If you like this video, you might also like this one I made exploring when exploitation is ok in film and television told through the lens of true crime and the Netflix Jeffery Dahmer show: ua-cam.com/video/RmiEtfeGc9o/v-deo.html Or this one looking at how Spirit Halloween takes advantage of the dying suburbs: ua-cam.com/video/0K9bmtSlx3U/v-deo.html ua-cam.com/video/RKOhw8NZpXg/v-deo.html Or here is the In Defence of playlist if that's what you're into: ua-cam.com/play/PLqStSJhv1GeS_4n1Fw7I-mbgo1s_QDtFF.html
thank you for this, not just for defending him, but also for defending those from a different time. most people just try to do what they think is best, whether it is right or wrong. "love the sinner, not the sin", we are all human.
Part of me wanted to go, “who hasn’t watched BoJack Horseman 7x and counting.” But then I thought: what if she’s also got a necklace with the left-side of a family crest?
I have to say, I never thought of Joseph as a cruel or uncaring man, at least not after I saw the episode where Beatrice remembers her childhood, for the time and society he was from he was fairly progressive, after Honey can't take care of Beatrice he steps up as a father and cares for her, with his money and the society he lives in he could have just hire someone to replace the mother role for Beatrice, but he covers it personally, while working, basically as a single father in the 40's, he speaks with his child about what happens to her in school, he comforts her, etc. We also saw that Beatrice found he was mostly right in her eyes at the end, if she had listen to him she wouldn't have ended up with Butterscotch, and, as you said, even then he supported his wife, giving his son in law a comfy job, that Butterscotch used to cheat on her repeatedly. I really liked your video, I will see more. I also liked how you described morality, is basically that, part of the evolutionary process, and as evolution, we all have this trait a little different, some waaaay different, but we, as a species, have some tendencies.
It’s worth to point out that although Joeseph hated butterscotch, he gave him a job and aided both of them financially for years, till the end of his life
I like how they leave it vague as to whether Joseph truly cared about his family and was a product of his time, a cruel sociopath who cared more about status than the people in his life, or likely both.
At some point you have to realize something; Everyone is a product of their environment, and ultimately, they never chose to be who they are. Everyone deserves a defense, but if they are to get any better, they must take accountability even if it truly was never their fault.
It’s very easy to hate the man without a second thought but once you do actually think about it, imagine being the only "sane" person in the family (not counting Bea since shes a child). After losing his kid, and basically having to take on both parental roles while also having to be the breadwinner. Personally dont know if i have it in me myself to keep going after all that.
I have watched some of your defence videos on Bojack Horseman characters in the show and I would love to see you make a defence video on Bojack's dad, Butterscotch Horseman. First, I will tell you the reasons why I don't like Butterscotch Horseman that much. He is showed being abusive to Bojack physically and verbally along with gaslighting him, manipulates and blackmails as well as drug Bojack into making him forget Butterscotch cheating on Beatrice with his secretary, cheating on his wife yet again with the maid, Henrietta, chastises and neglects Bojack and Beatrice, has his wife fix his problem for him like Henrietta being pregnant, repeatedly says how Beatrice shouldn't have never had Bojack in front of him, talks to Bojack as if he was his therapist in the backstory car scene, and has a toxic masculinity mindset as it shows in the backstory car scene. So, to put it very simply he's a bigoted, very conservative, misogynistic, halfassed jackass. He kinda reminds me of my dad in most ways which is why I don't like Butterscotch as well. I don't really see much video talking about Butterscotch Horseman so it would be really cool to see you do a defence video.
Joseph Sugarman had enough good intentions to pave a dozen lane expressway to Hell with offramps in Tartarus, Mictlan and all nine Buddhist underworlds.
WOW. i fully went into this video thinking it was absolutely impossible to defend the most blatantly, black & white evil character in the whole show. but you did it. bravo👏
And under the whole ‘don’t love anyone because you’ll get hurt’ thing, I wonder how Beatrice felt when her mother’s life broke down because of the love she had for her son, instead of trying to get better for her daughter. Like Honey didn’t love Beatrice enough to want to recover
Imo its the scene where Joseph burns Beatrices things and her doll. He seems to imply, or at least she inteprets it this way, that if she keeps being emotional she will end up lobotomised like Honey. Not only does this cause her to keep Bojack, which binded her to butterscotch who probably made things worse (not that shes any sort of saint in that marriage either but still) but it probably caused her to be more cold and harsh, like we see her before she meets butterscotch. However she doesnt actually seem averse to love. She seems to want to love butterscotch, and maybe did at some point, she seemed to gain some affection for Creamerman and she seemed to want to love Bojack, so what her mother said didnt have as much a permanent impact like we think. If he never burned her things and frighten her, I think she could have turned out differently if given the chance, but I think the fire really sealed the deal on her personality and fate. Tho I do think the honey scene was important, I do think bestrice had a chance if that was the only thing that happened to her
I just realized that Sugerman / Creamerman merger would likely result in some kind of ice-cream production, and Beatrice loved ice-cream D: I'm crying now
There is no evils of the past just what was acceptable then and what is acceptable now, future generations will say the same about us and their future generations will say the same about them
@@dream6562the future is going to be more like the dark ages basically more like Dune or starship troopers the only reason everything is Millenial and gay is because it’s stagnation and rot this century
@@magicman3163how do you come to the conclusion that a type of sexuality play into the decay of society? What is slowly rotting away society is the rampant consumerism which replaces every kind of meaning by the illusion of fulfillment through gaining more and more material things. We‘re caught in a cycle of getting advertised some product that’s promised to enrich our life, accumulating money to buy said product, realizing that a product won’t bring us the fulfillment we thought it would and then search for the next quick high
@@jurel-enlatado1 Every single person isn't a product of there time in the context they're using it for, " believing it does erases the fight" in one of the most privileged takes on the planet, like its actually astounding you think this is a take lmao
@@jurel-enlatado1 A privileged take, being part of a minority group doesn't stop that, "Oh we know now x is bad so the fact they didn't is wrong" is such a simple minded blind take its laughable, no one is personally attacking you when they are saying he's a product of their time calm the fuck down
@@jurel-enlatado1 nice victim blaming though im glad the entire aids epidemic was the fault of the victims for the lack of research, social understanding and support, because today in 2023 we have a better understanding of things
@@jurel-enlatado1 I'm saying that you implying the lack of knowledge and social understanding is solely the fault of the person regardless of their time period is victim blaming to other situations. Ie: aids
Yeah, I took into account the fact that he offered his son-in-law a job as well. Especially because some people would simply disown their daughters for getting pregnant without marriage.
Also consider that bojack visited the lake house as a child. Joseph likely still kept his distance as he saw bojack as the same reminder of a bad decision his parents constantly saw in him.
Is nobody else gonna mention the scene when Beatrice gives Bojack an old painting and speaks of her father as “a man who knew what marriage meant”? She didn’t have dementia at that point and showcases that Beatrice saw her father as a supporting figure in her life even though he did traumatize her in her childhood. She respects that part of her father but doesn’t always admit it
I think Joseph is a good example of how sometimes, our parents aren’t bad people. They’re just living by how they were raised and it’s difficult for them to understand the radical changes of the modern era. It’s not an excuse, of course. But Joseph was working with what he had, and still did his best given the circumstances.
yeah but at the same time following the example of their parents abuse and not breaking the cycle makes them a bad parent, you can understand why they act how they do without justifying their behaviour
"As a modern American, i was never taught to handle a woman's emotions, and I shall not learn." He didn't do his best. He could've been better and chose not to.
@@jurel-enlatado1 Very true. He outright admits here that he will not change for the betterment of his mourning family. I guess when I say he did his best given the circumstances, I was thinking about how he still had to be the decision-maker, given the time period, how he was raised, and him being the man of the house. They were in a time when Honey’s mourning and hysteria was just boiled down to Being A Woman Disease, but it still doesn’t excuse Joseph’s future actions and behaviors.
This is a fact that I've had to come to terms with since having kids of my own. It's was easy to attack my parents for any missteps they may have made along the way, assuming they should have known better, but after being put into the same role, I realize that parenthood is really really hard, and no matter how hard you try at it, you are going to make mistakes, whether because you didn't know better, or you were working under the assumption of what you were trying to do is right. This is especially true, considering my parents were a good fifteen years younger when they had me than I was when I had my first child. They tried their hardest, and that _is_ enough.
While I can mostly agree with the good people, bad parents line of thinking outside of this context, Joseph outright admitting that he won't make the effort to change kinda throws a wrench in that for me.
I would argue that he actually tried to provide a way for his wife to grieve. Because he thought he had to be a provider. He just was very very wrong in both his presumed role, and the method he chose.
Another aspect people forget is that Joseph and Honey would have grown up in the height of the Great Depression/Post WWI and being predisposed to aversion to financial risk
Consider how Beatrice's choice to ditch her party and hook up with a random party crasher, all because she knows better, impacted her life. She would have been far happier and more fulfilled if she listened to dad's advice.
@@nexus5253 Beatrice even admitted that she should have married Corbin instead of Butterscotch. And she definitely knew that Corbin would've shown her kindness and would've done a better job at providing for the family.
I honestly never hated Joseph. Was he problematic? Yes. But his actions weren't fueled by hate or spite or anything like that. He just didn't know better. Plus, I'll be honest, if my spouse got shit-faced in a manic episode and nearly killed our youngest child, I would have flipped out too. I work in a school, and one of my coworkers just stood by, watching two kids fight (I'm talking hair-pulling and slapping and grabbing each other at the neck), then threw up her hands saying: "I'm not dealing with this," and walked away. I wanted to give her a piece of my mind over that level of negligence.
Oh yeah, I never hated Joeseph either. I understood he was a "man of his time" and his behaviour was being tainted through Beatrice's dementia and childhood trauma, ofc he'd look bad in comparison to a modern audience. It's why I like watching old sitcoms from the 60s or the 70s (and period peices), it's a fascinating glimpse into the past and to know that a lot has changed since is comforting.
Please re-watch this episode, LISTEN to the dialogue, and tell me you think Joseph tried his best. From scene 1, he’s chastising his wife and “jokingly” threatening her with lobotomy for being a free-spirit. “That’s the half I’ll let you keep”
Joseph was actually a good father, considering the bare minimun that was expected from men on his time. He stepped up to take care of Beatrice, sent her to college (for the wrong reasons though), and supported her daughter's useless husband giving him a good job he didn't deserved. But the thing that sticks with me the most is that, from his era, it was expected that he remarried and started over after his son's death, tossing Beatrice aside for a new family. But we don't see any sings that he remarried or even dated. He could've put Honey on a psyche ward, but he kept her around the house despite not being able to do anything, and was somewhat close with Beatrice until she became an adult. I don't hate him for being sexist, because it was common on his era, we can't judge old time characters with current criteria.
Also if the other horse from the ball was her mother he's basically looked after his wife for at least a decade to 15 years which some people would see as a wholesome act even now. especially depending on how severe the lobotmy was she would need everything done for her to surivie that long.
we can judge people from the past based on modern criteria. you don't need to live in 2024 to figure out that beating up a man with a whip while he cries and begs you to stop is evil. you being from the era when such stuff was ooookayish doesn't excuse you at all
I love that you brought up the fact that he was trying to help her by getting her lobotomized. He truly loves her, and it’s not secretly implied that he regrets the actions
he actively (allegedly) cheats on her with his secretary through implication he did not "love" her, even if he thought he did. he is mainly a symptom of being rich in a patriarchal capitalistic society that deemed any unstable women unworthy of help or anything for that matter (i haven't watched the video yet i hope this doesnt sound angry i just saw this comment and wanted to add to it)
@@_Puppe and you may be aware that ‘unstable, mentally ill’ women were locked up in sanatoriums or even ‘disappeared’. Lobotomies in those times were truly believed to help people, not just women, to live a normal life and heal. If Joseph wanted Beatrice gone, she would’ve been sent away. He was trying to help her, mental healthcare just sucked back them.
I'd like to add that when Beatrice gave Bojack that portrait she told him it belonged to his granpa "a man who understood what marriage meant" or something along those lines. We also see her tell Butterscotch in the middle of an argument "i should have married Corbin Creamerman" Which goes to show that she does believe her father wanted the best for her too.
