Bet you never thought that the Coen Brothers' 1998 comedic farce, The Big Lebowski would turn out to be the most prescient and visionary political critique of the 1990s.
Well this diary will argue that not only is The Big Lebowski a brilliant comedy, but underneath its silly whimsicality lies a forward thinking understanding of exactly the forces that would work to rip this country apart in the 00s, all under the guise of the simplest rage filled statement made in the film: "The bums lost!"
The character of The Big Lebowski is the modern republican fraud.
The "Big Lebowski" character, as written by the Coen brothers, is everything the modern republican party has become. He is a self proclaimed "champion" who proudly boasts of his own historical narrative -- besting competition, achieving all his goals in life through "hard work" and "perseverence." The Big Lebowski is a legend in his own mind of all that is noble and hard-working about the republican aristocratic elite.
Never mind that he married a twenty year old porn-star. Or that his entire inheritance came from his first marriage. These are mere real-world trivialities, mere "facts" that get in the way of The Big Lebowski's grand narrative he's constructed around himself.
He brags of having fought "Chinamen in Korea," -- a misnomer borne not of ethnic ignorance but of indifference. To The Big Lebowski, minorities are all the same.
Phillip Seymour Hoffman plays the typical republican flunky -- worshipping the hero image of his "master" with the reverent, almost religious fervor, that we see in the 25% dead-enders still pining for codpiece wearing George W. Bush to "save them" from the invasion of Muslims/Mexicans/Gays taking place every day in their fervored comic book minds.
The Dude, of course, is the hippie liberal slacker who lives off the system. The Dude is a "bum," societal bottom feeder left over from the 1960s.
In The Big Lebowski's grand myth, The Big Lebowski is the great titan of industry who paves the way for people like The Dude to ride on his coattails. But, of course, to maintain this fiction, The Big Lebowski must concoct grand theft schemes in which he robs himself to steal from his foundation, to pay off his hooker wife.
Sound familiar?
The Big Lebowski -- hero in his own grand fictional Reaganesque narrative - is a corrupt fraud. He married his way to wealth, and now steals from poor kids to pay for his sexual deviancy.
The Big Lebowski is part David Vitter, part Larry Craig, part George W. Bush. He has the angry old man arrogance of Dick Cheney, the thievery of Duke Cunningham, the entitlement of Trent Lott and the rage of Newt Gingrich.
The Big Lebowski, as the Coens brilliantly foresaw, is the arrogant republican who steals from children and tries to frame poor people with his crimes, all while proclaiming his own "greatness" and "vision."
The Dude, is America in the 1990s -- clueless, generally friendly, and largely ignorant to the crimes of the aristocratic elites like The Big Lebowski.
Both Lebowski's share the same last name -- they are both part of the schism of American 1960s revolution. But while one "succeeds" through fraud, scheming and lying, the other haplessly stumbles through the events of the day simply trying to find his next White Russian. And bowling. Always bowling.
In an America of cultural confusion, Jesus is a pedophile, the Germans are now nihilists, the porn industry runs Malibu, and the Polish Vietnam vet has converted to Judaism. Donnie, played by Steve Buscemi, is the hapless innocent, the victim, the child who gets killed during the crossfire of cultural chaos. Donnie dies because he can't comprehend the forces of chaos around him. Donnie represents all the Americans who suffer without understanding why.
The Big Lebowski is a warning -- the titans of industry will set events in motion to pay for their own perversions, all while blaming it on the "hippies." Exactly what we saw in Iraq.
Am I ascribing too much meaning to the film? Perhaps. But in looking at the disaster of American government of the 00s when smarmy elites like The Big Lebowski took over our government, it seems there was a fair bit of warning I'd missed in that film the first time around.