Counter-Currents
2,527 words 
There cannot be a more perfect example of mass gaslighting than the 1998 Coen brothers’ film The Big Lebowski. By inverting sloth, fecklessness, penury, and alcoholism into admirable qualities—essentially making it cool to be a loser—this film offers up the Jewish ideal for a gentile in the character of the Dude. He’s laid back, utterly harmless and tolerant, and any aggression he may abide (such as that of his corpulent friend Walter with his buzzcut, tinted glasses, and fishing vest) will be militantly pro-Jewish. Could there possibly be a white person less threatening to diaspora Jews than this? And since the film was so well made, millions of young Americans took the bait and played along, transmogrifying it from a cult hit into a cultural phenomenon. The Dude may seem like a loser, and his life may seem petty, squalid, and pointless, but with Coen Bros. movie magic, the audience is gaslit into believing the opposite. No, no, the Dude is not a loser, he’s a role model. And his life is pretty awesome if you think about it. He’s got style, man. He doesn’t care what people say about him. He doesn’t think about tomorrow. He takes it easy. He doesn’t hurt anybody. Live and let live, you know?
I’m sure that gaslighting American whites into celebrating maladaptive behavior was not part of the Coen brother’s conscious plan. I say this because the film coheres well as art, in and of itself. It is Seinfeldesque in its bizarre banalities, quirky characters, and jarring scene changes. Its dream sequences are memorably surreal, its pacing spot on, its wild-west narration ironically quaint and superfluous, its lines eminently quotable. I especially admire the soundtrack, which is exquisite, not only in its selection across a wide range of genres but in how specific songs become associated with specific characters throughout the film. It even includes a composition by Moondog.
The Big Lebowski is, simply put, a film of inspired vision. It also faithfully follows the Hollywood film noir convention of an outsider being drawn deeper and deeper into an unbelievable web of intrigue where nothing is as it seems. See Chinatown or The Long Goodbye for relatively recent examples, or The Big Sleep if you’re in the mood for something classic. This, and the performances are all superb. Since little in The Big Lebowski comes across as deliberate propaganda, I think Joel and Ethan Coen simply wanted to make a cool movie about a cool dude. In the eyes of millions, this is exactly what they did. And that’s too bad, because the devil could not have made a better film than The Big Lebowski.
We start off following a tumbleweed as it rolls across a bushy desert and then into the streets of Los Angeles. Sam Elliot’s cowboy narration over folksy Western harmonies tells us he has a mighty fine yarn to spin, but as the middle-aged Dude (played seamlessly by Jeff Bridges) slouches through a supermarket in a bathrobe, sunglasses, and sandals, sniffing cartons of Half & Half, we realize this isn’t so. The only concrete thing Elliot—known as the Stranger—can tell us about the Dude is that he rejected his given name (Jeff Lebowski), he’s lazy, and that he fits in with his time and place. “Sometimes there’s a man,” the Stranger repeats obliviously, apropos, apparently, of nothing.
The conflict begins when a pair of thugs ambush the Dude in his apartment, jam his face into the toilet, and demand money. We soon learn that it’s a case of mistaken identity. Bunny, the wife of another Jeff Lebowski (who happens to be a paraplegic millionaire), owes money to a shady character named Jackie Treehorn. The thugs realize their mistake and leave, but not without peeing on the Dude’s rug. This rug is the story’s prime mover, its oddball McGuffin. It apparently “tied the room together,” yet we never get a good look at it or the room. Because of the rug’s alleged value, Walter persuades the Dude to approach the other Lebowski and demand compensation for his rug. (It seems neither character has heard of the multitude of products which can clean pee stains off of rugs—as most pet owners already know.)
And here begins the plot proper, which involves an unlikely confluence of kidnappings, ransoms, embezzlements, porn videos, severed digits, stolen cars, German nihilists, Italian comedians, decadent artists, and lots of bowling amid a never ending stream of profanity. Things just get weirder and weirder as the Dude, egged on by the psychopathic Walter, learns more and more about the truth. And because the ensuing entertainment is so original and so inspired—and the soundtrack so expertly compiled—The Big Lebowski coaxes us into a hazy pleasure realm of the absurd.
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The Big Lebowski’s primary sin, however, is to never make the Dude the butt of a joke. We are never meant to laugh at him, as sloppy, flabby, inarticulate, and hapless as he is. Instead, however, we are encouraged to laugh at everyone he encounters. We laugh at Walter (splendidly played by John Goodman) as he attempts and invariably fails to control his ever bubbling rage. We can also laugh at his anal-retentive philo-Semitism. We can laugh their know-nothing friend Donnie (a simple role played by the highly overqualified Steve Buscemi) as he hopelessly tries to follow their bowling-alley discussions. We can laugh at John Turturro’s skin-tight lavender jump suit and voluptuous Puerto Rican accent. We can laugh at the Dude’s landlord because he can barely fit into his sweat clothes and does performance art and is too timid to press the Dude for his rent despite being 10 days late. We can laugh at Jeff Lebowski’s callous can-do attitude, his assistant’s smarmy obsequiousness, his daughter avant-garde pretensions, her giggling assistant’s pencil-thin mustache, his trophy wife’s nymphomania, as well as her flamingly gay German friends (formerly of the fictitious 1970s krautrock band Autobahn). Compared to this eclectic clown show, the Dude actually comes across as normal. Thus, we are never really tempted to laugh at him. With him, maybe. But not at him. I mean, he smokes grass and listens to Creedence. That’s not funny, man. That’s cool.
