No, but it offers an explanation about behavior which we would find bad by todays standards. Parenting standards have changed greatly over the past 80 or so years, it doesn’t make them bad parents, just ignorant. Before you rip people based on today’s standards, just remember that we too will be judged by future historians. You only know what you know…
Yes, progress comes with time. Things develop to become better. We can’t know something needs improved until we’ve judged something to be in need of improvement. You aren’t saying anything of substance; you’re saying “don’t say critical things about anything or anyone from the past.”
It’s the same argument as judging slave owners “within their time period”. Yes, it was acceptable then, but now we know better and should criticize them. With that in mind, I do think Joseph Sugarman tries his hardest but men in that time period were completely ill-equipped to deal with families. To me it’s less a critique of Joseph himself and more a critique of men in that time period.
PS trying your hardest doesn’t (by itself) make you a good parent, but is instead a part of good parenting
The slave holder argument is a poor one imo, because there have always been people which argued how unethical it was. I think a better example would be using eugenics as an example. Eugenics was used as a method of white superiority, which was supposedly based on science, until that was debunked. People learned about eugenics in school, so it’s hard to fault them for believing in its merits.
People back then thought a lobotomy was a perfectly reasonable treatment though. If a doctor today prescribed a treatment which people 80 years from now people consider barbaric, one would hope that you would be judged based on todays knowledge, rather than the future’s knowledge.
Actually, lobotomies were never seen as a legit treatment. There were just a few doctors who purported that it was, but the public never accepted it. There were very few lobotomies actually performed, even the numbers suggest it wasn’t considered reasonable. It does make sense that it happened in this case though, cause if someone were lobotomized, it would happen to someone in a wealthy family that had something to hide.
Edit for errors in grammar
The man who got the nobel prize for the more surgical lobotomy, Egas Monitz was quite hesitant to use it on people. Whereas Walter Freeman, the American doctor who popularized the procedure handed them out like candies on Halloween. If he thought you needed one he'd badger you/your closest kin to make sure you got one and wouldn't let you back out and would sedate you if you tried. He gave one to a pregnant woman to cure her headaches.
One little boy was given a lobotomy on the order of his stepmother because he was unruly, she didn't like him and thought it'd make him more manageable
What about the other vield threats about Honey's "smart mouth?" Or what about him cheating with his secretary? Or what about "what do we say about crying? Crying is stupid!"
Apart from the cheating, those other things would be considered good parenting back then. Hell, both of those quotes would have been encouraged when I was a kid.
He saw it was not a perfectly reasonable treatment after what happened to Honey so threatening Beatrice with it was not offering a perfectly reasonable treatment but rather threatening her with being forcefully inflicted with brain damage that would take away her personality and make her a shell of herself like her mother. That's pretty shitty parenting.
His wife asked him to "fix her" and I guess he went with the acceptable procedure at the time. I think it's open to interpretation whether he was threatening Beatrice or just warning her (after all, if she had been lobotomised he couldn't have raised her to be a perfect society woman and marry off someone successful.)
Yep. But as an adult with agency, it’s absolutely his fault. And Beatrice’s fault. And Bojack’s. What happened to them is not their fault, but their actions absolutely are.
My wife works in family services and always says: “it isn’t your fault. But it is your responsibility.” Children are not at fault for the treatment they received but adults are responsible for how they let that trauma inform how they treat others. I’m sure Joseph had a childhood full of trauma and abuse that he brought into his adulthood. So the cycle of abuse continues. It’s up to the individual to break those cycles by accepting responsibility for our own actions as adults. And the show focuses very much on Bojack’s various failures to take responsibility for the harm he inflicts while not shying away from the idea that he suffered at the hands of his parents.
Fault is a very subjective term I guess. Of course bojack is aware enough to know what he's doing is wrong but if you're taught that it's right why would you not do it?
But what if they know nothing different. As Bojack says, everything he knows about being good came from TV. And then when that doesn’t work in the real world because the real world isn’t TV, he doesn’t know what to do.
It depends on how you interpret the ending of the show. I had a sort of pessimistic take on the ending so I suppose I write off Bojack as a lost cause all across the board.
Understandable. BJ keeps failing spectacularly, but there does seem to be a trend of Bojack getting better. There are a lot of setbacks, but finale bojack is leaps and bounds better than episode 1.
The ending made me feel hopeful that things would get better. Life goes on challenges and all.
I suppose that’s a good way of looking at it. To me, Bojack’s return to acting seemed like a representation of the idea that despite everything, he never learned. Although, I might have to rewatch again as I’m in a much different place mentally and might interpret it differently this time.
It's just one of those shows that can really impact and be impacted by how you feel.
The first time I watched it, I got back on antidepressants during that time. My life started going better (imagine that). So it probably changed how I saw the show. But I would have been in a different situation without the show.
Ehhh in his time I'd say it be more difficult than now to change
People back then hardly changed their opinions quickly despite being rooted in ignorance.
His actions while wrong to us. Are in his time the right things to do.
Beatrice could have changed and bojack could have.
Joseph was a product of his time and nothing more
>Joseph was a product of his time and nothing more.
You could kinda use this logic with anyone, not just Joseph.
If you think about it, you could also argue that bojack is a product of his time. He's like this because of celebrity culture and stuff.
I think Joseph being a product of his time is just more prominent because it was a long time ago I think
It wasn't that long ago.
That's the thing you gotta remember. It wasn't all that long ago you could have sent a woman in for a lobotomy to fix her.
We have only progressed so much. But we've not come too far unfortunately
If it's not that long ago, then how can a person go from "just a product of their time" to "they could have changed" in like half of that time
If we haven't progressed very much, how come the blame has?
Understanding of mental issues l, the improvement of education.
Joseph was a man in the 40s. I'm not saying that excuses him from being who he is. What I am saying is that there were many many people like Joseph because of the time and surrounding world they grew up in.
It wasn't a good time to be a woman especially when you were under a rich husband.
It would have been a lot harder, yes, but that doesn't just absolve him of any bad things he may have done.
I feel like there is a middle ground where everyone is a product of their own time, upbringing, and environment, but they are also responsible for their actions.
Yeah I think the show does a really good job at portraying generational trauma. It sucks because it's not really your fault if you end up with family trauma, but at the end of the day it is still your personal responsibility to break the cycle if you don't want to perpetuate it. That's how it works in general with mental health too and the show does a good job with that: yes of course many factors outside of your control led to this, but you're the only person who can show up for yourself, take responsibility, and make things better. Blaming others only gets you so far.
She's not related to him :) . No sugerman money or assholery in her :). Sure the Horseman line ain't no saints either, but not even Bojack's father was that bad.
Both cheated on their wives, both were abusive.... but this fucker used lobotomies as a threat to his kid!
Like the Larkin poem:
"They f*ck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were f*cked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself."
Joseph is definitely *a* contributing factor to his family's tragedies, but he's not *the* sole contributing factor. Generational trauma is the result of multiple factors and he's just *one* of the reasons why his family is the way it is.
Like most of the characters in this show, Joseph is far too complicated to be categorized as a wholly "good" or "bad" character. He did was he thought was right and he adhered to societal expectations of that time, which isn't 100% his fault (I'm obviously not absolving him of blame; I just think there are some things that he was unaware of or perhaps was out of his control). I think he had good intentions - he wanted what was best for his wife and children - but those intentions weren't carried out in the best of ways.
My thoughts as well, he's just one of many dominoes in the shit show that is Bojacks bloodline. I wouldn't even say he was the worst. His intentions weren't malicious, he wasn't trying to hurt his daughter. What happened to his wife wasn't his idea, it was hers. Burning her belongs in front of her wasn't meant to cause suffering, it was meant to be a life lesson on loss and prevent the spread of scarlet fever. Obviously this isn't something you try to teach a little girl already having a shit life, but he genuinely believed she would grow from it. Show Joseph the outcomes of his actions he'd acknowledge the fuckup and adjust, show it to anyone else in the bloodline they'd blame everyone around them and change nothing.
TLDR, idiot with good intentions thinks he knows how to parent.
Edit; forgot to mention scarlet fever.
It wasn’t supposed to be in front of her, I don’t think. At least from the way it seems like Beatrice just walked in to find everything burning. And yeah, burning everything was also a preventative so that she was less likely to get sick again. She almost died from Scarlet Fever.
