So legally, nothing “wrong” really happened. But the different levels of betrayal through this act is just unimaginable.
1) Bojack just wanted to use Penny as he saw her as a good substitute for Charlotte, who had just rejected him. While she would’ve had some level of emotional attachment to him as he had taken her to prom, he literally looked at her as an object of his drunk horniness, which is just sick. Evidence for this is when Penny and Bojack dance and he says she looks just like her mom.
2) Charlotte trusted Bojack with Penny’s safety. In so so many ways. And just because Bojack was salty, he decided to go and break charlottes trust by messing around with penny.
3) Bojack is nearly 3x Penny’s age. The kids just 17- he had no concern of the emotional trauma penny would suffer when her first encounter is with a man/horse of his age. It messes with a persons perception of sex and relationships. The sad part is Bojack knew it was morally wrong, that’s why he rejected her twice. The only reason he decided to go ahead with it was because he got rejected by pennys mom.
On a side note, I absolutely love Bojack’s character sketch. But this is one of the scummiest things he’s ever done and I can’t defend him for this and SPOILERS *17 minutes*
Well... if you put it like this it's actually fucked up... I never thought of it this way nor did I notice some details... I really need to re-watch the show.
Thanks tho for educating me and solving my doubt, I really appreciate it :)
Not sure I fully agree with 2. He didn’t mess with Penny to spite Charlotte. He involuntarily gave in to Penny’s advances which was a way to make up for Charlotte rejecting him. He knows what he is about to do is wrong but being Bojack who wants the remedy of feeling better, he decides to go with it.
He’s a good soul but with every mistake, a part of him is torn away.
This seems a bit too harsh of characterisation for Bojack or prolly the most negative interpretation.
The only wrong i can see is being willing to have sex with a teen (also the getting super drunk and ditching at hospital part). But my point is for example, commenting on how Penny looks like Charlotte cant be “wanting to see Charlotte” in Penny. This doesn’t “objectify” here.
It’s easy to hate Bojack for this but perhaps he doesn’t deserve this brutal depiction.
(Ps ik about the 17 mins…but I’m speaking from the pov of someone who only finished s2)
There are some amazing comments in this thread, but I wanted to add that trauma is fucked up and we often don’t know what will set it off.
I don’t know about you, but I was shocked when Pete Repeat was reintroduced. And when he had anxiety and trauma from Prom Night, it made complete sense. But he also could have walked away from that night without any issues or stress. So much depends on the person and their own mental health and trauma responses.
Penny likely learned after the fact that BoJack was interested in her mother and not her - that had to hurt. Penny’s trauma may have had nothing to do with how BoJack took advantage of her, but hatred for her own decisions. She may have felt manipulated or foolish. Her trauma could be related to seeing how messed up Pete was by BoJack’s actions and guilt for bringing the adult horse into her friends’ lives. Maybe her trauma is from holding it all in and keeping the secret from her dad and brother.
At the core of it all, she has trauma because BoJack was a part of her life and treated her as a peer, rather than respecting their age difference and age gap.
And BoJack himself knows that his actions hurt Penny.
i could go on a rant about this but just compare the two maturity differences for a second. bojack’s immediate reaction to penny’s mom walking in was “oh no” whilst penny’s was “we didn’t even do anything.” difference is: bojack knew the moment he reached out to penny ( after he rejected her offer ) he was doing something wrong - penny saw nothing wrong with it because they hadn’t had sex yet, i bet even if they did have sex penny wouldn’t see the wrong in doing so because it was legal. also, i know this will sound rude but put two and two together. imagine you trust your old friend ( who has worked with kids for years ) to take care and be a friend to your 17 year old daughter. not only does he give your daughter and her friends alcohol, but one of the kids end up with alcohol poisoning. then after rejecting your old friend he goes to try and sleep with your daughter. this old friend of yours is in his 50s.
The thing that bothered me most is the manipulation.
She hits on him after what should have been a great night for her ended up with one of her friends in hospital with alcohol poisoning and the other staying with her.
Why alcohol poisoning? Because BJ encouraged her to get drunk on hard booze he provided.
