Excellence at Too High a Price
I've read a fair number of reviews of the documentary, Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Most of them talk about how it makes their mouth water and how much it makes them want to eat Sushi. I have never eaten Sushi before, but I have to admit that the tuna sushi they showed being hand-shaped many times became very appealing after a while. However, all the talk about the food, I think, ignores the more important philosophical problem that Jiro represents.
Jiro is a dedicated man. The problem is that he is dedicated to the wrong things. We laud him for his dedication to the sushi and developing relationships with the perfect, eclectic mix of suppliers. His sons follow in his footsteps, but when the documentary slows down to talk about Jiro as a person and not just someone who makes sushi we learn, I think, the true lesson of the film.
I think that lesson is a cautionary tale. While Jiro is very good at his job, maybe even the best, what has he sacrificed in order to attain it? To his mind and the mind of his acolytes, probably not much, but the scene where he talks about himself being a bad father, that his sons growing up barely knew him, we finally get to the heart of the matter.
The question I asked myself watching the film was, "What if Jiro had daughters instead of sons? Would he pass on his legacy to a female heir?" Japanese culture is the way it is, but we get almost no glimpse at the females in Jiro's life, they cannot be that irrelevant. The truth is that Jiro is an obsessive workaholic who ignores any sort of family life to obtain the goal of perfect sushi. Of course this goal is never achievable, even Jiro admits that, but gradual improvement is.
But this story is, like I said, a cautionary tale. Jiro has not only sacrificed decades of his life to his work, but also drags his eldest son into it and a younger son emulates the main shop elsewhere. Taking pride in your work is one thing, being obsessive about it is another thing entirely. Obsession is dangerous and in the case of Jiro I don't think we should be lauding or making a monument to someone who ignored his family for decades. We have to ask ourselves, what if instead of making sushi for people, something other people can enjoy, he did something that only gratified himself - let's say he was a pro gamer. Would we still have the same kinds of romantic ideas about him? I think not. Our own desire to taste his sushi, betrays our feelings of disdain for what his legacy represents. I think we could all make do with sushi of a slightly worse quality knowing the chef could spend quality time with his family and not ignore his duties as a parent. Jiro is a man to be pitied, not praised.
