The Big Lebowski and the Office Space

Movies and Their Impact

Movies play an important part in a person's day-to-day life. The film industry also produces a variety of films that appeal to a wide range of audiences around the world. Critics, on the other hand, often find a way to condemn a film that struggles to meet its standards. Because of its sense of humor and laughter, comedy has captured the hearts of many movie stars. Furthermore, humor has a way of expressing real-life habits. The Office Space focuses on the ethics and values of people in society, while The Big Lebowski offers comedy and amusement on masculinity templates. The humor in the play seems to challenge the heterosexual gender norm supported by various American film genres. The Big Lebowski depicts the reality in a consumable form which enables the audience to recognize and identify themselves with the characters.

The Portrayal of Masculinity

The Big Lebowski outlines masculinity as a stable, universal and unchanging and not as a performance. The film makers have a mandate of ensuring that there exist a set of narrative procedures and stylistic emphasis. The Big Lebowski reveals a sense of humor as it tends to confuse the audience and posing the possibility of alternative masculinity models through the diversity of the audience. The characters induce laughter because the physical appearance of the characters and their actions fail to comply with the normative image of their gender. The movie, The Big Lebowski has genres that constitutes the audience’s secure position. The viewer’s position reflects a broader ideological constructions of gender that inform and determine certain attitudes in the society. Therefore, The Big Lebowski is evaluated as a field for the creation of a masculine model in which physical strength and competition play an important role.

Comedy Movies and Audience Behavior

The movies define the audience characters in different ways. The Comedy movies attract the attention of many audiences because comedy has some sense of humor and laughter. Individuals try to copy the roles by different characters in the film industry. The Big Lebowski and The Office Space have different characters and symbols. However, these two movies play a significant role in the lives of the audience across the world. The movies have a sense of humor thus the characters portray the audience’s behavior in a mechanical way (Klassen 11). The audience of The Office Space may adopt unethical behaviors such as carrying out fraudulent activities in the company. Such behaviors may arise due to lack of businesses to implement effective and strong business code of ethics that governs employees’ behavior.

Morality and Ethics

The Office Space, outlines how morals and ethics pertain to the principles of right and wrong. Morals help individuals shape up their behaviors while ethics provide an essential foundation for business and personal transactions based on moral values. The Office Space outlines the workers' behavior towards their daily routines. The movie has a sense of humor and laughter just as in Big Lebowski. The characters in The Office Space demonstrate that their morals of hating work result from lack of ethics by the coworkers and office bosses. The Office Space is an interesting comedy that seeks to ascertain Klassen’s assertions that comedy portrays life in a mechanical way.

Business Ethics and Success

The Office Space outlines the business ethics issues where the main character uses ethical and unethical decisions to advance his career. The movie supports the initiation of strong business ethics in any company to facilitate growth and prosperity. A strong business code of ethics will provide a foundation and structure by which a company operates. Besides, it will provide values a company possesses when dealing with employees, customers, and the public. The code of ethics if tailored to the company with the company-wide training will teach employees about following the company code of ethics. As a result, a company will have transformed morals of various individuals. The behavior of some characters in The Office Space, for example Peter, Samir, and Michael resulted from lack of strong business ethics thus leading to the leak of confidential information like firing of Samir and Michael from Initech Company.

Comedy as a Reflection of Reality

Comedy, at its core, is a society’s way of correcting unproductive behavior patterns of individuals. Klassen argues that individuals have minds with an infinite capacity when they are not preoccupied with the body and self-preservation (Klassen 12). The Klassen’s argument that comedy may correct unproductive behavior is supported by the character in The Office Space. Peter decides not to go to work instead goes out for lunch and later engages in unethical business discussion. As a result, Peter influences Samir and Michael to inject a virus into the company’s system such that they can organize a scam without getting noticed. However, the comedy tends to shape the characters' behavior when Peter decides to take wrap of the problem by refunding the money to the company manager as Samir and Michael feel remorseful for their act. The audience can learn from the characters' behavior. Thus, in such a case, comedy seems to reflect the realities in life in a mechanical way as argued by Klassen (11). The characters in the Office Space, just as the main character in The Big Lebowski, focus on attracting the audience's attention and attracting more viewers. As a result, the characters have a mandate to portray the audience’s real-life activities.

The Office Space clearly indicates that corporate governance guidelines and business ethics should be the backbone for any business to be successful. Without these procedures in place, a company risks damage to reputation, criminal and legal action, and regulatory penalties resulting in the loss of customers, reduced market share, and the loss of control over the business. For example, the fraud conducted by Samir and Michael, which led to the company almost losing a lot of money. Just as The Big Lebowski outlines the symbol of masculinity in society, the Office Space defines how morals and ethics pertain to the principles of right and wrong in society. The characters' behavior of applying both ethical and unethical code of conduct to build his career supports Klassen's argument that ethics provide an essential foundation for business and personal transactions based on morals.