[Willow, narrator] I have a confession.
[Jet] you just gotta tell me.
It's probably nothing I haven't heard before.
[Willow] Okay um... I've never seen the Cowboy Bebop anime.
[Jet] I've been giving you the benefit of the doubt
[Willow] I just figured it might be fun to watch the Netflix live action version first
to see what I thought without having that comparison in mind.
[Jet] What, are you taking a dump now?
[Willow] Woah Look! I know Netflix has let us down with live action adaptations in the past
like Fullmetal Alchemist and Death Note but maybe that was just because
they tried to fit all that story into a movie instead of doing a series.
[Jet] Shutup
[Willow] Is this bit getting old yet?
In all seriousness, I really love the live action Cowboy Bebop and
it gives me a lot of hope for future adaptations. Like some of my other favorite shows and movies,
it's about people down on their luck. The crew of the Bebop are outcasts who
have been screwed over by the world and are just looking for a way to survive.
The heart of the show is about family.
How do you reconcile with the harm they've done to you?
Is it possible to start life over and find new family?
So buckle up, space partners. We're talking about Cowboy Bebop!
-[gunshot over TV]
-[peppy music playing]
[Judy on TV] It's the big one cowboys
[Punch on TV] Well, you know what that means!
It's time for...
[Willow, gruffier cowboy voice] Subscribing & clicking that bell
so you don't miss out on any future bounties.
Also, there will be quite a few spoilers for Netflix's Cowboy Bebop ahead.
[Judy] I was supposed to say that part
[Punch] Roll the vid! >
[Willow] Family isn't something most people have to give much thought to.
You're born into one and that's just the family you have. And if you want, later in life you may
start a family yourself that will add to that larger family unit you were already a part of.
Ideally, family serves as a support network. A safety net to assure
everyone has their needs met. Food, shelter, money, and emotional support just to name a few.
Family can also provide a safe space to learn and grow.
But what if you don't have a family? Maybe you never had one or you lost them?
It can be easy to overlook just how much impact this has in our world which has very few safety nets.
Cowboy Bebop like a lot of good science fiction says "what happens if our world continues down its current path."
The show takes place in the future where technology has greatly improved
and yet people are struggling more than ever to get by because even more is controlled by
[Tanaka] The shit-bag corprorations
[Willow] The crew of the Bebop put themselves in extremely dangerous situations all the time
in hopes of collecting bounties. Any job could cost them their lives and
the payouts aren't even going to last them very long. Assuming they get paid at all.
Someone could get away or the cops just decide
they don't want to pay you and kill the bounty instead.
[Spike] But you guys didn't want to pay the bounty, did you?
[Cop] Yeah, there's that too
[Willow] In a world like this, family is even more important.
And that's exactly what Cowboy Bebop explores.
Almost every character we meet has a different type of family struggle.
We see how difficult it is to create new families. Jet is an ex-cop who owns a ship called the Bebop.
While he didn't seem to have issues with the family he was born into,
Jet has struggled to form new families.
He thought he had found family on the police force
but then he was betrayed and setup for a crime he didn't commit
which caused him to lose 5 years of his life in prison.
During which he lost precious time with his daughter including her birth.
He spends a lot of time trying to connect with her as a father in any way he can throughout the show.
Whether it's doing everything he can to buy a toy she really wants
[Commercial] I'm Walking Sally I walk and talk and
I'm every little girl's favorite toy
[Willow] or making a video call during a shootout to see her star in a recital.
While in prison Jet also got divorced, and his ex-wife got together with someone he
used to consider a brother from his days being a cop.
These betrayals make it hard for Jet to be in relationships
where not everything is completely open but he also wants to give
everyone the benefit of the doubt because he knows what it feels like to be wrongly judged.
This creates conflict sometimes between
other members of the crew since they are still grappling with their own pasts.
Spike who is Jet's partner is running from his past family,
the Syndicate and Vicious. Spike was an orphan taken in when he was young,
so he felt an obligation to them for a long time.
Once he tries to leave, Vicious tries to have him killed.
And then there's Faye Valentine who is the newest crew member on the Bebop.
Faye is not even sure if she has family anywhere. The only person she thought of as a mother
is actually just a con artist who pretended to be her mother to steal benefit money that had been left for Faye.
She cannot remember her past before that as a side effect from being put in cryo sleep.
Both Spike and Faye are characters who recognized the harm being done by their family and have tried
to get away, but are still being impacted because of the controlling nature of those families.
Aside from the main cast, we also meet characters like Asimov and Katerina
who are like a Romeo and Juliet.
Both trying to get away from their controlling families as well.
Asimov is trying to escape from the Syndicate, and Katerina is fleeing from her rich father.
[Katerina] You don't know what he's like! [Faye] Everyone knows your dad.
Rich, powerful, total dick
[Willow] This is contrasted with other characters
who are still with their families that have clearly done them harm.
[Mom] Don't you want to make your mother happy?
[Daughter] I do
[slap] [painful gasp]
[Willow] This eco terrorist mother has involved her kids in her dangerous plans.
She controls them and doesn't worry about their safety at all, only worrying about her goals.
[Son 1] Mommy?
[Son 2] Mom, where are you going?
[Willow] She has no care for her children's lives or desires, only her own.
[Mom in a sing-song voice] What would mother do?
