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Pinky Penguin and the Constant Tragedy of Being

How Pinky Penguin foreshadowed the dramatic arc of BoJack Horseman

By Steven Christopher McKnightPublished 3 years ago 3 min read
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Pinky Penguin, World's 3rd Best Dad

Obsolescence is perhaps the most impeccably-crafted thematic through-line in Netflix Original Series BoJack Horseman. As the characters continue to exist in an ever-changing world, their purposes shift, shrink, and develop in meaningful ways, and they must with the existential terror that comes with that. As BoJack himself once says, “Life’s a series of closing doors.” Opportunities and options for the characters are constantly being lost, and every time a door slams, a new conflict arises. Princess Caroline learns to let go of some of her responsibility as a manager to flourish as a mother. Mister Peanutbutter becomes comfortable being by himself. Even Diane learns to be happy. As the audience, we watch these new characters adapt to new situations and fail spectacularly, learning slowly along the way. But this essay isn’t about them. This essay is about the very first particle of obsolescence we get in the series: Pinky Penguin.

We first meet Pinky Penguin as a distraught executive at Penguin Random House, a publishing house that’s seriously suffering from the changing times. Says Pinky, “When was the last time you saw a book?” His goal in the very first episode is to coax an autobiography out of the titular character that will save the publishing house, which is hopelessly in debt. After all, the publishing house just sank hundreds of thousands of dollars into marketing for a franchise, The Swamp Monsters of Malibu, which even after that investment no one seems to have heard of. Already we’re noting the first shreds of obsolescence in the series: Pinky Penguin peddles books in a society that’s increasingly disinterested in reading, and even the genre he tries to publish, young adult monster-themed romance, is capitalizing on a trend that died with Twilight. Pinky Penguin shows himself as a character who cannot seem to adapt to the times. Miraculously, the BoJack Horseman biography sells remarkably well, but Pinky proves this apt decision to be a one-off occurrence when, in the glow of that success, he throws a “ghost writer” convention that flops.

As a throwaway side character, Pinky is devoid of any real character development or growth, but later on in the series, he rises to some prominence when he meets BoJack again at a roller rink. There, quoth the Penguin when asked about the publishing industry, “I jumped off that sinking ship. Now I’m in network television.” There is a shred of irony to this statement. BoJack Horseman is, after all, a Netflix Original Series available exclusively for streaming, and as streaming expands, live network television becomes relegated to nostalgia, just like reading. Pinky Penguin even seems to acknowledge, mid-sentence, that he has made a terrible mistake. He has jumped from sinking ship to sinking ship, and he knows it. There’s no escape. He’s going under.

There is a greater metaphor to be found here. Could Pinky Penguin have conceptualized himself as a penguin because, just as publishing and network television are seen as dying industries, so, too, are penguins as a species at risk of extinction as the climate changes? By painting the world of BoJack Horseman with a colorful cast of animal characters, are the creators likening reality to the wild, where we all perform certain niches, and when forces beyond our control wipe out that niche, we must struggle to find a new niche or die trying? Does Pinky Penguin set up the darker reality of the show, a reality that BoJack consistently spirals in, where he, too, navigates a world of closing doors and as each opportunity slams behind him, he is forced to drift in despair until one of his close friends snatches him up and pulls him into a new opportunity? Does Pinky Penguin losing everything constantly mirror the moments when BoJack loses everything at least twice, climaxing with him signing away even his stake in the TV show he’s spent his whole life being proud of? Because Pinky did it first. Or perhaps I’m giving Pinky Penguin too much credit. Maybe the creators of the show made him a penguin because, “lol, Penguin Random House.” Who’s to say?

entertainment
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About the Creator

Steven Christopher McKnight

Disillusioned twenty-something, future ghost of a drowned hobo, cryptid prowling abandoned operahouses, theatre scholar, prosewright, playwright, aiming to never work again.

Venmo me @MickTheKnight

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