"What would make my work/life balance
even on point-ier? Then it hit me: more work!" Bojack Horseman's Princess Carolyn
is the spirit animal of the working woman today. "I'm too busy doing it all to pose
for a photo of women who do it all." This tireless Hollywoo agent-turned
manager lives to work and she's sensational at her job. But for many years her workaholism
wreaks havoc on her personal life and comes at great emotional cost. "So yesterday you let yourself
fall in love a little bit and you got your
heart broken. Serves you right
for having feelings." Through this character,
Bojack Horseman shines light on the hard trade-offs
and persistent inequalities that continue to plague
modern working women. Over time, though,
as she figures out what she's really looking for
at the office and at home, her story sends
the reassuring messages that it's okay for work to be
a huge part of your sense of self and that you can find
a customized work/life balance that works for you. "And with Todd watching the baby,
my work/life balance is on point." Here's our take on the incomparable
Princess Carolyn and the complexities of the contemporary career woman. "Don't worry, I'm not just going to sit
around batting a ball of yarn around while you do the real work. I want to take your project
to the next level." You're watching The Take. Thanks for watching and
be sure to share and subscribe. Before we go on, this video was done
with a special collaboration with our insightful and hilarious
friends at Wisecrack. Stay tuned at the end of the video
for where you can watch their take on two of our favorite shows:
Bojack Horseman and The Good Place. And how each one thinks about death. Princess Carolyn's story does justice
to both the rewards and the pitfalls of the working woman character type. Like the most inspiring working women
on screen she embodies the power in pouring so much energy into doing
what you love and being the best at it. "While you were blabbering on, I had our lit assistant
take care of everything. A navel gaze-y book of observations. Sounds fun." "No I-" "I sold it! You have
six months. Enjoy the process." She's essential and ubiquitous,
enterprising and indefatigable, always rational
and cool in a crisis. "I need your help. I've done
something bad, very bad." "Put the corpse on ice,
I'm on my way." Princess Carolyn brings unbridled rive,
passion and creative problem solving to what she does. "I worked on it all night, the thing
that's gonna save your career." Princess Carolyn's habit of speaking in
unbelievably long, punny tongue twisters "Courtly roles like the formerly portly
consort are Courtney Portnoy's forte," echoes her vigorous mind that's always
in motion and the zeal with which she
performs any task. "Are you saying that Van Sant camp
wants to recant on Van Camp? Because they can't!" Princess Carolyn's excellence at work
is all the more impressive considering she clawed
her way up from nothing through sheer force of will. "So you've gone from daughter of a maid
to head of your own company." For all that the show
relishes what's great about Princess Carolyn's
professional drive, it also never sugar coats
the hardships and tough choices she faces precisely because
she's a working woman. Look at the emotional labor
she performs for the clients who seem to be helpless
without her. Much of her time is spent
building people up "You're bright and you're funny and
you're handsome and you're talented." managing egos, "Bojack will go on TV and explain this
unfortunate faux pas du fromage. Won't you Bojack?" "Ugh fine, once again hero Bojack
will clean up everyone else's mess." and offering a sympathetic ear. "Hey champ! Everything okay?" Emotional labor often falls
disproportionately on the shoulders of women, and all this thankless work
must be squeezed in around handling a mountain
of actual business. Adding to PC's impossible workload
is the fact that she's usually surrounded by male incompetence. "Hope you like
kicking ass, Charlie, because that's all
we're gonna do today." "My tie got stuck in
the copier this morning." From the beginning, her career
has been an uphill battle against ingrained and
institutional sexism. She starts as an assistant to
a sleazy agent who offers her no oppurtunities
for advancement. "Oh again with this I want to
be a female agent thing. They don't even
have a word for it! Agentess... Agenttrix." "It's just called agent Marv!" It takes more than a decade before
she can graduate to becoming a high power agent herself. Yet even then her achievements often
go overlooked or unappreciated. "You screwed up!" "Once! In 23 years! All these years
