A call for the under-achievers

[jeanaragao]

Hey dudes!

Like Jeff Bridges once told some folks on the internet that the brilliance of TBL was that "new shit keeps coming to light" everytime you watched it, I myself realized something interesting about the movie. I know it's, well, like, my opinion, but I really felt like sharing it with you all.

When the dude makes his first attempt to get this rug back, we start hearing this key-concept of "achievers" x "bums" embodied by The Big Lebowski and the dude. As we all know, the end of the story is that TBL, the achiever and sponsor of an under-achiever program, actually uses bums to it's own benefit by trying to convince them that their slavery is actually a path to success (in this case, the whole delivery plot).
 
On the other hand, there is the dude and his crew who are, in fact, three possible postures to face the Square Community of the achievers: (a) to get angry and hostile to them (Walter); (b) to consciously abide; or (c) to simply void yourself of the world, pretending you're not there (Donny, who loved bowling). In fact, there's one particular scene at the bowling alley in which Donny mediates the other two, dude in "white" and Walter in "black".

So, what the fuck Am I blathering about?

I think what the movie was really about is that (and we can catch lots of references pointing to this) the so-called achievers are just trying to manipulate us bums into getting a job (son) for spinning the wheel to their benefit and it'll be always like this. What really matters, though, is how you'll present yourself to it. Although Walter also survived, he never took it easy as our cowboy fella suggested.

[Dave Killens]

But the Big Lebowski was not an achiever, he was a parasite, a poseur, a fake.

The Dude found the middle ground, Donny was too passive and did not make it while Walter was too strong and never lost strength.

[Masked Dude]

The way I see it is that some times we need to be Walter, sometimes we need to be Donny, and sometimes we need to be the Dude. To me, if everyone acted like the Dude, nothing would ever get done. No one would farm, so no one would eat. No one would build, so no one would have shelter. If everyone acted like Walter, we'd just fight and argue. If everyone was Walter, we'd have unhealthy relationships with people from our past. If everyone acted like Donny, we'd have no idea what was going on. We'd be out there getting Lennon and Lenin mixed up, and we'd have to mediate and not truly be heard. Donny reminds us that our time on this dirt marble is finite and limited.

The Dude couldn't have done any of the delivery by himself. Walter couldn't have done any of it himself. Donny couldn't have done it. But together, they did it.

Also, we don't know the whole back story of the Big Lebowski. Yeah, he hates the "bums" of the world. But we don't know if he was ever a good guy. Maybe he was a good guy but got cynical over the years. We're assuming Maude is just weird and the Big Lebowski is the asshole. We just don't know, dudes. But he did have a good point about not letting the loss of his legs stop him in life. So in a way he did achieve. We're assuming he was cruel about it because of our preconceived notions of rich people.

Or maybe it was a crazy movie with no real point.

[jeanaragao]

The way I see it is that some times we need to be Walter, sometimes we need to be Donny, and sometimes we need to be the Dude. To me, if everyone acted like the Dude, nothing would ever get done. No one would farm, so no one would eat. No one would build, so no one would have shelter. If everyone acted like Walter, we'd just fight and argue. If everyone was Walter, we'd have unhealthy relationships with people from our past. If everyone acted like Donny, we'd have no idea what was going on. We'd be out there getting Lennon and Lenin mixed up, and we'd have to mediate and not truly be heard. Donny reminds us that our time on this dirt marble is finite and limited.

The Dude couldn't have done any of the delivery by himself. Walter couldn't have done any of it himself. Donny couldn't have done it. But together, they did it.

Also, we don't know the whole back story of the Big Lebowski. Yeah, he hates the "bums" of the world. But we don't know if he was ever a good guy. Maybe he was a good guy but got cynical over the years. We're assuming Maude is just weird and the Big Lebowski is the asshole. We just don't know, dudes. But he did have a good point about not letting the loss of his legs stop him in life. So in a way he did achieve. We're assuming he was cruel about it because of our preconceived notions of rich people.

Or maybe it was a crazy movie with no real point.

That's fucking interesting! That's fucking interesting, man! Really digged your way of thinking, man! Fuckin' A!

I know though we have lots of preconceived ideas about people in general, but the thing is that the director sets this frame of reference for us to play with, and that's that. So, regarding the movie itself, I wouldn't go that far to consider TBL's history, but I understand your comment about the bigger picture...