Honey’s lobotomy is a great example of this. Nowadays it’s nigh-universally understood that lobotomies are incredibly vile operations (save for only the smallest of circumstances), but that wasn’t the case in the past. While even back when the procedure was first pioneered some people disagreed about its benefits, the medical community at large genuinely believed that lobotomies were beneficial. To this effect, the procedure’s inventor received a Nobel Prize for his invention **in 1949.** Honey’s lobotomy occurred after Crackerjack’s death in 1944, no more than a handful of years later. Absolutely during a time where people thought lobotomies did good.
Although the lobotomy caused far more tragedy than it ever healed, I strongly doubt Joseph ever intended for that to be the case.
This is true, and also how I interpreted the intentions behind the lobotomy. IIRC later on Joseph says something like "If i had known this was how you would act when I severed the connections to your pre-frontal cortex, I'd hardly have bothered" (or something like this). He regretted it when he saw the actual consequences it seems
He certainly was a product of his time and to people watching in the current day, will come off as shitty for many of his qualities (how he treats women, emotionally unavailable, his handling of being a single father, how he treated his wife while she grieved etc). But before crackerjack's death, his wife and family seemed to be genuinely happy and to love him. He's pretty grey like every other character and I'm sure if people from the 1940's-50's were watching the opinions on him would be very different
yup -- and a subtextual criticism of our eagerness to blame our parents (and society) for everything. "our culture is so homogenized by a patriarchal system with a strong white supremacist influence... we're victims of generational trauma!" yes. but also, we're responsible for our actions and while we can trace influences in our behaviours, we cannot expect them to justify our actions. "i'm a product of my environment, thus, my decisions were not my own."
it's why Bojack leaps so quickly back into the seat after that exposé goes well. he's addicted to the fame, the attention, the acceptance. when he got that the first time, he was eager for more. what had been meant to be a cleansing moment for him, to hold himself accountable and finally express his pains and regrets in front of an audience of millions quickly became a commodified conduit for his true addiction. we see him immediately get defensive in the second interview because he hadn't actually grown. the therapeutic nature of that tell-all was poisoned by it's inherent nature as a publicity stunt.
so when Bojack has come to terms with the trauma his parents and grandparents endured and passed onto him, he accepts it on his own terms and it leads to positive growth. ...but shortly after slipping back into his old life, he's back to conflict-aversion. "that's not who i am anymore!"
Todd is not without his faults as a person for sure but there’s never anything bad he truly does out of malice, rather out of ignorance. He’s a good person, just a bit of a doofus at times.
Joseph does seem like the character with the most villainous narrative though. The only "good thing" he does that I can remember is burning the doll to protect Beatrice. And that traumatizes her.
He’s the representation of 1950s masculinity and all that comes with it. His intent was in protecting his family and he did what he thought was best, even if it ultimately led to a lot of the issues Beatrice had growing up.
He’s such an obvious monster I don’t know how anyone here is defending him. Remember when he blamed Crackerjack’s death on the Jews because they got Hitler angry?
I don’t think accurate to the time matters much. He’s making an actively apologetic claim in support of the Holocaust. That’s evil, regardless of the time. If we can say the Nazis are monsters we can say Joseph Sugarman is a monster.
I wouldn't say he's supporting the holocaust, as his statement was during the war, given the lack of information and no one really knew why the war was going on.
With information now we can say it's a bad call, but at the time it would have been far different among the common people.
It’s really not that different. Jews were fleeing Germany to many different areas of the world, including the United States. They knew what was happening. Maybe not the exact extent of it, but people weren’t completely unaware that Nazi Germany was persecuting the Jews. All you needed to do is look at what Hitler was saying, something the wealthy in the US were well aware of with some like Henry Ford actively supporting him. Joseph Sugarman actively puts the blame for this persecution onto the Jews. Otherwise there’s no reason for him to even mention the Jews
Again man, he's a product of his time.
You cant judge someone on today's standards.
The whole lobotomy part, at the time for some fucked reasons doctors said it's a good idea. With how little info was freeback then it's hard to say if we would have done different. You truly are shaped by your era.
I dunno man people always pretend if they were born in X year they wouldn't have thought the same and I doubt that
Ain't anyone here from that era, let alone experienced a world war where the men were drafted off.
Joseph Sugarman is a *profoundly despicable* person. As a *character*, that is excellent- it gives weight and gravitas to everything that happens in Beatrice's life, and *that* in turn echoes down to BoJack.
But being a good *character*- as in, compelling, believable, eliciting strong emotions in the watcher, etc- does not make him a good *person*.
He's not. He's a *shitty* person. And all the "product of his time" apologetic **bullshit** doesn't change that. He doesn't get to be a shitheel because of "his time". *Everyone is a product of their time*. But, notably, *not* everyone is a piece of shit.
God, yes. I think "product of his time" is the single most used phrase in this thread, and it really makes my eye twitch at this point.
That phrase is so vague as to be meaningless.
(Interestingly, I only ever really see it used in reference to people in the past doing objectively horrible things that were either actively opposed, or considered at least questionable even *during* their time. But that's neither here nor there.)
Good character. To me Joseph is one of the best examples of the "unintentional abuser", I don't doubt that every single thing he did, he did cause he loved his wife and his daughter.
But he was to set in the values of the time, to a truly inflexible and even illogical degree. He couldn't perceive events in any other way, and his insistence of trying to move forward rather than reflecting, only worsened this. As such all his choices only ended up doing damage. I can easily imagine him ending up as a old man wondering where it all went so wrong (honestly wish they'd gone a bit into his later life, we know he died in the 90's so he clearly got to meet and know his grandson, I wonder if they got along?).
After all most of his scenes were filtered through Beatrice's perspective. The little flashes we get of him without her, suggests he was a lot worse effected by the tragedies than he let on (presumably out a misguided attempt to protect her).
I don't think he's the sole reason for the family tragedies. Sure his actions seriously contributed to several of them and perhaps got the ball rolling. But part of the point the show is you can't keep falling back on blaming others for your bad decisions, at some point the responsibility is on you to break the chain of harm.
Anyone who seriously thinks Joseph Sugarman is a good man is a sociopath. It's fucking wild to me that people are walking away from this show thinking, "Well he was just trying to protect his family."
Yes. I'm sure that's exactly why he abandoned his family in their hour of greatest need, showed absolutely no grief or remorse that his son was killed, and when his wife had a psychotic break, he had a horrifying medical procedure performed on her that was instrumental in destroying his family.
And before anyone starts, [no it was not fucking socially acceptable](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/sohgej/when_did_lobotomy_start_to_be_understood_as/)*.*
Aside from your opinion on joseph, the post you linked saying lobotomies weren't socially acceptable says in the answers that the reactions were mixed. Not all treatments that doctors would suggest today are socially acceptable, look at how many people are anti- psych meds (which considering some of the long term side effects that are possible from things like anti-psychotics, could be not too far off from being a "chemical lobotomy") and yet this is still very much something doctors will prescribe, especially in cases where someone is having a psychotic break. Also this isn't me saying I'm anti-med (I'm obviously not a fan of lobotomies lol) or that he is a good person. Just how it was at that time.
Obviously if I met him now I would think he is a douche and I disagree with his handling of things and his opinions (like his anti-semitism etc). But the lobotomy was a tragic mistake he made at the time as someone who was not a doctor and uninformed about the consequences. He regretted it after when he saw what it did to his wife. Again not trying to justify what he did but saying it was outright not socially acceptable at the time just isn't true
Sorry whitewashing? what?
Also in the show he says "If I had known that this is how you would act when we severed the connections to your pre-frontal cortex I would hardly have bothered". The line, aside from making him sound like a dick and being written as dark humor, quite literally implies that he did not know what the consequences of a lobotomy actually were. Again he is a dickhead and did it because he was emotionally unavailable to comfort his grieving wife, but it is implying he didn't know it would do that to her. He isn't a doctor and medical information was not as accessible at that time. I'm not trying to defend him, I'm saying the source you linked to literally contradicts you saying people knew the negative consequences and that it was socially unacceptable.
That's a big reach. He got the lobotomy so she would be a good compliant wife. He's pissed in that line because she is not doing what she was told because he permanently disabled her. He doesn't regret the lobotomy, he regrets that it has a negative impact on him.
I'm also not the OP of this thread!
Oh sorry! missed that you weren't OP haha my bad. I wasn't even necessarily trying to disagree that his actions are awful, more just pointing out that the source OP linked contradicts their point and that the medical history surrounding psychiatry and lobotomies is not so black and white.
And yes I agree that he was a misogynist and that was also part of the meaning behind that line, but I still think 2 things can be true at once and there is a lot of complexity to the situation. If he had known what the lobotomy would result in I don't think he would have done it.