I've carried you when no one wanted
to work with you, and I still managed
to get you jobs." But while it's not fair that
she has to constantly be better than the men around her
just to stay unfloat, this unyielding pressure does
contribute to PC's ability to operate on a higher level than the rest. "Today one agent did something that
no one else could!" I'll give you two hints,
catcher and rye." "Oh, it was nothing." "Charlie Witherspoon caught a rye bagle
coming out of the toaster!" Being a career woman who's lasted
as long as she has, at times Princess Carolyn
struggles to balance to savvy cynicism that's a job requirement
in her industry, "In everyone's head you've apologized
for the really bad stuff without legally
implicating yourself." "Does that work?" "All the time!" with retaining
a compassionate side. "He's kind of in a bad place right now,
we can't just drop him" During the assistants' strike
in season six, she and Lenny Turtletaub
villainously bribe and manipulate the strike leaders
to maintain the status quo, so that agents
won't have to stop treating entry-level
workers like garbage. "I'd have to talk it
over with my colleagues." "Why? Those are assistants. You're not one of them anymore. You're one of us." But in the end, it's the memory of
her past as an assistant that brings her to do the right thing, by connecting the strikers with the
supremely competent Judah. "If you're serious about
negotiating with the assistants, it's imprudent to send the message
you don't respect our time." So as much as she's been shaped by
working in a sometimes-dirty business she managed to avoid becoming
that cautionary tale of the hardened career woman
who's lost sight of the bigger picture. "You want this life,
those choices are necessary." Most centrally, Princess Carolyn
embodies the fundamental struggle that working women have been
trying to figure out ever since they entered the office:
work-life balance. "You can get me a date for tonight. Actually, make that three dates. Who knows when I'm gonna get
another night off?" The career woman character type
is usually painted as so devoted to her job that
she lacks any semblance of a personal life. "You haven't been on
a date in two years." This is a chicken-or-the-egg dilemma,
is she alone or struggling in her relationships because she's always
put her career first, or does she throw
herself into her work because she's trying to
avoid the messiness of her lackluster private life. "I didn't think you'd take
the time to know who you are. You're always working." If the working women
does have a family, her commitment to her job
is often framed as a major source
of marital tension. "This is so not great!" "I'm sorry that I have to work
while I'm here. It's called
being on assignment!" And for those who do
achieve some balance between parenthood
and motherhood, inevitably some compromise
at work is necessary. "You have different priorities now. You cut back on your clinical hours, you log in less time in the O.R. I mean,
you don't do research and I get it." All these depictions get at
hard truths that apply much as ever in our world today. "Having it all" remains elusive. All too often women
are actually punished for trying to have it both ways, "Actually, you've been
late rather frequently. There was the deposition last Tuesday,
and the motion hearing last Friday, and you left early on Monday." "Way to watch my back Fern." or forced to make a difficult choice
about what they value most. "Tucker gave me an ultimatum. The fellowship, or our marriage." But in spite of the reality as
Princess Carolyn confronts, today this character type
must also perform the perfect, effortless appearance
of having it all. "It's a photoshoot for women
who do it all. The kids are part of the all,
otherwise we'd just be 'women who do.'" This is the root of Princess Carolyn's
rivarly with Vanessa Gekko, who is naturally gifted
at this performance. "Wow, being a mom helped me career? I really can have it all!" When things don't come so easily
the career women often feels pressure to hide her struggles. As we see in Princess Carolyn's
difficult journey toward motherhood. We eventually learn she's experienced
the devasting pain of five miscarriages. but she keeps this a secret,
even from her supportive partner Ralph Stilton,
until they're breaking up. "You've had two miscarriages now--"
"Five." "What?" "I've had five miscarriages. One last year, now one,
and three others before. But it's whatever,
it's okay." Princess Carolyn's instinct to conceal
her true desires reflects the way that women who work fear that
