Why Women Hate The Big Lebowski

Hint: It’s not because “Jackie Treehorn treats objects like women, man”

Paul Greenberg
3 min readFeb 13, 2024

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“Big Lebowski Cardigan” by Menswear Market is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

From time to time my teenage son and I will go in for a little bit of Lebowski riffing.

Should my son advance into the playoffs in one high school sport or another I will say to him, à la Jesús:

“I see you roll your way into the semis. Dios mio man…”

Should I find myself, in my 50-something way, searching my mind fruitlessly for a way to emphasize an importance, my son will say, à la Walter Sobchak:

“That was a valued . . . uh . . .”

Meanwhile, my son’s mother will look at us in silent exasperation. Should we dare to Lebowski in public, she will out these small exchanges to the larger group with a “there-they-go-again” eye roll and say something like, “men love that movie.” As if to say it’s a “men’s movie” not worth the consideration as a piece of art that spans worlds; as if to deny the shear stickiness of the dialogue — the particular way that script has of ear-worming its way into your very soul.

There are much more misogynistic media out there that women not only accept but crave. Why, for example, are so many women drawn to the most…

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Paul Greenberg

New York Times bestselling author of Four Fish as well as The Climate Diet and Goodbye Phone, Hello World paulgreenberg.org