CABRACADABRA and the CULTURE OF ANTI-SOCIABILITY:

CABRACADABRA and the CULTURE OF ANTI-SOCIABILITY:

In Season Three of BoJack Horseman, Todd hires displaced stripper whales to act as drivers for a cab service he calls “Cabracadabra”: A spin-off of Lyft and Uber that hires women to drive for women. Over time, the service allows male passengers, who in turn enjoy the privilege of ogling their drivers. The premise for the service develops over time:

1.   A Safe Space for Women.

2.   A Safe Space for Women AND Men.

3.   A Safe Space for Women and Men to LOOK AT Women.

The absurdity of creating a motor vehicle that is at the same time a “Safe Space” is clearly satirized by the futility of a venture that was supposed to be a solution to a NON-EXISTENT PROBLEM. Yet we would only be humouring the illusion if we said that any part of this Absurdity rested in the fact of a “stranger” operating the cab.

One begins to wonder, inevitably, why Todd decided to hire female whales to drive his cabs, exclusively. The answer is summed up in the Episode “Stop the Presses”, wherein BoJack recounts Mr Peanut Butter in turn recounting a meeting with Todd and Todd’s girlfriend Emily. Todd begins by asking: Has this ever happened to you? Mr Peanut Butter, the insufferable extravert, does not hesitate to identify with every aspect of Todd’s demonstration, wherein Todd impersonates a can driver and Emily pretends to be his passenger. The Labrador’s face only falls after Todd asks, in a tone of undue insinuation, as though crossing a line, if Emily lived alone or with a boyfriend. At this point, even the people-loving, all-embracing optimistic dog mumbles that the scenario seems “inappropriate” to him, leading the audience to wonder what sort of sinister trauma this otherwise unassailable Golden Boy is hiding under his cheerful fur. Emily, the introvert, miraculously corroborates the extravert, feigning insecurity as she describes the encounter as “uncomfortable”.

What Raphael Bob-Waksberg is trying to convey here, with his usual absence of pretentious subtlety, is the prevalence, in both Introverted and Extraverted society, of ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR. Plenty of the characters in BoJack Horseman have, if anything, overactive sex lives and romantic lives. In fact: the only EXCEPTION is TODD, who turns out to be asexual. And we only learn that after Emily PERSTERS HIM to consummate their relationship! Surprisingly enough, she is byfar less insistent and persistent once she has assigned to Todd a neat and clean label.

Despite the nymphomania running through the show, or perhaps, if the writer may speak cynically, BECAUSE of it, the characters, either by vice of projection (in the Extraverted Sphere) or simple COWARDICE and SOCIAL ANXIETY (in the Introverted Dimension) find a scapegoat in the Anonymous Stranger.

PERSONALLY: If I am going to trust some Everyman (or EVERYWOMAN, for that matter) to transport me across several miles in a mechanical death-trap that at any moment can collide into one of its fellows whose driver is intoxicated, (as tends to be the case with MANY former associates of mine, as well as their new friends on the road) I somehow have to assume the risk that my Guardian Angel will want to keep in touch if, by some miracle of Human Goodness and Sobriety, we both manage to survive the trek. I might EVEN PREFER to stay in touch, so as to ensure that this wonderful human fellow has survived his or her following adventures. I only abstain out of courtesy, of course, knowing that travelers prefer often to remain cloud-hidden, whereabouts unknown. Besides: I seldom employ a cellular phone nowadays (though of course this principle would be in exception at the time of the ride’s appointment).

As one grows older, one begins to rely less on the force of karmic habit to make associations. “Social Groups” (Whatever THOSE are), infantile complexes, and Grandiose Life Plans do not dictate Eros, that sort of Love that, in the words of Marie-Louise von Franz*, “do[es] this against the rules because I love this person.”

*The Last Psychologist.

Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments.

Especially because the truly DANGEROUS people are those that operate WITHIN the illusion of the Tribe, ALIENATING others as though they belonged to some OUT-group!! These are the TRUE opportunists who do not actually take RISKS for the sake of social cohesion and adventure but rather SABOTAGE their closest fellows out of the same self-serving COWARDICE that keeps the adolescent illusion of the Social Group together!!

One reserves the right to decline a connection, romantic or otherwise. But to BLAME an other for taking the INITIATIVE is literally and clinically psychotic. When I get in the car with someone I “do not know” (as though Knowledge were possible of ANY one, even one’s Self!!) I must assume that I am not being transported by some robot or space alien. I am being done a favour for by a PERSON, and as such he or she has as MUCH autonomy in determining the COURSE of Human Relations as I do. No dated Authority can steal that Promethean Flame.

Dm.A.A.