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Steven Guo
Mr. Ousey
English 15
11 July 2022
Rhetorical Analysis: A Eulogy Arguing on Good Deed
Imagine this: you’re selling churros for a fundraiser and one of your customers is feeling
down that day. You ask him if his day was good, but he responds that his day was terrible. You
feel bad, so you give him a sample of your churro, and he starts feeling more motivated. This
churro represents hope, which boosts your confidence to do something other than just feeling
down. That someone who received a churro was Bojack, the protagonist of the show “Bojack
Horseman”, and recently his mother passed away. Even though Bojack’s story is a monologue
about his family, he explains in his argument that helping someone may impact a person’s life.
As Bojack grew up in an abusive family who never had parents to love him, he’s informing
people that people shouldn't feel too guilty about their accomplishments or punishments, even if
their actions were immoral. Though Bojack’s message wasn’t supposed to encourage others to
appreciate what they’ve done, his message implies that favors are returned with good deeds
through habit. Furthermore, Bojack easily grabs the audience’s attention through his uses of
crude humor and skits to effectively transition his monologue childhood backstories and parental
relationship in his eulogy.
Without a doubt, Bojack was the star of the show Horsin’ Around and Philbert. That
means as a famous individual, he’ll easily get the nihilists to listen to him, right? However, just
because Bojack is famous does not support the fact that his audiences will instantly understand
him. But he had magic tricks up his sleeve to keep the audience listening: skits and jokes. To
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enhance the ethical appeal, Bojack uses skits and jokes to prevent the audience from getting
bored through lectures and public speeches. Additionally, skits are effective to keep someone
awake because humor increases energy levels and is easily retrieved through past information.
Based on a lecture by Barbara Fredrickson, the professor interprets that “humor is an excellent
way to boost your creative prowess” (McGraw Par 8). Applying the same principles to Bojack,
his eulogy is not just humorous, it’s memorable, awakening, and skillful. Though Bojack’s
humor was crude and was barely in the comfort zone, it’s effective in grasping more viewers
than a casual joke. There’s even proof in the video that shows the audience’s reaction to some of
Bojack’s jokes in his skits. After giving feedback about what her mother meant by saying “My
husband is dead, and everything is worse now,” (“Free Churro” 14:22-14:25) Bojack decided to
carry a double act in between his lecture sessions. Bojack had 3 jokes: 2 of them were crude
jokes, and the other one went too far. An example of Bojack’s casual crude joke “One gets
carried in a basket, the other gets buried in a casket!” (15:29- 15:33), and an example of Bojack’s
uncomfortable joke “One is decently read, and the other’s a huge bitch!” (15:39-15:44) depicts
that each of these jokes was negative and those jokes were much more effective. According to a
study on negativity bias, scientists have found that negativity “grabs the attention much more
easily, and negativity provokes a deeper and stronger reaction in our brain” (Campbell Par 16).
While the audience might evoke a revolt for manifesting vile behavior to his mother, negativity
is easier to grasp than positivity. Even so, Bojack has still proven to the audience that his eulogy
is worth listening to and makes sure that his point gets across to his listeners.
For those who’ve watched the show, it’s easily noticeable that Bojack’s logic throughout
the show was nihilistic enough to have extremely far-fetched logic on life. But this time, he put a
lot of work and thoughts into his eulogy. The episode name “Free churro,” symbolizes a change
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of thought because the churro alters someone’s mood to feel more happy and confident.
Additionally, the Free Churro represents the exigence of Bojack’s argument because a free
churro represents generosity, which represents returning with good deeds. Using facts and logic,
free churro “triggers the release of endorphins into their brain, producing the same euphoric
feelings of pleasure and joy we can experience after a tough workout” (McLeod Par 3). This
explains how Bojack reported feeling more love than his mother ever would when he received a
free churro from that girl inside Jack in the Box. Speaking of his mother, in another part of his
lecture, he argued that his mother never expressed love. Though Bojack’s family provided him
with necessities: food, water, shelter, clothing, entertainment, and comfort, his parent’s abusive
parenting turned Bojack into an alcoholic, a constant smoker, and a nihilist. And even though
Bojack despised her unpleasantly, he still bought her a casket when his mother died, a form of
return indeed. Those are examples of returning deeds through habits; it conveys that the person
helps another person without asking favors in return, expressing it through returning a favor at
his/her leisure. To exemplify this argument, Bojack watched an episode of Maude back when he
was a kid, which inspired him to formulate a made-up story in his example. In his hypothetical
story, Bojack saved up for a jacket while performing a comedy routine. By the time Bojack had
enough money, it was already sold to someone else. Bojack told his mother that the dream jacket
he saved up for vanished. And on the day of the talent show, Bojack’s mom bought a new jacket
for him, which meant that she showed love through action, which is another instance of returning
a deed through habits, but it’s a good deed. Through this subject matter, Bojack’s lecture exhibits
that deeds are returned through habits and that Bojack’s purposes are supported through his
logical reasoning.