This implies quite strongly that the Dude is perfectly fine the way he is. The Coen brothers then take it step forward by giving him a righteous past and having him spout politically correct opinions. When Lebowski’s assistant (embodied by a painfully grinning Phillip Seymour Hoffman) shows the Dude a photograph of his employer with numerous black children, he identifies them as Lebowski’s children. They are really the beneficiaries of Lebowski’s charity, but the Dude assumes that they are his biological children and concludes that “racially [Lebowski] is pretty cool.” He then reveals that in college he had been part of campus protests, smoked a lot of pot, and occupied administrative buildings. Later in the film he admits to Lebowski’s daughter Maude (played by a serenely cold Julianne Moore) that he was one of the Seattle Seven and had been a signatory of the Port Huron Statement. The original Port Huron Statement, the Dude points out, “not the compromised second draft.”
All of this gives the Dude impeccable leftist credentials and puts him beyond ridicule, regardless of how much he deserves it. It also insulates The Big Lebowski from devolving into farce. Things have gotten just a little too real for that. For point of comparison, imagine not laughing at say, Nigel Tufnel from This is Spinal Tap (1984) or Tugg Speedman from Tropic Thunder (2008), two other highly successful comedies directed by Jews, but ones that actually show respect for their gentile subjects. We laugh at these characters for their obvious vanities and foibles, but as their stories unfold, they overcome their limitations to work with others in positive, creative endeavors. These characters are ridiculous, sure. But they have room for redemption, and eventually strive in that direction. Not so with the Dude. The Dude has no need for redemption because he is already perfect. He’s the Greek god of slackers, the joint-smoking avatar of the Buddha. How can you possibly improve upon that?
And so we drill directly to heart of gaslighting that is The Big Lebowski. In reality, the Dude would be a pathetic waste of life. He’s middle aged, out of shape, unemployed, directionless, financially irresponsible, constantly drinking and smoking pot, and making stupid decisions. And the single productive thing he does with his time (i.e., bowling), we don’t even see him do. Aside from one moment in a dream sequence, the Dude never once rolls a bowling ball. All he does in the bowling alley is sit on his ass and make vacuous conversation. So we don’t even know if he was ever good at anything. Such a person is plainly a loser (something the Dude himself does not deny after pulling his sunglasses out of the toilet and putting them on). Having a son or daughter like this would be heartbreaking for any parent. This is the truth. Despite this however, the Coen brothers use all their talents to hold up these bad qualities as good like a poisoned apple and ask the audience, “Don’t you want to be like the Dude?”
And we’re supposed to accept that it is a mere coincidence that the filmmakers in this case are Jews? From the Jewish diaspora perspective, a gentile like the Dude is the complete opposite of the Frankfurt School’s “authoritarian personality.” He has no religion, no ounce of patriotism, no family to speak of. He has renounced his past, and has no children and so he has no stake in the future. That, and he is a former socialist. Such a person would never turn on Jews by reverting to fascism, conservatism, or any other right-leaning mode of thought—to say nothing of race realism. Any such system would rightfully reject human detritus like the Dude. But not the Frankfurt School. Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer would certainly have abided the Dude—as I am sure the Dude would have abided them. Again, I don’t claim the Coen brothers deliberately tried to subvert Western civilization with The Big Lebowski. Rather, I speculate that they had internalized the Frankfurt School’s sociological and psychological theories of anti-Semitism to the point that for white people “cool” meant anything that can’t possibly be seen as “authoritarian.”
And if gentiles are tempted to shift towards authoritarianism anyway, well, then there’s Walter to emulate—an unhinged, gun-toting jarhead who’d been in ‘Nam and is willing to execute ultra-violence upon the enemies of Jews. The Coens give us an absurd example of this in the film’s climax when Bunny’s German nihilist friends burn the Dude’s car and attack him in a berserker rage, all while shrieking “I fuck you in the ass!” For a stereotype to be funny, it has to be based at least somewhat in truth. Here, we don’t even have that. Nazis were never like this. And neither were the Kraftwerk performers on which the Coens based their German villains. All we have is a figment of the their feverish Nazi obsession, so common among left-wing Jews today. This Walter is merely a neocon’s attack dog, chomping at the bit for violence and spouting jingoistic tidbits of Jewish history.
And if you’re a gentile and neither of these characters suits your fancy, then you can be like Donnie: meek, empty-headed, and easily distracted by middlebrow activities like bowling.
It can be argued that I am taking The Big Lebowski more seriously than it is meant to be. But because it was so well made that it actually spawned a wide-reaching cultural movement, I must take it seriously. (Believe me, I don’t want to. I disliked the film when it came out, and I dislike it even more today.) I have the 10th anniversary DVD, and in the bonus material interviews Bridges claims that among Buddhists, the Dude is considered to be a Zen master. Ironically or not, this signifies a kind of reverence where there should be no reverence. Buscemi states flatly that “everybody wants to be the Dude.” He explains further, “We just love him so much, and what a wonderful way to go through life.” The actors further explain how The Big Lebowski has become a sort of Star Trek for slackers, spawning an obsessive following that even they don’t understand. There’s also a yearly festival. These fans call themselves “achievers,” and are never shy about flapping their gums at the actors about their favorite movie. As of 2008, Buscemi believed that more people had seen this film than any other he’d been in.
Turturo is much closer to the truth than he realizes when he states:
College kids are not going to classes because of The Big Lebowski. And I blame this all on Joel and Ethan. And that’s why our society is in crisis, because of The Big Lebowski. The Dude, what kind of example is he?
He’s kidding, of course. But does he lie?