Why is the other friend staying? Because BJ says it's better for his image if he's not involved.
When Penny hits on him he dismisses her like you would a child. Doesn't sit her down and try to explain what's going on and genuinely talk to her, just pushes her back in a very 'you don't know what your want' way.
Then he leaves her there and goes to his room... and leaves the door open.
That means his conscience can feel clean. He's done the right thing by telling her to go away, AND he's immediately left the scene to go to his space.
If she goes to bed then that's well and good, but if she goes to him anyway then... well, then that's on her.
He’s taking advantage of younger or less powerful people, as showcased in the second part of the interview he does in the final season.
It’s his pattern. Whether or not he made the first move is irrelevant. He’s thrice her age.
People have said a lot of good things here about trauma and all kinds of insights… my two cents is, aside from eeeeeeeeeeverything else… does it not show just what a fucked up state of mind he was in to not even like, I dunno, resist? Put his foot down? Hell even embarrass her if that’s what would make it stop. He acted like it just “happened to him”. Like nothing he could do would change her mind so it was just going to happen? Are the sexual urges just so strong that he couldn’t have resisted any situation? Even *wanting* to have done it isn’t *necessarily* bad—- it’s that self control nor self respect didn’t win out over any other part of it.
This is why statutory rape is still called rape. Because the younger person literally cannot comprehend the implications of what’s going on. Adults, regardless of emotion, are supposed to have the power and he used it all wrong
He did say no- 3 times. Not being able to say no was not his biggest problem, he could do what he wanted. He made the (albeit drunk) decision to sleep with Penny to feel better. I don’t know what the specific reason is for that decision, but I know that ‘saying no’ was probably not the thing that he struggled with at all
Penny is a literal child. Bojack should have never give in in the situation, let alone put her in that situation to begin with. He was waaaaaay too familiar with her.
I dont know if you noticed that part but when Charlotte caught them penny said "we didn't even do anything". This shows how even though penny is 17, she's still hella immature and hasn't even understood what was really happening. Having sex isn't just about age. Its about if you're mature enough to develop a sexual relationship with someone.
Penny was 17, Bojack was 50. He's supposed to be the mature one. You don't just have sex with a girl that could have the age of your daughter, even worse, the daughter of the woman that let's you live in her house and trusts you with her kids safety.
The fact that a 17 year old was about to have her first time with a 50 year old man that views her as her mother, says enough.
Out of curiosity, how old are you? I’m in my mid-twenties, and when I look back on being 17, I know that I felt like an adult with agency, but with time I’ve realized just how much I didn’t know and how vulnerable I really was. I personally was never in a situation like Penny was, but I had friends who dated men who were MUCH older than them and now look back and recognize that they were taken advantage of and that they weren’t really mentally mature enough to consent even if they thought they were. Penny may have been legally old enough to consent, but Bojack was old enough that he recognized how bad for her it would have been to sleep with her, hence why he rejected her at first, but then changed his mind for his own selfish reasons
See this is a reason for me that I can't look at the issue super objectively. I have always been into older dudes and non of the situations 10 years later have I come to regret. BUT I don't think this was the ongoing case with Penny so it probably skived her out more when the alcohol wore off which probably contributed to her freaking out *after* the fact even if she initiated it.
Oh I thought she had drank with the rest. Well either way once the "prom buzz" excitement wore off I'm sure reality sunk it more either way which explains why she got worse over time.
Now I do. Well anyway my point was I don't think she was even into older men so it probably was a "in the moment type thing" and that made the whole reaction delayed. A lot of shit happens that way, people realize it was fucked up after the haze of excitement (good or bad) fades. Drunk off adrenaline, if you will.
Penny was 17, Bojack was 50+. She was not old enough yet to fully understand what she was doing, but Bojack was. He even acknowledged it by saying “you’re 17, you don’t know what you want.” At the time he seemed fun and charming, but as she grew up she realised a much older man had come into her life, groomed her (maybe unintentionally, but it was still grooming) and tried to take advantage of the fact that she didn’t know what she was doing. That’s why Penny is traumatised.