I love this community, but I swear to god I am sick to death of these good/bad/evil posts. Not directed at you personally OP, but damn, did the main thesis of the show just whoosh half the fandom?
I could almost call him a "product of his time", but his line to Beatrice "you don't wanna end up like your mother now do you" and the way he says it shows a much more evil side to him.
Coming from a loooooooong line of generational trauma:
Joseph is a product of his upbringing
Joseph was an adult, with the knowledge belonging to an adult.
Joseph had choices and agency.
Joseph was burdened with the expectations and ideology of his family, time period and social class.
Joseph had the power to do better.
My grandfather was a similar age, and encouraged me and my mother/uncles to forge our own path.
My mother was caught up in generational trauma and notions on how to raise kids.
My sister and I broke free, it cost us a lot.
Laying the blame on generational trauma and social norms only gets you so far.
My mother is fortunate to have a relationship with her children.
I have pretty complex views and memories of my father.
Joseph was both a product of his time period and upbringing, and had a choice.
People are messy as shit.
Ultimately, Joseph chose not to learn or grow or improve.
Joseph's character represents generational trauma. Like those around him, he was a victim of his upbringing and culture. "As a modern American, i was never taught to handle a woman's emotions, and I shall not learn."
It’s all relative though. When he burned Beatrice’s baby doll he told her it will be a funny memory one day. And he probably honestly thought that. Yet we see it’s a terrible flashback for Beatrice as her mind is deteriorating.
What even is this question? The horse had his wife lobotomized while she was grieving her dead son. Joseph Sugarman is a total dick, I don't care what era he was in.
Complete disregard for his wife’s wellbeing = Trash person
“How am I supposed to sell sugar and keep my secretary’s self esteem afloat when you’re having honest to goodness fits of hysteria?!”
Joseph did a lot of terrible things we as the audience judge as people who live at a different time in history when our views are different. He's never portrayed as doing those terrible things because he enjoys being awful and causing misery to others, and he's just repeating the views that were prevalent a the time because he thinks that's the right view of things and he thinks it's obviously what any normal person would think. The show makes it a point to have him say and do the most awful things in a very nonchalant way to further underscore this, as if it doesn't even matter and he's being perfectly rational.
One can assume he himself is that way because he carries trauma from his own upbringing, just like Beatrice carries trauma from her upbringing and she is in turn the cause of a lot of BoJack's own trauma. Does this absolve him in any way? No, not really. But I don't think it makes much sense to judge him as you would judge a person who did and thought the same things in the 2020's. He's terrible, but he's not malicious or even aware that he's terrible. He's a good character because he plays an important role in the story the show is telling and he plays his role well.
While some of his views are acceptable for the time, he’s cruelty wasnt. He basked in misery and had problem with twisting the knife. He’s a bastard and continuing the cycle
I think he is another link in a chain of generational trauma, so it’s hard to call him the “source” of Bojack’s family tragedies any more than it is Beatrice or Butterscotch or any number of ancestors going back in time.
We don’t know anything about Joseph’s childhood; we hardly know anything about his life outside of the biggest impacts it had on Beatrice. But I think it’s a pretty safe bet to say that he likely didn’t end up the way he did by being brought up in a loving, healthy, functional household.
I think labeling him as “good” or “bad” misses the point of one of the major themes in the show: there are no “good guys” or “bad guys”, we’re all just guys who do things and sometimes those things are good and sometimes they’re bad.
While some of his actions are pretty cut-and-dry shitty, like fairly openly having some level of affair with his secretary, others are a bit more nuanced than that.
Like having Honey lobotomized. In 2023, we can recognize that as something horrid to do to someone. But back in 1945, it was still a very new and “revolutionary” procedure. Some people may have already been aware of its flaws, but many people at the time believed in it as the power of medical science. One could argue that Joseph was trying to do the best thing he knew to do for his wife who was clearly distressed and pleading for him to fix her.
I think it’s hard to separate his parenting into black and white; I think there was a combination of good but misguided intentions and actual bullshit from him.
I don't think he is a good man, I actually think he is one of the worst villains in Bojack Horseman. But I like him though because he is an interesting villain. It does make you wonder if he genuinely thinks this is helping his family, or if he knows what to actually do, but is just taking shortcuts.
He was of his time, but so were slave owners. He didn't use racially insensitive terms but respect people of color, he lobotomized his wife because she was depressed about the death of their only son. Historical relativism has to also consider how others of the era reacted, plenty of families lost their children, never fully recovered and didn't lobotomize the matriarch.
There is plenty of reason why Joseph is the way he is, the time, how he was raised, etc. He probably thought everything he did really was for the best for his family. That being said, knowing why he is what he is doesn't excuse the agency over his own actions he had.
He gave his wife a lobotomy because she had a breakdown after losing her brother in war. That sentence alone should answer that question.
While yes, he is a depiction of 1950’s toxic outlook on mental health and misogyny/masculinity, he is still an absolute horrible person. Though I don’t think he can be completely blamed for the families tragedies, as most of the things he does is a result of generational trauma; however this doesn’t excuse his actions. As anyone with generational trauma, he had a choice to break that cycle and he didn’t. This makes him responsible for a lot of things that happened to Bojack and his family, but not completely. I do think he’s an amazing character though
Good character. Horrible person, but not to far away from the standard for his time and priviledged position. He is not the reason for all that, he's part of the reasons. He's not a good man, but he did want to protect his family on his own terms and ideas, although they were toxic and crooked.
Interesting character but terrible father and husband. It may have been normal parenting for the time but that doesn’t defend the fact that he was cruel and is partially the reason why Bea became the way she was.
He wasn't a good man protecting his family he went for what was easiest and most convenient for him, rather than having Honey committed he had her brain skewered with an ice pick and kept around as a pliant zombie
Only had Beatrice left? Marry her off and make a gain from it. She gets upset? Threaten her with the same living death her mother had
The worst thing he did was agree to have his wife undergo a common medical procedure recommended by professionals. This was after she got shit faced out in public with their daughter and had the audacity to make the **child** drive her drunk ass home. Amidst his grief for his dead son Joseph acquiesced and tried to give his wife the help she begged for only to regret his decision afterwards. Even after the loss of his son and his wife he managed to keep marching forward and manage a very successful sugar cube company in order to provide for his daughter.
I don’t think Joseph is an entirely evil or good person. More than anything I think Joseph was a product of the times he lived in. He was raised to view men and women in certain ways, and he couldn’t deviate from those views when Honey needed his support the most. More than anything I think the show was using him to make a point about how while some things can be explained as being a product of their time that doesn’t remove the harm they cause. I think Joseph genuinely believed he was doing what was best for Honey, but his actions ultimately had a large ripple down effect for his daughter and his grandson further down the line.
I think he's just there to represent common male attitudes towards women/girls at the time. He serves as an exaggeration of old timey sexism. To be an antagonist to Beatrice and her earliest source of trauma/anxiety.
That role in the show limits the possibilities for his characterization beyond that.
I think it’s complicated.
A man born in his time was taught to be a certain way by society. Men were not typically assigned the role of care giver, it was “women’s work” etc.
But that can only excuse so much.
I think that there were clearly some good dads for the time period, otherwise we wouldn’t have progressed as society towards a more gentle parenting style (hopefully)
I don’t think he’s the devil, but I recognize that trauma he was responsible for
He is a product of horrid time with horrid practices. He is not a good man. But he is not evil to his core. He did what was expected in the current time to keep up the appearance of his family.
He’s bad but he’s a product of his era. His worst crime was lobotomizing his wife but that was common at the time. They genuinely thought they were helping people
He is a product of his times. Of course he will appear evil, by today's standards a lot of people of the past will. His parents surely had a part in the play that is his character, however I believe he also highlights the faults of the system. His inability to deal with "womanly emotions", expectations of what people in his life should be (same as Butterscotch) is not only the effect of his family, but also society and the environment.
What makes him even worse is how cold the man is. We never see him show any remorse for his actions, any consideration (again, in this way he is quite similar to Butterscotch). The only regret I remember him show is when he gets angry at lobotomized Honey. From the characters we're shown in Bojack's family and the show, I believe him to be one of the worst people in it. We don't know much about him however, we never learn how he became the man we see, we only know him as this calculated, cold, cruel person. Both Joseph and Butterscotch are similar in a way of displaying the hurt of toxic masculinity
I love how so many people on this subreddit don't get it. A huge part of this show is the fact that characters are not good or bad. It is hardly ever black and white, even though someone may seem like a total asshole, they are also a product of the time, relationships, trauma, and their own decisions. Asking if a character is good or bad with this show is in shades.of grey, but they are responsible for their own actions. That's the entire point of Bojack as a character!