they're seen as falling short if they don't have
families by a certain age. In Set It Up, hotshot reporter Kirsten
turns down all invitations to baby showers and weddings, because she's self-conscious
about being single. But when she gets engaged, she suddenly feels comfortable
attending these events. "You just have Mary's baby shower,
but I already caneled that for you." "Oh, I'll go to that now." "You will?" "Well, I'll finally have something
that they'll want to talk about." Kirsten's words expose that no matter
how amazing a woman is at her career, in society's eyes this will always pale
in comparison to that ultimate ideal of female achievement:
being a wife and mother. "Funny business a woman's career. The things you drop on your way up the ladder so you can move faster. You forget you'll need them again when you get back to being a woman. It's one career all females
have in common." Through this lens,
Princess Carolyn's sadness at not being able to have a baby
takes on a new significance, it's as if she feels that she's failed at
the job of being a woman. "My mother had 12 kids,
my body was made for this, we just gotta
keep tick tick ticking." One of Princess Carolyn's greatest
strengths in her job is that she knows how to spin
a good story. "I saw the whole thing. Mr. Peanutbutter
said 'I'm a sad dog,' and jumped right
in front of the car. I think he's a really
sad dog you guys. You know like the meme!" She works in an industry
that creates stories on screen, and her domain is
carrying this over into the real world
as she helps clients craft public narratives
of their lives. "So Sarah Lynn. That's okay,
we can spin this!" On the personal level PC has
modeled her whole life on a story. When she was young she would
religiously watch The Amelia Earhart Story
for inspiration. "But a woman's never flown
to the sun before." So Princess Carolyn imagined herself
a pioneering woman who would one day soar
to great heights, reflecting the power in envisioning
a bright future for yourself and then manifesting it. Spinning stories is actually
a fundamental part of how we all cope
with reality. As Joan Didion writes, "We tell ourselves stories
in order to live... We live entirely...by the imposition
of a narrative line upon disparate images, by the ‘ideas’ with which
we have learned to freeze the shifting
phantasmagoria which is our actual experience." "Do you need the movie star speech?" "Yeah." "Carolyn, you are the star of a movie,
and this is the part of the movie where you get your
heart broken." Over time though, Princess Carolyn’s
talent for making raw material into whatever she wants it
to be backfires on her. "If you spend a lot of time
with stories, you start to believe that
life is just stories -- and it's not. Life is life." If you’re always shielding yourself
by seeing what you want to see, eventually you start to forget
that the truth matters. "That's so sad, because
there's so little time and what are
we doing with it?" In the season four episode “Ruthie,”
which is framed by Princess Carolyn’s
great great great granddaughter telling the story of
her ancestor persevering "For ancestry day I'm gonna
tell you a particular story about one particular day
on which Princess Carolyn faced and overcame particular adversity." it’s revealed that Ruthie is
a figment of PC’s imagination, an escapist coping mechanism
that our heroine falls back on in stressful times. "But it's... fake." "Yea well, it makes me feel better." And this tendency to avoid unpleasant
truths comes through in her love life. "When we first met I was
looking for something in my life, and I wanted it
so badly that I made myself believe you were it." Just look at her season one
boyfriend Vincent Adultman, who everyone but Princess Carolyn
can see is just three children stacked on top of each other. "What's your name stud?" "Vincent.. uh.. Adult..man." "You hear that Bojack? Vincent is
an adult and I'll bet he knows how to treat a lady." or her season two boyfriend,
the married Rutabaga Rabbitowitz, who brazenly manipulates her. "I had to register
the corporation in your name." "What?" And despite how obvious it is that she
and Bojack are a bad match romantically, "We're just two lonely people trying
to hate ourselves a little less," in season six, she reveals that
the reason she stands by him so long is that she needs to believe in
a beautiful narrative of their shared past. "And when I tell my daughter the story
of the great love of my life, I want it to have a happy ending." Princess Carolyn can also be restricted
by our culturally prescribed narrative of who the career woman is. "Starting now you are