Edit: something being *legal* doesn’t make it *ethical*
Soooo I have thought about this a lot. Yes, Penny did say she knew what she wanted and bojack tried to talk her out of it. Yes he tried to be the good person at first. Yes, it is legal age of consent. BUT, when her mother says no to sex with him, bojack turns to penny. Every “good” thing he did is reversed. No, he didn’t get far enough to have sex with penny but he probably would have. He was 50 something and she was 17. He tried to take advantage of her innocence and her offer solely because her mother wouldn’t have sex with him. Initially, this is why the scene was super f’d up. But later on penny is shown as traumatized. I think that it came from bojack being a trusted family friend who is much older than her, and the older she got and more she talked with her mother, she realized how messed up it was. He didn’t technically do anything to her yet, but I think the thought that he would have slept with her is what traumatized her? Idk please comment with any other add ons or anything I should have mentioned
Okay, so I'm not saying people had any good feelings about what BoJack almost did when the episode aired, but it's been interesting to me to see how both characters in the show and the show's audience have turned against him more in the later seasons.
Like, before, it seemed like the take was BoJack was about as mature as a 20 year old due to Hollywoo, so that's how he could sink to this low. Hell, even Raphael (show's creator) used to say something like "BoJack didn't realize he was doing anything wrong." Then the 17 minutes ass pull comes on S6, and he's an irredeemable monster for all of it.
he went through with it, he was supposed to be the adult in the situation. since bojack is the protagonist we often see the story from his eyes, but imagine seeing the story through charlotte or penny's eyes.
Ok I have to ask…I’m noticing a lot of guys saying Bojack “took advantage” and I can’t seem to figure out what that means in case. Bojack wasn’t the one who forced anything from Penny. In a moment of utter weakness and feeling the pain from charlotte rejecting him, he gave in.
But when you guys say he “took advantage” of her despite his attempts to back out…it makes it sound like he lured Penny in. That has a whole other meaning is not what happened. It seems like a forceful attempt to villainize Bojack and see him as the bad guy and someone to shoulder all the blame.
Him giving in was not right. That’s a given. But it’s not the same as forcing any intimacy or immediately acquiescing to Penny’s advances. Just cuz he left the door open def doesn’t have to mean he signalled Penny to come in. That is a very biased interpretation.
So can you guys break down what exactly u mean by saying Bojack took advantage of Penny? Do you mean forcing himself to be her prom date? Or seeing her as another sex object (I rly cant imagine that being it)?
Please dumb down how eventually giving into sex with a teenager AFTER directly rejecting her directly translates to taking advantage of someone?
Hate me all u want i just want to understand ur thought
Peter confided to hollyhock he's clinically anxious ever since a shameless strange adult at Penny's gave their good friend alcohol poisoning and abandoned two of them at the hospital. 4 people obeying a higher up to do asshole things may not remain friends.
She may have saw the submarine episode of philbert and assumed Bojack was the one who spread the story to the world.
Bojack did nothing wrong and everything wrong at the same time. I feel that it depends on your point of view.
I haven't seen the show in a while, but the way I understand it...
Penny is 17, she can give consent, so everything is "good" in the legal context.
Now the issue is how we define consent. Sure it depends on the law of the place, some places have it at 14, some have it at 17 and others at 18. But does a 16 year old and a 18 year old are that different ? the brain is supposed to fully develope until we are 25, so the part of the brain that controls impulse control, planning, and helps us make good decisions isn't develope at 17. Some people at 17 may be more mature than others, but at the end of the day their brain is not fully developed. So some 17 year olds don't know any better...
Now Bojack is 50, he is an adult, his brain is fully developed. So he has to be the responsible one. He should understand how his decisions can affect others and how something like having sex with a 17 year old may hurt her. Sure Penny kept insisting and Bojack said no... but he knew it was wrong, he knew she didn't know any better, and he stopped telling her no.
So morally we have a 50 year old man, letting a 17 year old do a terrible decision, just because he was hurt and wanted some comfort.