Another thing to mention is that he never abandoned Honey. Often, patients like Rosemary Kennedy would be hidden away to spend the rest of their lives in nursing homes or asylums. But Joseph kept Honey home. He had the wealth to put her up somewhere, but he didn’t. This shows that he does care about Honey, he just can’t express himself well.
Joeseph does remind me of my grandfather. When my father was young, one of his brothers died. My grandmother got in this really deep depressive state (she didn’t leave her room for years) and my grandfather spent all day on work. He did, practically, support her. He was there and did all she needed, but only physically
@@CoraCora-rj7vqThat would have been the worst part, knowing that someone he loved was in pain but not knowing how to help them emotionally and just having to wait for them to "snap out of it."
Exactly. Ppl don’t understand that he wasn’t malicious just painfully ignorant and emotional stunted. Of which makes sense considering who he is and the time period. Butterscotch is honestly a worse person and father than he is since his stuff is malicious or selfish laziness
wouldn’t say not great it’s just the way the time was for instance ppl literally had slaves cause it was so called natural even before america was discovered slaves were crucial for structures pyramids everything was bc of slaves and men and women were barley knowledgeable about mental illness so they had other alternatives not knowing they were doing something far worse than w ahat they had hoped not their fault just the time
I actually argue that he was a better father than Beatrice ever was (not a high bar, but still). Sure he was bad and mysoginistic, but it was mostly a product of his times, and in some ways he thought what he did would benefit his daughter (he still had his own self interests in mind, but still). Beatrice was cruel to Bojack just to be cruel, she genuanly hurt and damaged him fully knowing what she was doing
Honestly I bet her dad woulda let the girl have a freezie pop. I feel like Joseph Sugarman tried to fight discomfort with humour. He had a saucy back and forth with his wife that was pretty cute. He talked about flirting with his receptionist but I don’t think he was serious because who openly talks about infidelity in front of their children? I think when he said “I was never taught, and I will not learn.” He was trying to make the situation lighter. He was trying to joke and raise his wife’s mood like she could go “haha my stupid husband”
His comedic dialogue and exaggerated “old-timey” vocal delivery was an intentional writing/directing choice to amplify the bigotry and out of touch attitude of American men at the time. He’s not self-aware- in fact, the humor is that, paradoxically, he KNOWS he’s not self-aware
@@BradsGonnaPlayExactly. Every character in Bojack "says the quiet part out loud" at some point for the sake of humor, but for some reason only Joseph gets shit for it. People need to realize that at its core, BH is a comedy, and sometimes characters say or do things that are wildly unrealistic just to make you, the audience, laugh.
@@nathancollins1715 Joseph only gets shit on for it because he's a " rich *white* American man" (white being debatable here as his coat colour is actually dung) so its seen as ok to attack Joeseph because of that *link* to being a rich white man. Where characters like Bojack get passes because they're perceived as not being *white* (Bojack being bay, Beatrice a palemno, Butterscotch dapple grey and Hollyhock and Crackerjack being chestnut).
@@BrightWulph Bojack isn't thought of as white? Ignoring that they're all bloody animals, he isn't thought of as white? I realize this sounds really dumb, but with his past as a sitcom star and his family lineage, I assumed he was supposed to be a mediocre white actor.
I think the "I wasn't taught, and I will not learn" line is a bit too on the nose to be taken as something a character like Joseph would literally say, my interpretation is that it's just the writers pointing out the low standards for emotional intelligence at the time, through Joseph's mouth.
@@ThiccFurryBoi34 I mean, it's more or less Ariana's whole thesis: Joseph Sugarman was the product of a conformist upbringing and he never had the benefit of being socialized to deal with painful emotions in himself or in other people, most tragically so in the people he loved the most.
… and that justifies screaming at his wife, blaming her for her son’s death, getting physically abusive by throwing things around her, and then using her emotionally vulnerable and intoxicated state to convince her to do an irreversible procedure to her brain?
If someone was shown to be an active threat to the life of my child, I would do whatever is necessary to protect them. He didn't exactly have a plethora of good options.
@@BradsGonnaPlayIf someone endangers the life of my child, you'd better believe I'm screaming and throwing things around them, I don't care who it is. If it's anyone other than my spouse, I'd get physical with THEM. His actions in that moment are perfectly understandable, especially right after losing his other child. Also when did he blame Honey for Crackerjack's death? That never happened.
@BradsGonnaPlay Not the lobotomy and physical abuse, but the screaming and rage is reasonable. Like if your dad almost killed you and your mom starts chewing him out imagine the audacity of someone telling her "Hey, no need for yelling".
@BradsGonnaPlay that was acceptable back then though, it wasn't unordinary, it was very recently where we started getting more into how a relationship should work and how people should interact, not saying it good but it wasn't unusual for the time and he comes from a very different outlook on life one that we could never imagine, the war the depression ect. He had trauma and didn't know how to deal with it.
I know this might be a nitpick considering the show treats it as a throwaway joke in the episode about the setting, but Joseph makes remarks about complimenting his secretary's tight sweaters and keeping her self-esteem afloat in the final argument, which upon first watch gave me the impression of him having an affair or at the very least that he was actively flirtatious with other women back at work. I might be looking at him in bad faith, but I still am a bit under the impression that even if he was a man who ultimately wanted to good by his family, he was also a selfish prick at times, prioritizing himself
Yo not nitpicky, its clear the writers put the line in for a reason, i think on a first viewing everyone assumes he's cheating, but after a while the line just felt so ridiculous that i almost don't think he was cheating. Cheating or not, i think the line is supposed to imply that for Joseph his family is not his priority, but the veiwer can decide what he is chosing over his family (could be cheating, or he just wants his work life to be good)
I agree regarding shouting at her. If someone drove a car drunk with a young child in it, we would call them negligent. In regards to the lobotomy, he was told by doctors it would help.
Dare I say, maybe there aren't "bad people" in general, maybe there are just individuals making the best choices they can in the circumstances they find themselves, and sometimes those decisions end poorly for themselves, for others, and outcome trumps intention of course but ill-intention is rarely the sole reason for bad outcomes.
"There's no such thing as bad guys and 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. But you're never going to be good! Because you're not bad! So you need to stop using that as an excuse."
you did a good job here, touching on some good points. its always irritated me how, when viewing morality throughout history, modern people sit on a high horse and neglect the context and norms of the time. 100% there will be common beliefs and/or actions we maintain today that will be considered horrifying in 50 years.
God, can you believe someone owned slaves in an era where slavery was normal and they'd been told slavery was okay their whole lives? What jackasses /s
I wish we had seen more of his backstory, all we know is that his mother died when he was young and he would tell girls he was flirting with that they reminded him of her.
As someone who's watched the old sugarman place more than any other episode in bh, i really like that analysis. Even though i felt really bad for Honey, she nearly killed their only child, who was around 6 at the time. You can understand his anger in that scene, because if your only child was nearly killed quickly after your first died, I don't think he'd be able to suppress his emotions, especially with how young she was. And the lobotomy thing is so real; it was normalised to do that to people struggling with mental issues, like nowadays how we just put them on drugs which really dulls people down. yeah sorry for the huge rant like comment but NO ONE i know irl has even heard of bh and won't watch it 😭😭
Unfortunately the burning of items was also common back then after disease. I had a Kit Kittridge book from American Girl and during one of the short stories in this collection, Kit and her friends had Scarlet Fever and their nurse burned their belongings when they got well. Often times, items like books were baked to 'kill' disease because no one fully understood that just WASHING THINGS REGULARLY kept them clean.
While some drugs are definitely over prescribed, I’d like to vouch for the fact that when you do get on helpful meds, your life changes for the better! I am not a monotone one note zero because of my adhd/depression meds, I am just not ruled by my emotions and can change tasks in short notice without having a breakdown. So I think that’s a good indicator to know if you’ve been given the wrong prescription. if you feel dull and lifeless, talk to your psychiatrist about something else. If life just starts becoming easier to handle, it’s probably the right ones. 😅😂
This is what I love about shows like Bojack - they give every character motivation and context. Yes, in Beatrise’s memories, he appeared as a villain and he did traumatize her. But he was just a man doing what he thought made sense at the time. He made many mistakes but he never wanted to hurt his own family.
What separates a show lien bojack from most shows that try to analyze or redeem their villains is that they make clear these people went through horrible things they didn’t deserve but that will never justify them being awful back because of it.
Look, my issue with "not judging people in the past" is that harm is kinda universal. If I punched you in the face in the 1800's then did it in the 2000's, they BOTH feel like getting punched in the face. Slavery was ALWAYS slavery. Shit didn't magically hurt less just because it was more likely to kill ya and there was less people around to notice what happened to ya. When it came to his wife's "treatment", he was told by MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS that they knew how to fix it. And that shit STILL gets people hurt today! He lived in a time before Google, before most medical malpractice laws, AND a time before even television was invented! I don't excuse him being an adulterer, that was ALSO frown upon back then. I don't excuse him getting physical with his wife or ignoring pain, people still grieved and felt pain back then too. BUT, I will say the blame falls on the doctors who told him that they could "fix" his wife. He doesn't even like the outcome so I HIGHLY DOUBT he wanted it. Something tells me he kind of liked his wife the way she was BEFORE shit went down. That I will acknowledge. Because he's NOT a medical professional and therefore can't be expected to know better than them. His wife was CLEARLY going through something and wanted to be "better". He did what anyone woukd do and take her to a doctor, whose job IS to "fix" people. I'm still blaming him for being abusive tho. Because again, even back then shit like cheating on your spouse was seen as wrong. AS LONG as monogamous coupling has happened, it's been seen as a dick move. He's a product of his environment AND his own decisions. He chose to do things like cheat and he ALSO chose to try and get his wife treatment. He's not literally Hitler BUT feminism and other shit existed back then too. If you asked beaten housewives back then if they enjoyed being beaten, they would say no. And if you asked if it hurt, they would say yes. There was even a trope of "the nice gentleman who would never strike a lady" in many older stories. They knew people didn't like being treated like shit. They also knew slaves didn't like being slaves as well as other VERY obvious facts. The nuance here comes from a lack of access to education and proper medical care, NOT the idea that his abuse was somehow any less abusive back then OR more necessary. It wasn't and empathy has always been a thing. So has communication and respect, just people EVEN TODAY suck at those things and are not as above people of the past as they might think.
HONEST TO GOD THIS WAS SUCH A GOOD DEFENSE. i think this is an interesting perspective to view the character of joseph through and much MUCH better reflects the nuanced nature of most of this show rather than simply saying "joseph was a villain who ruined his family." this gave me a lot to think about and was really well presented.
This really clears up his character, also it leads me to think that he was just doing his best, in this context of defence. The lobotomy was one of the only “cures” known and he did it because honey asked, he tried to help and regretted it because he didn’t know what would happen when honey got one.
They weren't exactly wrong about the scarlet fever thing either. I'm no medical expert, but if somebody with the disease came into contact with, well, damn near ANYTHING, it could put others at risk of catching the illness and dying because of the contagions left behind by the infected person. Which is why they burned things. Smart move on Joseph's part, actually.
Your first reasoning is genuine insanity. How do you look at a character who was written to be an abusive and controlling g husband and go “wait… I can fix this” How do you see Honey begging for help and think “well they BOTH probably are talking about a lobotomy right now” How do you see a man that refuses to learn or accept that his wife has PTSD and think “it’s just a sign of the times?” Most egregiously… how the actual hell did you see “If I’d known this [is how you’d act after a lobotomy], I wouldn’t have even bothered” as a GOOD thing?!?! THAT IS NOT A STATEMENT OF REGRET, ITS A STATEMENT OF HIM BEING DISAPPOINTED THAT HE “WASTED” TIME AND MONEY ON HIS WIFE *AFTER DESTROYING HER BRAIN* I’m sorry, I’ve randomly come across some of the your other Bojack videos and I like your style but this is the one that is keeping me from subscribing.
This whole video is just Honey and Beatrice slander. You keep viewing Joseph through a made up lens of good faith and how a proper father would react in the time period, rather than taking the *not at all subtle context* of the very scenes you analyze. One of the first lines by Joseph is him playfully threatening to lobotomize Honey as an obvious foreshadow to the fact that THAT was his final solution to her trauma, PTSD, and depression. You reached so hard you must have dislocated your shoulder on this one.
