CH@VEZ:

Apparently, English-speakers needed an excuse to regard Todd as a Chavez, perhaps for lack of associates of mixed race, Spanish ancestry, or simply pale-faced Mexican descent. When stepfather Jorge Chavez “returns” to Todd’s Life in Season Six, appearing in fact for the first time on screen and without any prior indication that he had existed, viewers had an “a-ha” moment, as though only by having a Hispanic stepfather could Todd have been worthy of the Spanish surname. At first, it seems like the opportunity to apply his knack for misadventures towards a noble, egalitarian cause would teach father and son to atone and to understand one another as men and equals. Yet, as per usual, the cinematic universe of BoJack Horseman thrives off of the tragedy of those who feel and the comedy of those who think. When it most looks like Jorge Chavez is about to commend Todd for his good will, trusting outlook, endearing demeanour and godly karma, he defaults to perhaps the most crushing prejudice he could produce: I should have realized [why my way of doing things, according to dedication and hard work, is not Universal:] you’re white.

Personally, I felt the sting of that on multiple levels. As a first-generation immigrant from the proverbial Second World, I know that life is not easy for first-time Americans and their immediate progeny. My parents, too, had imbibed me with a number of prejudices from the Old World regarding dedication and hard work, though it did not take me long to see the error of their ways. For years, I ascribed their myopic fixation upon worldly notions of “success” to the “evils” of Life Under Communism, thinking that it was only owing to trends in Eastern Culture that most of the Honours Students, many of them Asian, were afflicted with hypocrisy, competition, and neurosis. It became clear to me, around the time I read Thoreau, that being “dedicated” was a form of tunnel vision aimed only at one’s own preservation and aggrandizement, and that life outside of dogma required an open mind, a forgiving attitude, and some luck.

Even had he not been voiced by Aaron Paul, I must imagine that Todd would have exemplified my “new virtues”. For some time, I thought of these as “American values”. The Protestant Work Ethic seemed to be entirely contrary to the Protestant Reformation, and by contrast Eastern religions, as well as the absence of religion altogether, removed the felt “necessity” to work hard when cleverness might help to attain the same ends by more sensible and humane means. Perhaps the Asians I knew personally were all overachievers, as accords the stereotype and culture, but their religions expressed a different ethos.

Yet being easygoing had little to do with being “white”. Black America taught me that any value, no matter how noble, could be subverted if it might become the expression of tyranny by one group towards another. Furthermore, it was only White America that seemed to harp on “hard work”.

I expected to find more sanity once I returned to college, having heard that “Cultural Marxism” was on the rise. Yet I was crestfallen. Liberals had begun to think only in the same banal terms as the proto-Fascists they opposed, and while there was a craze among dark bodies to tell their sob stories and phobias, the simple fact that police officers in America can’t tell Russian Jews apart from W.A.S.P.’s seemed to be the cause for my exclusion, even from the company of those people who valued inclusion most. Besides: yet again, being noble had become a cut-throat competition!!

Todd Chavez has not had it easy. Since Episode One, we have been privy to his many lives, all of them overlooked by BoJack, who only recognizes Todd’s “alternative lifestyle” as being valid if Todd is a “troubled gay teen”. Yet not only do we learn, three seasons later, that Todd is part of an even smaller sexual minority than homosexuality; we also see in that same episode that he is involved with the Mexican drug cartel.

Todd is apparently not so Nordic in appearance that he can’t pass for Latino. Five episodes later, Todd’s charming face earns him an affiliation with both the Skinheads and the Latin Kings in a Los Angeles prison, though his refusal to adhere to any ONE label almost gets him murdered, except for when his incredible luck saves him.

When Todd realizes that he is asexual, he resists labelling to the best of his ability, though he finds it impossible to escape the realities of being a sexual minority, realities which to some extent are deeply peculiar to those people who HAVE that label.

All that Todd seems to want from people, outside of what they offer him voluntarily, is to be respected unconditionally. His stepfather, given the opportunity to learn this, only otherizes Todd. And this is why Todd refuses to visit with the Mother he just saved. By his own admission, he is a Chavez, so he must be cold beneath his cheerful persona. By telling his stepfather this, he atones with the father figure, transcending whatever nostalgia for his mother he might feel. Yet he also shames the name of Chavez and all the false pride that Jorge ascribes to it. “Dunking on the olds”, perhaps for the first time, Todd at once owns his Hispanic identity and disowns its meaning.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]