Dystopia?

Dystopia. The opposite of a utopia. What makes those frightening for me at this point in my life is that a lot of those stories have a chance to happen depending on what choices we as people cause. Having had experiences that I don’t usually share with people, and maybe you don’t even know, gives me a kind of glass half empty outlook on life. What happened to Monday? Is a movie with that kind of outlook. This movie was premiered on Netflix in August in France.

I want to look at the plot and how it fits a dystopian outlook. Dystopian novels are classified as, “a genre of fiction writing used to explore social and political structures in a dark, nightmare world.” (Booker, “Dystopian Literature: A Theory and Research Guide”) When explained in high school my teacher used the most widely used definition: the opposite of a utopia. So instead of finding a story with shoed everything we wanted out of this world, instead of finding the American dream, I found a movie about despair and what could happen based on poor decisions or better yet on decisions made for me, not by me.

In What happened to Monday? the world’s population has grown and is continuing to grow exponentially, weaning the world of our resources. The more people on the earth meant more mouths to feed, but the amount of crops weren’t growing. So they genetically engineered them. That enhancement also affected the people eating them though; whatever they did to the crops made it so nearly every woman only got pregnant with multiple births. Doesn’t help their cause right? So how they continue to deal with the overpopulation is to do what China has had from 1979 to today and according to them will continue in the future: a one child law. You had to choose which of your children you would keep because you could only have one, and the families were told that their other children are being cryogenically frozen until a time comes when they can live freely on their world.

Spoiler. They lied. The main characters’ grandfather decides to keep all seven of his identical granddaughters and name them each after a day of the week, and that is the only day they are allowed out of the house, unless they want to be killed. They all live one life, with one name on their day. Only in their home could they be themselves, and as assumed by the title one day Monday doesn’t come back.

Just from that description I would say that this movie classifies as a dystopian film. This film explores a political and social construct currently in use in one part of the world. It takes this idea and shows what could happen if we continue in that route, but in a dark and almost sinister light. The morals shown in this movie are what make dystopian novels so compelling. No one who would watch What happened to Monday?  Would think that this movie ends like a fairytale romance.  This type of movie or book is made to make you think about humanity and where we are headed. Is that world somewhere I would want to live? How would we go about fixing that kind of world? I personally liked What happened to Monday?, but if you know me, you know I love dystopian things.

Bojack Horseman: Pilot Episode

  Bojack Horseman is an adult cartoon comedy that follows the life of the once been sitcom star and titular character Bojack Horseman.

The show opens up on a scene from his old sitcom called Horsin' Around before cutting to reality where Bojack is at an interview while drunk. This entire bit sets up a main theme of the show, the segregation of Hollywood glamor and reality. The interview only furthers this with Bojack attributing the shows wide success to, “People coming home after a long day of life kicking them in the urethra to watch a show about good, likable, people who love each other, where no matter what happens after thirty minutes everything is going to turn out okay”. In contrast to this when asked about his life he can not answer the question. This scene tells us a lot about Bojack, but the show just piles on.

We cut to the opening of the show that has Bojack waking up and moving through his day. Always blank faced and staring at the camera while the world goes crazy around him. Finally climaxing at a party where he falls in a pool seeming to drown only for the next shot to feature him lazily laying on top of a raft on the same pool. This opening could imply many things, but the one I got was Bojack Horseman trying to distract himself from the world, but ultimately failing by falling in a pool, and how he tries to ignore his world and reality by putting something protective between him and the pool. However it could also be implied that he finds a way to rise above his world by sitting on the very same pool.

Coming back to the show we see that not only does Bojack have issues, but so does the publishing company Penguin Publishing. This is the company that Bojack is supposed to be writing his memoirs for, that he never actually does. The company, run by penguins (high brow comedy there guys), has run into financial trouble after making a series of bad investments and lack of sales. Penguin Publishing is an obvious parody of the real world company that runs by the same name. This continues to drive the point that beneath the seemingly easy life of success and glamor, these are people with real problems as well.

We continue through Bojack's day meeting various members of the cast who bring up differing flaws and contrasts to Bojack. Todd Chavez, who is his free loading room mate, that acts only to fill up his empty time. We meet his ex girlfriend and agent Princess Carolyn who serves as another amusing dichotomy between Hollywood stardom and reality. Mr. Penutbutter, a golden retriever who has had the same life as Bojack, but is seemingly unaware of anything and must be stupid since he's happy as Bojack puts it. The final character we meet is Diane Nguyen, Mr. Penutbutter's girlfriend and Bojack's ghost writer, she serves as the outer person's view and somewhat naive to Hollywood's inner workings.

The show Bojack Horsemancis an adult cartoon comedy that follows the life of the once been sitcom star and titular character Bojack Horseman. I find the jokes to fall flat most of the time, and the comedy to hit the lowest common denominator. I do find myself wanting to watch more however. I have only watched one and a half episodes, and find myself eager to continue. I think it is do the the rather cynical and satirical nature of the show that makes Bojack Horseman an interesting character and show.