15:28 “he thinks he’s doing right by his daughter” exactly- he THINKS. He’s not LISTENING, and he never had to so he never did. To anyone! That’s his whole point as a character!!!
Funny enough, I already made that video early in my UA-cam career. Its not up to my standards now but here you go! ua-cam.com/video/3lEL3bPpm3g/v-deo.htmlsi=4aaxtfIrPeiONijB
nope, sorry, this one isn't flying. not for me. you just keep squinting hard at his actions from his perspective, giving him too much grace, and relying a fuckton on the time period. even something like slavery could be attempted to be justified with biology or philosophy or general rudimentary science. even if this is a good analysis, i don't think it's a good idea. i don't think we need more people justifying the actions of powerful, privileged, emotionally stunted men - even if they're fictional. you often take the absolute most charitable interpretation of everything he says. he didn't say he wouldn't have bothered with the lobotomy because it was making his life difficult, he did so because he missed his wife! he didn't yoink beatrice's doll because he didn't bother to think of a better way to get rid of it, he just didn't know any better! about the "beatrice framing" device - we know. the audience is aware that joseph isn't a monster who's deliberately making his family's life miserable. we know that he cares about them all, at least to some degree. the thing is that this doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. again, even a dictator's actions could be attempted to be justified by saying he was just acting with the wellbeing of his country in mind. yes, bojack horseman is a show about understanding flawed people. but they also literally had to make bojack kill someone and almost have sex with a minor to get across the fact that you're not supposed to like him. this is one of those moments.
i think i, at most, followed until the lobotomy point. its not unbelievable to think that he would have had a connection with his wife and wouldve wanted to help her, believing in his ignorance that lobotomy wouldve helped her. however the rest of the video felt as if it was painted with a tint of bias- and manipulated so that op would actually be able to 'defend joseph sugarman'. alexis mentioning the show's theme of working past generational trauma and making the choice to break free from it at the end gave me whiplash since i was under the impression that we were *not* blaming characters for remaining ignorant to the consequences of their actions because 'thats just how that generation was'.
@abelcanocarriel1343 You're only triggered because of your own experiences and your own trauma forcing you to only think about things from how you would feel in beatrice shoes. You have bias empathy (Which isn't a real word but its the best way to describe it
@@psycholonya i agree! the point of people thinking lobotomies were actually effective at the time was something that i think the video got right. i don't doubt joseph did want to help, but as you said, a lot of the points in this video are painted *to* defend joseph.
@@juicebox7372 i think saying somebody is "only triggered" because of their own experiences is a little disingenuous. this video is defending somebody who represents a lot of awful things about society and common forms of opression and/or mistreatment. it's not projection on their part
He wasn't a great dad or person but he certanly wasn't as horrible and abusive as people think. There are no villians in Bojack Horseman, that's kinda one of the main points of the show that many people forget.
I am so happy for this video - because I never thought he was "the devil" of the show. He messed up but he was unprepared to deal with his own, his wive's and his daughter's emotions...but considering these times he did pretty ok-ish
I think its very weird how people watch Times Arrow and take away from it that Beatrice has her own childhood trauma and the cycle of abuse and ladida, but then go on and absolutely vilify Joseph and Butterscotch. If Times Arrow showed one of their stories instead of Beatrices, im pretty sure people would feel bad for them and completely ignore that Beatrice might have had a traumatic youth as well.
there was that episode where his mother absolutely spoiled him rotten after like a dozen miscarriages then he pretended to have shot himself as a prank causing his mother to spiral and kill herself which caused his already distant father to blame him and become cold and abusive then later in life Bloberta turned him into an alcoholic
The feminism of WW2 largely concerned working-class women entering the workforce to support their families in times of hardship. However, this feminist movement didn’t extend to the upper class, and it also took a complete 180 after the war ended; soldiers returned home, and women were expected to become homemakers again.
@poultryg3ist yes that's what was expected to happen but it didn't in fact the economy benefited greatly from having women in the work force as a businessman Joseph should have been keeping track of that and possibly hired women
I think his biggest crime is not questioning the morality around him, but most people don't do that before, and after, their time frame. Most people are NOT these amazing free thinkers they think they are. Like all these pop punks that think they're unique, but how many others like that?
Love this video because I was always anti Joseph Sugarman due to the biased lens of generational trauma, but then what you said resonated. The reason why people can turn out successful and happy or fail and become depressed can be affected by their upbringing for sure, but at the end of the day, they have the power to chose which aspects of their life they want to focus on and how that will affect them when they grow older…. It also resonates with me because my parents can be perceived as bad parents when I think of the trauma passed down from theirs onto us, but they’re in reality good parents who loved and cared for us in their own way and continue to try and be better even though they make mistakes in their approaches sometimes. Personally, just reminds me that the negatives were what I focused on instead of the positives. Thank you for helping ground myself.
love this video, sometimes i have hard time in fandom spaces when a character appears that clearly has to be seen according to very specific circumstances, time eras, and even more if the media has sometimes some level of meta/surreal aspects, like how joseph says "i was never told to manage my emotions and i will never learn" we probably have to see that as more of a personal though being said out loud for the gag to work, but it also is meant to explain the current circumstance by saying he is a MODERN man, is kind of in the same line of honey telling baby beatrice that ice scream is a boy's snack and she should suck on a lemon with sugar
so you did a great job here but im worried that this idea that you can't judge people in the past for the standards of their time leaves us with nowhere to go in a lot of conversations. like yeah in the past it was common to give disabled people brain damage to make them easier to deal with. so we just, say oops and move on? demonizing people who made those decisions in the past is how we apply that same shaming social pressures to our current society so we don't make those choices anymore
the thing is, Joseph is not a product of his time, he is an EMBODIMENT of his time. Considering his place in society as a wealthy sugar company owner, he likely contributed to the public perception of lobotomies as a sort of cure-all. In addition to all the other shit he did. I mean when every defense of Joseph can essentially be summed up as "he would've been good for his time" then you should absolutely note that all of these harmful social norms WERE fought against. There have been anti-sexists for about as long as there have been sexists. Cigarettes have been known to be harmful long before it was public sentiment and I have to imagine that people had spoken out against lobotomies since their inception as well. Also, this video completely glossed over that one "it's the jews' fault for peeving off hitler so bad" line. Don't you think you can slip that one past us!!
Something I often hear people talk about incorrectly is that the whole weight problem Beatrice experiences, was due to her father's old school believes, but in reality he was more supportive of her weight, it was her mother that instilled these horrible norms onto her, which ofc led her to instill those onto hollyhock
for me it's gotta be joseph's unapologetic and proud embracement of everything wrong with the culture of the time. he explains his actions in ways that make him look completely psychotic for not wanting to change. "I was never taught, and I will not learn" says everything about him. because it shows that he's aware of what's wrong with him, but he's an active agent in his own ignorance.
I’m absolutely here for this video. I find Joseph a really fascinating character to analyze, because you’re right: the different social conventions of his time vs ours make a massive impact on what’s considered moral to each of us. And you can’t quite judge the people of the past based on the morals of the present.
This is the beauty of BoJack Horseman. Every single character in the show, from the seemingly one-dimensional evil Joseph Sugarman to the seemingly innocent and kind Mr. Peanutbutter, is a complex morally gray character with countless personality traits to analyze. I love this show.
I gotta be honest and say this one in particular wasn't sold to me. I think the fact he never learned to deal with his emotions doesn't excuse the fact he could've done better and actively never did, even Beatrice with all the trauma she had did have a moments of reflection where she did do the right thing, he never did the right thing, from start until the end, he is like Butterscotch, just a selfish man with selfish desires.
To be fair,I think Joseph was a better man than Butterscotch or Bojack. Granted he wasn't the most progressive of people, but I don't think he did anything really horrible. As it was stated, Honey asked for the lobotomy and Joseph had no idea it would do *that* to her. She was still taken care of by him in spite of it. He just said some backwards things, was emotionally unavailable ect. Butterscotch cheated on his wife, was verbally abusive to her and his son. Was a drunk and encouraged his son to pick up the addiction. Bojack has a long laundry list of awful things, including attempted murder, wreckless behavior while under the influence, blackmail, verbal abuse and some very sus relationships.
I think you’re forgetting that this man in the 1940s isn’t going to be in the best environment to develop emotionally and not understand that it necessary past keeping his family as “presentable” awful but you’re really underestimating the power of the time period and how everything he was doing was seen as relatively normal.
@@wombat4583I think that was a joke personally i mean he clearly loves his wife and didn’t really seem like a guy who cares about sex just the future of his family
You don't have to forgive him, that's not the point. But you cannot tell me that everyone else wasn't the same. You're looking at this in a lense of the modern era. One of OP's points was a very real instinct in humans to conform.
Your information on lobotomies is largely incorrect. Yes, the man who did the transorbital lobotomies and his acolytes were one of the types of lobotomy used in the US, however, it wasn't the main one used in mental hospitals. Further, you have misrepresented the work of that portuguese doctor. He did not "pour acid in the brain" but drilled a hole in the frontal bone, likely using a holesaw drill bit (which was the bit used in many Mental Hospitals in America), and severed a portion of the prefrontal cortex, often using alcohol/ethanol (not acid, in fact ethanol tends to be basic) to better destroy the connections between the frontal lobe and the rest of the brain. Then the piece of bone was replaced and the cut stitched up. While still bad, this type tended to heal faster and have better outcomes. This latter process was the most common in many mental hospitals. How do I know this before? Their bones get donated to schools and we got a lot from Larned, many with single or double lobotomies. Seems the majority of hospitals understood that the transorbital lobotomy was just brain damage with a sharp object and Freeman was a charletan and a butcher. When they show Honey or Homer Simpson in "Stark, Raving Dad" in Bart's imagination, they show them with the stitches over their frontal bone, indicating that they were hospitalized and received the drilled frontal bone version. Further, he even states exactly which type was done. He chose to have what was believed to be the safest version for her, he did his research but the data just wasn't there yet. And, while transorbital lobotomies were banned in the US, lobotomies have never been banned. You can still get one today, though they are very rarely employed and only for certain conditions.
Awesome take. I think about this a lot. I think WAY too much about this horse-cartoon, but I digress. They were able to take a character like Beatrice, set her up as absolutely vile (and she was), then make the audience sympathize with her deeply. I've often wondered if the same would have been done for Butterscotch or Joseph had the show gone on a few more seasons. Joseph is terrifying, but generational trauma was masterfully written into his character. You just never get to see it justified as explicitly as you do in Beatrice and Bojack's flashbacks.
He was a product of his society and time? Yes. He's still a dick and a horrible father? Absolutely yes. I was told once: there's always people who are/were ahead of their time, we all have the capacity to feel when something is unfair even when the society we live in tells us otherwise. I still hate Joseph, for all the shity things he did, including he cheating constantly on Honey with his secretary. It was something _every man_ did in that time, yet _some men_ were actually faithful and respectful to their wives.
I think that this sort of analysis will always be constrained by the fact that we *only* see Joseph through Beatrice' perspective. There's a whole person in there, and we can see glimmers of who that person might be, but largely we see only the effects, not the causes, which limits our perception. There's something to be said for the fact that the only two emotions we ever see Joseph display are his usual benign geniality, and, occasionally, anger. We don't see his grief over losing Crackerjack, and we don't see his fear over almost losing his wife and daughter except through the lens of anger, and we don't see his grief over losing the woman his wife had been pre-lobotomy. Those aren't emotions that he displays to his daughter. He will have been taught from a young age: no one gives a shit how you are feeling. Your job is to man up and do what needs doing for your family. He will have been punished in a thousand little ways for displaying any real emotion other than anger, and rewarded for displaying his mask of calm, stoic geniality. You can't undo that kind of social programming overnight, or just by wanting to. Still, that only goes so far. Yes, he does display in many ways that he does care about his daughter and want what's best for her, and he does attempt, as far as he's capable, to step into the maternal role that Honey can no longer fulfill. But if he makes any real attempt to understand where Beatrice' seeming "ingratitude" surrounding the debutante ball is coming from, we don't see it. The video makes a lot of good points, but the essayist goes a little far in describing him as a "good guy." He has good intentions and an inadequate set of tools with which to express them, but he doesn't seemingly go out of his way to expand that toolset. End of the day, when he says "I was not taught, and I will not learn," we can recognize the tragedy of the former without letting him off the hook for the latter. The lobotomy wasn't his fault. He did nothing more than what we're all exhorted to do when it comes to climate change denial or COVID spread mitigation: listened to the experts. But when it came to handling his adult daughter, he did precious little as far as recognizing her as a subject matter expert in her own life and listening to her. He's callous, defensive, and dismissive, and no amount of "he's a product of his time!" can change that.