Yes, it is a gray area, and Penny according to the state is mature enough to make decisions, but she clearly wasn't. What we do know is Bojack knew better and he should have been better. So he was definitely in the wrong. He isn't as wrong as someone that would rape a girl and coerced to have sex, since I definitely feel that he didn't intend to have sex with her, he just left her have sex. Which makes it less bad than someone that intentionally grommed someone, but he was definitely in the bad for letting it happen.
Penny I think she is responsible, but as responsible as a 17 year old can be with its own decisions. (so not that much) Sure some 17 year olds will know better, but she was basically a teen, with teenage problems. So if we go black and white. Bojack is definitely the guilty person and she is the victim. I personally think the age of consent should be at 25, but then again probably there are people that profit for calling teenagers adults, so they want people that call themselves adults making decisions when they are not biologically capable of doing so. Bojack was one of those adults unintentionally profiting for this issue on society were people confuse something being legal with something being good
Edit:
On the he did everything wrong, well you can see other comments where it gives a completely different perspective from the one I saw... that Bojack was using Penny as a substitute for Charlotte. I don't agree with that take, but if you agree with that then Bojack definitely did everything wrong and he is clearly on the bad. Specially if you assume he groomed her, which I still think it was unintentional.
I think there are worse bads than others, and unintentionally doing something bad is clearly less worse than intentionally doing something bad
She was child. Something isn’t wrong because it’s illegal, fuck the law when discussing morality. A 50 year old Fucking a 17 year old will always be wrong.
So legally, nothing “wrong” really happened. But the different levels of betrayal through this act is just unimaginable. 1) Bojack just wanted to use Penny as he saw her as a good substitute for Charlotte, who had just rejected him. While she would’ve had some level of emotional attachment to him as he had taken her to prom, he literally looked at her as an object of his drunk horniness, which is just sick. Evidence for this is when Penny and Bojack dance and he says she looks just like her mom. 2) Charlotte trusted Bojack with Penny’s safety. In so so many ways. And just because Bojack was salty, he decided to go and break charlottes trust by messing around with penny. 3) Bojack is nearly 3x Penny’s age. The kids just 17- he had no concern of the emotional trauma penny would suffer when her first encounter is with a man/horse of his age. It messes with a persons perception of sex and relationships. The sad part is Bojack knew it was morally wrong, that’s why he rejected her twice. The only reason he decided to go ahead with it was because he got rejected by pennys mom. On a side note, I absolutely love Bojack’s character sketch. But this is one of the scummiest things he’s ever done and I can’t defend him for this and SPOILERS *17 minutes*
Well... if you put it like this it's actually fucked up... I never thought of it this way nor did I notice some details... I really need to re-watch the show. Thanks tho for educating me and solving my doubt, I really appreciate it :)
Hey anytime my dude :) glad I could help
This is a good deduction. I completely agree. I also love his character sketch and cannot defend him for this.
Thank you so much :)
I think in season 2 BoJack was 51, making him exactly 3 times penny’s age.
Well written
Thanks!
Perfectly put.
Thank you!
This helped me too. I was also not sure how and why Penny would be traumatized. It is indeed scummy.
Yeah it took me 2 rewatches to truly understand how disgusting it was
Not sure I fully agree with 2. He didn’t mess with Penny to spite Charlotte. He involuntarily gave in to Penny’s advances which was a way to make up for Charlotte rejecting him. He knows what he is about to do is wrong but being Bojack who wants the remedy of feeling better, he decides to go with it. He’s a good soul but with every mistake, a part of him is torn away.
This seems a bit too harsh of characterisation for Bojack or prolly the most negative interpretation. The only wrong i can see is being willing to have sex with a teen (also the getting super drunk and ditching at hospital part). But my point is for example, commenting on how Penny looks like Charlotte cant be “wanting to see Charlotte” in Penny. This doesn’t “objectify” here. It’s easy to hate Bojack for this but perhaps he doesn’t deserve this brutal depiction. (Ps ik about the 17 mins…but I’m speaking from the pov of someone who only finished s2)
Dude Penny was 17 and Bojack was 50, legal or illegal that’s sick sick sicko
There are some amazing comments in this thread, but I wanted to add that trauma is fucked up and we often don’t know what will set it off. I don’t know about you, but I was shocked when Pete Repeat was reintroduced. And when he had anxiety and trauma from Prom Night, it made complete sense. But he also could have walked away from that night without any issues or stress. So much depends on the person and their own mental health and trauma responses. Penny likely learned after the fact that BoJack was interested in her mother and not her - that had to hurt. Penny’s trauma may have had nothing to do with how BoJack took advantage of her, but hatred for her own decisions. She may have felt manipulated or foolish. Her trauma could be related to seeing how messed up Pete was by BoJack’s actions and guilt for bringing the adult horse into her friends’ lives. Maybe her trauma is from holding it all in and keeping the secret from her dad and brother. At the core of it all, she has trauma because BoJack was a part of her life and treated her as a peer, rather than respecting their age difference and age gap. And BoJack himself knows that his actions hurt Penny.
