Gina is understandably traumatized from how Bojack abused and strangled her, and she is justified in her discomfort around stunts etc.
However I noticed on my latest rewatch some possible B Plot / subtext on her journey - when she’s finally the star, she’s standoffish and rude to those around her (separate from trigger moments - while she’s in safe spaces), and she reminds everyone she gets to do that because she’s first on the call sheet. She’s the star and that’s her privilege as such.
I get the impression that Gina has internalized all the abuse she’s endured throughout the industry generally as her ‘rite of passage’, and now that she’s a star, she feels she is entitled to berate and bully those around her as she was herself throughout her own career. Which sucks.
No she isn’t, she has trauma from what Bojack did to her and she had to cover it all up because no one can know, in her mind, that she was really strangled. So she plays off her actual PTSD trigger episodes as being an entitled actress, because she can’t have anyone know she was just the girl who got strangled by Bojack.
Hey everybody, let’s play Blame The Victim
I don’t recall her interacting with anyone in an aggressive manner outside of situations where she was triggered. We as viewers have context the entire time we see Gina post Filbert. Her aggressive responses are reactions to triggers of her trauma. She pulls rank with the director because she doesn’t want to do any stunts which weren’t pre approved as it was a stunt which led to her being choked on set. Then during the actual stunt, the other actor takes liberty with the choreography which leaves Gina feeling helpless and lacking control. Both instances left Gina feeling like she had no control over what was happening around her. For most trauma victims, control is safety. So Gina was in a position to have some control and exercised that authority to the best of her ability. I’m not saying her actions are justified in a grand scheme, but we as viewers are supposed to understand why she is acting in such a manner.
She pulls rank with the director because she doesn’t want to do any stunts which weren’t pre approved as it was a stunt which led to her being choked on set
Yep, this is the part that spawned the thought. i wasn’t paying close enough attention that it was specific to the change in stunts.
/u/vuxlort makes a good point. the “diva” persona can be her mechanism to defend herself without have to justify her true feelings - feelings which maybe impossible given that she had to downplay and ignore being strangled
Kinda like what happened to bojack though, right? It’s like we see the cycle continue now with Gina. If we saw her story play out it would be interesting to see how she parallels bojacks life/career
I agree with a lot of things being said here but I also have another point of view
I can imagine Gina feeling like she actually is doing the work so they should be treating her with the respect for it. After seeing Bojack being high all the time and frequently not showing up to set, I can imagine she feels like she should be entitled to some respect because she is a hard worker (outside of the triggers and the trauma, which is definitely also a big part of why she was acting the way she was acting).
She saw how Bojack was handling stuff in a casual way without any reporcussions, so her putting the work in made her feel like she should be respected for it.
I think this and the trauma exists at the same time and they reinforce each other, like in the way when she got triggered during the dance scene and she tried to pull rank afterwards. She felt like she could leave because it’s definitely what happened a lot with Bojack and possibly other stars in the other shows. She probably felt entitled to also do this at that time.
It’s been a while since I saw those episodes so it’s possible I’m overlooking some details
I felt that she was using her placement the call sheet to justify to others her behavior that clearly had to do with her trauma, not that she actually felt that way