The Big Lebowski (1998)

The Big Lebowski (1998) only works because of its outrageous characters. I can’t imagine enjoying this movie without the exaggeration of stereotypes and generalizations. First, the most anti-heroic hero one could ask for: Jeffrey “Dude” Lebowski. Dude has no control over his fate, and even something as inherent as his own name causes him grief as thugs wrongly mistake him for a millionaire of the same name. His attempt to overcome this annoyance—and probably also to continue living in the bygone era of his youth—by calling himself “Dude” and requesting others to do the same is his only attempt to take just the smallest control over his life, but even this request is often overlooked by the likes of the millionaire Lebowski.

From the beginning, Dude doesn’t even seek compensation for his rug and would rather just complain about it with his buddies and then forget about it the next day. It is Walter, his Vietnam-vet-and-not-quite-over-his-divorce best friend, who convinces him to go after the person ultimately responsible for the soiling of the rug: the Big Lebowski himself. Walter, who is never quite in the same world as us, is responsible for much of the trouble that Dude finds himself in: first, he goes after the rug, then there’s the gun in the bowling alley that jeopardizes their team, the ringer, the smashing car windows, and on and on. Everything that is Walter is an over-exaggeration influenced by his time in Vietnam. Apparently, he owns an Uzi, which I don’t think is exactly normal. He overreacts about everything, but justifies himself with understatements: After he pulls the gun on Smokey, the pacifist, he brushes it off with “All water under the bridge.” One thing that Vietnam didn’t change, however, is his attachment to his wife, even after they divorced; taking care of her dog and still observing the Sabbath, Walter serves also as the epitome of a whipped man.

The Big Lebowski is seemingly the exact opposite of the lazy, jobless Dude. He seems almost a caricature of my father, praising hard work and accusing people of wanting handouts. I guess the difference is that my father does work hard. Lebowski is pompous, self-important, arrogant, and other synonyms for a big-headed hot-shot, and he speaks for all the self-made millionaires out there. Except later we discover that he is not a self-made millionaire, but he is indeed disabled.

Donnie, the submissive friend, takes all of Walter’s shit, all the way to the end when he suffers and dies from a heart attack because of a fight that Walter got into. And he still takes Walter’s shit when his ashes are transported in a coffee can and spread all over the Dude. We also have Bunny, the sexy, blonde gold-digger; bald European nihilists who were once a techno band (Shout out to Flea of Red Hot Chili Peppers fame); Brandt, the ever-loyal manservant; the feminazi artist Maude who uses the Dude to try to conceive; hippies left and right; and a simple, rugged cowboy to tie it all together. I also can’t forget the man in the iron lung who is not really a stereotype but is still outrageous in his own right.

What I find most interesting yet most confusing is the role of racial generalizations in the film. A “Chinaman” pees on the Dude’s rug, and someone corrects someone else with the term “Asian-American,” but still everyone forgets about that and goes back to “Chinaman.” A “Chinaman in Korea” took the Big Lebowski’s legs, but he didn’t take his work ethic. “Jesus” is a pederast, first presented in the film as an overly-erotic bowler to the tune of “Hotel California:” Latino style. There were several Saddam references, including, “That camel-fucker over in Iraq.” And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Dude’s favorite drink is the White Russian.

If these racial generalizations have any more meaning than to serve as mere stereotypes, I do not know. However, these stereotypes along with the others not only make this movie funny, they also show us, the audience, that we too are extensions of these stereotypes. If the hyperbolic version of me were in this film, she would either be the oldest seven-year-old in the world, trying too hard to be cute, or she’d just be a super bitch, depending on which of my moods were presented. The plot of the film is too random to happen to normal people, but these bizarre characters make the story just random enough to make sense.