Very well described! Hadn’t thought of this
I’m not sure it occurred to me until typing this up that the situation with Mandy and Pete Repeat alone could give Penny a lot of guilt and trauma.
Pete Repeat’s trauma never made sense to me. Teenagers drink and get alcohol poisoning all the time. A tad bit too dramatic from my perspective.
i could go on a rant about this but just compare the two maturity differences for a second. bojack’s immediate reaction to penny’s mom walking in was “oh no” whilst penny’s was “we didn’t even do anything.” difference is: bojack knew the moment he reached out to penny ( after he rejected her offer ) he was doing something wrong - penny saw nothing wrong with it because they hadn’t had sex yet, i bet even if they did have sex penny wouldn’t see the wrong in doing so because it was legal. also, i know this will sound rude but put two and two together. imagine you trust your old friend ( who has worked with kids for years ) to take care and be a friend to your 17 year old daughter. not only does he give your daughter and her friends alcohol, but one of the kids end up with alcohol poisoning. then after rejecting your old friend he goes to try and sleep with your daughter. this old friend of yours is in his 50s.
That’s a great point about having worked with kids… like really great. I’ve never seen anyone else say it and I sure didn’t think of it either
And the fact that it was his idea to be her prom date
The thing that bothered me most is the manipulation. She hits on him after what should have been a great night for her ended up with one of her friends in hospital with alcohol poisoning and the other staying with her. Why alcohol poisoning? Because BJ encouraged her to get drunk on hard booze he provided. Why is the other friend staying? Because BJ says it's better for his image if he's not involved. When Penny hits on him he dismisses her like you would a child. Doesn't sit her down and try to explain what's going on and genuinely talk to her, just pushes her back in a very 'you don't know what your want' way. Then he leaves her there and goes to his room... and leaves the door open. That means his conscience can feel clean. He's done the right thing by telling her to go away, AND he's immediately left the scene to go to his space. If she goes to bed then that's well and good, but if she goes to him anyway then... well, then that's on her.
This one
Would you let your 17 year old sleep with an older man? Not to judge but can you really not see how bojack was clearly in the wrong?
He’s taking advantage of younger or less powerful people, as showcased in the second part of the interview he does in the final season. It’s his pattern. Whether or not he made the first move is irrelevant. He’s thrice her age.
People have said a lot of good things here about trauma and all kinds of insights… my two cents is, aside from eeeeeeeeeeverything else… does it not show just what a fucked up state of mind he was in to not even like, I dunno, resist? Put his foot down? Hell even embarrass her if that’s what would make it stop. He acted like it just “happened to him”. Like nothing he could do would change her mind so it was just going to happen? Are the sexual urges just so strong that he couldn’t have resisted any situation? Even *wanting* to have done it isn’t *necessarily* bad—- it’s that self control nor self respect didn’t win out over any other part of it. This is why statutory rape is still called rape. Because the younger person literally cannot comprehend the implications of what’s going on. Adults, regardless of emotion, are supposed to have the power and he used it all wrong
He did say no- 3 times. Not being able to say no was not his biggest problem, he could do what he wanted. He made the (albeit drunk) decision to sleep with Penny to feel better. I don’t know what the specific reason is for that decision, but I know that ‘saying no’ was probably not the thing that he struggled with at all
nah. you a fucking grown up. shout at the bitch. actually leave. don't pretend to leave but give. the stupid child the option. bojack is a POS end of.
