I love The Big Lebowski (“I am not Mr. Lebowski. I am…The Dude.” “The Dude abides.”, etc…luv it!). This movie tickled my funnybone in so many different ways. I could understand that its quirky humor might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I do have a hard time getting my head around the fact that some people just hate this flick. One such example is my wife. She can’t stand “The Big Lebowski”. More importantly, she finds the main character to be the primary reason for her potent antipathy towards this masterpiece of comedy (IMHO). Not only that, my best friend’s wife also hates The Big L. Furthermore, another woman I know simply can’t stand that film. The personage of the Big L. seems to illicit some kind of deep moral and ethical sense of indignation and disgust, and I just can’t figure why. I have it on their authority that many, many women have this intense distaste for The Big L. that I have described, and he deserves it because he’s a useless, lying sack.
Well, so what? What’s so bad about the guy and his screwball buddies? Sure they’re derelicts and behave oddly and so forth, but what is it about them that makes your lips curl and the hair on the backs of your neck stand up? How is my beloved Lebowski/Dude so reviled, and is there any way y’all can kiss and make up? I mean, he’s not all bad, if you ask me. Maybe you just don’t understand him? Can’t see his many positive attributes? It’s time we buried this hatchet, but I don’t think I can begin the healing process without first getting some clear idea about why Lebowski/Dude raises your rancor so. Please help!
I dunno. I love the movie, and although I think the character is a total loser, and were he a real person I would never want to be romantically involved with him, I don’t HATE him. Do these Dude-hating women like ANY Coen brothers movies?
That’s a good question, and maybe I’ll have to take a survey. The best answer I can come up with is my wife really liked “Fargo”, and absolutely loved “O Brother, Where Art Thou”. I mean, she’ll be saying “Ooo, yah!” for a week after a review of Fargo (she’s got family in MN, so she think’s Fargo’s a hoot), and, of course, Mr. Clooney makes her weak in the knees.
The first time I saw The Big L I thought it was a bit of a let down. Thirteen viewings later, however, I love it and it gets funnier everytime I watch it. In fact, I think I’ll watch it this evening.
That’s odd. I’ve never met anyone, male or female, who didn’t like TBL.
What are you talking about? Shawshank is a TOTAL chick flick. No car chases, nothing blows up, talking talking talking, yearning to be free, etc. Both that and The Green Mile are pure girly hollywood melodrama.
Another woman who loves The Big L checking in. Like a lot of folk, I didn’t “get it” the first time around, but now I’ve seen it about ten times and it gets funnier every time. It helps that I was raised in Southern California and that some of the guys I hung out with were very Dude-ish.
“The Dude abides.”
FTR, I also love all the other Coen films (except maybe Intolerable Cruelty).
My girlfriend like The Big Lebowski but hates the Dude. The reason stems from her retail experience working in a “metaphysical” bookstore/rock shop that drew a lot of burned-out 50-year-old hippies; she no longer tolerates nor finds the humor in some old freak going “Uhhhhhhh …” a lot.
Pretty much sums it up for me, too. I think I was OD’ing on Coen Bros. around the time it came out, and the whole film just felt like warmed over Fargo. The Dude, especially, just felt uninspired- a burned out hippie throwback who never gets out of his pajamas. Great. Yet His Dudeness has a way of creeping under the skin, and in time I was rendered helpless by his subtle charms.
I’ve run into a few people who hated The Big Lebowski, but I’ve never noticed it being split along gender lines. Actually, most of the people I know who didn’t like it are guys.
And shouldn’t we start some sort of charity for these poor people? Surely not liking this film has to count as some sort of a disability?
My girlfriend introduced me to The Big Lebowski in high school. She related to The Dude - not in the burned-out ex-hippie way, but in the “bad stuff keeps happening without control” way. It was also the unofficial movie of my senior class. It seems to be a favorite of my generation. (I graduated in 2002.)