The Russians are back

I have a theory that the existence of our class has caused the world to love and drink White Russians again. Okay, no, but seriously, they're making a come back. One of the first few weekends of school my friends and I got together to watch the movie The Big Lebowski because they're all huge movie buffs and love the film. We watched the movies and drank White Russians. That was my first time having the drink and honestly I don't know why anyone would voluntarily drink it on a normal basis. I don't drink coffee and have never been a huge fan of milk so that probably has a lot to do with it, being that the three components of the drink are vodka, Kahlua and milk or cream (or half and half if you're the Dude). Anyway, since this class of ours began, I've seen White Russians everywhere! My office staff at the Wellness Center went on a trip to Halloween Horror Nights two weekends ago and the drink of the trip was White Russians which I thought was a total 80s/90s thing. I mean, when I told my dad I was drinking White Russians he told me that he had a bad night with them back in the 80s. Anyway, I encountered White Russians again this past Thursday night! I went to Chili's with my office and everyone was ordering White Russians. Okay, so maybe my office staff just loves White Russians, but I'll choose to believe that our class is bringing them back.

Bob Dylan is the man

After watching the Big Lebowski I couldn't help but think about why Bob Dylan's song, "The Man in Me," was used multiple times. However, after discussing and analyzing the movie, it became extremely obvious. The discussion about masculinity and the role of the female characters in the film brought about the realization that this movie was practically based on the song. The lyrics scream out, "THE BIG LEBOWSKI!" Take the first verse, "The man in me would do nearly any task, and as for compensation, theres little he will ask, take a woman like you, to get through to the man in me." The Dude did mostly every task he was asked to, even if he failed at it. And in return, all he really wanted was his rug back, which was not a big "compensation." And the last line, is obviously talking about Maude. Maude got through to the man in Dude. The Dude was outsmarted by a female, which shook him to his core. "The man" in the Dude is his ability to have a child, and by using his masculinity to conceive a child, Maude got through to the man in him. Timeless songs like those written Bob Dylan will always be prevalent in our lives. I love Bob Dylan. The picture that I put in this post, I have as a poster that is hanging in my room. His songs speak to me and I can listen to them 100 times over and never get sick of them. He is a master lyricist and artist, and his songs will relate to something happening in the present, even in they were written 50 years in the past.

Generations of Beliefs

As a child we observe our surroundings, whether; people, atmospheres, temperatures or whatever else, we learn some of our basic knowledge from that time period before we can converse with our peers. Our ideas and images are formed with in us before we have the ability to realize this. As time continues our understandings of these things become more and more extensive. Then there are your parents, they give you generation after generation of pre-constructed notions whats good, whats bad, and whats morally correct.

I believe this can be related to The Found Document article in The Lebowski Studies. Today's generation uses preconceived notions of who people are and what type of character they want to be. We use what has already been learned by past ancestors to sculpt how we see the world today. This is how our ideas continue throughout our history changing only merely as time continues.

Maude Lebowski and Susan Vance

Maude proves throughout the movie to be in control of almost every situation she puts herself in. She always has a plan in the back of her mind, and seems to be plotting and scheming at all times. She is a very smart woman who knows what she wants and sets out to get it. After discussing and a watching a segment of "Bringing Up Baby," it made me want to watch more. Katherine Hepburn's character, Susan Vance, had many similar qualities as Maude. She may have seemed a lot more innocent and naive, however, she manipulated men to get her way. When the tiger was in her bedroom, she initially did not have a plan to get Cary Grant over to her apartment. As their conversation unfolded we watch her fall and pretend to be attacked by the tiger. Moments later he rushes to her rescue only to find that she has not even broken a nail let alone been attacked. Both women are feminists, however Maude's feminism makes her seem strange to the audience. It is very predominant in the movie through her art and the way she speaks. Susan, on the other hand, is less obvious about being a feminist, but could be viewed as equally weird. These women are both intelligent and at some points deceiving of their fellow characters in their respective movies. I think it would be interesting to watch all of "Bringing Up Baby" in order to further compare them.

Little Larry

In all our discussions about the role of men in The Big Lebowski, I don't think we ever really focused on Little Larry. What is Larry's purpose in the film? We discussed in class that every man in the film seems to represent a particular decade of our immediate past: Walter is the 70s, Lenny the 50s, Brent the 80s, and the Dude is the 60s in the 90s. But what decade does Little Larry represent? Perhaps, Larry represents the future decades to come, much the same way I think the Stranger, with his cowboy boots and all, is a symbol for the Past, before there was a place called Los Angeles in the Wild West.

Taking this further, some may venture to say that Larry represents an up-and-coming generation, who is blamed for the mistakes of older generations. This idea is reinforced by the scene where Walter and the Dude go to Larry's house to question him about the money. Walter yells and screams at Little Larry, demanding the money back which he assumes is in Larry's possession (based on one piece of circumstantial evidence). However, Larry just sits quietly in his place, even when Walter threatens him with "This is what happens when you fuck a stranger in the ass, Larry". Walter would rather assign blame to a likely innocent boy, than be a man and accept responsibility for his own actions and faults.

Who is the Stranger?

After reading Byer’s essay, which focused around the Stranger, it got me thinking, who is he? The Stranger has been described as a representation of the Marlboro Man. I knew the Marlboro Man was an American cowboy used in advertising campaigns for Marlboro cigarettes, but not much more. In order to get a better understanding of how the Marlboro Man is viewed, and therefore the Stranger, I did some research. The Marlboro Man campaign had a 45 year run extending from 1954 to 1999. The campaign showed a rugged cowboy with only a cigarette in nature. The campaign was a huge success, and successfully managed to turn the new “feminine filters” into a more manly image in just three months. From this research, it is clear why the Coen brothers put a character like the stranger into their movie. The Marlboro Man and the Stranger both represent traditional American cowboys, who are very popular with American males, the target audience of the movie.

Maude Lebowski and Huang

Having been focus on Dude for so long, I start to turn to the only important female character in Big Lebowski: Maude Lebowski. Byers mentioned that she's like Katharine Hepburn. As weird as they might me, I believe many girls admire them for that they can be themselves at any moment, regardless of others' comments on them. And this outstanding personality quickly reminds me of a Chinese celebrity: Huang Hong. Her parents are famous diplomatists in China. So she was arranged to participate in an exchange program to study in the U.S. That was really hard to imagine for China in 1980's. As the above pictures show, Maude and Huang both like to wear weird apparel. Though Huang's white dress may seems really normal to us now, no one would dress like that in China in 1980's, that would be considered a shower towel... Their way of dressing is just a very small part in their similarities. They both come from wealthy family, both are reluctant to copy parents' life style. And they have the interest and hobbies of their own , which compose the most part of their lives. Maude is doing something with regard to art which is far away from the foundations of her mom's. Huang was supposed to be a diplomat after taking the 10-year program in the U.S., but she didn't want to follow the route that was designed by her mom and she's not interested in. So she became a fashion magazine editor as most of her buddies became diplomats. Maude wants a baby of her own without marrige and thus chose Dude. Huang married a movie director when he was nameless but get divorced when her husband became an internationally prestigious director. But still, Maude and Huang aren't exactly the same. Maude is kind of immersed in her own world while Huang is always closely related with her friends, family and public. She's just that free. If Dude represents a special type of masculinity, then women like Maude and Huang stand for an alternative femininity that is free of constraints, and do as they pleased.