But an ounce more nuance than just that. Specifically, by the standards of the time and from his limited perspective, he was doing his best. The fact that his best amounted to the damage to Beatrice that it did wasn't his intention and obviously outcomes over intentions but something must be said toward him trying as he did.
Okay and sometimes that’s enough to understand the context. We can call out the evil in characters whilst also recognising the context. He was anti semetic. In a time where that was absolutely the norm even during the 40s. He lobotomised his wife in a time where emotions, therapy and all of that stuff isn’t seen the same way or seen as helpful in the way we value it now You can’t get mad at the context of it explains his actions. He’s not doing things that are maliciously terrible even for the time. Lobotomising his wife is evil. But so is marital rape which was just as normalised and evil.
I mean, he openly talks about flirting with his receptionist in front of his kids…. I’m sure it’s a joke. After all we don’t hear about Bojack having any aunts or uncles do we?
@@forestgrump4723 well that's true but he didn't knew about hollyhock existing , It could be a joke but also could be not a joke and maybe he Just didn't get her pregnant
I should have addressed it, but it was also a common thing back then for men to make sexist comments to women as just part of conversation under the impression that it’s polite. How many times have you heard “you should smile” or another comment on a woman’s appearance from older men. Again, it’s not right and extremely misogynistic but it’s again, a sign of the times.
Yeah, no. I agree that while Bojack's grandpa was somewhat better than his dad, that doesn't excuse Joseph's actions either. While "a product of his time" explains why he thought what he did was best it doesn't excuse the generational trauma that he passed on to Beatrice, and into Bojack as well. Yes, the show does establish that that trauma burden must be addressed by the latest recipient of it, however, Joseph also had a choice to reexamine his trauma when he was living his present life with his family, he just never cared to. Framing Joseph as just "emotionally stunned but did the best he could" takes away his responsibility AND accountability, not to mention that you skipped the whole cheating repeatedly on his wife's part because it was "part of social norms, it's fine". He is a powerful and privileged man who played into the role he knew how to play and never cared to reexamine his actions until it was too late and already bared a consequence on him. The exploration of his family's trauma serves the purpose of understanding the many factors that made Bojack the way he is, his flaws, and his LACK of accountability as well. By this logic, Bojack is just "a product of his time" just like his grandpapi, and if we are "forgiving" Joseph for his shortcomings we should "forgive" Bojack for his as well. Now, you can see how this is problematic because it defeats the ENTIRE PREMISE of the show. We are not supposed to like Bojack, we are to see him and his actions through a critical separate lens because we get to see his side and the side of the people he hurts, the same goes for Joseph. There is no defending the indefensible.
I empathize with Joseph having been in a similar situation to Honey. I was given a medication as a child that was supposed to make me "all better." What it actually did was make me physically ill and emotionally depressed so i was just quiet and not causing a fuss. We found out later i was allergic. My mom didnt want that suffering for me, but forced me to take my meds because the doctor told her it was what was best for me and she trusted him. And while im traumatized from the situation, i cant blame my mother because she did the best she could with the information she had at the time. I just got lucky my situation was reversible, unlike honey.
BoJack Horseman is a great show in that it presents its characters and situations as complex. There's nothing black and white. The cartoon with animal people presents its characters with more realism and complexity than a lot of live action shows and movies.
Hm. He had good intentions and was negatively affected by his time period, sure, but that doesn’t take away all of the abuse and trauma that his family endured. He’s still a shit father and an even more shit husband. No accountability on his part. Besides, while familial abuse may have been less persecuted and even propagandized back then, plenty of husbands did not agree with that emotionally detached way of living and communicated properly with their wives and children. I would use words like understand, explain, warn instead of defend for this kind of content.
“I’ve got half a mind…” “Well that half you can keep.” I appreciate the effort, but being a victim of social conventions, as Joseph was, doesn’t absolve you of mistreating others. Your video does two things; it tries to excuse Joseph’s comments as misinterpretations based on missing cultural or personal context; and it catalogues the things Joseph did as a father which we wouldn’t necessarily hold against him. Based on what we were actually shown, the best we can say about him is that he was so subsumed into the culture, that he suppressed most of his own personality. Honey, of course, flirted dangerously close to the limits imposed by that culture and as a result had no viable means of coping with the loss of crackerjack. Beatrice, though instinctually attracted to what her mother modelled, eventually adopted a version of Joseph’s parenting style: abuse into conformity as a means of survival.
btw I dont hate any character really otehr then prolly buttersotch but josphen I believe has done waaaay less bad things then bojack or maybeee beatrice.
okay this logic is inherently flawed was joseph a product of his time yes everyone is. but this does not excuse the evils of our past. you argue that his wrong actions are understandable from his perspective which is true his comments towards Beatrice would be understandable to him. this is a big jump i know but this logic is true for any person we consider evil. hitler, john Wayne Gacy, ted bundy, and so many other genuinely horrible people that i dont think (or at least i hope) i would see you defending in a million years definitely not with this as your only argument. "oh it was a different time" is an argument prager u uses to make slavery look okay this is horrible argumentation. the only one that was reasonable was your comment on him burning her doll but he 100% could've handled that better but its also his least harmful action he makes in the show
She didn't even touch on the affair Joseph had with his secretary? Also in the begging when explaining the the whole biological morality it just sounded like she was evaluating the morality of a characted representing an adult and educated individual on the level of a toddler. Sure we have basic moral instincts but those basic morals grow and get refined with experience.
The whole Bojack family is the picture of ' Being a Product of time and surroundings ' they lived in, as was Sarah Lynn. Then we get the opposite with PC, Diane, Todd maybe even Mr. Peanutbutter ( when he's talking with Diane and has a realisation - I was always US in the relationship, now I'm learning how to be ME) And that's one of the reasons the show is 👌
"Defense" came to Middle English from the Old French "defens," and before that the Late Latin "defensa." It's not that YOU are spelling it wrong, it's that your country inherited an incorrect spelling from the British, whose dictionary was written by a drunk who didn't do his etymology homework.
ngl when you said 7 i started laughing because I have a tendency once every, about 6 months, to watch it. but I always reach the end of the series and then i get sad and have to rewatch it because i want to see how he grew as a character. The most i've ever watched it in a row was 3 times and then about the first season before I grew bored and stopped, all in all it totals to around... 15 or so times? I'm looking forward to this video :) I have to agree with the objectivity simply because I don't absolutely hate Joseph Sugarman like I did when I first watched the show.
This was an interesting take. It didn’t change my mind, primarily due to him openly stating a refusal to change rather than just not changing (which is still shitty, but at least you can claim ignorance) throughout the years. I can somewhat get it with Honey when it’s in the midst of everything, but not still refusing to do so even as his relationship with Beatrice deteriorated and time moved forward. Change is incredibly hard. There are changes I still have trouble implementing, but there’s not really any legitimate excuse for it other than just finding solace in the familiar, despite its effects. At some point, you have to take responsibility for your own actions and refusal to change and for your own ignorance irt how it affects the people around you., much like Beatrice and Bojack. And like both of them, I feel like there’s a difference between defending and contextualizing. Calling “era” a defense is kinda like when people try to defend slave owners or pre-1950s domestic abusers who were either “nice for the time” or made societal contributions. More extreme examples, but the point still stands. Much like a lot of the characters in this show, their backgrounds shouldn’t (and more often than not *cant*) be used as a defense, just as an explanation. Again, though, still a very interesting video.
I don’t know if you get this a lot but you sound like Jaiden Animations? BUT ALSO I LOVE THE VIDEO, honestly wasn’t so sure about the title but this is a good damn video essay.
![[EDIT] BoJack Horseman: BoJack's 1st & 2nd Solo Interviews with Biscuits Braxby](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/16rmCIEzTZE/mqdefault.jpg)
If you like this video, you might also like this one I made exploring when exploitation is ok in film and television told through the lens of true crime and the Netflix Jeffery Dahmer show:
ua-cam.com/video/RmiEtfeGc9o/v-deo.html
Or this one looking at how Spirit Halloween takes advantage of the dying suburbs:
ua-cam.com/video/0K9bmtSlx3U/v-deo.html
ua-cam.com/video/RKOhw8NZpXg/v-deo.html
Or here is the In Defence of playlist if that's what you're into:
ua-cam.com/play/PLqStSJhv1GeS_4n1Fw7I-mbgo1s_QDtFF.html
thank you for this, not just for defending him, but also for defending those from a different time. most people just try to do what they think is best, whether it is right or wrong. "love the sinner, not the sin", we are all human.
Now defend butterscotch lol, the architect of his own and everyone else's misery
Part of me wanted to go, “who hasn’t watched BoJack Horseman 7x and counting.” But then I thought: what if she’s also got a necklace with the left-side of a family crest?
I have to say, I never thought of Joseph as a cruel or uncaring man, at least not after I saw the episode where Beatrice remembers her childhood, for the time and society he was from he was fairly progressive, after Honey can't take care of Beatrice he steps up as a father and cares for her, with his money and the society he lives in he could have just hire someone to replace the mother role for Beatrice, but he covers it personally, while working, basically as a single father in the 40's, he speaks with his child about what happens to her in school, he comforts her, etc. We also saw that Beatrice found he was mostly right in her eyes at the end, if she had listen to him she wouldn't have ended up with Butterscotch, and, as you said, even then he supported his wife, giving his son in law a comfy job, that Butterscotch used to cheat on her repeatedly. I really liked your video, I will see more. I also liked how you described morality, is basically that, part of the evolutionary process, and as evolution, we all have this trait a little different, some waaaay different, but we, as a species, have some tendencies.
I that a Molly Doll? I love it!
It’s worth to point out that although Joeseph hated butterscotch, he gave him a job and aided both of them financially for years, till the end of his life
Who cares. He’s a feminicide
I like how they leave it vague as to whether Joseph truly cared about his family and was a product of his time, a cruel sociopath who cared more about status than the people in his life, or likely both.
You want a REAL challenge? Defend Butterscotch Horseman
At some point you have to realize something; Everyone is a product of their environment, and ultimately, they never chose to be who they are. Everyone deserves a defense, but if they are to get any better, they must take accountability even if it truly was never their fault.
It’s very easy to hate the man without a second thought but once you do actually think about it, imagine being the only "sane" person in the family (not counting Bea since shes a child).
After losing his kid, and basically having to take on both parental roles while also having to be the breadwinner.
Personally dont know if i have it in me myself to keep going after all that.
I'm sorry but the way Joseph says beans makes me laugh 😂
I have watched some of your defence videos on Bojack Horseman characters in the show and I would love to see you make a defence video on Bojack's dad, Butterscotch Horseman. First, I will tell you the reasons why I don't like Butterscotch Horseman that much. He is showed being abusive to Bojack physically and verbally along with gaslighting him, manipulates and blackmails as well as drug Bojack into making him forget Butterscotch cheating on Beatrice with his secretary, cheating on his wife yet again with the maid, Henrietta, chastises and neglects Bojack and Beatrice, has his wife fix his problem for him like Henrietta being pregnant, repeatedly says how Beatrice shouldn't have never had Bojack in front of him, talks to Bojack as if he was his therapist in the backstory car scene, and has a toxic masculinity mindset as it shows in the backstory car scene. So, to put it very simply he's a bigoted, very conservative, misogynistic, halfassed jackass. He kinda reminds me of my dad in most ways which is why I don't like Butterscotch as well. I don't really see much video talking about Butterscotch Horseman so it would be really cool to see you do a defence video.
