blogging is really hard! That said let's talk about Samurai Jack

I've been meaning to blog about this for a while now, but life just keeps getting in the way. Really who would have thought that blogging would be so hard? So constraining? You would think it would be one of the easiest, most liberating parts of class. No dice. Huh…

Anyway, this post is not about blogging, despite outward appearances, it's about TV. I've been getting DVDs of television series on my Netflix lately because I discovered that I almost never have two hours of consecutive free time in which to watch a movie any more. Lately I've been watching Samurai Jack, the Cartoon Network animated series. I don't know how many of you have seen it. If you've only seen one or two episodes, you probably don't have all that high opinion of it and I can't say I blame you, but watched as a whole it's pretty damn cool and I'll tell you why!

Aside from the fact that the animation is gorgeous in its own quirky way and that it would be a great example if you were trying to argue for an essentialist animation criticism based solely on developing the visual elements of animation and its storytelling potential (rather than the wedding of image and word, as McCloud argues), because it's the creator, Genndy Tartakovsky's, signature style to have extended animation sequences devoid of dialogue and he does a lot with it. He also makes lots of visual references to all sorts of pop culture, which I love, because I'm a media whore like that.

But again, I digress; none of this is the point.
The point is: I love Samurai Jack because Jack is a good guy.
Seems simple enough right?
Nothing special, right?
But it is!

My biggest problem with television is that everyone is so mean and petty and unethical and any number of other undesirable things. Even the protagonists are bad people. I know there are all kinds of arguments about why "bad" sells, why we're drawn to it. Things like the scopophillic pleasure of watching people do the things that we cannot and the superior marketability of scandal and spectacle. Basically what all of these arguments imply is, not only that bad sells, but that, by inference, good doesn't sell; that a show with a moral, ethical main character would be a failure. And that's where Jack proves them wrong.

He lives by a strict moral code. He's respectful, polite, and firmly self-disciplined. He demonstrates great strength and perseverance in the face of apparently insurmountable adversity; he is motivated by his sense of honor, duty, and responsibility to those that depend on him. He never kills living things (though he frequently destroys vast armies of Aku’s robotic minions). The arguments for "bad" would lead you to believe that such a character would be dull, uninteresting, and ultimately a marketing flop, but it's not at all the case. I find myself far more drawn to Jack than to any other television character.

Television producers are fond of passing the buck when it comes to the real world implications of the media they create. They like to argue that their characters (like many celebrities) never set out to be role models and they can't be held accountable for anything children might do after watching their shows. Certainly I agree that parents are equally implicated here, that they shouldn't let their children watch endless amounts of television and that they should do a better job of socializing their children themselves. But the fact remains that most kids do watch TV, that they are incredibly impressionable and prone to imitating things they see, and that there are precious few TV characters that I would want my children to emulate.

I know the Samurai Jack has some issues on the level of representation of culture, that the argument could be made that stereotypes are employed, but the things is, it's not so much stereotyped culture as it is cartooned culture in the same sense that McCloud employs cartooning in regard to visual style. It's simplified; elements are emphasized or de-emphasized for better dramatic and iconic reading. Nor does the show attempt to represent these as "real" cultures existing in our world today, but rather as cultures in a futuristic otherworld that does not exist. Certainly it could have been more sensitively done, but at least it's equal opportunity. European-esque cultures are subject to the same cartooning as other cultures. Besides, you can't win them all.