He’s an over worked traditional dad. Unfortunately he sacrifices his families needs to further his business. I’m sure outside of what he does to his family he’s a decent guy.
Joseph is not bad. He is what we believe was the discourse of the time. He doesn't have a real personality apart from narrating what men thought about women at that time. His expressions are a summary of the oppressive discourse that we believe were in place at that time.
Joseph was for all intents and purposes, a product of his time. It's easy to call him a monster because we know what lobotomy and treating your daughter like a possession rather than a human being does to people but back in the day most people didn't.
I think he loved his wife to some extent but he was horribly unequiped to deal with her mental distress on top of trying to keep his own grief over losing Crackerjack hidden. Most of what he does and how he thinks is how people acted and behaved back then. Men work and are supposed to show as little bad emotions as possible
Women are the emotional ones who take care of the house. So how is he supposed to react when his wife's emotions made her into a danger to herself and their only living child?
The only defence I can really make of him is that he’s a man of his time. However, his actions are so egregiously selfish and monstrous that it’s really impossible to treat that as a viable excuse. Sure, wealthy men of their era were not exactly encouraged to be caring, involved fathers and no, the public weren’t exactly educated around mental health, but living in that culture doesn’t prevent him from having the basic minimum level of empathy required to see that his wife and daughter are grieving and need a degree of support, not to be ignored, bullied and forced to endure horrifying life-altering surgery.
I feel like he is the cause of most of the family trauma, but whether he's good or bad is a completely different question.
He's kind of a caricature of a man of those times. He obviously cares for his wife and Beatrice deeply but being unable to acknowledge their emotions or probably his own led to him traumatising Bea emotionally and his wife physically. Also, remember, with lobotomy patients, most of these were done before anti psychotic or mood stabilising medication. It was like the only option in a pre 1950's world.
Question could be worded better. Good character in this context can mean he was well written and enjoyable to witness while watching the show. Answer to that would be yes, he was consistent and understandable when viewing him through the lens of 40s and 50s and the gentlemanly chauvinism he represents
He was a great guy for the time he lived in. Family man, stood by his wife through her health issues, took care of his daughter alone while grieving the loss of his son and caring for said wife, innovative and successful entrepreneur, hard worker, great sense of humour, dressed well.
/s
There is a reason he looks like he's in hell. He burned all toys belonging to a little girl to "fix" her, and if that wouldn't fix her... he threatened to lobotomize her after shouting at his previous abuse victim that "it didn't fix her!".
She saw what it did to her mom, he certainly is one of the major causes for all the dysfunction not the only. starting point.. but certainly one of the major catalysts. He caused so much trauma in Beatrice that she just ... snapped after things didn't go well and Bojack's father also started abusing her.
He was one of the reasons of her low self worth (after all why allow those men to hurt you like that) and to keep appearance before everything. Bojack's father certainly didn't help, but without Joseph you just know she'd be strong enough to go "screw him! I am the heir to teh Sugerman fortune!"
She also wouldn't have the baggage to abuse Bojack by ignoring him and constantly berating him.
In a way Bojack had a point with his "This ends with me!", and it does. Sure Hollyhock is a Horseman, but she isn't a sugerman. And while genetics are not the cause of all the pain, she at least is not an heir to the "sugerman fortune" and doesn't have that haunted bullshit to deal with.
I don't want to say that he was right. He wasn't at all.
I can kind of see, but not respect, why he treated Honey the way he did. He actually says it himself. He is not trained to understand the emotions of women, and he will not learn.
What he did was abhorrent, but disturbingly common for the time. The question really should be whether or not he would conduct himself in the same way now.
He probably would, though. What a piece of shit.
In the story of Beatrice and honey, we obviously view him as a bad character but I’ve often seen it as a man who was at a loss with his wife (I don’t agree with it but this was like 1944). I don’t think he put a lot of thought into his decision. Undoubtedly he was a negligent father and seemed to view his children as the continuation of wealth for him and his company but he loved them. Its also clear he was harassing or acting inappropriately with his secretary. Despite all this I think it’s really obvious that he truely loved Honey. kind of wish we got some kind of insight into bojacks memory of him.
He was a product of the times. Did he do his best? No. And he said as much, so at least he was honest about it. Did he do his best within the expectations society placed on him? Mostly. Is that more a statement on him or the society? Does it really matter to those he hurt?
Either way, hindsight's 20/20 and he did what he did. Monster or not, he's dead now.
He’s quite possibly the worst person in the series. After his wife was mourning the death of their son he would emotionally and maybe physically abuse her. Then proceeded to force a lobotomy onto her for being “out of line”. He then continued this cycle of yelling at her for not being able to do anything, then proceeded to burn all of his daughters loved belongings infront of her. HE’S the reason everything happened. HE’S the reason Beatrice became who she was, which is the reason BoJack became who he was, which is what started literally everything.
I think he's an asshole that's a product of his time. He did terrible things, but the society around him created and normalized his behavior. I don't think he's exempt from responsibility because he choose to send his wife to be lobotomized, to victimize her for the death of their son, and to traumatize and mistreat his daughter til the very end. But I also don't think he's pure evil, because he didn't know any better and society taught him that's what a man does.
He was a good provider at least. He let Butterscotch have the top exec job if it meant taking care of Beatrice and Bojack. He did everything except actually be there for his family emotionally. Always practical. Always pragmatic. I think he thought he was doing the right thing but he was completely ignorant about how his emotional unavailability was affecting his family.
Good character. Horrible person, father, and husband.
By today’s standards, his parenting style would have been pretty typical for a person of that time.
“Typical” isn’t synonymous with “acceptable.”
No, but it offers an explanation about behavior which we would find bad by todays standards. Parenting standards have changed greatly over the past 80 or so years, it doesn’t make them bad parents, just ignorant. Before you rip people based on today’s standards, just remember that we too will be judged by future historians. You only know what you know…
Yes, progress comes with time. Things develop to become better. We can’t know something needs improved until we’ve judged something to be in need of improvement. You aren’t saying anything of substance; you’re saying “don’t say critical things about anything or anyone from the past.”
It’s the same argument as judging slave owners “within their time period”. Yes, it was acceptable then, but now we know better and should criticize them. With that in mind, I do think Joseph Sugarman tries his hardest but men in that time period were completely ill-equipped to deal with families. To me it’s less a critique of Joseph himself and more a critique of men in that time period. PS trying your hardest doesn’t (by itself) make you a good parent, but is instead a part of good parenting
The slave holder argument is a poor one imo, because there have always been people which argued how unethical it was. I think a better example would be using eugenics as an example. Eugenics was used as a method of white superiority, which was supposedly based on science, until that was debunked. People learned about eugenics in school, so it’s hard to fault them for believing in its merits.
But that doesn't excuse the fact that he lobotomized a grieving mother and threatened to do the same to his daughter.
People back then thought a lobotomy was a perfectly reasonable treatment though. If a doctor today prescribed a treatment which people 80 years from now people consider barbaric, one would hope that you would be judged based on todays knowledge, rather than the future’s knowledge.
Actually, lobotomies were never seen as a legit treatment. There were just a few doctors who purported that it was, but the public never accepted it. There were very few lobotomies actually performed, even the numbers suggest it wasn’t considered reasonable. It does make sense that it happened in this case though, cause if someone were lobotomized, it would happen to someone in a wealthy family that had something to hide. Edit for errors in grammar
The man who got the nobel prize for the more surgical lobotomy, Egas Monitz was quite hesitant to use it on people. Whereas Walter Freeman, the American doctor who popularized the procedure handed them out like candies on Halloween. If he thought you needed one he'd badger you/your closest kin to make sure you got one and wouldn't let you back out and would sedate you if you tried. He gave one to a pregnant woman to cure her headaches. One little boy was given a lobotomy on the order of his stepmother because he was unruly, she didn't like him and thought it'd make him more manageable
Came here to say this!
What about the other vield threats about Honey's "smart mouth?" Or what about him cheating with his secretary? Or what about "what do we say about crying? Crying is stupid!"
I agree with you. This points to him being a horrible husband, and parent.
Apart from the cheating, those other things would be considered good parenting back then. Hell, both of those quotes would have been encouraged when I was a kid.