Joseph Sugarman had enough good intentions to pave a dozen lane expressway to Hell with offramps in Tartarus, Mictlan and all nine Buddhist underworlds.
Philosopher? Doctor of the Church, and likely the smartest man who ever lived!
I think you did great, and now I want to challenge you into making an "In defence" video about Butterscotch Horseman
Now is time to defend BoJack 😅😂
He is still less of an asshole than his grandfather
WOW. i fully went into this video thinking it was absolutely impossible to defend the most blatantly, black & white evil character in the whole show. but you did it. bravo👏
I think the nail in the coffin for the way that Beatrice turned out was Honey telling her not to love anyone as much as she loved Crackerjack
I wish I could like this comment twice. Also love your username
Tbf, this was her post-lobotomy. Safe to say she wasn't in the right mind
@@syrusangi8743 Of course, I assumed that was implicitly understood
And under the whole ‘don’t love anyone because you’ll get hurt’ thing, I wonder how Beatrice felt when her mother’s life broke down because of the love she had for her son, instead of trying to get better for her daughter. Like Honey didn’t love Beatrice enough to want to recover
Imo its the scene where Joseph burns Beatrices things and her doll. He seems to imply, or at least she inteprets it this way, that if she keeps being emotional she will end up lobotomised like Honey. Not only does this cause her to keep Bojack, which binded her to butterscotch who probably made things worse (not that shes any sort of saint in that marriage either but still) but it probably caused her to be more cold and harsh, like we see her before she meets butterscotch. However she doesnt actually seem averse to love. She seems to want to love butterscotch, and maybe did at some point, she seemed to gain some affection for Creamerman and she seemed to want to love Bojack, so what her mother said didnt have as much a permanent impact like we think. If he never burned her things and frighten her, I think she could have turned out differently if given the chance, but I think the fire really sealed the deal on her personality and fate. Tho I do think the honey scene was important, I do think bestrice had a chance if that was the only thing that happened to her
I just realized that Sugerman / Creamerman merger would likely result in some kind of ice-cream production, and Beatrice loved ice-cream D: I'm crying now
WHY WOULD YOU TELL US THIS 😭😭😭😭😭
She never had it. But I’m sure if she had married Creamerman, she would have tried it
Shit…
Oh yea Joseph brought it up and was like “think of all the free ice cream you could, uh, serve to other people!”
@@jacksont9455 didnt she have icecream after wwII ended?
Joseph Sugarman was a character that haunted me because he embodies the evils of that past that hide in our nostalgic imaginations.
There is no evils of the past just what was acceptable then and what is acceptable now, future generations will say the same about us and their future generations will say the same about them
@@dream6562the future is going to be more like the dark ages basically more like Dune or starship troopers the only reason everything is Millenial and gay is because it’s stagnation and rot this century
@@magicman3163 Gay is a sexuality not a society thing
@@magicman3163how do you come to the conclusion that a type of sexuality play into the decay of society? What is slowly rotting away society is the rampant consumerism which replaces every kind of meaning by the illusion of fulfillment through gaining more and more material things. We‘re caught in a cycle of getting advertised some product that’s promised to enrich our life, accumulating money to buy said product, realizing that a product won’t bring us the fulfillment we thought it would and then search for the next quick high
If you think gay people gettijg more rep is "darkness" You've never actually suffered @magicman3163
He’s a product of his time, doesn’t excuse the bad he did but it explains it.
He was also taking the best possible action for his family at any given moment.
@@jurel-enlatado1 Every single person isn't a product of there time in the context they're using it for, " believing it does erases the fight" in one of the most privileged takes on the planet, like its actually astounding you think this is a take lmao
@@jurel-enlatado1 A privileged take, being part of a minority group doesn't stop that, "Oh we know now x is bad so the fact they didn't is wrong" is such a simple minded blind take its laughable, no one is personally attacking you when they are saying he's a product of their time calm the fuck down
@@jurel-enlatado1 nice victim blaming though im glad the entire aids epidemic was the fault of the victims for the lack of research, social understanding and support, because today in 2023 we have a better understanding of things
@@jurel-enlatado1 I'm saying that you implying the lack of knowledge and social understanding is solely the fault of the person regardless of their time period is victim blaming to other situations. Ie: aids
Yeah, I took into account the fact that he offered his son-in-law a job as well. Especially because some people would simply disown their daughters for getting pregnant without marriage.
Also consider that bojack visited the lake house as a child. Joseph likely still kept his distance as he saw bojack as the same reminder of a bad decision his parents constantly saw in him.
Is nobody else gonna mention the scene when Beatrice gives Bojack an old painting and speaks of her father as “a man who knew what marriage meant”? She didn’t have dementia at that point and showcases that Beatrice saw her father as a supporting figure in her life even though he did traumatize her in her childhood. She respects that part of her father but doesn’t always admit it
The man pulled her and Butterscotch out of the gutter. She idolized him
I think Joseph is a good example of how sometimes, our parents aren’t bad people. They’re just living by how they were raised and it’s difficult for them to understand the radical changes of the modern era. It’s not an excuse, of course. But Joseph was working with what he had, and still did his best given the circumstances.
yeah but at the same time following the example of their parents abuse and not breaking the cycle makes them a bad parent, you can understand why they act how they do without justifying their behaviour
"As a modern American, i was never taught to handle a woman's emotions, and I shall not learn."
He didn't do his best. He could've been better and chose not to.
@@jurel-enlatado1 Very true. He outright admits here that he will not change for the betterment of his mourning family. I guess when I say he did his best given the circumstances, I was thinking about how he still had to be the decision-maker, given the time period, how he was raised, and him being the man of the house. They were in a time when Honey’s mourning and hysteria was just boiled down to Being A Woman Disease, but it still doesn’t excuse Joseph’s future actions and behaviors.
This is a fact that I've had to come to terms with since having kids of my own. It's was easy to attack my parents for any missteps they may have made along the way, assuming they should have known better, but after being put into the same role, I realize that parenthood is really really hard, and no matter how hard you try at it, you are going to make mistakes, whether because you didn't know better, or you were working under the assumption of what you were trying to do is right. This is especially true, considering my parents were a good fifteen years younger when they had me than I was when I had my first child. They tried their hardest, and that _is_ enough.
While I can mostly agree with the good people, bad parents line of thinking outside of this context, Joseph outright admitting that he won't make the effort to change kinda throws a wrench in that for me.
He unknowingly ruined 3 lives when he denied his wife the ability to grieve.
good way to put it
I would say more than that.
he had no way of knowning, the whole family were victims
Not that her life was ruined but Hollyhock was definitely affected too
I would argue that he actually tried to provide a way for his wife to grieve. Because he thought he had to be a provider. He just was very very wrong in both his presumed role, and the method he chose.
Another aspect people forget is that Joseph and Honey would have grown up in the height of the Great Depression/Post WWI and being predisposed to aversion to financial risk
Consider how Beatrice's choice to ditch her party and hook up with a random party crasher, all because she knows better, impacted her life. She would have been far happier and more fulfilled if she listened to dad's advice.
The one time he was actually right. That’s gotta hurt.
@@nexus5253 Beatrice even admitted that she should have married Corbin instead of Butterscotch. And she definitely knew that Corbin would've shown her kindness and would've done a better job at providing for the family.
I honestly never hated Joseph. Was he problematic? Yes. But his actions weren't fueled by hate or spite or anything like that. He just didn't know better.
Plus, I'll be honest, if my spouse got shit-faced in a manic episode and nearly killed our youngest child, I would have flipped out too.
I work in a school, and one of my coworkers just stood by, watching two kids fight (I'm talking hair-pulling and slapping and grabbing each other at the neck), then threw up her hands saying: "I'm not dealing with this," and walked away. I wanted to give her a piece of my mind over that level of negligence.
Oh yeah, I never hated Joeseph either. I understood he was a "man of his time" and his behaviour was being tainted through Beatrice's dementia and childhood trauma, ofc he'd look bad in comparison to a modern audience.
It's why I like watching old sitcoms from the 60s or the 70s (and period peices), it's a fascinating glimpse into the past and to know that a lot has changed since is comforting.
I've never clicked on a video thinking so confidently "yea, no way they pull this off" and been so wrong
Please re-watch this episode, LISTEN to the dialogue, and tell me you think Joseph tried his best. From scene 1, he’s chastising his wife and “jokingly” threatening her with lobotomy for being a free-spirit. “That’s the half I’ll let you keep”
@@BradsGonnaPlay watch her video again. also, maybe if you feel this passionately abt it maybe take it up w her.
@@saml302"it's the jew's fault for peeving off hitler so bad" went completely unaddressed
@@BradsGonnaPlaythat's foreshadowing, not a threat.
@@emmyciyat9904 It’s actually both… since he wasn’t joking AND he was the willful arbiter of the decision.
I wouldn't call him a "good guy," but now I can see how he isn't a "villain."
I agree with you, he is not a "good guy" he is just a guy. Just normal for his time.
@@laugebylovnielsen8777 Arguably even a little better, given how he treated Honey before...well, y'know.
Joseph was actually a good father, considering the bare minimun that was expected from men on his time. He stepped up to take care of Beatrice, sent her to college (for the wrong reasons though), and supported her daughter's useless husband giving him a good job he didn't deserved. But the thing that sticks with me the most is that, from his era, it was expected that he remarried and started over after his son's death, tossing Beatrice aside for a new family. But we don't see any sings that he remarried or even dated. He could've put Honey on a psyche ward, but he kept her around the house despite not being able to do anything, and was somewhat close with Beatrice until she became an adult. I don't hate him for being sexist, because it was common on his era, we can't judge old time characters with current criteria.
Good God, you are thoughtful
Also if the other horse from the ball was her mother he's basically looked after his wife for at least a decade to 15 years which some people would see as a wholesome act even now. especially depending on how severe the lobotmy was she would need everything done for her to surivie that long.
I disagree immensely with this comment but I get your points. Hard to
we can judge people from the past based on modern criteria. you don't need to live in 2024 to figure out that beating up a man with a whip while he cries and begs you to stop is evil. you being from the era when such stuff was ooookayish doesn't excuse you at all
@@ОлегПономаренко-н1яtrue people would justify raping children because in the "old times it was normal" and they actually do that it's disgusting
I love that you brought up the fact that he was trying to help her by getting her lobotomized. He truly loves her, and it’s not secretly implied that he regrets the actions
Where’s that implication?
he actively (allegedly) cheats on her with his secretary through implication
he did not "love" her, even if he thought he did. he is mainly a symptom of being rich in a patriarchal capitalistic society that deemed any unstable women unworthy of help or anything for that matter
(i haven't watched the video yet i hope this doesnt sound angry i just saw this comment and wanted to add to it)
@@_Puppesad thing was that cheating was the “norm” back in the 40s
@@_Puppe and you may be aware that ‘unstable, mentally ill’ women were locked up in sanatoriums or even ‘disappeared’. Lobotomies in those times were truly believed to help people, not just women, to live a normal life and heal. If Joseph wanted Beatrice gone, she would’ve been sent away. He was trying to help her, mental healthcare just sucked back them.
That was not Joseph that was Bojacks dad, Butterscotch. @@_Puppe
I'd like to add that when Beatrice gave Bojack that portrait she told him it belonged to his granpa "a man who understood what marriage meant" or something along those lines. We also see her tell Butterscotch in the middle of an argument "i should have married Corbin Creamerman" Which goes to show that she does believe her father wanted the best for her too.
You did the damn thing, Ariana. Extremely well done.
Another thing to mention is that he never abandoned Honey. Often, patients like Rosemary Kennedy would be hidden away to spend the rest of their lives in nursing homes or asylums. But Joseph kept Honey home. He had the wealth to put her up somewhere, but he didn’t. This shows that he does care about Honey, he just can’t express himself well.
Joeseph does remind me of my grandfather. When my father was young, one of his brothers died. My grandmother got in this really deep depressive state (she didn’t leave her room for years) and my grandfather spent all day on work. He did, practically, support her. He was there and did all she needed, but only physically
He probably tried his best but wasn’t raised to talk to her properly and felt just as helpless
@@CoraCora-rj7vqThat would have been the worst part, knowing that someone he loved was in pain but not knowing how to help them emotionally and just having to wait for them to "snap out of it."
