit in LA,
where show business trains everyone to be nice
and tell others what they want to hear.
"You're in the prime in your life.
Never looked better."
But Diane’s warts-and-all candor is
exactly what this Hollywoo-set show is aiming to achieve.
Brutal honesty is the source of the series’ humor, its pathos,
and its popularity.
"You know what's gonna happen?
You're gonna win that Oscar,
and you're gonna go up on that stage, and give your little speech,
and then you're gonna go home,
and you're gonna be so miserable you wanna kill yourself."
Indeed, at times, Diane feels like a stand-in for the show’s creator and writers.
In Season 5, we get a pretty meta moment when Diane tries to show Bojack
the error of his ways by creating a despicable villain
out of his starring role in Philbert,
only for the audience to love the antihero she made.
"I made him more vulnerable, and that made him more likable,
which makes for a better TV show.
But if Philbert is just a way to help dumb assholes
rationalize their own awful behavior, well, I'm sorry,
but we can't put this out there."
This seems like the show grappling with its own portrayal of an antihero --
were the creators, perhaps, taken by surprise that so many viewers out there relate to Bojack
and identify with him uncritically, instead of condemning his behavior?
Diane the writer is the show’s own gaze observing Bojack --
she loves her friend but she also sees the worst in him with total clarity.
"You're the biggest asshole I know
and you're the only thing that makes sense to me."
Countering Diane’s writerly instinct for harsh, unfiltered candor
is also a creative warmth, and a love of what entertainment can do.
"I can write you the standard empty-calorie celebrity tell-some,
if that's what you're looking for, but I thought you might want more than that."
"I do."
"Well, then you're going to have to open up and give me something real."
She did come to Hollywoo, after all -- and even when she’s doing jobs
like running Bojack’s twitter account, she manages to have a lot of fun.
"Yesterday I dropped my phone in the bathroom
which made BoJack's Instagram post a picture of the floor,
with the caption 'spujb.'
That got 4,000 likes."
It’s worth remembering that a big part of why Diane connects with Bojack in the first
place
is because she loved Horsin’ Around as a kid.
"And for half an hour every week I had a home.
And it helped me survive."
While the show is constantly derided in Bojack’s present day,
"Yes, but it sucked."
"It didn't suck!"
this creation meant something to Diane as a kid.
It offered her an important escape during her difficult childhood.
The show drops a lot of hints about how much it meant to Bojack, too.
"A lot of people still see you as the guy from that sucky show from the 90s."
"Horsin' Around is not a sucky show."
The critical establishment may laud him for Secretariat,
a movie in which he was ultimately replaced by CGI,
but Horsin' Around is the more honest reflection of the particular gift he had to offer the
world.
"How did you get her to come back down?"
[Italian accent] "Let's just say I made her an offer she couldn't refuse."
So even if Bojack Horseman gets laughs at the expense of the 90s sitcom formula,
it also subtly shows appreciation for any piece of art or entertainment
that brings genuine, unpretentious fun and joy into people’s lives.
Of course, that’s the heart of what this show also exists to do.
"OK, alright, there's no need to get--" "What?
Catty?
Are you gonna say catty?"
"I was not gonna say catty."
The job of the writer is to reflect the world truthfully
without reducing its complexity.
Like the show, Diane won’t gloss over her world’s absurdities and problems,
"Ugh, this town is full of hypocrites.
They act all shocked when one of their favorite stars
turns out to be a dirtbag,
but they can't wait to give a comeback to all the dirtbags we already know about."
yet -- crucially -- she extends compassion to the people around her,
because they’re so flawed and need mercy.
Without Diane, Bojack the show would be lacking a soul --
just as Bojack’s life would be pretty empty without this friend
who truly gets him and challenges him.
"You know me, better than anybody, and you cannot be a part of my life."
As the voice and perspective of the series itself,
Diane reminds us that it’s okay
if we don’t always know what we’re doing all the time,
that it matters to speak up,
and that we can always get back up again after we fall.
She shows it takes strength to tell the truth --
and this is the key component of any writing that has a chance of being any good.
So while she might find it easier to be like one of the other characters
with a fixed, static approach to life, the beauty of Diane is
that she’s always evolving, never sure, and ever real.
"I was this badass overachiever that had these big plans to change the world--"
"Yeah?
What happened?"
"Oh, you didn't hear?
I changed the world!"
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