genre collisions

I've been watching various things on YouTube while I knit, and one of those things was an analysis of The Big Lebowski - a classic Coen Brothers movie that I really love, and one I've been trying unsuccessfully to get my parents to watch - which referenced this idea that it is a "slacker noir" or "stoner noir" movie, a term coined in this 2015 video from Slate, The Rise of Slacker Noir.

It's a well-thought-out video essay, and under 5 minutes, if you're interested. ( The video )

This video essay proposes the existence of a specific subgenre of slacker/stoner comedy characterized by a fusion with elements of the noir genre to great comedic effect, with The Big Lebowski an archetypal example. The video essay asserts that:

• The slacker or stoner comedy's hero and the noir hero have central characteristics in common, i.e. a cynical attitude to a society that they hold themselves, or view themselves as, separate from


• The noir hero pursues the solution to the mystery actively, whereas the slacker hero, when accidentally drawn into the noir plot, spends the entire movie trying to run in the opposite direction


• The slacker hero's attempts to extricate themselves from the noir mystery drive the developments that draw them deeper into the plot against their will to comedic effect

This rings true to me, although I haven't seen any of the other movies named in the video essay as examples of the genre: After Hours (1985), Pineapple Express, Go (1999), Super Troopers (2001), The Hangover, Friday (1995), Repo Man, Smiley Face, Half-Baked (?). (I probably will try to see a couple of them now out of curiosity... .) It also made me pretty excited because it did an excellent job of highlighting the thematic core of The Big Lebowski, what makes me like it so much and what I find funniest about it.

Oddly, the next movie to come to mind was recent Scarlett Johansson & Kate McKinnon comedy Rough Night (2017), which I watched on a plane. ( Rough Night vs the stoner noir )