He was just a dad, sorta just acted like a dad did back then. Not many dad's where great back then 😭
At least he held Beatrice in his hands when she fell and took care of her illness, that’s way more than Butterscotch could’ve done to Bojack
@@j.j.hector735 Joseph showed Beatrice more love and care than she ever did for Bojack.
Exactly. Ppl don’t understand that he wasn’t malicious just painfully ignorant and emotional stunted. Of which makes sense considering who he is and the time period.
Butterscotch is honestly a worse person and father than he is since his stuff is malicious or selfish laziness
wouldn’t say not great it’s just the way the time was for instance ppl literally had slaves cause it was so called natural even before america was discovered slaves were crucial for structures pyramids everything was bc of slaves and men and women were barley knowledgeable about mental illness so they had other alternatives not knowing they were doing something far worse than w ahat they had hoped not their fault just the time
I actually argue that he was a better father than Beatrice ever was (not a high bar, but still). Sure he was bad and mysoginistic, but it was mostly a product of his times, and in some ways he thought what he did would benefit his daughter (he still had his own self interests in mind, but still). Beatrice was cruel to Bojack just to be cruel, she genuanly hurt and damaged him fully knowing what she was doing
Honestly I bet her dad woulda let the girl have a freezie pop.
I feel like Joseph Sugarman tried to fight discomfort with humour. He had a saucy back and forth with his wife that was pretty cute. He talked about flirting with his receptionist but I don’t think he was serious because who openly talks about infidelity in front of their children? I think when he said “I was never taught, and I will not learn.” He was trying to make the situation lighter. He was trying to joke and raise his wife’s mood like she could go “haha my stupid husband”
His comedic dialogue and exaggerated “old-timey” vocal delivery was an intentional writing/directing choice to amplify the bigotry and out of touch attitude of American men at the time. He’s not self-aware- in fact, the humor is that, paradoxically, he KNOWS he’s not self-aware
@@BradsGonnaPlayExactly. Every character in Bojack "says the quiet part out loud" at some point for the sake of humor, but for some reason only Joseph gets shit for it. People need to realize that at its core, BH is a comedy, and sometimes characters say or do things that are wildly unrealistic just to make you, the audience, laugh.
@@nathancollins1715 Joseph only gets shit on for it because he's a " rich *white* American man" (white being debatable here as his coat colour is actually dung) so its seen as ok to attack Joeseph because of that *link* to being a rich white man. Where characters like Bojack get passes because they're perceived as not being *white* (Bojack being bay, Beatrice a palemno, Butterscotch dapple grey and Hollyhock and Crackerjack being chestnut).
@@BrightWulph Bojack isn't thought of as white? Ignoring that they're all bloody animals, he isn't thought of as white?
I realize this sounds really dumb, but with his past as a sitcom star and his family lineage, I assumed he was supposed to be a mediocre white actor.
I think the "I wasn't taught, and I will not learn" line is a bit too on the nose to be taken as something a character like Joseph would literally say, my interpretation is that it's just the writers pointing out the low standards for emotional intelligence at the time, through Joseph's mouth.
ngl
This helped me recontextualize some shit from my childhood, and I think I understand my dad a little better now.
I needed to hear this. Thank you!
Oh care to tell us what you realized?
@@ThiccFurryBoi34 I mean, it's more or less Ariana's whole thesis: Joseph Sugarman was the product of a conformist upbringing and he never had the benefit of being socialized to deal with painful emotions in himself or in other people, most tragically so in the people he loved the most.
Same!
Honey's manic episode also put her sole surviving child, Beatrice at risk.
… and that justifies screaming at his wife, blaming her for her son’s death, getting physically abusive by throwing things around her, and then using her emotionally vulnerable and intoxicated state to convince her to do an irreversible procedure to her brain?
If someone was shown to be an active threat to the life of my child, I would do whatever is necessary to protect them. He didn't exactly have a plethora of good options.
@@BradsGonnaPlayIf someone endangers the life of my child, you'd better believe I'm screaming and throwing things around them, I don't care who it is. If it's anyone other than my spouse, I'd get physical with THEM. His actions in that moment are perfectly understandable, especially right after losing his other child.
Also when did he blame Honey for Crackerjack's death? That never happened.
@BradsGonnaPlay Not the lobotomy and physical abuse, but the screaming and rage is reasonable. Like if your dad almost killed you and your mom starts chewing him out imagine the audacity of someone telling her "Hey, no need for yelling".
@BradsGonnaPlay that was acceptable back then though, it wasn't unordinary, it was very recently where we started getting more into how a relationship should work and how people should interact, not saying it good but it wasn't unusual for the time and he comes from a very different outlook on life one that we could never imagine, the war the depression ect. He had trauma and didn't know how to deal with it.
The fact that Joseph was told “boys don’t cry” as a child makes sense why he said “womanly emotion”
Can’t wait for the Honey Sugarman video
I know this might be a nitpick considering the show treats it as a throwaway joke in the episode about the setting, but Joseph makes remarks about complimenting his secretary's tight sweaters and keeping her self-esteem afloat in the final argument, which upon first watch gave me the impression of him having an affair or at the very least that he was actively flirtatious with other women back at work. I might be looking at him in bad faith, but I still am a bit under the impression that even if he was a man who ultimately wanted to good by his family, he was also a selfish prick at times, prioritizing himself
Yo not nitpicky, its clear the writers put the line in for a reason, i think on a first viewing everyone assumes he's cheating, but after a while the line just felt so ridiculous that i almost don't think he was cheating.
Cheating or not, i think the line is supposed to imply that for Joseph his family is not his priority, but the veiwer can decide what he is chosing over his family (could be cheating, or he just wants his work life to be good)
We never saw him actually cheat on his wife even after she was lobotomized so I doubt he was actually cheating.
I agree regarding shouting at her. If someone drove a car drunk with a young child in it, we would call them negligent. In regards to the lobotomy, he was told by doctors it would help.
As this series goes on, there will no bad person in Bojack Horseman eventually.
Dare I say, maybe there aren't "bad people" in general, maybe there are just individuals making the best choices they can in the circumstances they find themselves, and sometimes those decisions end poorly for themselves, for others, and outcome trumps intention of course but ill-intention is rarely the sole reason for bad outcomes.
"There's no such thing as bad guys and 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. But you're never going to be good! Because you're not bad! So you need to stop using that as an excuse."
Paige Sinclair.
Not because of her shady journalism tactics, that is understandable from her POV.
But her voice. Objectively evil. Irredimible
Bojack, himself?
You say this as though you're willing to look past Sarah Lynn's unfortunate circumstances and demise. How oblivious.
you did a good job here, touching on some good points.
its always irritated me how, when viewing morality throughout history, modern people sit on a high horse and neglect the context and norms of the time.
100% there will be common beliefs and/or actions we maintain today that will be considered horrifying in 50 years.
God, can you believe someone owned slaves in an era where slavery was normal and they'd been told slavery was okay their whole lives? What jackasses /s
Next up: In defense of Butterscotch Horseman.
hard but doable
I wish we had seen more of his backstory, all we know is that his mother died when he was young and he would tell girls he was flirting with that they reminded him of her.
i feel like his action are way less explainable by universal morality. he’s kinda just a selfish ass
@@distort10n I suppose they propably would have explored him eventually if the show wasn't canceled prematurely.
The one good thing about him that I can say is that he was willing to step up and care for Beatrice after he got her pregnant.
As someone who's watched the old sugarman place more than any other episode in bh, i really like that analysis. Even though i felt really bad for Honey, she nearly killed their only child, who was around 6 at the time. You can understand his anger in that scene, because if your only child was nearly killed quickly after your first died, I don't think he'd be able to suppress his emotions, especially with how young she was. And the lobotomy thing is so real; it was normalised to do that to people struggling with mental issues, like nowadays how we just put them on drugs which really dulls people down. yeah sorry for the huge rant like comment but NO ONE i know irl has even heard of bh and won't watch it 😭😭
Unfortunately the burning of items was also common back then after disease. I had a Kit Kittridge book from American Girl and during one of the short stories in this collection, Kit and her friends had Scarlet Fever and their nurse burned their belongings when they got well. Often times, items like books were baked to 'kill' disease because no one fully understood that just WASHING THINGS REGULARLY kept them clean.
While some drugs are definitely over prescribed, I’d like to vouch for the fact that when you do get on helpful meds, your life changes for the better! I am not a monotone one note zero because of my adhd/depression meds, I am just not ruled by my emotions and can change tasks in short notice without having a breakdown.
So I think that’s a good indicator to know if you’ve been given the wrong prescription. if you feel dull and lifeless, talk to your psychiatrist about something else. If life just starts becoming easier to handle, it’s probably the right ones. 😅😂
I wonder if we'll look back on the stuff we do currently like we do with the stuff in the past
This is what I love about shows like Bojack - they give every character motivation and context. Yes, in Beatrise’s memories, he appeared as a villain and he did traumatize her. But he was just a man doing what he thought made sense at the time. He made many mistakes but he never wanted to hurt his own family.
What separates a show lien bojack from most shows that try to analyze or redeem their villains is that they make clear these people went through horrible things they didn’t deserve but that will never justify them being awful back because of it.
Look, my issue with "not judging people in the past" is that harm is kinda universal.
If I punched you in the face in the 1800's then did it in the 2000's, they BOTH feel like getting punched in the face.
Slavery was ALWAYS slavery.
Shit didn't magically hurt less just because it was more likely to kill ya and there was less people around to notice what happened to ya.
When it came to his wife's "treatment", he was told by MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS that they knew how to fix it.
And that shit STILL gets people hurt today!
He lived in a time before Google, before most medical malpractice laws, AND a time before even television was invented!
I don't excuse him being an adulterer, that was ALSO frown upon back then.
I don't excuse him getting physical with his wife or ignoring pain, people still grieved and felt pain back then too.
BUT, I will say the blame falls on the doctors who told him that they could "fix" his wife.
He doesn't even like the outcome so I HIGHLY DOUBT he wanted it.
Something tells me he kind of liked his wife the way she was BEFORE shit went down.
That I will acknowledge.
Because he's NOT a medical professional and therefore can't be expected to know better than them.
His wife was CLEARLY going through something and wanted to be "better".
He did what anyone woukd do and take her to a doctor, whose job IS to "fix" people.
I'm still blaming him for being abusive tho.
Because again, even back then shit like cheating on your spouse was seen as wrong.
AS LONG as monogamous coupling has happened, it's been seen as a dick move.
He's a product of his environment AND his own decisions.
He chose to do things like cheat and he ALSO chose to try and get his wife treatment.
He's not literally Hitler BUT feminism and other shit existed back then too.
If you asked beaten housewives back then if they enjoyed being beaten, they would say no.
And if you asked if it hurt, they would say yes.
There was even a trope of "the nice gentleman who would never strike a lady" in many older stories.
They knew people didn't like being treated like shit.
They also knew slaves didn't like being slaves as well as other VERY obvious facts.
The nuance here comes from a lack of access to education and proper medical care, NOT the idea that his abuse was somehow any less abusive back then OR more necessary.
It wasn't and empathy has always been a thing.
So has communication and respect, just people EVEN TODAY suck at those things and are not as above people of the past as they might think.
HONEST TO GOD THIS WAS SUCH A GOOD DEFENSE. i think this is an interesting perspective to view the character of joseph through and much MUCH better reflects the nuanced nature of most of this show rather than simply saying "joseph was a villain who ruined his family." this gave me a lot to think about and was really well presented.
This really clears up his character, also it leads me to think that he was just doing his best, in this context of defence. The lobotomy was one of the only “cures” known and he did it because honey asked, he tried to help and regretted it because he didn’t know what would happen when honey got one.
They weren't exactly wrong about the scarlet fever thing either. I'm no medical expert, but if somebody with the disease came into contact with, well, damn near ANYTHING, it could put others at risk of catching the illness and dying because of the contagions left behind by the infected person. Which is why they burned things. Smart move on Joseph's part, actually.
Your first reasoning is genuine insanity. How do you look at a character who was written to be an abusive and controlling g husband and go “wait… I can fix this”
How do you see Honey begging for help and think “well they BOTH probably are talking about a lobotomy right now”
How do you see a man that refuses to learn or accept that his wife has PTSD and think “it’s just a sign of the times?”
