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Photo Credit: Netflix
Tucca & Bertie – May 3
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As you can probably tell from the animation style of this series about the friendship between two bird women, the show was created by BoJack Horseman illustrator Lisa Hanawalt. The series is like BoJack Horseman in the sense that the anthropomorphic animal characters experience deeply human concerns and face relatable life situations. The series stars Tiffany Haddish as the outgoing Tuca the toucan and Ali Wong as the shy and anxious Bertie the songbird. As Amanda Hess of the New York Times points out, “Cartoons are typically made for children, and adult cartoons are typically made for man-children.” This is the rare cartoon that is written from the perspective of and aimed at adult women.
And as a cartoon about women, it might be off-putting for some who don’t like to admit to the gross, bodily, sexual – in short, human – side of women, but for Hanawalt, that is very much the point. “It was very important to me to show that women are gross,” she explains. There are so many unrealistic and lofty standards that women are held to that ultimately dehumanize them, and one of those standards are not being “gross.” Being human is sometimes gross, therefore Tuca & Bertie will sometimes be gross. And despite the fact that they are birds, they will be very human indeed.