Response to Zach's Blog Post

The Big Lebowski is somewhat of a trip of a movie, I equate it almost to a strictly marijuana-influenced version of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The two share a plot that gives much leeway, with much of the meat of the movies coming from side experiences the main characters get themselves caught up in. However I do argue that this movie follows more structure than the other and this allows it to open itself up to the different theories of comedy, as stated by Zach. Incongruity as many surprising events occur, bringing with them laughter. Superiority can be seen in the scene where The Dude's carpet is urinated on. Relief comes from the calm reactions of The Dude, even when something bad is occurring.
Stoner comedy, as I like to refer to movies such as this, can be very hit or miss. Films such as Harold and Kumar and Cheech and Chong are some other famous examples where the humor, at least for the most part, lands. Part of that is due to how heavily they rely on relief humor. The characters often find themselves in wacky situations, but many times are too out of it to really react or get upset about it. Now this can get boring, but The Big Lebowski manages to not due this by remaining relaxed and keeping the correct air around it the entire time. I think many people have dedicated themselves to Dudeism due to their wishes to be as mellow as The Dude. This is a hard thing to do but many people wish for it. Many movies to achieve the cult status that this film has have pretty awful critic reviews, but The Big Lebowski doesn't. It scored well on Rotten Tomatoes but still has a very heavy following. This is due to how well it was made and how appealing it proved to be to a wide variety of people just trying to take it easy.