PicoBlog

Diane Nguyen is a Hypocrite

I love Bojack Horseman, it is undoubtedly my favorite piece of media on planet Earth right now, and one of my favorite things to do is rewatch it and find new things to talk about. My second favorite thing to do is regurgitate old things that I already talked about to new people, and that’s why we’re here today. I actually am writing this because the people around me are sick of hearing me bring this up. 

If you’ve never seen or heard of Bojack Horseman, I’m going to try really hard not to stone you. But I will encourage you to watch it before you read this because I will be discussing spoilers, and the jaw dropping moments are a big part of the watch experience. It won’t be as fun if you know everything beforehand. 

If you insist on reading this anyway, here is a short description of the show. Bojack Horseman is a six season adult animated Netflix original. It’s about an anthropomorphic horse named Bojack Horseman who is an old washed up 90s sitcom actor. 18 years after his show ends — we follow him and the people/animals around him on a deep exploration of mental illnesses, generational trauma, addiction, and the ins and outs of celebrity culture. 

Please, I insist you watch it. 

Today, we’re going to discuss Diane Nguyen, my favorite character and the one that I project myself onto the most. When I first discovered Bojack Horseman in April of 2021, I was obsessed with it. I tore through it and was finished with all six seasons by May, and I needed to talk about it with someone. I hadn’t seen anyone on Twitter talking about it at the time, so I searched up video essays on YouTube and then looked up what people thought about the characters. 

Let me tell you, I was shocked and heartbroken at the hate that I saw Diane getting. I loved her so much, why didn’t anyone else love her? Then I snapped back into reality, I had entered the dudebro side of Reddit. Of course they hate her. 

dudebro [dood-broh] - A dudebro is a humorous or derisive slang term stereotyping a young, usually white man as a partying prep or jock who is unaware of his own privilege. 

The population on Reddit is largely white and male, especially within the threads of television and film. Something that is a known fact about white males that consume any type of media, television, film, books, etc. is that if they cannot relate (relate meaning they must be looking at a white man, or in our case an anthropomorphic horse with a white voice actor) to what is being shown to them, it must not be good. We saw that happening when Marvel started to branch out and create television shows that catered to young women of color. 

I’ll be the first to tell you that She-Hulk isn’t the best thing I’ve ever seen (I loved it anyway.) but the response before the show even came out tells me that the dudebros, incels, and the “You didn’t read the comics!” brigade wasn’t going to like it anyway.

Also Ms. Marvel slayed, so now what? 

The reason that Diane isn’t someone that they can relate to, is because she’s a woman, of course, but because she’s a woman of color first. A Vietnamese woman to be exact. 

So after Diane goes through a journey of trying to find herself in Vietnam in the episode “The Dog Days Are Over”, they don’t see her losing herself more because after all these years of wanting to belong somewhere—  she doesn’t even belong in the place that she came from. They see an ungrateful woman who is unhappy about something yet again, doesn’t want her ex-husband to be happy, and lies to an unsuspecting Grip about not being able to speak English. What a bitch, right? 

Please, that man is going to be fine. 

I could genuinely tie up this issue by saying “because racism and misogyny” and then ending it here. And while that is basically my point, I want to talk about the criticisms that I see Diane get all the time. But I’m not necessarily going to debunk them, because I don’t believe that they’re not true. Let’s take a walk. 

A lot of the criticism I see from dudebros on Reddit is that Diane has this holier than thou, better than you attitude. She thinks she’s always right, she’s too much of a perfectionist, she holds everyone to an impossible standard and then gets mad when they let her down. And the big bad word that everyone loves to use. Diane Nguyen is a hypocrite. 

Mind you, Bojack Horseman almost assaulted a 17 year old girl, he abandoned his long time friend who got fired for being gay, he kissed Diane and then attempted to ruin her wedding with Mr. Peanutbutter, he got strung out on pills that he was taking recreationally and choked his co-star/girlfriend on the set of his TV show. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. 

But because iHateWomen69 relates more to Bojack (except the whole abusive predator thing, of course) he finds it hard to empathize with Diane, she is a hypocrite after all. And no matter the emotionally neglectful parents, the awful husband, the depression, the fact that she changes at the end, it’s just no excuse to be a hypocrite! 

But here’s the thing right, Diane is a hypocrite. Now, before you all start typing up your essays ready to slander her or worse, me. Hear me out. 

I am the President of the Diane fan club and an active member of the As She Should Foundation (this is not a real foundation, please just laugh at the joke). But I cannot deny what’s true. Sometimes she does get mad at Bojack for things she’s guilty of, like being unable to handle conflict resolution or not communicating what she feels. 