And Lebowski Fest is real. Starting in 2002 in Louisville, Kentucky with 150 participants, it went on for 16 years in 14 cities. Fans would gather at bowling alleys for film showings, alcohol consumption, socializing, and of course bowling. People dressed up, not only as characters from the film, but as props or imagery or even the minutest of miscellanea. The Star Trek comparison is apt. In the DVD’s documentary of a Lebowski Fest in Las Vegas, many achievers are recorded gushing over the movie. Three stood out for me. One was a baseball player, one was a bearded man in a white robe holding a pair of tablets, and one was in camouflage gear with his face painted brown. Who are they? Well, the first two are the embodiment of Walter’s speech in which he extols 3,000 years of Jewish achievement from Moses to Sandy Koufax. And the third is a reference to Walter’s buddy in ‘Nam who died face first in the mud.
There’s even a religion based on the Dude. It’s called Dudeism. Or the Church of the Latter-Day Dude, if you’re not all that into the brevity thing, to paraphrase the Dude himself. According to Wiki:
Dudeism’s stated primary objective is to promote a modern form of Chinese Taoism, outlined in Tao Te Ching by Laozi (6th century BCE), blended with concepts from the Ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus (341-270 BCE), and presented in a style as personified by the character of Jeffrey “The Dude” Lebowski in the film.
Make of this what you will.
Earlier I wrote that little in The Big Lebowski comes across as deliberate propaganda. That’s because one part of the film is deliberate propaganda. In the end, the Stranger addresses the audience to sum up the film. And after the Dude says his famous line, “The Dude abides,” the Stranger says, “I take comfort in that. It’s good knowing that he’s out there, the Dude, takin’ ‘er easy for all of us sinners.”
So there you have it—the Coen brothers telling you directly to like the Dude, despite all that’s so obviously unlikeable about him. And that’s gaslighting, something that absolutely nobody should abide.
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81 comments
Very good analysis. I’ve always thought that the Dude, Walter, and Donny personify American culture at that time and the world around them is reflective of the the US and its position in the world. The Dude is like a lot of Americans generally lazy, left-leaning(because that’s all they’ve been told), Walter has lost touched with American Patriotism and can only feel that for Israel (like a lot of Americans), and Donny is just completely tuned out. Everyone else in the movie might as well be foreign entities trying to grift the USA.
You know, nobody watches a Laurel and Hardy movie and thinks it glorifies moronic clowns. One sympathizes with Stan and Ollie, because of their hapless, stupid innocence, but one would never want to emulate them.
It’s the same with the Dude. He’s a lazy, stupid clown. His childish taste in alcoholic beverages is revolting. His apartment is squalid, and probably smells. His life is aimless and stultifyingly boring. He’s utterly incurious about anything outside the narrow confines of his life. And his revolutionary pretenses are hilarious. They’re big talk, but he doesn’t walk the walk, and obviously never did: he was along for the ride, that’s all. By having him boast about the Port Huron Statement, the Coens are insulting the New Left, not glorifying it.
It’s the same with Walter, whose over-the-top obsession with violence obviously shows that he has never been in combat. The Dude actually points that out at one point. Walter’s a fantasist, role-playing a movie hero. I think he’s also Jewish, which explains why he’s so gung-ho for Israel.
You guys are missing the entire point of the movie, which is that the Dude is a maloderous distillation of the ’60s. Other characters represent other malign products of that time of madness: the self-absorbed, promiscuous “artist,” the narcissistic fake businessman, the aggressively queer bowler, the Malibu sheriff obsequiously catering to the wishes of rich pornographers, etc.
As for the Sam Elliott character, I think he represents the Dude’s opinion of himself.
The fact that so many admire the Dude is a testament to the rarity of thoughtful people in our time. It reminds me of when Masterpiece Theater ran its “Brideshead Revisited” series in the 1980s, based on the novel by Evelyn Waugh. Hordes of half-educated upper-middle-class liberals fell in love with the dissipated aristocratic homosexual Sebastian Flyte character, who ostentatiously carried a teddy bear named Aloysius. Many of them held watch parties for the show; sales of teddy bears went through the roof.
Of course, none of those pretentious simpletons had actually read the book. So they were completely unprepared for the climax of the story: The protagonist, Charles Ryder, who at the beginning admires and emulates Sebastian, converts to Catholicism and breaks off his relationship with the woman he loves, Sebastian’s sister, who is divorced. Sebastian winds up a pathetic remittance man living in squalor in Morocco with a young native catamite. I marveled at how all the fuss around the show abruptly evaporated. The teddy bears disappeared as the message of Waugh’s masterpiece became apparent.
The Big Lebowsky has no such big reveal; its own message is more subtle. But I think it’s there nonetheless.
This!
I remember one of Frodji’s guests aptly commenting that the Western references are supposed to draw attention to what the American spirit once was and what has become. The adventurous nation that as per Toynbee used to push ever westward, similar to the tumbleweed in the opening scene, arrived at the end of its journey, LA and the ocean.
For nothing left to strive for, no boundary to push, it became relaxed, decadent.
I watched the movie multiple times and can’t see the main character being treated anything else but ironically. When he mentions his “glorious” past during his hippie days this contrasts so much with his present dilapidated state the audience can only laugh at him. The washed out hippie reminiscing about his past was a Hollywood clichee in the 90s, and I’m surprised the author of this article didn’t catch on. Especially since the Coens’ critical view is blatantly obvious in the way it is treated: “the *original* Huron draft, man” lol
I watch a lot of movies, and the ones I love I have no problem seeing multiple times. I turned on The Big Lebowski once because of the hype and couldn’t get past the first five minutes. Thank you for this entertaining article which confirms my genius.
No, what confirms your genius is that you find my writing entertaining.
=)
Thanks for this, Spencer.
This is the worst Coen brothers movie, by far. I do not abide.
I have not reviewed it, because it is not worth watching again to do so.
I don’t really think the Coens are all that anti-goy. See my reviews of:
Miller’s Crossing, https://counter-currents.com/2015/06/millers-crossing/
Barton Fink, https://counter-currents.com/2015/05/barton-fink/
A Serious Man, https://counter-currents.com/2011/02/a-serious-man/
For me their worst movie is the Hudsucker Proxy. Both this and the Big Lebowksi are visionary pictures, but HS has bad vision. The film fails as a result. OTOH tBL has successful vision it’s just evil.
