Word VOmit MY NEIGHBOR TOTOROBOJACK HORSEMAN THE WALKING DEAD• • ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND ••
Film and TV Character Analysis 1. My Neighbor Totoro 3. Eternal Sunshine Of the Spotless Mind 5. The Walking Dead BoJack Horseman 7. An Introduction Character Analysis: 10. BoJack & Diane 12. Princess Carolyn & Mr PeanutButter 14. Todd & Sara Lynn Episode Analysis 16. Escape From LA & The Old Sugarman Place 18. Free Churro & The View From Halfway Down 20. Zoe vs Zelda Quiz 22. Final Conclusions 24. Upcoming Films CONTENTS
My Neighbor Totoro is a Japanese animated film from Studio Ghibli, made in 1988. It was written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki and animated by Tokuma Shoten. The film follows a family of three, the sisters Satsuki and Mei and their father Tatsuo. The film begins as they move into their new house in the Japanese countryside, to be closer to their ill mother. They soon come to realise that the place they live is anything but normal; spirits reside in the forest close by. The girls meet Totoro, a large, loveable, and friendly creature that brings magic into their world in more way than one. The film surrounds itself in an environment that is lush, warm, and safe. This film beautifully captures the magic and wonder of childhood, the imagination and energy and kindness. It’s also a very true depic tion of children and how they behave. Children in movies and TV in more recent years seem to be in credibly unrealistic, leaving me thinking “now when would an eight-year-old say that?”. Mei and Satsuki, however, behave in a way that normal children do. This makes the film, not only pleasant to watch, but also like childhood nostalgia has been captured in a moving picture. The film originated from a per sonal experience the director, Hayao Miyazaki, had when he was younger. His mother was sick, so the family moved to be closer to her. It’s supposed to, not only capture the wonder of childhood, but be a visual representation of family. Labour is a theme within the film, the children share the workload in chores around the house, and the girls are happy to help their father out, they don’t complain and always remain brave. This emphasises the idea of family, that they share the work, that they work together and help each other. Miyazaki was intent on creating realistic child characters and encour aged his animators to observe children that passed by the window to give them a better understanding of how children act. This led him to have two pro tagonists, Mei and Satsuki, to further explore the dynamic of family and the behaviours that children have. Mei and Satsuki have distinct personalities. Mei, the youngest of the two can often become upset, as she is very stubborn. What makes Mei special is that she isn’t an ‘angel’ child, she throws tantrums and screams and cries, she behaves like a young child would do. She is also fun-loving and excitable, and clearly looks up to Satsuki the way younger children often do, mimicking her. Satsuki is the older sibling, and because of this she takes more responsibility of Mei, especially since her mother is in hospital. Satsuki cares for Mei, which Totoro
となりのトトロ 1 みんなわらってみな。おっかないのはにげちゃうから。みんな笑ってみな。おっかないのは逃げちゃうから。Everybodytrylaughing,thenwhateverscaresyouwillgoaway! My Neighbor
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me in Montauk.meetmein “What a loss to spend that much time with someone, only to find out that she’s a stranger.”