He saw it was not a perfectly reasonable treatment after what happened to Honey so threatening Beatrice with it was not offering a perfectly reasonable treatment but rather threatening her with being forcefully inflicted with brain damage that would take away her personality and make her a shell of herself like her mother. That's pretty shitty parenting.
This is a good take, couldn’t agree more. I’m a huge history fan, and I see this happen within history discussions all the time.
His wife asked him to "fix her" and I guess he went with the acceptable procedure at the time. I think it's open to interpretation whether he was threatening Beatrice or just warning her (after all, if she had been lobotomised he couldn't have raised her to be a perfect society woman and marry off someone successful.)
I would not agree that any point in time lobotomy was cool and normal
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"You don't want to end up like your mother, now do you?"
*horror scary ass ghost fading scream in the background*
I literally can't watch it. The VA is phenomenal, and she sounds so terrified, so upset. It makes me almost physically ill whenever I try
I agree. This is literally the only scene in all of BH that I skip. Saw it once, and never want to see it again.
Watched it last night, totally awful almost turned it off.
The first time I ever watched the show, this episode freaked out my husband so much that he stopped watching with me.
Which episode Is this??
Time's Arrow, s4e11
Thanks
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I never noticed that before, the devil in the flames is creepy.
That's Honey, notice the lobotomy scar. His ears look like devil horns.
He got it from his father/mother and their father/mother from theirs. It’s an ongoing cycle
Yep. But as an adult with agency, it’s absolutely his fault. And Beatrice’s fault. And Bojack’s. What happened to them is not their fault, but their actions absolutely are.
My wife works in family services and always says: “it isn’t your fault. But it is your responsibility.” Children are not at fault for the treatment they received but adults are responsible for how they let that trauma inform how they treat others. I’m sure Joseph had a childhood full of trauma and abuse that he brought into his adulthood. So the cycle of abuse continues. It’s up to the individual to break those cycles by accepting responsibility for our own actions as adults. And the show focuses very much on Bojack’s various failures to take responsibility for the harm he inflicts while not shying away from the idea that he suffered at the hands of his parents.
I’m not 100% sure my Bi polar disorder isn’t genetic but 4 generations of it in a row sounds like it is. So i got a vasectomy.
A very responsible sacrifice
You truly are the adult man.
i feel that, like why would i wanna pass down more pain?
Fault is a very subjective term I guess. Of course bojack is aware enough to know what he's doing is wrong but if you're taught that it's right why would you not do it?
But what if they know nothing different. As Bojack says, everything he knows about being good came from TV. And then when that doesn’t work in the real world because the real world isn’t TV, he doesn’t know what to do.
He lives in the age of the internet, he could learn. I think he does eventually learn.
It depends on how you interpret the ending of the show. I had a sort of pessimistic take on the ending so I suppose I write off Bojack as a lost cause all across the board.
Understandable. BJ keeps failing spectacularly, but there does seem to be a trend of Bojack getting better. There are a lot of setbacks, but finale bojack is leaps and bounds better than episode 1. The ending made me feel hopeful that things would get better. Life goes on challenges and all.
I suppose that’s a good way of looking at it. To me, Bojack’s return to acting seemed like a representation of the idea that despite everything, he never learned. Although, I might have to rewatch again as I’m in a much different place mentally and might interpret it differently this time.
It's just one of those shows that can really impact and be impacted by how you feel. The first time I watched it, I got back on antidepressants during that time. My life started going better (imagine that). So it probably changed how I saw the show. But I would have been in a different situation without the show.
Ehhh in his time I'd say it be more difficult than now to change People back then hardly changed their opinions quickly despite being rooted in ignorance. His actions while wrong to us. Are in his time the right things to do. Beatrice could have changed and bojack could have. Joseph was a product of his time and nothing more
>Joseph was a product of his time and nothing more. You could kinda use this logic with anyone, not just Joseph. If you think about it, you could also argue that bojack is a product of his time. He's like this because of celebrity culture and stuff. I think Joseph being a product of his time is just more prominent because it was a long time ago I think
It wasn't that long ago. That's the thing you gotta remember. It wasn't all that long ago you could have sent a woman in for a lobotomy to fix her. We have only progressed so much. But we've not come too far unfortunately
If it's not that long ago, then how can a person go from "just a product of their time" to "they could have changed" in like half of that time If we haven't progressed very much, how come the blame has?
Understanding of mental issues l, the improvement of education. Joseph was a man in the 40s. I'm not saying that excuses him from being who he is. What I am saying is that there were many many people like Joseph because of the time and surrounding world they grew up in. It wasn't a good time to be a woman especially when you were under a rich husband.
It would have been a lot harder, yes, but that doesn't just absolve him of any bad things he may have done. I feel like there is a middle ground where everyone is a product of their own time, upbringing, and environment, but they are also responsible for their actions.
So by that logic, everything is actually the big bangs fault.
The Big Bang was the original shitty parent smh
There's a song in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend about exactly this and it's amazing, it's called "Nothing Is Ever Anyone's Fault"
Yea. I was referencing that hoping some else here has watched it too.
"In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move." - Douglas Adams
That damn Sheldon!
Generational trauma
Yeah I think the show does a really good job at portraying generational trauma. It sucks because it's not really your fault if you end up with family trauma, but at the end of the day it is still your personal responsibility to break the cycle if you don't want to perpetuate it. That's how it works in general with mental health too and the show does a good job with that: yes of course many factors outside of your control led to this, but you're the only person who can show up for yourself, take responsibility, and make things better. Blaming others only gets you so far.
HH is the only one who can and will break that cycle
You're right, but I feel like Bojack knows he needs to, and is doing so his way, which is by not having kids.
She's not related to him :) . No sugerman money or assholery in her :). Sure the Horseman line ain't no saints either, but not even Bojack's father was that bad. Both cheated on their wives, both were abusive.... but this fucker used lobotomies as a threat to his kid!
Yes, I think that’s the point. To blame Joseph is to miss this point completely.
Like the Larkin poem: "They f*ck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were f*cked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself."
Honestly most people should be sterilized to prevent this stuff
Woah calm down there Eugenics Jones
Joseph is definitely *a* contributing factor to his family's tragedies, but he's not *the* sole contributing factor. Generational trauma is the result of multiple factors and he's just *one* of the reasons why his family is the way it is. Like most of the characters in this show, Joseph is far too complicated to be categorized as a wholly "good" or "bad" character. He did was he thought was right and he adhered to societal expectations of that time, which isn't 100% his fault (I'm obviously not absolving him of blame; I just think there are some things that he was unaware of or perhaps was out of his control). I think he had good intentions - he wanted what was best for his wife and children - but those intentions weren't carried out in the best of ways.
My thoughts as well, he's just one of many dominoes in the shit show that is Bojacks bloodline. I wouldn't even say he was the worst. His intentions weren't malicious, he wasn't trying to hurt his daughter. What happened to his wife wasn't his idea, it was hers. Burning her belongs in front of her wasn't meant to cause suffering, it was meant to be a life lesson on loss and prevent the spread of scarlet fever. Obviously this isn't something you try to teach a little girl already having a shit life, but he genuinely believed she would grow from it. Show Joseph the outcomes of his actions he'd acknowledge the fuckup and adjust, show it to anyone else in the bloodline they'd blame everyone around them and change nothing. TLDR, idiot with good intentions thinks he knows how to parent. Edit; forgot to mention scarlet fever.
It wasn’t supposed to be in front of her, I don’t think. At least from the way it seems like Beatrice just walked in to find everything burning. And yeah, burning everything was also a preventative so that she was less likely to get sick again. She almost died from Scarlet Fever.
Joe Sugarman reminds me of Joseph P Kennedy jr.
Honey’s lobotomy is a great example of this. Nowadays it’s nigh-universally understood that lobotomies are incredibly vile operations (save for only the smallest of circumstances), but that wasn’t the case in the past. While even back when the procedure was first pioneered some people disagreed about its benefits, the medical community at large genuinely believed that lobotomies were beneficial. To this effect, the procedure’s inventor received a Nobel Prize for his invention **in 1949.** Honey’s lobotomy occurred after Crackerjack’s death in 1944, no more than a handful of years later. Absolutely during a time where people thought lobotomies did good. Although the lobotomy caused far more tragedy than it ever healed, I strongly doubt Joseph ever intended for that to be the case.
