Maude and The Dude: Feminism and Masculinity in The Big Lebowski (1998)

 

Written by Rachael Johnson as part of our theme week on Cult Films and B Movies.

Stuffed with unique characters and superb comic performances, The Big Lebowski is an insanely enjoyable crime caper about mistaken identity, fake kidnapping and fraud. Set in LA in the early 90s, its cast of characters includes zealous bowlers, avant-garde artists and Malibu pornographers. Perfectly played by Jeff Bridges, the hero is Jeff Lebowski, an ageing hippie and contemporary slacker who prefers to be called “The Dude.” Referencing The Big Sleep and the screwball comedy, The Big Lebowski has scenes of surreal visual wit and a wonderfully funny script. The movie was, bizarrely enough, neither a great commercial or critical success when it was released in 1998. Nonetheless, affection for it has grown and the pot-smoking, White Russian-drinking Dude has become a beloved icon of contemporary American cinema. There are now academic conferences and festivals dedicated to The Big Lebowski as well as a faith. Yes, Dudeism is truly a cult.

I will not go into the mad plot in detail but the central premise of the tale is that the Dude is mistaken for a pompous, paraplegic, elderly tycoon (David Huddleston) who shares his name. I am more interested in the brothers’ comic characterizations of the two Mr. Lebowskis, the older man’s adult daughter, Maude, and his young ‘trophy wife’, Bunny. I will draw particular attention to their portraits of the Dude and the tycoon’s daughter. As with the men, the women of the film could not be more different. Maude (Julianne Moore) is a somewhat snooty feminist artist who has decided to have a child and Bunny (Tara Reid) is a nymphomaniac with links to the porn industry. I will not only look at the Coens’ representation of women in the comedy but will also examine their ideas about masculinity. Let us first consider the Dude.

 

We first see the Dude wandering through a supermarket late at night, being contemptuously eyed by the sales clerk. When he finally goes to the counter, the Dude casts a look at George Bush Senior giving a statement on the store’s television. This is around the time of the first US-Iraq War and the President is issuing a warning: “This will not stand, this aggression against Kuwait.” As not a few Lebowski scholars have rightly noted, the movie’s hero does not conform to capitalist and militarist models of American masculinity. We do not really know how he does it but the Dude survives quite happily outside the world of work. A man without ambition is still considered atypical or odd in society. He is, to a considerable extent, a subversive being. The Dude’s laid-back, pleasure-loving ways are both amusing and appealing to both male and female viewers. It is no accident that we first see the Dude in a supermarket. His relaxed lifestyle, modest apartment and endearingly scruffy appearance all give the finger to the consumerist ethos. The Dude is also a pacifist with a radical past. He claims that he was an author of the original Port Huron statement as well as one of the Seattle Seven. The dominant placing in his home of the iconic photo of Nixon bowling is also a tongue in cheek expression of his anti-establishment politics. The Dude’s personality and progressive values are at odds with the military-industrial complex. Frankly, I think the film’s great cult appeal in both the US and around the world is due, in considerable part, to his peace-loving personality and progressive principles. The Dude appears to be the antithesis of macho American militarism. The cowboy narrator (Sam Elliot) who begins and finishes the tale may be a charming, dreamy character but he is intended as a send-up of a mythic figure of American masculinity. The characterization of the Dude’s buddy Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) as a ham-fisted, egotistical, Vietnam-obsessed nut also serves as a parody of American power. The old-fashioned, obsolete storyteller introduces us to a different kind of man.

 

The Dude also displays pretty feminist leanings in his recognition of society’s commodification of the female body. A desiring heterosexual man, he openly flirts with Bunny and happily beds Maude. Pornography, however, does not seem to play a significant part of his single sex life. “Mr. Treehorn treats objects like women,” the Dude cries at one point about a certain Malibu-based pornographer named Jackie Treehorn. His upside down observation points to a certain progressive awareness. When Maude shows him a clip of Logjammin’, a film directed by Treehorn and starring her stepmother, his response is droll and sardonic. In the film, a cable man appears at the apartment of two young women. Bunny is semi-dressed and her roommate is topless. Maude notes how “ludicrous” the story is and the Dude responds with a somewhat unexpected sharpness.