I think that the way in which the Coens force the viewer through agonizing minutes watching white men getting murdered by a Hispanic in No Country For Old Men could considered antiwhite. That was my impression when i watched it. Will have to review the film to be sure.
I hated No Country as well. I thought the underlying story was repulsive, but I had to admit it was well made.
Oh Brother Where Art Thou? is a pointless and boring film to me.
I thought The Hudsucker Proxy was charming.
Raising Arizona and Fargo are my favorites of theirs, although I need to catch up on their recent work.
True Grit in 2010 was last Coen film that I enjoyed. Jeff Bridges plays Rooster Cogburn and is a Bad AZZ. All the acting is great and the movie is very book-accurate. So if you like the book, odds are you will also enjoy the film.
Big Lebowski is wildly overrated. The story was flabby and spineless, just like “the Dude” himself.
I generally like Coen Brothers films. They have a way of poking fun at White Trash, but their yarmulkes are not hidden far so I don’t mind. When they do it well it works well, and they certainly don’t spare the coals for their own tribe.
Maybe if Jews in general could make fun of themselves in good humor like the rest of us, the world would be a much better place.
Fargo (1996) certainly made North Dakota/Minnesota Gentiles look parochial and silly, even when they were not stupid like Frances McDormand’s pregnant police chief character. We understand the farcical aspects so not too many were offended.
Raising Arizona (1987) is one of my least favorite Coen Bros films, however. I find it hard to sit through. Other than some local scenic photography, it did not have much to do with Arizona nor real Arizonans, not even in caricature.
Raising Arizona was more like the Coens really wanted to mess with Texas, but Scottsdale, Arizona made a cheaper film set. Oy vey. Both Nicolas Cage and Holly Hunter with their real or affected Southern drawls seemed like fish out of water to me.
The furniture magnate, Nathan Arizona in Raising Arizona is to me loosely reminiscent of a real car dealership guy who did his own TV commercials named Tex Earnhardt (1930-2020) and was originally from Texas (No!). Earnhardt Motors has been headquartered in Chandler, Arizona since 1951. You can always parody car lot salesmen who do their own TV commercials ─ especially with the cliche cowboy hat and boots. Tex’s catchy sales slogan was “an’ that ain’t no bull.”
I did like The Big Lebowski. I don’t think anybody seriously tries to emulate the Dude. We all know he is a loser and slacker. And John Goodman plays the “all dressed up and nobody to shoot” trope pretty well.
Even the Dude’s girlfriend, Maude Lebowski, played by Julianne Moore, the daughter of the “big” Lebowski (David Huddleston) wants to be impregnated by the “little” Lebowski (Jeff Bridges) because she knows that “the Dude” is a slacker who will not want to take part in either hers or her baby’s life. That’s a blow against the Patriarchy!
Maude is a rough characterization of the Feminist neo-Dada nude performance artist and radical nature lover Carolee Schneemann, born Carol Lee Schneiman and raised Quaker, who was apparently “a non-Jewish Jewess,” or something like that.
“This article appeared three years after I began my research. I agree with Bloom about the importance of Jewish ethnicity for feminist art, if not with many of her particulars, among them her inclusion of Carolee Schneemann as a Jewish feminist artist. My interview with Schneemann, 10 August 2002, confirms that she was born in Fox Chase, Pennsylvania, of Protestant parents and raised in the Quaker tradition.”
Levin, G. (2005). “BEYOND THE PALE: Jewish identity, radical politics and feminist art in the United States.” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 4(2), pp. 205–232. https://doi.org/10.1080/14725880500136783
The Big Lebowski’s young trophy wife, Bunny seems more trouble than she is worth ─ not the best way to keep up appearances. Korean War veterans never got lionized like their WWII counterparts, nor cringed over and over in the media lenses of the “Vietnam experience.”
So what I didn’t like about the Big Lebowski film was that the “big” L was a Korean War veteran who came home in a wheelchair after fighting the Commies, and now lives off his dead wife’s money, controlled by his flaky artist daughter, Maude Lebowski, who runs the family’s telescopic philanthropy that probably feeds Black bodies overseas. So the Big Lebowski isn’t even a self-made man and arguably as much of a Gentile “loser” as the unrelated and “smaller” Lebowski.
The “nihilistic” moral of the story is some shopworn advice for Millennials and Zoomers in their formative years:
Don’t serve your country, and the ignoble Boomers like the Dude were just slackers who had it easy somehow. And somehow the narration by the mysterious rodeo cowboy, Sam Elliott makes the inauthenticity and silliness as sharp as a well-aged carcass.
Coen films usually have a lot of baggage to unpack. The Big Lebowski (1998) was a thickly Kosher crime comedy but I enjoyed it.
Both Lebowskis are losers. Check and Check. I think the 1993 Gen-X Grunge song Loser by (((Beck))) seems to capture the spirit of the age right down to his weird “phony gas-chamber” lyric.
🙂
Wow, a rare super-hard disagree. Whatever one thinks of the Coens (generally amusing filmmakers, I’d say), or of The Big Lebowski (I loved it both times I’ve seen it; I tend to find Jewish humor funny: “A toe? You want a toe? I can get you a toe by 3pm”), the Cormac McCarthy book upon which the (excellent) eponymous movie is based is outstanding. If you haven’t read No Country for Old Men, you (and all nationalists, esp. Americans) need to. That’s a deficiency in a nationalist’s self-education.