This film is about a couple, Joel and Clementine, who go through a medical procedure to have their memories of each other removed following a painful break-up. However, after the procedure, they meet again. This film is incredibly unique and interesting, offering some intriguing ideas on how we view re lationships and the pain of them ending. At its core, this film is about love and heartbreak, two that often coincide with each other. It’s a very human desire, to wish you could forget all the pain that comes from things like a break-up, or loss. Or the memo ries that come attached with both, that often make it a lot worse to recover from. With this idea, the struggle of having to ‘get over’ some thing and move on, is gone. It’s understandable why this idea is so alluring, and after seeing how the relationship went, why they both chose this method. The film itself is described as a rom com, which came much to my surprise at viewing the series of events that unfolded. This movie defies all general plotlines or ide as about how rom-coms, or romance movies, generally play out. And for this reason, it allows the story and the characters to be a freed from the typical cage that surrounds movies about relationships. The film starts with the couple meeting after having their memories erased, but the main body of the film takes place in Joel’s head. He lives through the memories as they are erased, reliving them and interacting with Clementine. They aren’t regular memo ries, Clementine herself is a mix of how she is perceived by Joel and how she is in real life. They interact, both aware of the procedure is happening, and attempt to devise a plan to stop it. This portion of the film feels like a lucid dream, a craftwork of different emotions and timelines and events. It’s mismatched and non-linear, making it exciting and engaging. It feels more like an art piece than a film, and for that reason I spent a lot of time thinking about it, long after the credits finished rolling. The characters in this film have flaws and quirks I haven’t quite seen before, perfection is often expected in romance movies, and because of this there is little character depth. Clementine is outgoing, she’s straightforward, often impul sive and a little strange. She has struggled with insecurities since she was a child, and often has periods when her insecurities override her life. She’s cheery, talkative and colourful, both in her personality and her appearance. Joel... well he’s quite the opposite. He’s quiet, shy, reserved, nervous. He’s quite pessimistic and often mopey, never doing anything that could be deemed ‘out there’ or challenging. He gets jealous, and this can often make him cold. These two are truly human beings, making the movie worth investing yourself in. The characters are messy, and this is what makes them believable. They’re not unrealistic, and in fact, I’ve often met people that are like both of them. I relate to Joel quite a lot, as an meet me in Montauk. meet me in Montauk. 3 meet me in Montauk. meet me in Montauk. meet me Montauk. meet
Eternal Sunshine of the spotless mind
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No matter how many memories the procedure erased, they both still ended up back in Montauk.we the dining dead?”
Joel makes eye contact with Clementine despite stating how he can’t do that with strangers, she invites him to the frozen lake where Joel had once told her he could die happy. Elements of their pre vious relationship are still there; elements of their past selves are still present.
anxious person myself. I hadn’t really seen a char acter like his before, the only ‘shy’ characters I see tend to make that their whole personality, or are labelled as such, but don’t act like it. The writers use this idea of a ‘shy’ person as something that should be romanticised, and those characters are usually very comfortable in social situations. Joel has monologues in his head about what people think of him, especially Clementine, and often says the wrong thing or doesn’t say what he wants to say at all for fear of embarrassment. Their person alities aren’t fake, or vessels for cheap entertain ment, they’re written in a way that resonates with you, even if you don’t have much in common with them or their experiences. Their relationship is as messy as they are, and their faults and traits play into its downfall the way a realistic relationship would. This idea of erasing memories for the sake of saving yourself the pain… seems idealistic. In reality, the difference would be quite drastic. There would be a sense of loss, not just for losing this part of your life, but also the person that you had such a deep and intimate connection with. In the process of losing them, you lose yourself too, the person you had become because of this relation ship is gone. This is something Joel comes to real ise when his memory is being erased. Not knowing he would be aware as this process, he is forced to relive every memory he has of Clementine. From the beginning to the bitter end. In doing so, he falls in love with her all over again, and sees his mistakes in a difference light. When he first asked for the procedure, he was angry and spiteful. But he transforms once he sees how much he cared for Clementine and how much their relationship was worth to him. It’s utterly gut-wrenching to watch this happen, he sees these memories being torn from him, even as he does his best to hold on to them, even begging to keep just one. This film puts into perspective what relationships are like, how tumultuous they can be, how you ultimately love your partner despite this. Even after all the heartbreak, Joel didn’t want to give up the memories he treasured, no matter how much his relationship had decayed and how Clementine had hurt him. It paints a picture of the tether Joel has to Clementine, of how she made him feel and the long-lasting importance of her part in his life. Their relationship defies the odds; they meet again.
“Adults are, like, this mess of sadness and phobias.”
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"My mother, she knew what it’s like to feel your entire life like you’re drowning, with the exception of these moments, these very rare, brief instances, in which you suddenly remember: you can swim." I know I will never have a mother who looks at me from across the room and says: BoJack Horseman, I see you.”