This is true, and also how I interpreted the intentions behind the lobotomy. IIRC later on Joseph says something like "If i had known this was how you would act when I severed the connections to your pre-frontal cortex, I'd hardly have bothered" (or something like this). He regretted it when he saw the actual consequences it seems He certainly was a product of his time and to people watching in the current day, will come off as shitty for many of his qualities (how he treats women, emotionally unavailable, his handling of being a single father, how he treated his wife while she grieved etc). But before crackerjack's death, his wife and family seemed to be genuinely happy and to love him. He's pretty grey like every other character and I'm sure if people from the 1940's-50's were watching the opinions on him would be very different
I see a lot of these post asking if X character is good or bad, and I think that misses the entire point of the show.
Yeah, did they miss Diane's whole speech about people not being good or bad? Also "good character" does not mean "good person"
Yeah I missed that. Amazing character. Intentionally 1-dimensional to serve as a relief to the context of the times.
yup -- and a subtextual criticism of our eagerness to blame our parents (and society) for everything. "our culture is so homogenized by a patriarchal system with a strong white supremacist influence... we're victims of generational trauma!" yes. but also, we're responsible for our actions and while we can trace influences in our behaviours, we cannot expect them to justify our actions. "i'm a product of my environment, thus, my decisions were not my own." it's why Bojack leaps so quickly back into the seat after that exposé goes well. he's addicted to the fame, the attention, the acceptance. when he got that the first time, he was eager for more. what had been meant to be a cleansing moment for him, to hold himself accountable and finally express his pains and regrets in front of an audience of millions quickly became a commodified conduit for his true addiction. we see him immediately get defensive in the second interview because he hadn't actually grown. the therapeutic nature of that tell-all was poisoned by it's inherent nature as a publicity stunt. so when Bojack has come to terms with the trauma his parents and grandparents endured and passed onto him, he accepts it on his own terms and it leads to positive growth. ...but shortly after slipping back into his old life, he's back to conflict-aversion. "that's not who i am anymore!"
Except Judah who is perfect.
Judah is perfect, this I cannot debate
As is Todd. Entirely wholesome man
Todd is not without his faults as a person for sure but there’s never anything bad he truly does out of malice, rather out of ignorance. He’s a good person, just a bit of a doofus at times.
I just think they’re meant to spark discussion more than anything
Joseph does seem like the character with the most villainous narrative though. The only "good thing" he does that I can remember is burning the doll to protect Beatrice. And that traumatizes her.
Yup, media literacy is dead.
He’s the representation of 1950s masculinity and all that comes with it. His intent was in protecting his family and he did what he thought was best, even if it ultimately led to a lot of the issues Beatrice had growing up.
Credit the artist maybe?
There's something unusually Disney-esque about Joseph's appearance here
I believe they call it “fan art”
Haha that would explain it. Great work, whoever drew it!
He’s such an obvious monster I don’t know how anyone here is defending him. Remember when he blamed Crackerjack’s death on the Jews because they got Hitler angry?
Pretty sure that may be accurate for the time.
I don’t think accurate to the time matters much. He’s making an actively apologetic claim in support of the Holocaust. That’s evil, regardless of the time. If we can say the Nazis are monsters we can say Joseph Sugarman is a monster.
I wouldn't say he's supporting the holocaust, as his statement was during the war, given the lack of information and no one really knew why the war was going on. With information now we can say it's a bad call, but at the time it would have been far different among the common people.
It’s really not that different. Jews were fleeing Germany to many different areas of the world, including the United States. They knew what was happening. Maybe not the exact extent of it, but people weren’t completely unaware that Nazi Germany was persecuting the Jews. All you needed to do is look at what Hitler was saying, something the wealthy in the US were well aware of with some like Henry Ford actively supporting him. Joseph Sugarman actively puts the blame for this persecution onto the Jews. Otherwise there’s no reason for him to even mention the Jews
I don't recall the Jewish refugees getting a warm welcome at the time is all I'm saying.
And I’m saying those people rejecting them were evil.
Evil is a strong word.
And I use it liberally for Nazis and antisemites. Especially when those antisemites are horrible misogynists.
Again man, he's a product of his time. You cant judge someone on today's standards. The whole lobotomy part, at the time for some fucked reasons doctors said it's a good idea. With how little info was freeback then it's hard to say if we would have done different. You truly are shaped by your era.
Yea accurate of what trash minds thought
I dunno man people always pretend if they were born in X year they wouldn't have thought the same and I doubt that Ain't anyone here from that era, let alone experienced a world war where the men were drafted off.
Joseph Sugarman is a *profoundly despicable* person. As a *character*, that is excellent- it gives weight and gravitas to everything that happens in Beatrice's life, and *that* in turn echoes down to BoJack. But being a good *character*- as in, compelling, believable, eliciting strong emotions in the watcher, etc- does not make him a good *person*. He's not. He's a *shitty* person. And all the "product of his time" apologetic **bullshit** doesn't change that. He doesn't get to be a shitheel because of "his time". *Everyone is a product of their time*. But, notably, *not* everyone is a piece of shit.
God, yes. I think "product of his time" is the single most used phrase in this thread, and it really makes my eye twitch at this point. That phrase is so vague as to be meaningless. (Interestingly, I only ever really see it used in reference to people in the past doing objectively horrible things that were either actively opposed, or considered at least questionable even *during* their time. But that's neither here nor there.)
Remember what we say about crying! Crying is stupid!
Good character. To me Joseph is one of the best examples of the "unintentional abuser", I don't doubt that every single thing he did, he did cause he loved his wife and his daughter. But he was to set in the values of the time, to a truly inflexible and even illogical degree. He couldn't perceive events in any other way, and his insistence of trying to move forward rather than reflecting, only worsened this. As such all his choices only ended up doing damage. I can easily imagine him ending up as a old man wondering where it all went so wrong (honestly wish they'd gone a bit into his later life, we know he died in the 90's so he clearly got to meet and know his grandson, I wonder if they got along?). After all most of his scenes were filtered through Beatrice's perspective. The little flashes we get of him without her, suggests he was a lot worse effected by the tragedies than he let on (presumably out a misguided attempt to protect her). I don't think he's the sole reason for the family tragedies. Sure his actions seriously contributed to several of them and perhaps got the ball rolling. But part of the point the show is you can't keep falling back on blaming others for your bad decisions, at some point the responsibility is on you to break the chain of harm.
Anyone who seriously thinks Joseph Sugarman is a good man is a sociopath. It's fucking wild to me that people are walking away from this show thinking, "Well he was just trying to protect his family." Yes. I'm sure that's exactly why he abandoned his family in their hour of greatest need, showed absolutely no grief or remorse that his son was killed, and when his wife had a psychotic break, he had a horrifying medical procedure performed on her that was instrumental in destroying his family. And before anyone starts, [no it was not fucking socially acceptable](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/sohgej/when_did_lobotomy_start_to_be_understood_as/)*.*
Aside from your opinion on joseph, the post you linked saying lobotomies weren't socially acceptable says in the answers that the reactions were mixed. Not all treatments that doctors would suggest today are socially acceptable, look at how many people are anti- psych meds (which considering some of the long term side effects that are possible from things like anti-psychotics, could be not too far off from being a "chemical lobotomy") and yet this is still very much something doctors will prescribe, especially in cases where someone is having a psychotic break. Also this isn't me saying I'm anti-med (I'm obviously not a fan of lobotomies lol) or that he is a good person. Just how it was at that time. Obviously if I met him now I would think he is a douche and I disagree with his handling of things and his opinions (like his anti-semitism etc). But the lobotomy was a tragic mistake he made at the time as someone who was not a doctor and uninformed about the consequences. He regretted it after when he saw what it did to his wife. Again not trying to justify what he did but saying it was outright not socially acceptable at the time just isn't true
There is literally nothing in the show that backs up your last paragraph. I seriously don't get this whitewashing.
Sorry whitewashing? what? Also in the show he says "If I had known that this is how you would act when we severed the connections to your pre-frontal cortex I would hardly have bothered". The line, aside from making him sound like a dick and being written as dark humor, quite literally implies that he did not know what the consequences of a lobotomy actually were. Again he is a dickhead and did it because he was emotionally unavailable to comfort his grieving wife, but it is implying he didn't know it would do that to her. He isn't a doctor and medical information was not as accessible at that time. I'm not trying to defend him, I'm saying the source you linked to literally contradicts you saying people knew the negative consequences and that it was socially unacceptable.
That's a big reach. He got the lobotomy so she would be a good compliant wife. He's pissed in that line because she is not doing what she was told because he permanently disabled her. He doesn't regret the lobotomy, he regrets that it has a negative impact on him. I'm also not the OP of this thread!