Most egregiously… how the actual hell did you see “If I’d known this [is how you’d act after a lobotomy], I wouldn’t have even bothered” as a GOOD thing?!?!
THAT IS NOT A STATEMENT OF REGRET, ITS A STATEMENT OF HIM BEING DISAPPOINTED THAT HE “WASTED” TIME AND MONEY ON HIS WIFE *AFTER DESTROYING HER BRAIN*
I’m sorry, I’ve randomly come across some of the your other Bojack videos and I like your style but this is the one that is keeping me from subscribing.
This whole video is just Honey and Beatrice slander. You keep viewing Joseph through a made up lens of good faith and how a proper father would react in the time period, rather than taking the *not at all subtle context* of the very scenes you analyze. One of the first lines by Joseph is him playfully threatening to lobotomize Honey as an obvious foreshadow to the fact that THAT was his final solution to her trauma, PTSD, and depression.
You reached so hard you must have dislocated your shoulder on this one.
15:28 “he thinks he’s doing right by his daughter” exactly- he THINKS. He’s not LISTENING, and he never had to so he never did. To anyone! That’s his whole point as a character!!!
NO. FUCKING. WAY!!
What's next? In defence of Thanos?
Funny enough, I already made that video early in my UA-cam career.
Its not up to my standards now but here you go!
ua-cam.com/video/3lEL3bPpm3g/v-deo.htmlsi=4aaxtfIrPeiONijB
@@ArianaAlexis Haha good video!
nope, sorry, this one isn't flying. not for me.
you just keep squinting hard at his actions from his perspective, giving him too much grace, and relying a fuckton on the time period. even something like slavery could be attempted to be justified with biology or philosophy or general rudimentary science.
even if this is a good analysis, i don't think it's a good idea. i don't think we need more people justifying the actions of powerful, privileged, emotionally stunted men - even if they're fictional.
you often take the absolute most charitable interpretation of everything he says. he didn't say he wouldn't have bothered with the lobotomy because it was making his life difficult, he did so because he missed his wife! he didn't yoink beatrice's doll because he didn't bother to think of a better way to get rid of it, he just didn't know any better!
about the "beatrice framing" device - we know. the audience is aware that joseph isn't a monster who's deliberately making his family's life miserable. we know that he cares about them all, at least to some degree. the thing is that this doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of things. again, even a dictator's actions could be attempted to be justified by saying he was just acting with the wellbeing of his country in mind.
yes, bojack horseman is a show about understanding flawed people. but they also literally had to make bojack kill someone and almost have sex with a minor to get across the fact that you're not supposed to like him. this is one of those moments.
I agree with all you said. This video is triggering me so damn hard.
i think i, at most, followed until the lobotomy point. its not unbelievable to think that he would have had a connection with his wife and wouldve wanted to help her, believing in his ignorance that lobotomy wouldve helped her. however the rest of the video felt as if it was painted with a tint of bias- and manipulated so that op would actually be able to 'defend joseph sugarman'. alexis mentioning the show's theme of working past generational trauma and making the choice to break free from it at the end gave me whiplash since i was under the impression that we were *not* blaming characters for remaining ignorant to the consequences of their actions because 'thats just how that generation was'.
@abelcanocarriel1343 You're only triggered because of your own experiences and your own trauma forcing you to only think about things from how you would feel in beatrice shoes.
You have bias empathy (Which isn't a real word but its the best way to describe it
@@psycholonya i agree! the point of people thinking lobotomies were actually effective at the time was something that i think the video got right. i don't doubt joseph did want to help, but as you said, a lot of the points in this video are painted *to* defend joseph.
@@juicebox7372 i think saying somebody is "only triggered" because of their own experiences is a little disingenuous. this video is defending somebody who represents a lot of awful things about society and common forms of opression and/or mistreatment. it's not projection on their part
Bro I never got angrier in a second than here and now. You're pure chaos
Jesus you actually did it! Thanks for your video❤
Hob bout a defense of Silko from Arcane? Sounds impossible but you just did Joseph Sugarman so...
@arnaudvenditti9169 silco is a lot more defensible i think, especially in the parenting angle
"i know it sounds horrible. DON'T YELL AT ME" got me 🤣
Thats the problem with looking into the past things were different. Hindsight is always 20/20 and people often refuse to acknowledge that
He wasn't a great dad or person but he certanly wasn't as horrible and abusive as people think. There are no villians in Bojack Horseman, that's kinda one of the main points of the show that many people forget.
nah bojack himself is a terrible person 💀
There are villains. It's just that often in this shows, the villains are the characters themselves.
I am so happy for this video - because I never thought he was "the devil" of the show. He messed up but he was unprepared to deal with his own, his wive's and his daughter's emotions...but considering these times he did pretty ok-ish
I think its very weird how people watch Times Arrow and take away from it that Beatrice has her own childhood trauma and the cycle of abuse and ladida, but then go on and absolutely vilify Joseph and Butterscotch. If Times Arrow showed one of their stories instead of Beatrices, im pretty sure people would feel bad for them and completely ignore that Beatrice might have had a traumatic youth as well.
Waiting for that "in defence of Clay Puppington episode"
The wife kind of was the issue but I would like to see that one
@@ghostdragon5735i don’t think you could defend either of them
there was that episode where his mother absolutely spoiled him rotten after like a dozen miscarriages then he pretended to have shot himself as a prank causing his mother to spiral and kill herself which caused his already distant father to blame him and become cold and abusive then later in life Bloberta turned him into an alcoholic
Feminism was actually popular during ww2 so the time period makes Joseph look worse
The feminism of WW2 largely concerned working-class women entering the workforce to support their families in times of hardship. However, this feminist movement didn’t extend to the upper class, and it also took a complete 180 after the war ended; soldiers returned home, and women were expected to become homemakers again.
@poultryg3ist yes that's what was expected to happen but it didn't in fact the economy benefited greatly from having women in the work force as a businessman Joseph should have been keeping track of that and possibly hired women
@@alicianelson1252 Joseph hiring women has nothing to do with his marriage though
@@poultryg3ist true
I kinda love how he says "yes especially your baby"
I think his biggest crime is not questioning the morality around him, but most people don't do that before, and after, their time frame. Most people are NOT these amazing free thinkers they think they are.
Like all these pop punks that think they're unique, but how many others like that?
Love this video because I was always anti Joseph Sugarman due to the biased lens of generational trauma, but then what you said resonated. The reason why people can turn out successful and happy or fail and become depressed can be affected by their upbringing for sure, but at the end of the day, they have the power to chose which aspects of their life they want to focus on and how that will affect them when they grow older….
It also resonates with me because my parents can be perceived as bad parents when I think of the trauma passed down from theirs onto us, but they’re in reality good parents who loved and cared for us in their own way and continue to try and be better even though they make mistakes in their approaches sometimes. Personally, just reminds me that the negatives were what I focused on instead of the positives.
Thank you for helping ground myself.
Presentism is a problem.
I would like to suggest an in defence of William Foster from the movie Falling Down
love this video, sometimes i have hard time in fandom spaces when a character appears that clearly has to be seen according to very specific circumstances, time eras, and even more if the media has sometimes some level of meta/surreal aspects, like how joseph says "i was never told to manage my emotions and i will never learn" we probably have to see that as more of a personal though being said out loud for the gag to work, but it also is meant to explain the current circumstance by saying he is a MODERN man, is kind of in the same line of honey telling baby beatrice that ice scream is a boy's snack and she should suck on a lemon with sugar
Waiting for: In defence (sic) of Greg, the guy Mr Peanutbutter met at a gas station that one time.
so you did a great job here but im worried that this idea that you can't judge people in the past for the standards of their time leaves us with nowhere to go in a lot of conversations. like yeah in the past it was common to give disabled people brain damage to make them easier to deal with. so we just, say oops and move on? demonizing people who made those decisions in the past is how we apply that same shaming social pressures to our current society so we don't make those choices anymore
I 100% agree with you but it's necessary to take these things into account
the thing is, Joseph is not a product of his time, he is an EMBODIMENT of his time. Considering his place in society as a wealthy sugar company owner, he likely contributed to the public perception of lobotomies as a sort of cure-all. In addition to all the other shit he did. I mean when every defense of Joseph can essentially be summed up as "he would've been good for his time" then you should absolutely note that all of these harmful social norms WERE fought against. There have been anti-sexists for about as long as there have been sexists. Cigarettes have been known to be harmful long before it was public sentiment and I have to imagine that people had spoken out against lobotomies since their inception as well. Also, this video completely glossed over that one "it's the jews' fault for peeving off hitler so bad" line. Don't you think you can slip that one past us!!
Something I often hear people talk about incorrectly is that the whole weight problem Beatrice experiences, was due to her father's old school believes, but in reality he was more supportive of her weight, it was her mother that instilled these horrible norms onto her, which ofc led her to instill those onto hollyhock
both of them had tehri faults imo
for me it's gotta be joseph's unapologetic and proud embracement of everything wrong with the culture of the time. he explains his actions in ways that make him look completely psychotic for not wanting to change. "I was never taught, and I will not learn" says everything about him. because it shows that he's aware of what's wrong with him, but he's an active agent in his own ignorance.
Not sure if it’s mentioned in the video but didn’t Joseph also give Butterscotch a job?
He did cause he cares about his daughter
I’m absolutely here for this video.
I find Joseph a really fascinating character to analyze, because you’re right: the different social conventions of his time vs ours make a massive impact on what’s considered moral to each of us. And you can’t quite judge the people of the past based on the morals of the present.
"He's not a bad person hes just a product of his time" is a bullshit excuse
At this rate you’ll somehow find a way to defend Walter White
walter is better than joseph sugarman
This guy hasn’t finished the video yet!
@@cristiadu here's a guy who hasn't finished the video yet
This is the beauty of BoJack Horseman. Every single character in the show, from the seemingly one-dimensional evil Joseph Sugarman to the seemingly innocent and kind Mr. Peanutbutter, is a complex morally gray character with countless personality traits to analyze. I love this show.
@1:36 In the UK: we also spell defence with a ‘c’ not an ‘s’.
@georgelongley8078?
@georgelongley8078 aren't you the wild card
I gotta be honest and say this one in particular wasn't sold to me. I think the fact he never learned to deal with his emotions doesn't excuse the fact he could've done better and actively never did, even Beatrice with all the trauma she had did have a moments of reflection where she did do the right thing, he never did the right thing, from start until the end, he is like Butterscotch, just a selfish man with selfish desires.
To be fair,I think Joseph was a better man than Butterscotch or Bojack. Granted he wasn't the most progressive of people, but I don't think he did anything really horrible. As it was stated, Honey asked for the lobotomy and Joseph had no idea it would do *that* to her. She was still taken care of by him in spite of it.
He just said some backwards things, was emotionally unavailable ect.
Butterscotch cheated on his wife, was verbally abusive to her and his son. Was a drunk and encouraged his son to pick up the addiction.
Bojack has a long laundry list of awful things, including attempted murder, wreckless behavior while under the influence, blackmail, verbal abuse and some very sus relationships.
I think you’re forgetting that this man in the 1940s isn’t going to be in the best environment to develop emotionally and not understand that it necessary past keeping his family as “presentable” awful but you’re really underestimating the power of the time period and how everything he was doing was seen as relatively normal.
@@blacksesamecandies Joseph was also cheating on his wife so he's not better than Butterscotch in that regard. Both even do so in the workplace.
@@wombat4583I think that was a joke personally i mean he clearly loves his wife and didn’t really seem like a guy who cares about sex just the future of his family
You don't have to forgive him, that's not the point. But you cannot tell me that everyone else wasn't the same. You're looking at this in a lense of the modern era. One of OP's points was a very real instinct in humans to conform.
Your information on lobotomies is largely incorrect. Yes, the man who did the transorbital lobotomies and his acolytes were one of the types of lobotomy used in the US, however, it wasn't the main one used in mental hospitals. Further, you have misrepresented the work of that portuguese doctor. He did not "pour acid in the brain" but drilled a hole in the frontal bone, likely using a holesaw drill bit (which was the bit used in many Mental Hospitals in America), and severed a portion of the prefrontal cortex, often using alcohol/ethanol (not acid, in fact ethanol tends to be basic) to better destroy the connections between the frontal lobe and the rest of the brain. Then the piece of bone was replaced and the cut stitched up. While still bad, this type tended to heal faster and have better outcomes.