The underlying premise is very rightwing, almost in a Lovecraftian way. The Anton Chigurh character is really globalism distilled to its ethnohomicidal essence, as this odious, malign, external force that has been granted entree into our “shire”, if you will, by forces outside what we think of as the “regular order of things” (or at least of our America). I would argue the book’s main theme was about how America at that time (1980, if I recall; I read a friend’s copy around 20+ years ago when it was first published) was starting to be menaced by globalism, which unleashed alien ugliness (the Mexican narcotrafficantes at the beginning, Chigurh later) now washing up on our shores – evil forces that were too much for the remnants (Josh Brolin, his wife) and tired defenders (Tommy Lee Jones) of the older and more innocent ethnocultural order.
And the novella is, unlike others of McCarthy’s oeuvre (even the outstanding Blood Meridian), a short, easy, and great read. You won’t be disappointed.
No Country is generally the book I recommend for first time McCarthy readers who want an introduction to his work. It’s easily his most accessible book, although I prefer Blood Meridian.
I read the assassin character in no country for old men simply as Kabbalistic, a destroyer from another race. He’s similar to the character Molly from the movie, Charlie Varrick who is got a similar quality, and I think was his inspiration.
interesting question is why did the Coen brothers adapt the two books that they did, true grit and no country for old men? Those are their only adaptations right? What’s the significance of that?
I think I can help here, at least with one of them.
I read “No Country For Old Men” years before I saw the movie, and I was surprised how it’s almost a shot-for-shot interpretation of the Cormac MaCarthy novel.
The assassin (Anton Cheghur) is meant to be a de-ethnicsized transhuman who has neither nation or clan. He is dressed to be unnoticed. He is focused on one thing and the book ends with him delivering the money to the original pusher — as an advert for the quality of his work.
It might be the only MaCarthy novel worth reading. Anton is the totally functional human machine global capitalism thinks it wants. Looked at in that light, I see the book as subversive from a nationalist point of view.
Let globocorp, inc, see what their glorious future will really look like. And who the real winners will be. Hard to unsee when that sinks in.
I thought Tommy Lee Jones was miscast in the movie version of No Country for Old Men. I just could not picture him as the befuddled past-his-prime Texas sheriff who is out of his depth with the new breed of serial killer sporting a bad ’70s haircut.
Everybody says that I should read Cormac McCarthy and Larry McMurtry, but I rarely read fiction and just have not been inspired to do so. I have a love-hate relationship with Westerns in general.
🙂
The satire in their films seems far more vicious against their fellow Jews.
I find the same characters sometimes recur in Coen brothers movies, both as Jews and nonjews.
The Barton Fink review is definitely worth (re)reading, along with the comments, particularly Margot Metroland’s. Nice to be able to go back to these.
Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.
The Dude was the man for his time and place, which was supposed to be the End of History.
But since history did not end, he’s just a roach trapped in amber.
In general I like the Coen brothers, but I never have gotten into Big Lebowski. I’ve tried several times, but I just don’t get it, not on my wavelength. I’ll have to try again in response to Spencer’s enthusiasm. They can be so original and so good with characters. I really liked Burn after Reading, which I saw recently. They have this singular style, which they do so well, and nobody else can quite imitate them, similar to woody Allen.
Although I still enjoy The Big Lebowski, the fans are a major turn off. They remind me of people who think Scarface is the best film ever but have never heard of Brian De Palma and wouldn’t bother to watch anything by him. I have had the same conversation with friends who hold up The Dude as someone to emulate, pointing out exactly as you stated that you wouldn’t want your kid to be like him. And as far as I’m concerned, the real comedic masterpiece of the Coen Brothers will always be Raising Arizona. I have been watching that since it came out and will never tire of it, whereas I have seen The Big Lebowski so many times that the only time I watch it is if I happen to run across someone who hasn’t seen it yet.
Although I still enjoy The Big Lebowski, the fans are a major turn off. I feel the same way about phish fans and I don’t like their music. And stupid dress that drummer wears doesn’t help.
This has needed saying for a long time! I am grateful for this review.
The Coen’s even made a film about the super fans of Lebowski called The Achievers.
Lebowski has to be one of the most overrated rated movies ever.
I have a question for anyone who has an answer. Is John Goodman Jewish? I can’t seem to find an answer. He kind of looks Jewish, but if you apply Archie Bunker logic that the Hebes don’t name their sons John it would rule him out.
I think the Achievers was not directed by the Coens.
Anyway, according to Jew or Not Jew, John Goodman is a goy.
Interesting. I know Goodman did play collegiate football even though he is about the most unathletic looking man alive. Any way thanks for the new website.
I’ve heard speculation that John Goodman might be jewish but I don’t see it. Though I do chuckle when I see these bill gates, faceberg, fauci, jack dorsey pukes and think, “NERDS!!!!”
Wikipedia says he was raised southern baptist. Wikipedia is an excellent resource if you want to know the detailed backgrounds of entertainment and sports figures, in keeping with the value systems of our society.
You make an interesting observation about first name and Jewish background. Have you noticed they tend to utilize certain names, not necessarily biblical such as Noah, names religious Jews often use, but secular names, such as Sydney which Jews seem to favor. Stephen with the ph is another. Could it be that they use a system to signal ancestry to one another, even when paired with an English surname? Have you guys observed this or is it my paranoia?
Wikipedia is an excellent resource if you want to know the detailed backgrounds of entertainment and sports figures,
Indeed. In fact, it’s such an excellent resource I honestly wonder sometimes how much longer they will continue to have the “Early Life” section.
Yes I have noticed. They will use Jonathan but not John as Archie Bunker noted. For females I’ve noticed that Bonnie, Wendy and Rachel tend to be popular.
You know, I was thinking about this, and I realized it dawned on me that it’s not so true about younger generations when I think about the ones in my age group that I’ve known. Why would that be? What’s the difference now?