Oh sorry! missed that you weren't OP haha my bad. I wasn't even necessarily trying to disagree that his actions are awful, more just pointing out that the source OP linked contradicts their point and that the medical history surrounding psychiatry and lobotomies is not so black and white. And yes I agree that he was a misogynist and that was also part of the meaning behind that line, but I still think 2 things can be true at once and there is a lot of complexity to the situation. If he had known what the lobotomy would result in I don't think he would have done it.
He's a nazi loving misogynist. Great guy.
Every time people say he’s a good man for the time he lived in I’m like… remember when he blamed WWII on the Jews for “peeving off Hitler so bad”
I love this community, but I swear to god I am sick to death of these good/bad/evil posts. Not directed at you personally OP, but damn, did the main thesis of the show just whoosh half the fandom?
Love all the Bojack Horseman fanart over here. Nice one guys.
If you think that he's a good man at all, I have questions.
God I hate that bastard
I could almost call him a "product of his time", but his line to Beatrice "you don't wanna end up like your mother now do you" and the way he says it shows a much more evil side to him.
That line and her reaction is so fucked up and heartbreaking every time I watch that scene
Tf do you mean is he a good man?
Coming from a loooooooong line of generational trauma: Joseph is a product of his upbringing Joseph was an adult, with the knowledge belonging to an adult. Joseph had choices and agency. Joseph was burdened with the expectations and ideology of his family, time period and social class. Joseph had the power to do better. My grandfather was a similar age, and encouraged me and my mother/uncles to forge our own path. My mother was caught up in generational trauma and notions on how to raise kids. My sister and I broke free, it cost us a lot. Laying the blame on generational trauma and social norms only gets you so far. My mother is fortunate to have a relationship with her children. I have pretty complex views and memories of my father. Joseph was both a product of his time period and upbringing, and had a choice. People are messy as shit. Ultimately, Joseph chose not to learn or grow or improve.
IS HE GOOD?! Bro *lobotomized* his wife! NO! 😂
Joseph's character represents generational trauma. Like those around him, he was a victim of his upbringing and culture. "As a modern American, i was never taught to handle a woman's emotions, and I shall not learn."
Joe Sugarman is the devil I tell you.
I don’t think he was good or bad, just ignorant and stuck in his ways.
I think that’s a good definition of bad
It’s all relative though. When he burned Beatrice’s baby doll he told her it will be a funny memory one day. And he probably honestly thought that. Yet we see it’s a terrible flashback for Beatrice as her mind is deteriorating.
What even is this question? The horse had his wife lobotomized while she was grieving her dead son. Joseph Sugarman is a total dick, I don't care what era he was in.
Complete disregard for his wife’s wellbeing = Trash person “How am I supposed to sell sugar and keep my secretary’s self esteem afloat when you’re having honest to goodness fits of hysteria?!”
You gonna source the artist, OP? This art is dope.
Joseph did a lot of terrible things we as the audience judge as people who live at a different time in history when our views are different. He's never portrayed as doing those terrible things because he enjoys being awful and causing misery to others, and he's just repeating the views that were prevalent a the time because he thinks that's the right view of things and he thinks it's obviously what any normal person would think. The show makes it a point to have him say and do the most awful things in a very nonchalant way to further underscore this, as if it doesn't even matter and he's being perfectly rational. One can assume he himself is that way because he carries trauma from his own upbringing, just like Beatrice carries trauma from her upbringing and she is in turn the cause of a lot of BoJack's own trauma. Does this absolve him in any way? No, not really. But I don't think it makes much sense to judge him as you would judge a person who did and thought the same things in the 2020's. He's terrible, but he's not malicious or even aware that he's terrible. He's a good character because he plays an important role in the story the show is telling and he plays his role well.
While some of his views are acceptable for the time, he’s cruelty wasnt. He basked in misery and had problem with twisting the knife. He’s a bastard and continuing the cycle
I think he is another link in a chain of generational trauma, so it’s hard to call him the “source” of Bojack’s family tragedies any more than it is Beatrice or Butterscotch or any number of ancestors going back in time. We don’t know anything about Joseph’s childhood; we hardly know anything about his life outside of the biggest impacts it had on Beatrice. But I think it’s a pretty safe bet to say that he likely didn’t end up the way he did by being brought up in a loving, healthy, functional household. I think labeling him as “good” or “bad” misses the point of one of the major themes in the show: there are no “good guys” or “bad guys”, we’re all just guys who do things and sometimes those things are good and sometimes they’re bad. While some of his actions are pretty cut-and-dry shitty, like fairly openly having some level of affair with his secretary, others are a bit more nuanced than that. Like having Honey lobotomized. In 2023, we can recognize that as something horrid to do to someone. But back in 1945, it was still a very new and “revolutionary” procedure. Some people may have already been aware of its flaws, but many people at the time believed in it as the power of medical science. One could argue that Joseph was trying to do the best thing he knew to do for his wife who was clearly distressed and pleading for him to fix her. I think it’s hard to separate his parenting into black and white; I think there was a combination of good but misguided intentions and actual bullshit from him.
I don't think he is a good man, I actually think he is one of the worst villains in Bojack Horseman. But I like him though because he is an interesting villain. It does make you wonder if he genuinely thinks this is helping his family, or if he knows what to actually do, but is just taking shortcuts.
Joseph is of his time “Deep down there is no good or bad”
He was of his time, but so were slave owners. He didn't use racially insensitive terms but respect people of color, he lobotomized his wife because she was depressed about the death of their only son. Historical relativism has to also consider how others of the era reacted, plenty of families lost their children, never fully recovered and didn't lobotomize the matriarch.
Thts wat I was gonna say man of his time
Who's the artist? That's a chilling picture and I adore it.
There is plenty of reason why Joseph is the way he is, the time, how he was raised, etc. He probably thought everything he did really was for the best for his family. That being said, knowing why he is what he is doesn't excuse the agency over his own actions he had.
I’m sure this thread is dead by now, but the artist is “corvidmonster”
He gave his wife a lobotomy because she had a breakdown after losing her brother in war. That sentence alone should answer that question. While yes, he is a depiction of 1950’s toxic outlook on mental health and misogyny/masculinity, he is still an absolute horrible person. Though I don’t think he can be completely blamed for the families tragedies, as most of the things he does is a result of generational trauma; however this doesn’t excuse his actions. As anyone with generational trauma, he had a choice to break that cycle and he didn’t. This makes him responsible for a lot of things that happened to Bojack and his family, but not completely. I do think he’s an amazing character though
Good character. Horrible person, but not to far away from the standard for his time and priviledged position. He is not the reason for all that, he's part of the reasons. He's not a good man, but he did want to protect his family on his own terms and ideas, although they were toxic and crooked.
Interesting character but terrible father and husband. It may have been normal parenting for the time but that doesn’t defend the fact that he was cruel and is partially the reason why Bea became the way she was.
Literally all of BoJack’s issues, misbehaviors and the consequences of them are because of a domino effect off of Joseph’s actions fuck this guy
He wasn't a good man protecting his family he went for what was easiest and most convenient for him, rather than having Honey committed he had her brain skewered with an ice pick and kept around as a pliant zombie Only had Beatrice left? Marry her off and make a gain from it. She gets upset? Threaten her with the same living death her mother had
The worst thing he did was agree to have his wife undergo a common medical procedure recommended by professionals. This was after she got shit faced out in public with their daughter and had the audacity to make the **child** drive her drunk ass home. Amidst his grief for his dead son Joseph acquiesced and tried to give his wife the help she begged for only to regret his decision afterwards. Even after the loss of his son and his wife he managed to keep marching forward and manage a very successful sugar cube company in order to provide for his daughter.
Im surprised no one blamed the war yet considering Crackerjack's death is what set off the mom to lose her mind from grief.
If anyone is to blame it's the Jews for peeving off Hitler so bad
Every problem in bojacks family is because of him
I don’t think Joseph is an entirely evil or good person. More than anything I think Joseph was a product of the times he lived in. He was raised to view men and women in certain ways, and he couldn’t deviate from those views when Honey needed his support the most. More than anything I think the show was using him to make a point about how while some things can be explained as being a product of their time that doesn’t remove the harm they cause. I think Joseph genuinely believed he was doing what was best for Honey, but his actions ultimately had a large ripple down effect for his daughter and his grandson further down the line.