a hard, hearltess career gal. Go to work, be awesome at it, and don't waste time on
foolish flights of fancy." She subconsciously conforms to
the popular idea of this character type
as unemotional, independent, and tough-as-nails. "From now on, you're a robot. Beep bop boop blerp bleep." Yet while this helps Princess Carolyn
make sense of her life by fitting it into familiar narrative terms, her belief that she shouldn’t
depend on anyone "It's just really
hard to need people," leads her to push people away and
repress her extreme emotional pain. "Ralph, Hey!" In season four, her breakup with Ralph,
the best boyfriend she’s ever had is largely due to her clinging to
this unrealistic, damaging idea of total self-sufficiency. "You can't keep stuff like this
from me, it's not okay!" "It's not about you." Even when she at last finds
happiness with Judah, she fears losing
a part of herself as she settles
into a happy marriage. "I'm afraid that if I let
someone else take care of me, that I'm not really
me anymore. I'm afraid of getting too comfortable,
you know, going soft." So ultimately, it’s not her
ingrained storytelling habits but opening up to new,
unconsidered possibilities "Anyone can just have a baby,
but to adopt one..." that frees Princess Carolyn
to live her best life. "What if you deserve
to be happy and this is the thing
that will make you happy?" She learns to be
the author of a new story, rather than escaping
into clichéd fantasies or accepting the limited
narrative options presented to her. "If you're holding out
for something better, well, I hate to break it to you, but you're going to be
alone for a long time." "I'm not afraid of being alone. And you might want to find
someplace else to work, because you're not coming with me." Refreshingly, the solution to PC’s woes
isn’t work-life balance in the traditional sense, at least not meaning
that she must be devoting equal hours and attention
to both spheres. "I'm dying here, Bojack. I need my job. I love my job." Her journey is about accepting that
she is a career woman first, and that the version of “balance”
that’s right for her is weighted more toward time at the office
than being at home. "I don't think you actually want
perfect and serene and enough time to finally catch up
on The Good Wife. Stop kidding yourself
Princess Carolyn, if you really wanted the simple life
you'd have a simple life." Work is where Princess Carolyn is
most empowered most herself. Being a mom doesn't come
as naturally to her. "Work makes sense to me,
and I'm good at it. I don't feel that way
about my baby." But when first she’s
deciding on a name, the joke that she’s
going to call her daughter "Untitled Princess Carolyn Project," foreshadows something important. "She is your client now." Ironically,
cracking the new motherhood code comes from thinking
of it as another job. "Do you love all your clients projects?" "Of course." "No you don't. But you take care of
them and you keep them alive because that's your job. So now you've got a new job." In fact, she’s already been playing the
mother for years before adopting Ruthie, since she’s constantly taking
care of everyone around her. "Oh sorry, it's work, everyone
I work with is such a baby." The next part of the process is
finding the right support system. Early in season six when PC is
trying to do everything herself. At last, she can’t avoid the fact that
the rigid, go-it-alone narrative she’s bought into for
so long is not sustainable. She learns one of the
working mom’s key lessons: that it’s all about the team
you cultivate to support you. Her life starts to improve when she finds the perfect fulltime nanny
for her family, Todd, even though he’s not
the one most might choose based on a resume. "I do know her routine and all of
her favorite foods and how to do funny voices
for bedtime stories." She also recruits her
former assistant Judah "You're the best assistant
I ever had!" to be her company's new
chief of operations, thus taking a lot of
the more tedius work that's been sucking up her time
off her plate. "There's always so much stupid
bullshit to take care of there." "Aren't you the boss? Why are you
doing the stupid bullshit?" When her relationship with Judah grows
into a romantic partnership, the match is fitting, it captures
how merged her career is with her intimate personal self. Judah is her right hand at the office, "Actually come to think of it our new
Robin Hood sounds pretty good. Judah?!" "Maybe from Maid Marion's
point of view?" "Directed by Sophia Coppola?" he knows her completely,
and admires the deeply strong, resourceful person she is at work. "If there's one thing