Diane is someone who is always preaching about morals and exposing celebrities and corporations for the bad things they do, like when Ana Spanakopita represents Vance Waggoner in “Bojack the Feminist”, Diane is very adamant that as women giving these awful men the cover of their friendship they are then culpable for the horrible things that they do. But Bojack is her best friend. At the time, she was not aware of what happened in New Mexico or what really happened with Sarah Lynn, but Bojack had done and said a lot of things that she didn’t agree with by then. 

She always gets on Mr. Peanutbutter for not listening but what does Roxy do for work again? Right. (/j)

In no way is Diane ever presented to us as a perfect person, none of them are (except Todd /hj). She even refers to herself as a hypocrite in “The Stopped Show”. But I do think it’s extremely ridiculous to get upset at a character and hate her all the way through for character flaws, a lot of which she shares with Mr. Bojack Horseman. 

It’s no secret that there’s usually outrage the second a female character displays any form of emotion that might make a situation complicated or might accidentally alert those around her that she’s a human being with feelings. The way people react to female characters' emotions reminds me a lot of how people react to children, specifically when they throw a tantrum. Because of how uncomfortable it is to confront big emotions, we get frustrated and annoyed at how expressive children are when they feel things. When you feel jealous, angry, insecure, vengeful, sad, etc. you probably do so in the privacy of your own home, where no one else can judge you for doing so. When you watch a TV show  or movie, you have access to things you wouldn’t normally have access to, so your first response may be…. “Why the hell is she acting like that?” 

Here’s my question though, why is it that when a female character and a male character both do the things that you do behind closed doors… Why does only one get empathy from you? 

Like yes, the patriarchy, men aren’t allowed to show emotion so when they do, we feel bad, and women have been labeled as emotional since the dawn of time, and it becomes an inconvenience(*gestures to Beatrice’s mother having to get a literal lobotomy because she was experiencing grief*). Internalized misogyny, men hate women, blah blah blah. 

But how did you watch a show about flawed characters, and hate a flawed character for being a flawed character? You see how that doesn’t make sense? I think you have to do some self reflection. 

Bojack’s constant self sabotaging is a flaw. Mr. Peanutbutter having trouble listening is a flaw. Diane holding everyone she meets to an impossible standard is a flaw. 

But Bojack sleeping with his best friend’s first girlfriend because “she was just there” is not a character flaw. 

Mr. Peanutbutter using Diane’s past against her every time he got upset with her is not a character flaw. 

And no, Diane getting to the end of her rope with Bojack and writing his deep dark past that includes an almost assault of a teenage girl into his TV show is not a character flaw (it’s my least favorite thing that she does, that’s for sure). 

But the difference between Diane and these characters, specifically Bojack, is that she sets out to change her behavior. She does not end the series as a hypocrite, and that’s my point. 

“All I know about being good I learned from TV. And in TV, flawed characters are constantly showing people they care with these surprising grand gestures. And I think that part of me still believes that's what love is. But in real life, the big gesture isn't enough. You need to be consistent, you need to be dependably good. You can't just screw everything up, and then take a boat out into the ocean to save your best friend, or solve a mystery and fly to Kansas. You need to do it every day, which is so... hard. “ — Bojack Horseman (Bojack Horseman, Season 5 Episode 6 “Free Churro”) 

A common theme in Bojack Horseman is that you are a product of your past. What happened to you in your childhood follows you and enters your insecurities, your relationships, your career. That seems like an easy enough concept to grasp, right? Pretty relatable, if I do say so myself. 

Nobody on the show is morally clean, everyone has baggage that influences the way that they live their lives. But in the words of Todd Chavez (my king), “You can’t keep doing shitty things and then feel bad about yourself like that makes it okay! You need to be better!” 

And therein lies the catch. 

Bojack never truly does change, in the series finale he is ready to continue the cycle of chaos in his life by trying to convince Princess Carolyn to hook him up with an agent even though his involvement in the industry had a very large hand in his behavior. And no, he’s not drinking anymore, and his attitude is different. He comes off more empathetic than he was previously, but who he is at the core remains. If Todd, Princess Carolyn and Diane didn’t distance themselves from him, it is my personal opinion that he would’ve found a way to continue down the rabbit hole that he just dug himself out of. 

By the time Bojack catches up to Diane at Princess Carolyn’s wedding, she’s not the same person she was when he first met her. He’s not allowed to joke around with her the same way, she won’t allow him to use her to work out his issues or justify his actions to her. She's changed, she’s moved on from their relationship, she doesn’t need him to feel better about herself anymore. 