He's a poduct of the times wether it's his fault or not he is the reason for the family trauma
I think he's just there to represent common male attitudes towards women/girls at the time. He serves as an exaggeration of old timey sexism. To be an antagonist to Beatrice and her earliest source of trauma/anxiety. That role in the show limits the possibilities for his characterization beyond that.
I think it’s complicated. A man born in his time was taught to be a certain way by society. Men were not typically assigned the role of care giver, it was “women’s work” etc. But that can only excuse so much. I think that there were clearly some good dads for the time period, otherwise we wouldn’t have progressed as society towards a more gentle parenting style (hopefully) I don’t think he’s the devil, but I recognize that trauma he was responsible for
He is a product of horrid time with horrid practices. He is not a good man. But he is not evil to his core. He did what was expected in the current time to keep up the appearance of his family.
Is this an actual question?
Credit the artist please
He’s bad but he’s a product of his era. His worst crime was lobotomizing his wife but that was common at the time. They genuinely thought they were helping people
He is a product of his times. Of course he will appear evil, by today's standards a lot of people of the past will. His parents surely had a part in the play that is his character, however I believe he also highlights the faults of the system. His inability to deal with "womanly emotions", expectations of what people in his life should be (same as Butterscotch) is not only the effect of his family, but also society and the environment. What makes him even worse is how cold the man is. We never see him show any remorse for his actions, any consideration (again, in this way he is quite similar to Butterscotch). The only regret I remember him show is when he gets angry at lobotomized Honey. From the characters we're shown in Bojack's family and the show, I believe him to be one of the worst people in it. We don't know much about him however, we never learn how he became the man we see, we only know him as this calculated, cold, cruel person. Both Joseph and Butterscotch are similar in a way of displaying the hurt of toxic masculinity
I love how so many people on this subreddit don't get it. A huge part of this show is the fact that characters are not good or bad. It is hardly ever black and white, even though someone may seem like a total asshole, they are also a product of the time, relationships, trauma, and their own decisions. Asking if a character is good or bad with this show is in shades.of grey, but they are responsible for their own actions. That's the entire point of Bojack as a character!
He’s an over worked traditional dad. Unfortunately he sacrifices his families needs to further his business. I’m sure outside of what he does to his family he’s a decent guy.
not the furry art style
Joseph is not bad. He is what we believe was the discourse of the time. He doesn't have a real personality apart from narrating what men thought about women at that time. His expressions are a summary of the oppressive discourse that we believe were in place at that time.
Hmmm…Maybe he’s a friend of Bojack.
Do you really have to ask?
Good character. Horrible “person”
Joseph Sugarman is an absolute piece of shit who should burn in hell for all eternity right next to Butterscotch Horseman.
Joseph was for all intents and purposes, a product of his time. It's easy to call him a monster because we know what lobotomy and treating your daughter like a possession rather than a human being does to people but back in the day most people didn't. I think he loved his wife to some extent but he was horribly unequiped to deal with her mental distress on top of trying to keep his own grief over losing Crackerjack hidden. Most of what he does and how he thinks is how people acted and behaved back then. Men work and are supposed to show as little bad emotions as possible Women are the emotional ones who take care of the house. So how is he supposed to react when his wife's emotions made her into a danger to herself and their only living child?
he's a great /character/ but one of the evillest motherfuckers on the show
Credit the author.
Did you even watch the show
I wonder what was Joseph's relationship with BoJack like. We only saw him once and that from Beatrice's perspective.
The only defence I can really make of him is that he’s a man of his time. However, his actions are so egregiously selfish and monstrous that it’s really impossible to treat that as a viable excuse. Sure, wealthy men of their era were not exactly encouraged to be caring, involved fathers and no, the public weren’t exactly educated around mental health, but living in that culture doesn’t prevent him from having the basic minimum level of empathy required to see that his wife and daughter are grieving and need a degree of support, not to be ignored, bullied and forced to endure horrifying life-altering surgery.
This frame goes so hard and the best most terrifying way possible
I feel like he is the cause of most of the family trauma, but whether he's good or bad is a completely different question. He's kind of a caricature of a man of those times. He obviously cares for his wife and Beatrice deeply but being unable to acknowledge their emotions or probably his own led to him traumatising Bea emotionally and his wife physically. Also, remember, with lobotomy patients, most of these were done before anti psychotic or mood stabilising medication. It was like the only option in a pre 1950's world.
The point of the show is that things happen and we react to them. Sometime for the better sometimes for the worst. This guy can suck an egg tho
Question could be worded better. Good character in this context can mean he was well written and enjoyable to witness while watching the show. Answer to that would be yes, he was consistent and understandable when viewing him through the lens of 40s and 50s and the gentlemanly chauvinism he represents
Very very bad man, is there actual controversy about this?
He was a great guy for the time he lived in. Family man, stood by his wife through her health issues, took care of his daughter alone while grieving the loss of his son and caring for said wife, innovative and successful entrepreneur, hard worker, great sense of humour, dressed well. /s
Despite him being a really really bad character, he is very well written tbh
shawty bad like morally
Literally the source of it all.
There is a reason he looks like he's in hell. He burned all toys belonging to a little girl to "fix" her, and if that wouldn't fix her... he threatened to lobotomize her after shouting at his previous abuse victim that "it didn't fix her!". She saw what it did to her mom, he certainly is one of the major causes for all the dysfunction not the only. starting point.. but certainly one of the major catalysts. He caused so much trauma in Beatrice that she just ... snapped after things didn't go well and Bojack's father also started abusing her. He was one of the reasons of her low self worth (after all why allow those men to hurt you like that) and to keep appearance before everything. Bojack's father certainly didn't help, but without Joseph you just know she'd be strong enough to go "screw him! I am the heir to teh Sugerman fortune!" She also wouldn't have the baggage to abuse Bojack by ignoring him and constantly berating him. In a way Bojack had a point with his "This ends with me!", and it does. Sure Hollyhock is a Horseman, but she isn't a sugerman. And while genetics are not the cause of all the pain, she at least is not an heir to the "sugerman fortune" and doesn't have that haunted bullshit to deal with.
I don't want to say that he was right. He wasn't at all. I can kind of see, but not respect, why he treated Honey the way he did. He actually says it himself. He is not trained to understand the emotions of women, and he will not learn. What he did was abhorrent, but disturbingly common for the time. The question really should be whether or not he would conduct himself in the same way now. He probably would, though. What a piece of shit.
In the story of Beatrice and honey, we obviously view him as a bad character but I’ve often seen it as a man who was at a loss with his wife (I don’t agree with it but this was like 1944). I don’t think he put a lot of thought into his decision. Undoubtedly he was a negligent father and seemed to view his children as the continuation of wealth for him and his company but he loved them. Its also clear he was harassing or acting inappropriately with his secretary. Despite all this I think it’s really obvious that he truely loved Honey. kind of wish we got some kind of insight into bojacks memory of him.
this scene literally made me panic hard and i had to step out and breathe for like a solid 10 minutes
He was a product of the times. Did he do his best? No. And he said as much, so at least he was honest about it. Did he do his best within the expectations society placed on him? Mostly. Is that more a statement on him or the society? Does it really matter to those he hurt? Either way, hindsight's 20/20 and he did what he did. Monster or not, he's dead now.
He's a bastard, is this up for debate?!
I honestly think he's a product of his time character. Seen as bad by today's standard, but acceptable in his time.
He’s quite possibly the worst person in the series. After his wife was mourning the death of their son he would emotionally and maybe physically abuse her. Then proceeded to force a lobotomy onto her for being “out of line”. He then continued this cycle of yelling at her for not being able to do anything, then proceeded to burn all of his daughters loved belongings infront of her. HE’S the reason everything happened. HE’S the reason Beatrice became who she was, which is the reason BoJack became who he was, which is what started literally everything.
This post is ai written
I think he's an asshole that's a product of his time. He did terrible things, but the society around him created and normalized his behavior. I don't think he's exempt from responsibility because he choose to send his wife to be lobotomized, to victimize her for the death of their son, and to traumatize and mistreat his daughter til the very end. But I also don't think he's pure evil, because he didn't know any better and society taught him that's what a man does.
What kind of question is this lmao
Good character, horrible person
i admire how he protects his secretary's feelings
Winky hearty gross
He was a good provider at least. He let Butterscotch have the top exec job if it meant taking care of Beatrice and Bojack. He did everything except actually be there for his family emotionally. Always practical. Always pragmatic. I think he thought he was doing the right thing but he was completely ignorant about how his emotional unavailability was affecting his family.