Style for Style's Sake

Tired at work this morning. I was up late last night discussing the merits of Cowboy Bebop with my roommates. People who know me well know that I absolutely love Cowboy Bebop- it's the only anime I watch. But, and I'm putting this as mildly as I possibly can, my roommates think that it blows, fully, hardly, and unconditionally. They think that it's corny, boring, superfluous, and ultimately, style for the sake of style alone. I tried to argue that it wasn't style alone that made the series compelling; that it had an enjoyable (although sparse) storyline, gritty minimalism, the interaction between the characters. And it's true that I enjoy all of those aspects- but I realized that it wasn't the right ground to be arguing in favor of the show; because ultimately I don't think it was what the creators were going for, and it's pretty tough to defend a show on grounds where it's not necessarily trying to step. But I have to admit that my primary reason for liking Cowboy Bebop was indeed it's style, and that I fell into the same bias that I'm about to argue against. Namely, that liking or enjoying something primarily or solely because of its style is lazy for an intellectual person; that it somehow needs defending. But that's not necessarily the case.

While it's okay to like something because of it's style, there's a stigma attached to loving something primarily because of it's style. In the world of criticism, I think, that stigma- and it's certainly not an unjustifiable one- comes from a kind of intellectually sophisticated cynicism. Accordingly, something that is too stylish, too slick, inherently lacks any meaningful substance. When applied to people it makes a lot of sense. Con-men, pimps, criminals, they all hide their true intentions behind a stylish sheen that implies that something else is there. But when it comes to entertainment? The primary value of entertainment of course is to entertain, and different combinations of style and substance can suffice, as long as it's done well. I don't think it truly matters where exactly the components of value come from, just as long as they're there.

Being me I just have to use a baseball analogy. In baseball, the worth of an individual player is comprised of his offensive and defensive value. Because offense is individualized, the vast majority of the average players value comes from offense, what they can do with the bat in their hands. To accumulate an equivalent value defensively is much harder, simply because there is so much randomness on the trajectory of a batted ball. So it's certainly harder to accumulate enough value on defense to offset offensive deficiencies, but it's not impossible. It's how someone like Ozzie Smith is in the Hall of Fame (and deservedly so), but it takes an awful lot of style to mitigate deficiencies in substance. I agree with the basic premise that most of the value in entertainment is in its substance, and that most forms of entertainment (at least) that I think are classic are heavy on substance, their ability to make me think long after they're over. But it doesn't have to be that way- I can enjoy a book primarily because of the way it is written and not for the story itself (Kenzo Kitakata's Ashes), I can enjoy a rapper primarily because of his rhyme schemes and not what he says in them (Papoose), and I can enjoy an anime primarily because of its aestetic pleasure (Cowboy Bebop).

And Cowboy Bebop has an awful lot of style to spare. It's not just the animation, although it was certainly ahead of its time. It was the breadth of music, the fight scenes, the endless popular culture homages (blaxploitation, sci-fi, and film noir being the best) that were, for the most part, tastefully and hilariously incorporated, a minimalistic grittiness that was; and an attitude that was a little Clint Eastwood circa "Fistful of Dollars," a little Bruce Lee from "Enter the Dragon," and a whole lot of the late 50's early 60's bebop coolness that the show gets its name from. Not to mention incredible efforts by the American dubbed voices. It's a style that combines so much of what I like, a style that I wish I had.

(more on this later)