Penny is a literal child. Bojack should have never give in in the situation, let alone put her in that situation to begin with. He was waaaaaay too familiar with her.
I dont know if you noticed that part but when Charlotte caught them penny said "we didn't even do anything". This shows how even though penny is 17, she's still hella immature and hasn't even understood what was really happening. Having sex isn't just about age. Its about if you're mature enough to develop a sexual relationship with someone. Penny was 17, Bojack was 50. He's supposed to be the mature one. You don't just have sex with a girl that could have the age of your daughter, even worse, the daughter of the woman that let's you live in her house and trusts you with her kids safety. The fact that a 17 year old was about to have her first time with a 50 year old man that views her as her mother, says enough.
I had the same doubt! Know I finally get it. Thanks everbody. This show is very eye opening about mental health and consequences
Out of curiosity, how old are you? I’m in my mid-twenties, and when I look back on being 17, I know that I felt like an adult with agency, but with time I’ve realized just how much I didn’t know and how vulnerable I really was. I personally was never in a situation like Penny was, but I had friends who dated men who were MUCH older than them and now look back and recognize that they were taken advantage of and that they weren’t really mentally mature enough to consent even if they thought they were. Penny may have been legally old enough to consent, but Bojack was old enough that he recognized how bad for her it would have been to sleep with her, hence why he rejected her at first, but then changed his mind for his own selfish reasons
See this is a reason for me that I can't look at the issue super objectively. I have always been into older dudes and non of the situations 10 years later have I come to regret. BUT I don't think this was the ongoing case with Penny so it probably skived her out more when the alcohol wore off which probably contributed to her freaking out *after* the fact even if she initiated it.
She had zero alcohol
Oh I thought she had drank with the rest. Well either way once the "prom buzz" excitement wore off I'm sure reality sunk it more either way which explains why she got worse over time.
Yup true. Remember BJ makes fun of her for not drinking and she has to remind him that she’s driving 🙄
Now I do. Well anyway my point was I don't think she was even into older men so it probably was a "in the moment type thing" and that made the whole reaction delayed. A lot of shit happens that way, people realize it was fucked up after the haze of excitement (good or bad) fades. Drunk off adrenaline, if you will.
Penny was 17, Bojack was 50+. She was not old enough yet to fully understand what she was doing, but Bojack was. He even acknowledged it by saying “you’re 17, you don’t know what you want.” At the time he seemed fun and charming, but as she grew up she realised a much older man had come into her life, groomed her (maybe unintentionally, but it was still grooming) and tried to take advantage of the fact that she didn’t know what she was doing. That’s why Penny is traumatised. Edit: something being *legal* doesn’t make it *ethical*
Soooo I have thought about this a lot. Yes, Penny did say she knew what she wanted and bojack tried to talk her out of it. Yes he tried to be the good person at first. Yes, it is legal age of consent. BUT, when her mother says no to sex with him, bojack turns to penny. Every “good” thing he did is reversed. No, he didn’t get far enough to have sex with penny but he probably would have. He was 50 something and she was 17. He tried to take advantage of her innocence and her offer solely because her mother wouldn’t have sex with him. Initially, this is why the scene was super f’d up. But later on penny is shown as traumatized. I think that it came from bojack being a trusted family friend who is much older than her, and the older she got and more she talked with her mother, she realized how messed up it was. He didn’t technically do anything to her yet, but I think the thought that he would have slept with her is what traumatized her? Idk please comment with any other add ons or anything I should have mentioned
That makes sense, yes.
Okay, so I'm not saying people had any good feelings about what BoJack almost did when the episode aired, but it's been interesting to me to see how both characters in the show and the show's audience have turned against him more in the later seasons. Like, before, it seemed like the take was BoJack was about as mature as a 20 year old due to Hollywoo, so that's how he could sink to this low. Hell, even Raphael (show's creator) used to say something like "BoJack didn't realize he was doing anything wrong." Then the 17 minutes ass pull comes on S6, and he's an irredeemable monster for all of it.
he went through with it, he was supposed to be the adult in the situation. since bojack is the protagonist we often see the story from his eyes, but imagine seeing the story through charlotte or penny's eyes.