This latter process was the most common in many mental hospitals. How do I know this before? Their bones get donated to schools and we got a lot from Larned, many with single or double lobotomies. Seems the majority of hospitals understood that the transorbital lobotomy was just brain damage with a sharp object and Freeman was a charletan and a butcher. When they show Honey or Homer Simpson in "Stark, Raving Dad" in Bart's imagination, they show them with the stitches over their frontal bone, indicating that they were hospitalized and received the drilled frontal bone version. Further, he even states exactly which type was done. He chose to have what was believed to be the safest version for her, he did his research but the data just wasn't there yet.
And, while transorbital lobotomies were banned in the US, lobotomies have never been banned. You can still get one today, though they are very rarely employed and only for certain conditions.
Awesome take. I think about this a lot. I think WAY too much about this horse-cartoon, but I digress.
They were able to take a character like Beatrice, set her up as absolutely vile (and she was), then make the audience sympathize with her deeply. I've often wondered if the same would have been done for Butterscotch or Joseph had the show gone on a few more seasons. Joseph is terrifying, but generational trauma was masterfully written into his character. You just never get to see it justified as explicitly as you do in Beatrice and Bojack's flashbacks.
He was a product of his society and time? Yes. He's still a dick and a horrible father? Absolutely yes.
I was told once: there's always people who are/were ahead of their time, we all have the capacity to feel when something is unfair even when the society we live in tells us otherwise.
I still hate Joseph, for all the shity things he did, including he cheating constantly on Honey with his secretary. It was something _every man_ did in that time, yet _some men_ were actually faithful and respectful to their wives.
I think that this sort of analysis will always be constrained by the fact that we *only* see Joseph through Beatrice' perspective. There's a whole person in there, and we can see glimmers of who that person might be, but largely we see only the effects, not the causes, which limits our perception.
There's something to be said for the fact that the only two emotions we ever see Joseph display are his usual benign geniality, and, occasionally, anger. We don't see his grief over losing Crackerjack, and we don't see his fear over almost losing his wife and daughter except through the lens of anger, and we don't see his grief over losing the woman his wife had been pre-lobotomy.
Those aren't emotions that he displays to his daughter. He will have been taught from a young age: no one gives a shit how you are feeling. Your job is to man up and do what needs doing for your family. He will have been punished in a thousand little ways for displaying any real emotion other than anger, and rewarded for displaying his mask of calm, stoic geniality. You can't undo that kind of social programming overnight, or just by wanting to.
Still, that only goes so far. Yes, he does display in many ways that he does care about his daughter and want what's best for her, and he does attempt, as far as he's capable, to step into the maternal role that Honey can no longer fulfill. But if he makes any real attempt to understand where Beatrice' seeming "ingratitude" surrounding the debutante ball is coming from, we don't see it.
The video makes a lot of good points, but the essayist goes a little far in describing him as a "good guy." He has good intentions and an inadequate set of tools with which to express them, but he doesn't seemingly go out of his way to expand that toolset.
End of the day, when he says "I was not taught, and I will not learn," we can recognize the tragedy of the former without letting him off the hook for the latter. The lobotomy wasn't his fault. He did nothing more than what we're all exhorted to do when it comes to climate change denial or COVID spread mitigation: listened to the experts.
But when it came to handling his adult daughter, he did precious little as far as recognizing her as a subject matter expert in her own life and listening to her. He's callous, defensive, and dismissive, and no amount of "he's a product of his time!" can change that.
As a Canadian who pretends to be American by spelling favourite as favorite or flavour as flavor, thank you for pointing this out!
Basically this video is: "it's fine, it was the '20's!"
40s, but, yes
But an ounce more nuance than just that. Specifically, by the standards of the time and from his limited perspective, he was doing his best. The fact that his best amounted to the damage to Beatrice that it did wasn't his intention and obviously outcomes over intentions but something must be said toward him trying as he did.
Okay and sometimes that’s enough to understand the context. We can call out the evil in characters whilst also recognising the context. He was anti semetic. In a time where that was absolutely the norm even during the 40s. He lobotomised his wife in a time where emotions, therapy and all of that stuff isn’t seen the same way or seen as helpful in the way we value it now
You can’t get mad at the context of it explains his actions. He’s not doing things that are maliciously terrible even for the time. Lobotomising his wife is evil. But so is marital rape which was just as normalised and evil.
The gist is, Joseph was the product of his times.
That's what I took from this too
You didn't defend his implied cheating on Honey but then again it was kinda a common thing
I mean, he openly talks about flirting with his receptionist in front of his kids…. I’m sure it’s a joke. After all we don’t hear about Bojack having any aunts or uncles do we?
@@forestgrump4723 well that's true but he didn't knew about hollyhock existing , It could be a joke but also could be not a joke and maybe he Just didn't get her pregnant
I should have addressed it, but it was also a common thing back then for men to make sexist comments to women as just part of conversation under the impression that it’s polite. How many times have you heard “you should smile” or another comment on a woman’s appearance from older men. Again, it’s not right and extremely misogynistic but it’s again, a sign of the times.
@@ArianaAlexis yeah i figured It was because of something like this anyway really cool video!
@@forestgrump4723 Probably because what we would consider sexual harassment today was just friendly banter back then
Yeah, no. I agree that while Bojack's grandpa was somewhat better than his dad, that doesn't excuse Joseph's actions either. While "a product of his time" explains why he thought what he did was best it doesn't excuse the generational trauma that he passed on to Beatrice, and into Bojack as well. Yes, the show does establish that that trauma burden must be addressed by the latest recipient of it, however, Joseph also had a choice to reexamine his trauma when he was living his present life with his family, he just never cared to. Framing Joseph as just "emotionally stunned but did the best he could" takes away his responsibility AND accountability, not to mention that you skipped the whole cheating repeatedly on his wife's part because it was "part of social norms, it's fine". He is a powerful and privileged man who played into the role he knew how to play and never cared to reexamine his actions until it was too late and already bared a consequence on him.
The exploration of his family's trauma serves the purpose of understanding the many factors that made Bojack the way he is, his flaws, and his LACK of accountability as well. By this logic, Bojack is just "a product of his time" just like his grandpapi, and if we are "forgiving" Joseph for his shortcomings we should "forgive" Bojack for his as well. Now, you can see how this is problematic because it defeats the ENTIRE PREMISE of the show. We are not supposed to like Bojack, we are to see him and his actions through a critical separate lens because we get to see his side and the side of the people he hurts, the same goes for Joseph. There is no defending the indefensible.
Do we actually have evidence he cheated? Flirting with the secretary was just office banter back then
I empathize with Joseph having been in a similar situation to Honey. I was given a medication as a child that was supposed to make me "all better." What it actually did was make me physically ill and emotionally depressed so i was just quiet and not causing a fuss. We found out later i was allergic. My mom didnt want that suffering for me, but forced me to take my meds because the doctor told her it was what was best for me and she trusted him. And while im traumatized from the situation, i cant blame my mother because she did the best she could with the information she had at the time. I just got lucky my situation was reversible, unlike honey.
BoJack Horseman is a great show in that it presents its characters and situations as complex. There's nothing black and white. The cartoon with animal people presents its characters with more realism and complexity than a lot of live action shows and movies.
Joseph isn’t a bad person, he just made bad mistakes.
Hm. He had good intentions and was negatively affected by his time period, sure, but that doesn’t take away all of the abuse and trauma that his family endured. He’s still a shit father and an even more shit husband. No accountability on his part.
Besides, while familial abuse may have been less persecuted and even propagandized back then, plenty of husbands did not agree with that emotionally detached way of living and communicated properly with their wives and children.
I would use words like understand, explain, warn instead of defend for this kind of content.
“I’ve got half a mind…”
“Well that half you can keep.”
I appreciate the effort, but being a victim of social conventions, as Joseph was, doesn’t absolve you of mistreating others. Your video does two things; it tries to excuse Joseph’s comments as misinterpretations based on missing cultural or personal context; and it catalogues the things Joseph did as a father which we wouldn’t necessarily hold against him. Based on what we were actually shown, the best we can say about him is that he was so subsumed into the culture, that he suppressed most of his own personality. Honey, of course, flirted dangerously close to the limits imposed by that culture and as a result had no viable means of coping with the loss of crackerjack. Beatrice, though instinctually attracted to what her mother modelled, eventually adopted a version of Joseph’s parenting style: abuse into conformity as a means of survival.
I get your point, but he's the true monster of the show. I don't hate Beatrice or Bojack despite of being jerks but Joseph? damn he's disgusting.
btw I dont hate any character really otehr then prolly buttersotch but josphen I believe has done waaaay less bad things then bojack or maybeee beatrice.
okay this logic is inherently flawed was joseph a product of his time yes everyone is. but this does not excuse the evils of our past. you argue that his wrong actions are understandable from his perspective which is true his comments towards Beatrice would be understandable to him. this is a big jump i know but this logic is true for any person we consider evil. hitler, john Wayne Gacy, ted bundy, and so many other genuinely horrible people that i dont think (or at least i hope) i would see you defending in a million years definitely not with this as your only argument. "oh it was a different time" is an argument prager u uses to make slavery look okay this is horrible argumentation. the only one that was reasonable was your comment on him burning her doll but he 100% could've handled that better but its also his least harmful action he makes in the show
She didn't even touch on the affair Joseph had with his secretary? Also in the begging when explaining the the whole biological morality it just sounded like she was evaluating the morality of a characted representing an adult and educated individual on the level of a toddler. Sure we have basic moral instincts but those basic morals grow and get refined with experience.
I’m reading the comments and…none of you guys watched the video
The whole Bojack family is the picture of ' Being a Product of time and surroundings ' they lived in, as was Sarah Lynn. Then we get the opposite with PC, Diane, Todd maybe even Mr. Peanutbutter ( when he's talking with Diane and has a realisation - I was always US in the relationship, now I'm learning how to be ME)
And that's one of the reasons the show is 👌
Gotta be honest 7 times is almost enough times I’m doing lap 8 now
"Defense" came to Middle English from the Old French "defens," and before that the Late Latin "defensa." It's not that YOU are spelling it wrong, it's that your country inherited an incorrect spelling from the British, whose dictionary was written by a drunk who didn't do his etymology homework.
ngl when you said 7 i started laughing because I have a tendency once every, about 6 months, to watch it. but I always reach the end of the series and then i get sad and have to rewatch it because i want to see how he grew as a character. The most i've ever watched it in a row was 3 times and then about the first season before I grew bored and stopped, all in all it totals to around... 15 or so times? I'm looking forward to this video :) I have to agree with the objectivity simply because I don't absolutely hate Joseph Sugarman like I did when I first watched the show.
This was an interesting take. It didn’t change my mind, primarily due to him openly stating a refusal to change rather than just not changing (which is still shitty, but at least you can claim ignorance) throughout the years. I can somewhat get it with Honey when it’s in the midst of everything, but not still refusing to do so even as his relationship with Beatrice deteriorated and time moved forward. Change is incredibly hard. There are changes I still have trouble implementing, but there’s not really any legitimate excuse for it other than just finding solace in the familiar, despite its effects. At some point, you have to take responsibility for your own actions and refusal to change and for your own ignorance irt how it affects the people around you., much like Beatrice and Bojack.
And like both of them, I feel like there’s a difference between defending and contextualizing. Calling “era” a defense is kinda like when people try to defend slave owners or pre-1950s domestic abusers who were either “nice for the time” or made societal contributions. More extreme examples, but the point still stands. Much like a lot of the characters in this show, their backgrounds shouldn’t (and more often than not *cant*) be used as a defense, just as an explanation.
Again, though, still a very interesting video.
I don’t know if you get this a lot but you sound like Jaiden Animations? BUT ALSO I LOVE THE VIDEO, honestly wasn’t so sure about the title but this is a good damn video essay.
I had never seen one of your videos and when I saw the title I thought it was impossible, actually pulled it off! Respect.