Well, I think it’s just a cool movie about a cool dude.
I like this movie very much. This subconscious “tame the goy” angle seems too much of a stretch to me. The film simply wouldn’t be funny if the Dude was no hippie sloth being supercool with that, and the Walter character (allegedly based on John Milius) would be much less funny, if he wasn’t a Polish wannabe Jew who also appreciates Nazis for having ideals. Really anything in it is there for the joke.
He’s the Greek god of slackers, the joint-smoking avatar of the Buddha.
But that IS funny. The inappropriate heroizing. And the fact that he fulfills every boomer leftist cliché imaginable is funny as well. It’s almost there mathematically to make the chracter work. The whole film is a joke on The Dude, but not a vicious one, because it makes him also endearing and likeable. Similar what the Coens did with Midwestern folks in Fargo.
The Nihilists in the film are not Nazis! Walter explictly compares Nazis favourably to the Nihilists who don’t believe in anything: “Say what you will about the tennets of national socialism but at least it’s an ethos!”
So there you have it—the Coen brothers telling you directly to like the Dude, despite all that’s so obviously unlikeable about him.
It’s a JOKE, man!
The Big Lebowski’s primary sin, however, is to never make the Dude the butt of a joke. We are never meant to laugh at him, as sloppy, flabby, inarticulate, and hapless as he is.
Sorry, but this is a figment of your imagination. BL looks at The Dude with a lazy (albeit amused) condescension pretty much throughout the entire movie. And his ex-hippie pretensions (Port Huron Statement, pot smoking, etc.) aren’t shown as anything other than a badge of failure; something a directionless has-been clings to as a once-meaningful time in his life. You’re confusing lack of outright condemnation or relentless mockery with some type of ideological praise, which the film is most certainly not engaging in with him (or anyone else, really). Yes, the mockery might be a little less obvious than it is with the other characters, but it’s fairly apparent nonetheless.
The other scene that comes to mind for me is when he has the cops over to file the stolen car report.
“In the briefcase?”
“Uh, uh, papers, um, just papers, uh, you know, uh, my papers, business papers.”
“And what do you do, sir?
“I’m unemployed.”
I would say that he is the butt of the joke there.
Definitely, and as I see it the whole film is a joke on him, albeit a benevolent one.
Right. If we’re not supposed to laugh at The Dude, most of us never got the memo.
– The scene where he throws a doob out of his car window, fails, burns his testicles, dumps the remainder of his beer in his crotch and runs his car into a trash can.
– The set up/ pay off of The Dude badly hammering a 2×4 into his floor to prop a chair against his door, the barrier is a failure because he didn’t account for which way the door swings and then later he trips over the 2×4.
– The blathering monologue in the other Jeff Lebowski’s limo.
We all laughed at The Dude, even though we ended up rooting for him.
I disagree. The Dude is sympathetic, and any joke going around is on whatever poor bastard who has to deal with him. The film makers don’t ever have the audience look down on him for his foibles like we do in spinal tap or tropic thunder. We either celebrate the Dude’s shortcomings or accept them, largely because the Dude never really has to pay for his mistakes. It’s always the cruelty of others that harms him in one way or another. He has no character arc or development because he is perfect to begin with. Again unlike the characters in tropic thunder and spinal tap, who grow out of their foibles and change for the better by movie’s end.
And the Seattle 7 and Port huron references are there to make the audience think that the Dude has a good heart.
The Dude is sympathetic, and any joke going around is on whatever poor bastard who has to deal with him. The film makers don’t ever have the audience look down on him for his foibles like we do in spinal tap or tropic thunder.
Again, no, not really. He is repeatedly portrayed as bumbling and incompetent, and any success he has in “solving” the caper is shown to be something he sort of stumbles on by accident. The film may not “hate” him, but the idea that it’s putting him up as some sort of role model is just nowhere to be seen here outside of conservative fantasy. If the movie leaned too hard into a “this guy is a piece of shit” narrative, it would become a different (and, in my opinion, less entertaining) film.
I watched Lebowski years ago, long before crossing the Rubicon, and absolutely hated it. Weirdly, though, I found the ultra-Jewy A Serious Man fascinating, worth repeat viewings, perhaps as a study of the enemies’ psychology.
Just remember how ridiculous the rabbis are in that film.
The reason for the great popularity of this film is nostalgia for the 80s and 90s. Back then, indeed, many long-term unemployed white people could live for years on welfare without any particular existential struggle. In rich western countries, welfare was generous and covered a decent cost of living. This was gradually lost and the welfare state was whittled down to a rudimentary minimum. Ironically, this suits coloured immigrants from poor countries, but for Whites unemployment means a fall into poverty.
The more I watch and contemplate the nature of this movie the more it occurs to me that what I’m watching is a uniquely Jewish made film that mocks whites as ignorant, stupid and completely out of touch with reality. They are making fun of us to our face in film and laughing even harder that we lionize this movie as some comedy classic but which is really just a big fat shit on white people and dumb Americans. Jokes on us folks. Look how dumb they are they don’t even know this movie makes fun of how dumb they are! That’s the true Jew gist of it.
Well said! The majority of the comments here are also in defense of the directors! Most Whites, even the racialists, are totally unaware of the Jewish mindset and their utter contemp for the got.
A refreshing take on a film that was too quickly elevated to ‘defies criticism‘ iconic status. You didn’t go too hard at it, which is good. It’s best to have a light touch in takedowns of fun-aspiring sacred cows. Currently the Right is seen as the side more likely to laugh and Left are the scolding church ladies. But it wouldn’t take too much for the Right to again be censorious types dictating what is appropriate agitprop art representative of the state, which just incites the Left to fight harder.
Yeah? Well, you know, that’s just like uh, your opinion, man.