I know about this business, it's never underestimate
what Princess Carolyn can do by herself." In Judah, she also finds someone
who takes care of her for once. "I forgot a gift!" "You have two options,
this sourdough starter, or a haiku I wrote on a grain of rice
and then suspended in a bottle." "Uh.." "Why don't we just say
they're both from both of us." This calls back to a comment Bojack
makes earlier in the season about the big thing missing
from PC’s life. "You are producing a show,
running a company, catering to your clients,
raising a child, a Todd. You need your own Princess Carolyn
to take care of you." Finally, the last step towards
a work-life balance that works for her is learning to draw boundaries. "Would you work for a client who has
no regard for you time, your personal boundaries
and your general wellbeing?" "Yes, that's all my clients." This comes through in
her endpoint with Bojack, who has long been
one of her most high-maintenance, exhausting, unappreciative clients. "Here's a list of directors
who won't work with him, studios that won't hire him, former assistants
with restraining orders." After she’s cleaned up his
messes for years, he finally has a screw up
too big for her to fix. "I told you to do just
the one interview and go back to Connecticut." "But... it's gonna be okay right?" This frees her to at last to
draw a dividing line between their personal
and professional relationship, as she makes it clear she’s no longer
interested in representing him. "I can recommend some excellent people." All of these strategic moves allows her
to rediscover her joy at work. For much of the show, she reveals
the very relatable truth that a workaholic can
become so focused on just doing the job that
they lose sight of their why. "Don't give your
whole life to this job. Because if you do, someday someone will
finally ask you what you want and you'll realize
you don't even know anymore." The show underlines this in season six,
when she gets the chance to run Lenny Turtletaub’s
new female-focused studio division, Girtletaub, and seems to blank on why
she even wants this opportunity. "I don't remember my dreams. Did I ever even have dreams?" When she decides not to do
the straightforward thing and to instead go her own way. "This slate we're putting together. We could get some financiers
and do it ourselves, right?" This represents liberating herself
from work just for work’s sake, or work on someone else’s terms. So Princess Carolyn’s endpoint sends
the important message that work-life balance isn’t
one size fits all. She finds the specific solution
that’s best for her, one where she spends
most of her time at the office, but isn’t dragged down by annoying
busywork or people wrangling, and gets to enjoy quality
mother-daughter time. "Your first task is to clear
my schedule every third Friday. I'm taking them off
to be with my daughter." Princess Carolyn’s work day consists
of constantly thinking about and facilitating the dreams of others, and it genuinely seems to give her
a thrill to help them succeed. "I went through hell and back today,
but it was worth it. Because I got you a job!" But over time, it emerges that
Princess Carolyn herself is the true star in her field, "You're Princess Carolyn,
you can do anything!" for her resourcefulness,
her fierce loyalty, and her trademark feline ability
to land on her feet. "Princess Carolyn always
lands on her feet!" "You'll figure it out. Princess Carolyn
always lands on her feet." And this is perhaps the most
valuable quality for anyone who hopes
to succeed professionally. God knows it’s hard out here for
the working woman, but if we can take
our hits and keep going, we won’t just get
that promotion, dream job, or perfect work/life balance,
we’ll earn it. "Woah woah woah, Carolyn we
just-come... Carolyn." "My name is Princess Carolyn." Life without new episodes of
Bojack Horseman is hard on us all. So, for more great, deep-thinking
Bojack content head over to Wisecrack to watch their new video comparing
the shows philosophy to that of another series we love,
The Good Place. Wisecrack's video explores how
both series suggest that death is what gives meaning
to our lives but their take aways
about what that meaning is and what happens when you die
couldn't be more different. After that video we highly recommend
that you go down a rabbit hole of binging Wisecrack's videos
and subscribe to their channel. It's full of smart video essays and
they also happen to be seriously funny. Check out their signature series like,
The Philosophy of, Deep or Dumb, and What Went Wrong. Thanks for watching!