“Now
Free Churro is a 20-minute monologue by BoJack Horseman at his mother’s funeral, voiced wonder fully by Will Arnett. This episode uncovers much about BoJack and his mother, Beatrice Horseman, in his eulogy turned ‘me-logy’. While this episode can be quickly categorized as the sad ramblings of a man who lost his mother, there is a lot of layers to this 20-minute episode. It starts with BoJack’s father, Butterscotch Horseman, giving young Bo Jack a monologue of his own. Butterscotch is cold and self-absorbed, he complains that Beatrice had been weeping loudly and distracting him from writ ing his novel, that she had not make him lunch and he had to go out on his own to pick BoJack up. He describes this as a harrowing tale and doubles it as a lesson to BoJack. That being: “you can’t depend on anyone. Sooner or later, you need to learn that no one is going to take care of you.” This is a mes sage BoJack internalises very heavily throughout his life, refusing to turn to other people for help and purposefully isolating himself to fight his own
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Free Churro
of things he’s wanted to say to his mother and hasn’t had the opportunity until she had literal ly been put into a coffin, he comments that she would usually interrupt him to complain or ask him to get her a drink. There is a lot of anger and bitterness BoJack holds for his parents, specif ically more his mother. He doesn’t have a good thing to say about her, bar one anecdote of her beautiful and sad dance she would do at dinner parties, which would captivate both him and his father. He resents her, and her consistent cru elty towards him all of his life, so much that he expected her final words to be some sort of jab at him, leaving him to focus on what her last words meant: “I see you. He tortures himself about what they could mean, that maybe she held out on what he wanted to hear from her until the very last second. That maybe she recognised him as a person, loved him and that wanted him to know he made her world brighter. He was hopeful of this being true, as it meant that as cruel as she was to him, that she loved him all along. She died in the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital, the ICU, and upon reciting this he realises her final words had no meaning .This episode is about loss, undoubtedly. But it is also about disappointment, that his parents couldn’t have done better by him, that they couldn’t have been better. He references the beginning of the episode, reassuring himself that it’s good to know that he can’t depend on anyone, like his parents, to be there for him. This a journey of BoJack coming to terms with the fact that maybe he didn’t make Beatrice’s life brighter, maybe she didn’t love him in the way he wanted; if at all. He talks about something he had felt when his dad died, that he knew he would never have a good relationship with his father, but he didn’t realise he was still holding onto that possi bility until Butterscotch died. Now he is repeating this process with his mother, feeling this same disappointment as before. As I said, this episode is about loss. Not just the loss of them being gone, but the loss of what could have been. battles. The episode moves on to BoJack delivering the eulogy, steps away from his mother’s coffin. It’s not a coincidence that the episode features both his mother and father, as its theme is loss, specif ically parental loss. BoJack talks freely about his own life and feelings, and doesn’t hold back, which is interesting as he usually likes to put up a front. There are a lot of unsaid things which he has held onto for a long while now, and he suddenly has a captive audience, whom he doesn’t know and will most likely never see again. There are a lot
“Sometimes life’s a bitch and then you keep on living.”
Diane Nguyen "That means that all the damage I got wasn't good damage, it's just damage. I have gotten nothing out of it." but it often ends up going awry. She tries to expose Bill Cosby type TV hosts and gets death threats for it; she tries to make BoJack’s character Philbert more flawed and well-rounded, but people end using the character to make excuses for their bad behaviour. She is shut down by everyone she knows for attempting to make these situations right, by BoJack, Princess Carolyn and Mr. Peanutbutter, which is frustrating on behalf of the audience to watch. In the episode ‘Good Damage’, Diane devel ops writers block when suffering with depression and attempts to write a book of essays about her life. She is constantly distracted and loses time when she tries to write. She instead ends up making a teen novel about a mall detective, which is bright, fun and an absolute hit, but not even close to what she wanted to create. She expresses a need to give her trauma meaning by creating something with Diane is a writer, feminist and BoJack’s best friend. She suffers from anxiety and depression, which plays a lot into her writing and how she perceives her own happiness. Diane is quite a disliked char acter among audiences, whether that be because she’s a ‘social justice warrior’ or a woman or too hypocritical. Personally, I find her characters re freshing, relatable and human. Just like the other characters she is deeply flawed, and these issues take a physical hold over her and what she does. Diane always seems to have the answers, people come to her with advice, she is level-headed and calm. She tells the truth and is not afraid to speak up for what she believes in, which often incites the public in LA and her friends to get frustrated. She is told to leave things alone and stay quiet, but Diane is firm on her beliefs and her ethics. She is hypocritical because she holds herself to a high standard and reflects that habit on those around her. Diane consistently tries to do the right thing, 9
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less alone. Diane realises that maybe she doesn’t want to make the book after all, despite wanting to for years, she was just afraid of the trauma not having a purpose. This episode struck a particular chord for me, as Diane used to think that the dam age she had experienced made her special She thought that it gave her some qualities as a writer, when in fact all damage... is just damage. Diane’s character dramatically changes from being quite naïve and harshly critical of herself, to having a new perspective on who she is and adapting to that. She understands herself more and can sepa rate what she wants to do from what she actually needs to do. Being a Vietnamese American born in Boston, she has neither a home in Vietnam or the US as she is alienated in both places. She is a writ er who struggles with conveying her personal life into what she writes, and a feminist who attempts to act on her belief system. All of these things make Diane hugely relatable to me and made me realise how important it is to have characters the audience can see themselves in.