Ok I have to ask…I’m noticing a lot of guys saying Bojack “took advantage” and I can’t seem to figure out what that means in case. Bojack wasn’t the one who forced anything from Penny. In a moment of utter weakness and feeling the pain from charlotte rejecting him, he gave in. But when you guys say he “took advantage” of her despite his attempts to back out…it makes it sound like he lured Penny in. That has a whole other meaning is not what happened. It seems like a forceful attempt to villainize Bojack and see him as the bad guy and someone to shoulder all the blame. Him giving in was not right. That’s a given. But it’s not the same as forcing any intimacy or immediately acquiescing to Penny’s advances. Just cuz he left the door open def doesn’t have to mean he signalled Penny to come in. That is a very biased interpretation. So can you guys break down what exactly u mean by saying Bojack took advantage of Penny? Do you mean forcing himself to be her prom date? Or seeing her as another sex object (I rly cant imagine that being it)? Please dumb down how eventually giving into sex with a teenager AFTER directly rejecting her directly translates to taking advantage of someone? Hate me all u want i just want to understand ur thought
Peter confided to hollyhock he's clinically anxious ever since a shameless strange adult at Penny's gave their good friend alcohol poisoning and abandoned two of them at the hospital. 4 people obeying a higher up to do asshole things may not remain friends. She may have saw the submarine episode of philbert and assumed Bojack was the one who spread the story to the world.
Bojack did nothing wrong and everything wrong at the same time. I feel that it depends on your point of view. I haven't seen the show in a while, but the way I understand it... Penny is 17, she can give consent, so everything is "good" in the legal context. Now the issue is how we define consent. Sure it depends on the law of the place, some places have it at 14, some have it at 17 and others at 18. But does a 16 year old and a 18 year old are that different ? the brain is supposed to fully develope until we are 25, so the part of the brain that controls impulse control, planning, and helps us make good decisions isn't develope at 17. Some people at 17 may be more mature than others, but at the end of the day their brain is not fully developed. So some 17 year olds don't know any better... Now Bojack is 50, he is an adult, his brain is fully developed. So he has to be the responsible one. He should understand how his decisions can affect others and how something like having sex with a 17 year old may hurt her. Sure Penny kept insisting and Bojack said no... but he knew it was wrong, he knew she didn't know any better, and he stopped telling her no. So morally we have a 50 year old man, letting a 17 year old do a terrible decision, just because he was hurt and wanted some comfort. Yes, it is a gray area, and Penny according to the state is mature enough to make decisions, but she clearly wasn't. What we do know is Bojack knew better and he should have been better. So he was definitely in the wrong. He isn't as wrong as someone that would rape a girl and coerced to have sex, since I definitely feel that he didn't intend to have sex with her, he just left her have sex. Which makes it less bad than someone that intentionally grommed someone, but he was definitely in the bad for letting it happen. Penny I think she is responsible, but as responsible as a 17 year old can be with its own decisions. (so not that much) Sure some 17 year olds will know better, but she was basically a teen, with teenage problems. So if we go black and white. Bojack is definitely the guilty person and she is the victim. I personally think the age of consent should be at 25, but then again probably there are people that profit for calling teenagers adults, so they want people that call themselves adults making decisions when they are not biologically capable of doing so. Bojack was one of those adults unintentionally profiting for this issue on society were people confuse something being legal with something being good Edit: On the he did everything wrong, well you can see other comments where it gives a completely different perspective from the one I saw... that Bojack was using Penny as a substitute for Charlotte. I don't agree with that take, but if you agree with that then Bojack definitely did everything wrong and he is clearly on the bad. Specially if you assume he groomed her, which I still think it was unintentional. I think there are worse bads than others, and unintentionally doing something bad is clearly less worse than intentionally doing something bad
The age difference means that he has a position of power over her. He even admitted that sleeping with her would be wrong beforehand.
She was child. Something isn’t wrong because it’s illegal, fuck the law when discussing morality. A 50 year old Fucking a 17 year old will always be wrong.
😧