Character Analysis
A no-nonsense feminist and conceptual artist, Maude Lebowski is the brains of this movie. She's always about 20 steps ahead of The Dude and lets him know it.
The Un-Femme Fatale
Most noir crime stories feature some sort of love interest. The well-worn trope: a beautiful young woman stumbles into a jaded P.I.'s office, asking for help. She's tough but ultimately submissive. As he investigates her case, the P.I. falls in love with her, and eventually they live happily ever after.
Not so here.
Maude Lebowski, daughter of the Big Lebowski, is a refreshing new spin on this old cliché. She's hip, intelligent, and very much her own woman. She's the one giving the P.I. all of his information, not vice versa. Yes, she does sleep with The Dude, but only because she wants to conceive a child with a partner whom she'll never have to see again. She's very sexual, very controlling, and confident:
MAUDE: It's a male myth about feminists that we hate sex. It can be a natural, zesty enterprise.
There's never a moment where Maude shows any trace of fear, uncertainty, or hesitation. In The Dude's drug-induced dream later in the movie, Maude appears as a Viking woman, and this image really sums her up perfectly.
The Coens use Maude as a feminist parody. She has no need for men except for enjoyment. She paints in the nude or in leather bondage gear. Her studio is filled with artwork meant to explore the objectification, control, and sexualization of women. Body parts and sexual images are all over the place. Maude's art is a way of taking back control and asserting her sexuality:
MAUDE: My art has been commended as being strongly vaginal, which bothers some men. The word itself makes some men uncomfortable. Vagina. […] Yes, they don't like hearing it and find it difficult to say whereas, without batting an eye, a man will refer to his dick or his rod or his Johnson.
If Maude thinks she's going to shock The Dude, she's wrong. He's not impressed.
Even though Maude is sophisticated and smart, her avant-garde art world doesn't escape the Coens' biting satire. Maude and her assistant are written as vain and a bit ridiculous. Maude seems to be contemptuous of everyone. A scene of her phone call to an artist in Italy shows us how pretentious the Coens think this kind of avant-garde art can be. The whole call consists of that fake, smug, semi-hysterical "insider" laughter—no dialogue at all.
Maude has her father's number for sure. She tells The Dude that he's a phony living off of her mother's money. She knows about Bunny's past life as a porn actress and sees through the whole kidnapping scheme. She seems like such an intellectual, no-nonsense, focused person. Why do you think she chooses The Dude to be the father of her child? Maybe because she knows he'll leave her alone? Anyway, at the end of the film, the cowboy tells us that a "little Lebowski" is on the way. Maude always gets what she wants.