Sarah
“I want to be an archtect.”
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“I don’taboutlike...anythingme.” called ‘BoJack’. Had BoJack not called her up for a bender, given her too many drugs, called the ambulance sooner... she would still be alive. BoJack kills Sara Lynn, in many ways more than one. Sara Lynn never lives up to her potential, crushed by the weight of fame from a young age, pressure from her fans and managers, addicted to substances and left to die by a person she consid ers her friend. Sara Lynn represents everything wrong with child stars, the entertainment indus try, how we treat celebrities and disregard their privacy. Sara Lynn was failed by almost everyone she knew, and she deserved a lot more than what she got. Lynn
Consistently, BoJack has failed Sara Lynn as a friend and father figure. She had been sober for nine months until he called her up to go on a bender, which lasted a whole month. She had repeatedly said that she wanted to be an architect, it was even her last words, but he never acknowl edged this. As she overdosed in the planetarium, all BoJack could think about was himself, he bare ly listened to her, let alone understood her and what she needed him to do. She died because he waited seventeen minutes to call an ambulance, afraid of hurting his image with her death. He could have saved her life if he called sooner.
Above Sara Lynn’s bed is a painting of her as Ophelia from Hamlet. Ophelia dies form madness due to Hamlets actions, leaving her to drown in the river from the weight of her own dress. Sara Lynn dies from an overdose on heroin, heroin
“I may be smiling but the light inside me is dying.”
Sara Lynn starred as Sabrina, the youngest or phan on the show Horsin’ Around. As she got older, she became a pop star and model, which eventually led to her become drug and alco hol addicted. Sara Lynn started acting at a very young age, and did not look upon her time fondly, wondering how it wasn’t child labour. The same way BoJack never matured because of the show, Sara Lynn had even less development, becoming extremely famous very young and having her par ents control everything. During her debut episode on BoJack Horseman, she throws wild parties and wrecks BoJack’s house. BoJack’s friends urge him to put a stop to her behaviour, to tell her no, since she clearly hasn’t heard that from anyone before. Because Sara Lynn is used to people liking her and doing what she says, she does not recognise the consequences of her actions or the limits to how she should behave. BoJack, being older than her and recognisable as a father figure to her, had the responsibility to tell her no and set her straight. Instead, he had sex with her.
Sara Lynn appears to have trouble separating Horsin’ Around from reality, clearly thinking of BoJack as a father or guardian in some way and taking a line he said on the show very literally about looking after her forever. She had also in ternalised something BoJack had said to her when she was six on the set of Horsin’ Around: “no mat ter what happens, not matter how much it hurts, you don’t stop dancing and you don’t stop smiling and you give those people what they want.” Sara Lynn continued to do this for the rest of her life, living her life by the rules of the public and never pursuing what she wanted to do.
YOU WERE THE EOnlfigvERYOUW YOU aRE all THE TH WiTH YOU! I DONT KNOW HOW YOU EXPECT ME TO LOVE YOU WHEN YOU CLEARLY HATE YOURSELF I DONT WANT YOU ANYONEORELSEJUSTIFYINGTHEIRSHITTYBEHAVIOURBECAUSEOFTHESHOW 11
YOU THBROKEBORWEREnn.aT’sYOURBiRTHRigHT THERE IS NO 12
whats this all about? We at WORD VOMIT are passionate film and TV fans! We wanted to give you some of our favourite examples of realistic characters. By realistic we mean relatable, human, and flawed. Some of them are very far from angelic; but in our opinion that makes them better! We’re covering everything from tantrum having children, lovers scorned in a zombie apocalypse, and everyone's favourite alcoholic horse: BoJack. Our line-up is My Neighbor Totoro, Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind, The Walking Dead and BoJack Horseman. Incredibly varied, we know, but we like to keep you on your toes. Hope you enjoy.