Imagine if the other characters started mockingly calling the Dude ‘the Dud’ instead, and then the Dude would would have to start realizing that he really is a dud and would have to start doing something about it because it is true. Then the gaslighting does not happen.
But the Dude has a zen like completeness about him from start to finish. This I interpret as gaslighting.
It’s funny how little scraps of dated pop-culture like this movie are sometimes thought of as being sinister in some way, when there are plenty more relevant examples to choose from.
Yes, movies like Kiss of The Spiderwoman, The Crying Game, My Own Private Idaho and Brokeback Mountain.
I’ve noticed anti-White jabs in movies from a generation ago that were not so easily noticeable to the racially naive back then but from today’s perspective is crystal clear what the messaging is. I watched The Craft (1996) yesterday and it’s all there in rachel true’s character getting back at the “racist” White girl bully who says ‘negroid’ cause White-on-black bullying is totally real in California high schools, and curses the girl (played by ben stiller’s wife, Christine Taylor) with her hair falling out, a particularly deep humiliation for any attractive young White woman. Then two years later the jewish fairuza balk appears in American History X. Never mind that blacks killed Derek Vinyard’s father-the unforgivable tragedy is his “racism” and of course he’s responsible for Danny’s death (“What have I done?!”), not the deadeyed soulless negro shooter. A daydream for the jewish director tony kaye who looks like every woman’s nightmare.
I’ve seen this movie many times but I never quite got the thing with the Nazis. Was is that the trophy wife was in on the artifice with the Nazis and that one of the girls with the Nazis as the patsy?
I love this movie and I also enjoyed this article. I don’t think that was the concsious intent of the Coen brothers to portray the dude in this sort of subversive angle that you describe but on the subconscious level perhaps perhaps they were aware of this subversive portrayal. Walter also seems to get away with his various shenanigans implicitly because he is Jewish, well, a convert. The subtext being he has his Jew card. The scene where he’s in the parking lot after brandishing his pistol as the police (presumably all gentile) humoursly storm the bowling alley with him hidden in plain site.
As Petronious mentioned above, the Coen brothers are often farcical about Jews. A Serious Man is a good example of that with the whole Hebrew letters engraved in the guys teeth. The anal-retentive neuroticism the Jewish dentist goes to figure out the meaning.
Like you said, the movie has this sort of flow like a dream. And the soundtrack, the fucking soundtrack (pardon my French). It goes with the movie like a steak and fine wine. But yeah, I hear you on glorying the dude. I actually do know of a sort of Maude and The Dude situation in reality; girl from a wealthy family falls in love with a total dirt poor douchebag who can’t hold a job.
I started out as a film major so I really appreciated this article. All the more so since, despite changing majors, the only film classes I took were film analysis classes. Basically your boilerplate pseudo-intellectual humanities circle jerk courses for people who don’t want to learn hard sciences.
It has been years since I have watched it but I was going to lean towards The Big Lebowski as a critique of the new world order. I was going to develop this interpretation around “the dude’s” dream of Suddam Hussein as the guy (in the great scheme of things) whom gives you your bowling shoes in the new Tower of Babel. I thought it might be sophisticated criticism of the jews like the movie A Serious Man. I guess I was trying to read too much into it and I did not like the movie either.
Yeah, I thought so too, that they were giving the big kahuna of the New World Order, George H. W. Bush, the middle finger.
Agreed, but I am leaning more toward they are saying the jews are the true rulers behind the scenes.
You should also be aware this movie was made before George W. Bush became president, so it would be William Clinton you are referring to.
Excellent analysis. The Dude being the opposite of the authoritarian personality is true. I also think the reason the bands like Nirvana were praised to high heaven and hastily enshrined in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is that they posed absolutely no threat to the Jewish rule.
I barely made it through half of the film when I tried to watch it-which was several years after it first been released. Lots of people that I knew loved it. I didn’t. However, I always liked this exchange from the film:
Walter Sobchak:
“Am I wrong?”
The Dude:
“No, you’re not wrong.”
Walter Sobchak (repeats angrily):
“Am I wrong?”
The Dude:
“You’re not wrong, Walter. You’re just an asshole.”
Walter Sobchak:
“All right then.”
Another great article or review from Spencer Quinn!
I must point out, that I find it odd that neither SQ nor the (at last count) 47 (!) comments mention the “c” word: Christianity. Mention is made of Taoism, Buddhist, Epicurus, and the Dude is even compared to “a Greek god” (!), but if “There’s even a religion based on the Dude” it appeared long before Dudeism.
From his first appearance to the end, the Dude is clearly based on the sentimental image of Jesus: robe, long blond hair and beard. (The real Jesus probably looked and sounded like Ben Shapiro). He has no job, since the Lord will provide (various people will offer him a “finder’s fee”). He has no parents (“Who is my mother” or “Woman, what have I to do with you?”), wife or child, and hangs out with his male buddies. His relationship with Maude, who wants a child with someone “I don’t have to know socially” is a parody of the Virgin Birth. Pacifist, leftist, anti-racist, hated by “nazis,” check. The end of the movie is his apotheosis, triumphant over his ordeals, “the Dude abides” (arms spread as he blesses urbi et orbi), and manly Western icon Sam Elliot has to admit, he’s been convinced is no longer amused by the strange, unmanly Dude but “takes comfort” in the Dude, who despite his sissy name and “stupefying” lifestyle, is out there taking the blows “for us sinners.”
I mean, it’s really a bit “on the nose.” The movie is basically Jews laughing the stupid story that they convinced to goyim to believe. Actually, the movie might well be recouped for the Right on that basis. And it makes an excellent companion piece to A Serious Man, which did a similar demolition job on Judaism.
But as always, that’s just, like, my opinion, man.
