The Big Lebowski’s Bowling Problems

I mean this is just like, my opinion, man

Photo by Brad Preece on Unsplash

On reviewing The Big Lebowski for the 47,162nd time, I wanted to interrogate the film with the particular lens of the sport of bowling. Some other observations about the film will also be addressed in this discourse but it’s really down the lanes that I want to roll some key questions. So here goes:

1. As we’re all well aware, Walter did draw a firearm during League play. We see this with our own eyes (though we never get a chance to see whether Smokey was indeed over the line). That’s a judgment call and since Walter is a man who survived many a night in the jungle facing the “man in the black pyjamas” I defer to his superior observational abilities. Nevertheless as Walter himself points out bowling is not ‘Nam and there are, in fact, rules. It would appear that one of the rules is that you cannot draw a firearm during League Play. We know this from the message Bill Salinger of the So. Cal Bowling League leaves on Jeffrey’s answering machine. True, as a Connecticut-based Lebowski scholar pointed out to me recently, a “known sex offender with a record” competes in the So. Cal Bowling League indicating that the League’s ethical standards are on the low side. Moreover, Salinger notes that this was brought to his attention at the level of an “informal” complaint so perhaps the League just let…