slacker (1991)
the madonna pap smear.
Director, Writer, & Producer: Richard Linklater
Genre: comedy/indie film
length: 1h 37m
Budget: 23,000 USD
Box office: $1.2 million
release date: July 5, 1991
watched: January 28, 2025 (first viewing: 2014)
“Sorry I’m late”
”That’s okay. Time Doesn’t exist.”
The first time I watched Slacker was when I was a college freshman. I had just moved out of my house and into my college condo right next to campus.
I didn’t form many new friendships during my first year. I did have a constant presence, though: my high school friend Dani, who would visit me at the condo during breaks.
Other than Dani, I didn’t have much of a social life.
It was a lonely first year, but what kept me going was my love for cinema. Of all the films I watched that year, Slacker was the one I connected with the most.
Slacker is a low-budget indie film about an underground community of unambitious intellectuals, artists, musicians, and whackos from Austin, Texas. The storyline has no plot and is filled with one-sided monologues of each character’s esoteric obsessions: conspiracy theories, philosophical ramblings, Oblique Strategies, Madonna pap smears, and loads of absurd takes on art, media, and technology.
Because of its unconventional structure and themes, Slacker is a polarizing movie. Either you find it pretentious, or punk as hell.
A good litmus test? Your interest in UFOs.
It’s been eleven years since my first viewing of this film. What drew me to Slacker back then was that I had no idea what anyone was talking about. The characters didn’t have any clear life goals, and yet they were strangely perceptive of the nature of reality.
For that reason, I wasn’t sure how I felt about them. Were they passionate or apathetic? Lazy bums or artistic geniuses? Smart as hell or stupid as shit?
Now that I’m turning 30, I get these people. Not only am I embracing the Slacker movie, I’ve fully embodied its philosophies. In this piece, I will explain why such a film speaks to me more than ever.
Slacker /ˈslakər/
n.1. a person who evades duties and responsibilities.
Back in high school, I had these two classmates from the baseball team who I would always make fun of. They didn’t care much about school and were pretty content with doing the bare minimum. I’d tell them to their faces that they had no direction in life, and that they needed to get their shit together.
Although we were just messing around, I did have a certain judgment about that kind of behavior. Why waste your potential? Why be dead weight? In my teen years, I was an overachiever who strived for nothing but the best in school, sports, and student council affairs. Any form of irresponsible behavior, I would side-eye.
Fast forward a decade, and two of my friends have gone on to stable jobs and long-term relationships.
And me? I’m the one with no direction in life.
The title “slacker” appears to have a negative connotation, but I don’t believe it to be the case. Pop culture is filled with slackers who are endearing and somewhat aspirational: the Dude in The Big Lebowski, Napoleon in Napoleon Dynamite, Wayne and Garth in Wayne’s World, Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High...
Many of these characters have become cult icons because they exude a level of honesty. If we were all given the option not to work a job we hated, most of us wouldn’t. Why pay taxes if you can bowl and drink White Russians all day like the Dude? Why answer to a self-absorbed boss if you can host your own rock ‘n’ roll TV show in your basement like Wayne and Garth?
Linklater understood this insight, and yet he also knew that the typical trope didn’t paint the whole picture. What sets Slacker apart from other slacker films is that its characters know what real passion is. On the surface, they’re wasting their lives, trapped in their own bubble of offbeat interests. No one really cares if the JFK assassination was staged or if we’ve been on the moon since the 1950s.
But to call them lazy or unproductive is just as inaccurate. They’re writing books, making music, setting up art installations, and collecting television sets. There’s real fervor in this community—passion you won’t find in conventional settings.
No matter how strange and delusional their obsessions are, they’re doing it with raw, unfiltered zeal. As the anarchist puts it, “The passion for destruction is also a creative passion.”
Keep Austin Weird.
In the commentary for Slacker, Linklater shares how tolerant the Austin community is of the eccentric. He jokes that you can’t always tell if a person is a government worker, university professor, or has just gotten out of the mental institution. The lines are blurred between normalcy and schizophrenia.
People are weird everywhere, but not every society embraces it. In more homogeneous communities—where there’s a strict code of what’s good, right, or moral—it’s tough to let your freak flag fly when it falls outside the lines.
In the Slacker universe, however, as long as you’re not causing harm to anyone, you’re pretty much accepted into their community. Not only will they accept you, they’ll fully welcome your quirks.
Whether this is a good or bad thing is up to the viewer. If a man breaks into your home to rob you, will you attack him or befriend him? If a schizophrenic woman in a 7-Eleven repeatedly tells you that you should not traumatize a woman sexually, will you complain about harassment or sympathetically let her be?
There is a lack of discipline and structure in this world. Everything is as malleable as rubber: morals, societal expectations, personal identity, a sense of time.
And yet, the dreamlike landscape of the film feels closer to reality than most depictions. If we strip down our beliefs enough, everything we believe to be “reality” is made up. The conspiracy theory about the New World Order is just as fabricated as the information in our birth certificates.
Slacker is self-aware and non-judgmental about this fact. Linklater is not telling you that the guy who ran over his mom is a bad guy or that what he did was wrong… He’s kinda just showing you that he ran over his fucking mom. Neither is he telling you to believe conspiracy-a-go-go guy and his outlandish takes—it merely exists as another expression.
There’s also no real focus on any of the characters' personal stories. While most traditional narratives explore why people are the way they are, Slacker is about seeing people as they are in the moment, without the burden of the past or future. In a world that’s obsessed with labels and definitions, this portrayal is a breath of fresh air.
All in all, Slacker is a film full of weirdos who don’t fit into normal society. There’s a fine line between being an artist and being a crazy person, and wherever you fall, you’re fucking rad either way.
Conclusion
I found Slacker in my first viewing bold yet unambitious, enigmatic yet ungrounded. Though it spoke to me, there was still a wall between me and the film.
Watching it again after many years, the wall has disappeared. I can get on these people’s wavelength as easily as I can count to ten.
Slacker is one of my favorite films, but I recognize that it isn’t for everyone. If you are into experimental indie films, have bohemian sensibilities, and don’t mind stream-of-consciousness-style dialogue, then I highly recommend this picture.
Otherwise, you’re better off watching other movies I recommend in my newsletter.
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