What Diane’s Trip to Vietnam in Bojack Horseman Means to Me

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself starting Bojack Horseman on the recommendation of both my best friend and the TikTok algorithm. Within the first few episodes, I became obsessed with the witty dark comedy and was binging it whenever I had a moment to spare. After watching the season five premiere, I innocently clicked the ‘Next Episode’ button to move along in the story I had so quickly grown attached to. What followed was a nuanced look into navigating the space between foreign and American identities that was all too familiar.

Diane Nguyen’s trip to Vietnam is an escape. After witnessing her “soon to be ex-husband,” Mr. Peanutbutter, kiss someone else at a party, she packs a bag and heads to the airport. She tells the receptionist that she needs “to get as far away from Los Angeles as possible” and the receptionist suggests the only on-time flight, a trip to Hanoi, Vietnam. Diane is delighted at the opportunity to explore her ancestral home and culture. Upon arriving in Hanoi, she receives a call from her boss demanding that she write a piece about her brief stay. Diane drafts an article titled, “10 Reasons to Go to Vietnam” and declares that Reason #1 is “To Reconnect With Your Ancestral Roots”. 

Many immigrant families feel the need to assimilate, but the Nguyens almost entirely abandoned their background altogether. In an earlier episode, one of Diane’s brothers groans that “all the jobs are going to immigrants these days”, to which Diane has to remind him that they are also immigrants. Her brother insists that the family is “American as pho,” which is a Vietnamese soup dish. The irony behind the creative f-word substitute presents the Nguyens’ Vietnamese heritage as a present but largely ignored. More subtly, it shows how food can also serve as one of the few reminders of a distant culture. The familiar smells of eba and jollof rice have been hallmarks of my upbringing in a Nigerian household. After a long day of socializing with people who didn’t understand my background, I could sit down for a home-cooked meal that connected me to a country over 5,000 miles away.

When a local bumps into Diane and starts speaking Vietnamese, assuming Diane was a native speaker, Diane starts to say, “I don’t speak-”, but settles on a dejected “I don’t understand you” which speaks how she doesn’t understand her place in Vietnamese culture as a whole. Language is arguably one of the most important aspects of culture because it allows you to communicate with the people around you. Hearing Diane so heartbroken reminds me of how my own language escaped me. My mother sometimes tells stories of our little family in Nigeria, how I spoke Yoruba at the age of 2 with a quick tongue. Those anecdotes are so distant to me now; I forgot not only how to speak the language, but also its memory. My bilingual parents speak to me in a language with a shared rich and complex history, yet I can only respond in a language that is not their own. They can speak freely with each other, but they have to process their children’s words. It only takes seconds, but I think of those moments as the space between. The space between here and there’ the metaphorical distance between the only place I’ve ever really known and the place I’m not supposed to forget.

Diane shortly realizes that Vietnam is “more foreign than [she] expected”. She isn’t used to seeing her “[last]name everywhere and so many faces that look like [her] face”. When you’ve grown accustomed to being a stranger everywhere you go, the comfort of familiarity can feel confining. Diane came to Vietnam to find herself, but only found her name and face worn by different, happier people that she can’t understand, nor do they understand her. Defeated, she returns to her hotel room to try on the traditional Vietnamese clothing she purchased. In her bright red áo dài and conical nón lá, Diane admits that “it feels like a costume”. She sees herself as no different from any American traveler because “this is not [her] home; [she’s] a tourist here”. Watching Diane stand awkwardly in front of her hotel bedroom mirror, I immediately recognize her pain because I’ve been avoiding it for years. While my family members buzzed at the opportunity of spending a summer in Nigeria, I dreaded being alone for even a moment in a foreign country where no one can understand me. The idea is reminiscent of a common nightmare where the sleeper is trying to scream but no sound comes out of their mouth. Psychology Today reports that “feeling understood is crucial to your wellbeing” and the helplessness of not being heard can be detrimental to an already tumultuous sense of identity.

Trying to make the best of her unfortunate situation, Diane transforms her disappointment into excitement at the concept of simply being an American tourist. She orders fried chicken at a fast food place and eats it in the middle of a park. A white American tourist assumes that she is a Vietnamese local and asks her for directions in exaggerated simple English. When Diane insists that she is an American who speaks fluent English, the man replies, “Me America. You Vietnam”. One of the most difficult things to grapple with is that even after you accept that your identity is complex and nuanced, you will always be perceived as someone uncompromisingly alien. Diane is simultaneously an American to Vietnamese people and a Vietnamese person to Americans. 

Later in the episode, the weight of perception is tested again. An anthropomorphic bald eagle approaches Diane under the presumption that she understands very little English. He assures her that he is a “nice American dude” and a “good guy”, the script hinting at the savior complex many American men have towards Asian women. The two tourists walk around the city as the bald eagle tells Diane stories of his life in America and Diane pretends to be vaguely impressed. She admits that “it’s freeing to be this person he thinks you are; this person who isn’t bound by her own history or sadness”. The white male gaze sees foreign, especially Asian, as one-dimensional beings made for their own consumption and entertainment. This is made even more evident when the bald eagle loses interest when it’s revealed that Diane is an American who can speak English. When he realizes that he can understand Diane, he is forced to see Diane as distinctly human and therefore cannot subject her to his own projections. As an outspoken feminist throughout the show, Diane understands that she exacerbated a prevalent (and often dangerous) stereotype. She even quips that the bald eagle “got to have [his] little Miss Saigon cosplay”, referencing the musical that introduced many deeply problematic views of Asian women to the global theater.

It’s at this point that Diane understands that she cannot define herself as strictly Vietnamese or American. Both identities are precious to her, and attempting to erase one is dishonest to herself and the people around her. Wherever she goes, she will always be predefined by assumptions made about her or her character, but she wields the power of maintaining her own sense of identity.