Eleventh International Conference on The Image

Abstract

This research work identifies and suggests relationships between mental illness and adult animated TV series produced by television streaming platforms, specifically I address mental illness in the original Netflix series BoJack Horseman. The methodological approach is carried out from the field of cultural studies. Autoethnography, visual research, and seriality studies are mixed to account for the coexistence, which could be said to be necessary, of mental illness as a lived experience - in this case, of a woman and her family - with that of mental illness as an animated experience - of fiction, starring a horse- a coexistence in which the presence of women is, in my opinion, a key part in explaining what the critics, specialists, and followers consider one of the achievements of the TV series: treating mental illness avoiding common stigmas and doing it in a transmedia and transnational media environment. The inclusion of mental illness in the television productions of Netflix, HBO, and Amazon has increased in the last ten years, along with mental illness as an institutionalized and medical experience in companies and universities, beyond the family context. BoJack Horseman is one of the productions that treats mental illness as an experience in which numerous people who are diagnosed with mental disorders, to varying degrees, are recognized. In the series, most of the characters that are diagnosed are women, of the same genealogical line who share genetic inheritance and question the meaning of life, motherhood, abortion, success, and happiness.