I think a way to perfectly describe the fundamental differences between Bojack and Diane is to look at Diane’s internal monologue in “Good Damage” and Bojack’s internal monologue in “Stupid Piece of Shit”. 

I wouldn’t necessarily say that Bojack is comfortable with who he is, you hear him constantly berate himself for the bad things that he does, but he makes no active effort to change it. What he finds comfort in is the fact that he knows why he is the way that he is and as long as he doesn’t let anybody in or allow anyone to love him, maybe he can prevent hurting another person. For some reason to him, that logic makes more sense than actually putting in the effort to be better. 

In Good Damage, Diane is desperate to take all the things that happened to her in her life and make sense of them. She wants to turn them into something good, and maybe after that she can be free of it. Then she won’t have to carry it with her anymore. And even though her book of essays doesn’t end up working for her. That’s the main difference between the two of them to me. After years of constant verbal abuse from their two sets of parents, Bojack believed what his parents said about him. He sat in it, he accepted it, and then he made it true through all of his actions. Diane refused to believe what her parents said about her and constantly made efforts to shed those parts of her. 

Isn’t that what you guys mean when you say Diane is Bojack’s foil? We start off with two characters who seem like they’re the same. Diane gets Bojack because they feel the same way all the time. They suffer from the same internal struggle. Something that we know about the two of them is that they both grew up in abusive environments–Bojack grew up in a physically and emotionally abusive household while Diane’s parents were more emotionally abusive--both of them are very insecure and depressed. And that’s why I think they stay friends for as long as they do, both of them like the feeling of the darkest parts of themselves being understood by someone else. It’s a concept neither of them ever had their entire lives. But when the series ends, we have a character who has evolved and changed their circumstances and a character who is fighting like hell to grasp on to the life he used to live, and quickly learning that it’s not gonna happen. 

In Season 6 when Diane gets into a relationship with Guy (voiced by Lakeith Stanfield, RIP to my fallen soldiers btw, according to my sources he has a girlfriend) her issues with conflict resolution and clear communication rise to the surface. As well as her self sabotaging tendencies. But in her relationship with Guy, he recognizes these things in her and calls them out, which is the opposite of her relationship with Bojack— where he only “calls her out” to break her down so that she can be back on his level and they can enable each other. Guy appeals to her desire to change, and she flourishes with him. 

(God, in no way am I saying that you need a man to be a better person, please don’t use this as an excuse to text him.) 

“I think there are people that help you become the person you end up being. And you can be grateful for them, even if they were never meant to be in your life forever. I’m glad I knew you too.” — Diane Nguyen (Bojack Horseman, Season 6, Episode 16 “Nice While It Lasted”) 

Let’s circle back to Diane in the series finale, when she’s telling Bojack about her new life and all the ways she’s different now. He asks her if the old Diane ever comes back, she says she feels her sometimes.  

Bojack asking “Wouldn't it be funny if this night was the last night we ever talked to each other?” is a prideful moment for me. One, because I love seeing awful men being miserable (even if that’s an experience I can only know in fiction) and two, because Diane leaving Bojack behind is the very last piece of her development. She knows what’s best for her, she doesn’t question herself or spin out, she’s done. The same Diane who thought that she was a pit that good things fell into, started writing a series about a middle school detective for little girls, moved to Houston, got married and is trusting that good things can happen to her. She wears fewer jackets and she smiles more. 

She starts off a cynical depressed insecure hypocrite, but she comes out of it not only as someone different but also someone who is grateful for all the hell she was put through. By Bojack and everyone else (Mr. Peanutbutter you will get your lashings at a later date) not because she deserved it but because she learned from it. I don’t usually agree with the notion that you have to go through trauma to become a stronger person, but for Diane’s story, it seems fitting. To me, she’s a perfect example of understanding that you are not your trauma and how you can make your own way in the world if you choose to.  

I can’t believe that I’m about to use a quote that was written by Sam Levinson, but there’s a first time for everything. 

“When my dad died, everybody would tell me that he died for a reason. That shit used to piss me off, I would literally want to fucking strangle them. But I think that what they’re actually saying is that you gotta give it a reason. You gotta give all this shit a reason. Because I don’t wanna hold onto this forever. I can’t, I can’t hold onto it forever. It just doesn’t feel good.” — Rue Bennett (Euphoria, Season 2, Episode 8 “All My Life, My Heart Has Yearned for a Thing I Cannot Name.”) 

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