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Life as Bojack Horseman wasn’t easy. Bojack was forced to drink vodka at a very young
age, had easy access to smoking, had occasional beatings from his dad, had experienced daily
feuds between his father and mother about divorce, and had only one thing that cared for him,
the TV. Thus growing up, Bojack became nihilistic, which gave his partners a difficult time
stimulating a healthy relationship, and every time Bojack’s partner tries reinforcing intimate
bonds with him, he gets very annoyed. However, bonding with his friends, his family, and even
his close relatives, Bojack had a very hard time. So how does Bojack’s backstory even garner the
listener’s attention? The listeners want to know more about Bojack’s background because they
want to envision his full story. Understanding that his childhood was challenging from the very
beginning, makes you feel bad for him when his only friend was the TV. Additionally, with the
exception of growing up in a terrible family, Bojack doesn’t have any friends, but he made one
friend who lived in his home for over 9 years, Todd Chavez. At first, Todd was sleeping on the
couch after the party was over and wanted to stay in Bojack’s house, but Bojack refused and
wanted to evict Todd. However, Todd was homeless, financially broke, and recently evicted
from his parent’s house, thus Bojack felt bad and changed his mind to let him stay temporarily.
In Season 1 Episode 1 of Bojack Horseman, Todd Chavez quotes “Because my parents kicked
me out, and I had nowhere to go, and even though you don't want anyone to know it- you
secretly have a good heart” (“The Bojack Horseman Story, Chapter One” 3:29-3:41). Another
example throughout the show was when Bojack saves his friend, Todd, in the middle of the
ocean. This was when Todd moves out of Bojack’s house and ships abroad to the Giggle Ship.
He was manipulated by a cat person who corrupted Todd to partake in full-time improv inside
his Giggle Ship. These two episodes greatly align with Bojack’s purpose of his lecture, which is
returning a deed through habit. He shipped from LA to an ocean so that he could apologize to
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Todd for encouraging him to leave the house while realizing he was drunk. That was the time
when Bojack realized Todd was thankful for letting him stay rent-free in his house. Tom recites,
“Thank you for letting me stay here. I don’t have anywhere else to go” (“Out to Sea” 21:4021:43). These different episodes not only showcase the fact that the audience endears
heartwarming episodes of Bojack’s generosity, but it greatly structures Bojack’s argument of
establishing how helping is done humbly and that it’s done to not only help the person
him/herself but also others. And as a friend who lives with only a TV show, Bojack managed to
prove that deeds are returned through habits.
Using the rhetorical devices of ethos, pathos, and logos, Bojack profoundly grasped his
points through the uses of his comedy skits, his relationship with his parents, and his emotional
backstory that could get other nihilistic viewers to view the world differently. No matter how
controversial Bojack may be, he was still able to garner attention through jokes and skits. No
matter how controversial Bojack may be, Bojack has proved in his lectures that deeds can be in a
form of gifts or generosity. No matter how controversial Bojack may be, he helped a friend
numerous times that proves deeds are returned unexpectedly. Through understanding how
Bojack was able to maintain his argument of deeds through habit and an audience full of lizards,
his 24-minute eulogy earned the writers a Grammy Award. With all the nihilists wondering why
helping people is meaningless and not realizing that they are contributing to the people around
the world, Bojack’s philosophy may change the perspective of how nihilists view the world more
positively. And as the point stands, the purpose of Bojack’s argument, in a nutshell, is that
people are always willingly inclined to help others, even if the occurrence was unexpected.
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Works Cited
“Bojack Horseman 1x1.” SWatchSeries, 2014, https://swatchseries.is/watch-tv/watchbojack-horseman-39035.4954279.
“Bojack Horseman 2x12.” SWatchSeries, 2015, https://swatchseries.is/watch-tv/watchbojack-horseman-39035.4954252.
“Bojack Horseman 5x6.” SWatchSeries, 2018, https://swatchseries.is/watch-tv/watchbojack-horseman-39035.4954303.
Campbell, Kent. “Why Do People Click on Bad News? Negativity Bias.” Negativity Bias
and How It Affects What You See Online, Reputation X, 5 June 2022,
https://blog.reputationx.com/what-makes-us-drawn-to-negative-onlinecontent#:~:text=Because%20we%20are%20far%20more,stronger%20reaction%20in%20
our%20brain.
McGraw, Peter. “The Importance of Humor Research.” Psychology Today, Sussex
Publishers, 14 Sept. 2011, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-humorcode/201109/the-importance-humor-research.
“Why Gift Giving Makes Us Happy.” RedBalloon,
https://www.redballoon.com.au/blog/why-gift-giving-makes-ushappy.html#:~:text=The%20look%20on%20the%20recipient's,we're%20falling%20in%2
0love.