[Willow] Vicious also has lived a life ruled by his father in the Syndicate.
[thud] [Vicious grunts in pain]
[Willow] His entire life Vicious has been belittled and had his masculinity mocked
His father even going so far as to make Vicious watch his mother die by suicide
[Vicious] He started telling me how weak I was shedding a tear
[Willow] So it's not surprising that Vicious has become a massive mess of toxic masculinity.
And then of course there's Julia who feels too scared to leave the Syndicate
and her abusive husband Vicious for good reason.
While all of these characters and more struggle with family,
it was Faye Valentine's story that particularly resonated with me.
Spike already gave up the family he knew. Jet already lost his.
While Faye is still trying to figure out what she even lost.
It's through her we go on a journey of self-discovery.
Figuring out what our past means and what we want for our future.
[Willow] If you're like me and have struggled with your family of origin,
you probably will relate to Faye a lot.
There might be family secrets you should have known long ago.
Faye doesn't know who her family really was or even what her original name is.
I was almost 30 years old when I found out who I grew up with wasn't my biological father.
Faye has also missed out on her childhood and
is now having to figure out being an adult by herself.
[Faye] You have no frame of reference because you're already a grown up
[Willow] While I wasn't cryogenically frozen, I didn't have much of a childhood either.
And I definitely wasn't given much in the way of life skills.
Our schools aren't really meant for teaching that and my parents were mostly absent from my life.
But no matter how awful a family may be it's easy to feel like you owe them,
or that there is nowhere else to go.
Family is after all, the closest thing to a safety net most of us will ever have experienced.
Which makes it all the scarier to consider letting go of family you grew up with.
Who doesn't want to feel safe? But sometimes it's the only choice that gives us a chance.
Of course sometimes we don't even get that choice, just being ourselves could mean being disowned.
It wasn't until 6 years ago I realized that my family of origin wasn't healthy for me.
That it was okay to not put up with how I had been treated all my life.
Unfortunately, putting up boundaries went about as well as it did for Spike leaving the Syndicate.
We didn't quite have assassins sent after us and I don't want to get into all the details
but my wife and I did not feel we or our kids were safe where we were, so we needed to move.
We basically reset our lives. We took a huge loss on our house
as well as leaving almost all of our possessions behind to move across the country.
And while it was scary and upsetting, it actually felt really freeing also.
It was like having chains that had been holding us down suddenly taken off.
[Spike] You know what's cool about losing your life?
You get to build a new one.
[Willow] There were exciting opportunities where we were moving to
that we never would have considered before.
It also opened up the possibility to really consider who I am.
In the show, Faye also realizes she can be whoever she wants.
She tries on different names to see what really feels like her.
[Faye] Hello my name is Cathy [sighs]
Cathy, Cathy?
[Willow] Even though she decides to stick with the name Faye Valentine.
It's important to know it is her choice.
She begins to explore who she really is and discover there are other possibilities.
[Faye] I've been spending way too much time limiting myself.
Life's a buffet
[Willow] I don't think I ever would have felt comfortable coming out as non-binary
to my family of origin. It's not somewhere I ever felt accepted.
And that lack of acceptance I think contributed to me never thinking about my identity much at all.
I was too busy trying to play the role everyone else wanted me to be.
It's a difficult thing to put into words because
I don't think my identity was something that was bothering me before.
It's not like I hated my name or anything about myself exactly.
But when I took up the name Willow and heard people call me that, I felt joy.
I looked in a mirror and saw changes I had made and for the first time ever it looked like me.
It's hard to notice the absence of a positive feeling because how do you know if something is missing
if you've never actually experienced it? I'm not done figuring this stuff out,
and I probably never will be. Honestly, I find that really exciting.
Seeing a character like Faye that I can relate to with all of this
really meant a lot.
Faye started with nothing.
[Faye offscreen] No one to lean on.
[Faye offscreen] No one to be loved by.
[Willow] And she finds family in the crew of the Bebop.
Faye may not have much but she has Spike and Jet.
So while sometimes I feel lonely because I was outcast
and I don't have many connections now.
The people I do know mean the world to me.
I'll take them any day over the false sense of safety I had before.
It's difficult to feel like Faye that you are starting life really late.
But as Faye's younger self says:
[Young Faye] It's going to be alright. Today you are who you are today.
[Young Faye offscreen] You're not perfect, but you've got a lot to give.
[Young Faye offscreen] So, always remember
I'm rooting for you future self
[Willow] Netflix's Live Action Cowboy Bebop meant a lot to me.
And I think there is clearly a lot of heart that went into it.
Maybe it's not as good as the anime I have no idea.
But does it need to be?
I'm always for more media that reminds us while our past affects us
like the family we did not get to choose we are not beholden to it.
There's nothing any more real about family you're born into than family you've found.
That it's never too late to try and make a new life.
The crew of the Bebop help support and protect each other, as well as find a
little bit of joy where they can in every day moments
[Faye] Why are we here? -[Spike] Because it's family time
And during family time we do fun things together
[Spike offscreen] Like bowl
[Willow] Which can make all the difference in a world so hard to survive in.
Let me know in the comments what you thought of the show and
if you'd like me to talk about the anime as well in the future when I get around to watching it.
See you space partners!
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Take care of yourself. And remember, you're not alone.
[Young Faye] You can do it! Alright? Go me, go me, go me! Yay!