Thank you, James! Interesting analysis. I hadn’t considered the C word vis a vis the Big L.
One quibble, if I may. The Dude has a goatee, not a beard. Somehow I don’t see the son of God stylin’ himself in that particular fashion.
That’s a van Dyke, not a goatee, which is tuft attached to the lower lip.
I would say the figure of the likable loser is very typical of Jewish literature, anecdotes and films. The Dude is a bit like the character of a schnorrer – a wisecracking beggar or vagabond from the Pale od Settlement.
I find the character of Walter very interesting. How did the ruling oligarchy manage to create this type of angry man from the common people, who purposefully attacks the enemies of the Jews and the so-called racists? I would have thought it was more of a made up type, but as we know these libhick fighters “against racists” are rather common and have increased in numbers after 2000.
These kinds of people exist in vast numbers, and they cannily sense that they can safely channel their hatred and bellicosity into fighting approved targets. Walter is basically every cop. Walter is basically every Republican who sublimates nationalism and sadism into supporting Israel.
I think supporting Israel is a bit different. Where I come from (central Europe) most white nationalists support Israel because Israelis are the only ones allowed to attack Muslims and brown people and the mainstream media applauds them for it. It is very easy to be a philo-semite in countries where there is very little or no Jewish community. Where I live, Jews are rather sympathetic figures from the past for most people – miracle rabbis or cunning clever characters from old anecdotes or victims in striped pyjamas from WWII movies. Modern Israelis are seen as soldiers with high-tech equipment kicking the ass of Muslim terrorists. This is different from white hicks who claim to be Antifa and who fiercely want to attack racists or anyone who opposes the status quo and immigration.
Half of Hollywood movies celebrate this type of white-on-white violence for the benefit of minorities. This plot has always been there, but it used to be based on the motif of the noble savage and the noble white savior. But in the woke era, there’s this new type of crude white antihero who joins the non-whites and commits grotesque violence against white “racists” – and the white audience is supposed to laugh and applaud it. Typical examples are the Tarrantino films (Django Unchained, Glorious Basterds) or The Free State of Jones (a weird 2016 film with Matthew McConaughey). These films are extremely different in tone from the previous ones – they are characterised by an exaggerated brutality and a kind of anti-morality in terms of maximum physical violence against white “racists”. I have always found it sick when reviewers praise these films.
“a new type of crude white antihero who joins the non-whites and commits grotesque violence against white “racists” – and the white audience is supposed to laugh”
The first of this type of movie I know of is The Blues Brothers. Pre-woke, but the filmmakers and their stand-ins, the Brothers, harassed and killed those Illinois Nazis by trying to run them over, dropping them from thousands of feet in the air, etc., just like in old Warner Bros cartoons with the roadrunner and the coyote. It was pre-woke, however, in that they made fun of the Nazis by showing them to be gay and getting huge laughs from that.
Yes, the main “enemy” or immigrant group in Europe are Muslims, and it’s easy to make common cause with Jews, so the right tends to be philosemitic. In the US Muslims are very small in number, even compared to east Asians. We mostly struggle against blacks and Latin Americans, politically speaking, and American Jews tend to make common cause with those groups, hence the far right is to varying degrees antisemitic in America.
Common cause with those who opened the gates?
I’m not analyzing blame. I’m only saying why things are the way they are. My theory.
They push multiculturalism today, just as they did when they opened the gates of Toledo in the 7-8th century in Iberia (Spain/Portugal) to the Muslims, & specifically Tariq ibn Ziyad, whose army conquered the city in 711. He then left it in the hands of Jewish soldiers.
That’s right, many Europeans see Israelis and Jewish diaspora liberals and globalists as two quite different entities. Israelis are not seen as identical to American Jews, for example. Rather, they are seen as a strange, more or less Caucasian nation of colonists in the Middle East, courageously resisting the flood of savage natives. Israel is thus seen as a bastion of Whites against the advance of Muslims and non-whites. But it is questionable to what extent this sentiment is reciprocal. I have no idea whether Israelis are sympathetic to Europeans’ opposition to Muslim immigration.
The fact that Isrealis want to push Palestinians into European countries, like Ireland and Spain, and they gloat about their nuclear weapons pointed at European capitals can give us some clues.
But I get that there is this premise of the “based Isrealis” amongst some right wing circles.
Great analysis, as usual.
& Coencidentally, Jeff Bridges headed up White Dudes for Kamala Harris:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2024/07/30/white-dudes-for-harris-call-jeff-bridges-josh-groban-celebrities/74599110007/
Well, that does explain a lot, doesn’t it?
My auto-antisemitism has made me suspect the worst from early life provens so I’ve never seen this movie, only Fargo, and frances mcdormand’s character I found very annoying and william h. macy off-camera seems like a real weirdo. Wasn’t he involved in those cash-for-college entrance scams that put lori loughlin in jail for a while? There was a stretch in 2016 when I distinctly recall the Hail, Caesar! trailer being everywhere every single time I turned on the tv. jonah feldstein hill is one of the few hollywood jews I find impossible to dislike. Not so with fellow tribesman-in-cringe seth rogan, and scarlet johannsen is NOT good-looking. Her, gal gadot, and natalie portman are the best of their lot? Really? sarah michelle gellar has to be the only one who’s a definite yes.
Gellar was good looking, but a tiny waif. Once I saw a poster of her in the subway at the height of her show’s popularity and they had photoshopped her to give her big tits with deep cleavage. She was the first to make me wonder how many others are “bodily enhanced.”
I saw her in a barnes and noble years ago. She’s very tiny but still looked good and still married to Freddie Prinze. They’ve been hitched since I was in high school. In hollywood years, that’s impressive. There are other trainwrecks like madonna and ariana grande that no amount of wonder joints could work wonders on.
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