Maude: Lord. You can imagine where it goes from here.

Dude: He fixes the cable?

When the Dude encounters Treehorn himself, he is impressed by the man’s pad but not his ambitions. He is not convinced by the director’s promises of technological advancements in the industry and sees through his artistic pretensions. The following snippet amusingly illustrates his skepticism:

Jackie Treehorn: I deal in publishing, entertainment, political advocacy.

The Dude: Which one’s Logjammin’?

“Real-life” incidents and hallucinatory sequences indicate that the Dude manifests classic Freudian fears of castration but I suspect that it is the Dude’s mostly uncomplicated, easy masculinity–as well as laid-back ways and good nature–that make him an unsuspecting (initially at least) sperm donor for Maude.

 

The Dude’s first proper meeting with the feminist artist is at her loft. Maude’s eye-catching entrance is literally over the top. Passing directly over him, she sails through the air on ropes before spraying paint on the canvas below. When she descends and frees herself from the harness, we see that she performs her conceptual art in the nude. She dresses and approaches the Dude. With her geometric bob and green velvet robe, the pale, red-haired Maude has a markedly Bohemian look. In a composed though dramatic voice, she fires questions about sex at the Dude. “Does the female form make you uncomfortable, Mr Lebowski?” she asks. The Dude does not seem at all uncomfortable. Maude explains, “My art has been commended as being strongly vaginal which bothers some men. The word itself makes some men uncomfortable. Vagina.” The Dude remains unfazed. Maude seems to have a mid-Atlantic accent. Her crystal-clear enunciation of “vagina” is, in any case, quite special. The Dude is primarily interested in his missing carpet–watch the film!–but Maude continues to ask him if he likes sex. Before he has the chance to answer, she tells him, “The male myth about feminists is that we hate sex. It can be a natural, zesty enterprise…” She then defines satyriasis and nymphomania for him before informing him that Bunny suffers from the latter. What is comic is incongruous, of course, and the interplay between the two is both very funny and well-observed.

In their portrait of Maude, the Coens appear to paint the conceptual artist as pretentious. Their characterization parodies so-called self-regarding aesthetic styles and artsy affectations. In another scene set in her studio, Maude laughs eccentrically on the phone to Italy. Her male colleague in the room giggles along with her. Their laughter is shown to be smug and silly. It is a pointed critique but–as with all satirical portraits–the intention is to shame human–male and female–vanity. The target of the Coens’ satire here is, also, the narcissism of the affluent artist. What is potentially more problematic is their parody of a female, feminist artist. The references to self-referential portraits and nudity are intended to allude to feminist artistic traditions. However, the mocking is not nasty but knowing, and these references could also be meant to ironically refer to popular notions of feminism. Although crafty and patronizing, Maude is not a hateful, misogynistic projection. She is, rather, a richly singular, strong and amusing comic character. Moreover, her theatrical, over-the-top nature actually functions to upset such readings. Julianne Moore’s interpretation of Maude is both vivid and clever and should always be highlighted in pop culture discussions of the comedy.

 

The Dude and Maude have sex when she later appears without warning at his home. She opens her robe and simply says, “Love me, Jeffrey.” Cut to the Dude smoking a post-coital jay while Maude asks questions about his background and lifestyle. Her face remains impassive as he tells of his radical days and love of bowling but you can tell that she is not impressed. A brief hope that he may have had musical talents is swiftly extinguished when he tells her that he used to a roadie for Metallica. The Dude is initially unaware that Maude has chosen him as a sperm donor and is, quite naturally, taken back by her desire to have a child with him. Quite hilariously, she responds by scolding him for his superficiality: “Well yes, what did you think this was all about–fun and games? I want a child.” However, the Dude does not seem bothered by his purely reproductive role when Maude tells him: “Look Jeffrey, I don’t want a partner. In fact, I don’t want the partner to be someone that I have to see socially or have any interest in raising the child himself.” Maude’s unabashed self-interest and imperious air amuse the viewer. The Dude’s castration anxieties may ironically refer to his lack of sway over Maude and misogynist fears of castrating feminists but the Dude is fundamentally quite happy to provide for his feminist “lady friend” and do what she wants. In a celebrated hallucinatory sequence, a film within a film, Maude plays a commanding Valkyrie.

What is, of course, arguably more predictable and disappointing about The Big Lebowski is the small number of female characters. There is only one other female character of note in the comedy: Bunny Lebowski. Bunny is a Californian stereotype: a tanned, party-loving blonde. The Coens do, in a way, sabotage the stereotype through exaggeration: Bunny is not portrayed as a victim but as an outrageously self-assertive, promiscuous young woman. When the Dude first encounters her relaxing by the pool, she makes him the following offer: “I’ll suck your cock for a thousand dollars.” There is also, it is true, no female solidarity shown by the main female characters in the film. Maude does not like or approve of her stepmother. Although a feminist, she seems to have no problem calling a Bunny a slut. It is not surprising, however, that there is no love lost between them. Seemingly loyal to the memory of her late mother, Maude is, quite understandably, not overjoyed at her father’s marriage to a much younger “trophy wife.” As a feminist, she also cannot commend Bunny’s pornographic experiences.

 

There is, also, perhaps, a less progressive side to the Coens’ portrait of Maude. Is she not yet another female character in a Coen Brothers movie pregnant or craving a child? Think Fargo or Raising Arizona. What to make of this tendency? Is it pro-natalist or merely life-affirming? Does it reflect male awe of fertility and indicate an endorsement of matriarchy? What makes The Big Lebowski more subversive, however, than Raising Arizona is that the female character is a single mother who does not want a father for her child and has no need for a male provider. Maude is a fundamentally anti-patriarchal cult heroine. She should, therefore, be celebrated by feminist dudettes or dudes everywhere.

It is Maude who sheds light on the real state of the Big Lebowski’s wealth and power. She explains to the Dude that her father does not have money in his own right and that her mother was the wealthy one. We also learn that Lebowski’s role in the company is actually inconsequential. He helps oversee the charities and is given “a reasonable allowance” by Maude. The old man was, moreover, not a great professional success in the past. “We did let him run one of the companies briefly but he didn’t do very well at it,” his daughter explains. The Dude responds with initial wonder but Maude convinces him that this is the case: “I know how he likes to present himself. Father’s weakness is vanity, hence the slut.” Maude not only helps The Dude get a handle on the schemes surrounding him but she also punctures masculine vanity and shines a light on the pretensions of fathers. Personified by Maude’s father, patriarchy is shown to be fraudulent in the Big Lebowski. The dominant placing of Dude’s iconic poster of Nixon in his home, of course, serves as a knowing comment on fallen, deceitful fathers.

 

At the end of the movie, the cowboy narrator assures us, “I happen to know there’s a little Lebowski on the way.” The Coens’ zany Valentine to Californian eccentricity does not end in marriage or even cohabitation. This ending is amusingly intended as a satisfying resolution for both genders. It may not be romantic but both the hero and his “lady friend” get what they want: Maude is blessed with a little Lebowski and the Dude contentedly returns to his old life. The Big Lebowski simultaneously salutes the freedoms of unconventional men as well as female reproductive agency and power. Populated by mostly male characters, The Big Lebowski is, to some extent, a tale of male friendship. Nevertheless, the cult comedy should never be interpreted and celebrated as exclusively a guy’s film. The Big Lebowski offers an amusing, subversive portrait of masculinity and features an excellent comic performance by one of the most gifted actresses working today. What’s more, it suggests that the future is matriarchal.