A Guide to Modern Living: Be More Like Elliott Gould in the 1970s
I have a list I call, “Punk but not punk rock.” It’s a handful people that likely never had a mohawk, don’t know Black Flag or why they should pick a favorite singer from the band’s history, and lack any questionable tattoos they maybe got done in a squat. They’re on this list because their desire to do their own thing, while giving zero fucks, is eclipsed only by their talent and output. The list of weirdos, non-conformists, and other assorted geniuses includes the Marx Brothers, Carrie Fisher, Miles Davis, anybody involved with Mad magazine, Dorothy Parker, James Baldwin, and, especially, Elliott Gould. The way Gould has lived his life, and presented himself on screen, specifically in the 1970s, is a blueprint for surviving—and, possibly, thriving—in 2021.
It all adds up to a lifestyle brand I call the Philosophy of Elliott Gould.
If you’re a Gould novice, you probably know him best as Jack Geller, father of Monica and Ross in Friends. The more sophisticated Gould fans have seen his work in several Robert Altman films—more on those in a minute—and the real Gould heads are familiar with not only his entire body of work from the ‘70s (and, I’m sure, his small role in Noah Baumbach’s 1995 movie Kicking and Screaming) but also his marriage to Barbara Streisand. His critical acclaim tapered off in the ‘80s, but he remains an icon of 20th century Hollywood.
There are two ways to understand The Philosophy of Gould: The first is to read a 2016 interview in the Brooklyn Eagle in which Gould summed up his worldview:
“I have always had a problem with authority. By that I mean, that authoritative people would tell you how things were and those people weren’t necessarily right.”
That’s 100 percent true. But Gould was born in 1938 and likely developed that philosophy in the 1940s and ‘50s when the idea of “authority” meant something different. Today everybody is an authority—or can try to be. Just make a clever-enough TikTok or send a fire tweet and who knows, maybe people will listen to your theory on why the Covid vaccine makes you magnetic. I mean, people have been convinced of even stupider things. Healthy skepticism is table stakes to exist in the world in 2021. But because everyone is an authority, refusing to conform would be debilitating. Gould was pragmatic. “I always had a dislike for having to conform,” he said. “And it turns out I wasn’t wrong. But one has to be realistic, to deal with the real world.”
The second way to understand the Philosophy of Elliott Gould is to watch any of his films from the early-1970s, but especially the three (four if you want to count his cameo in Nashville, but I don’t) he did with Altman. Start with Trapper John, the cynical army doctor, beer drinker, and all-around hornball, in M*A*S*H from 1970. Then watch his take on Philip Marlowe in the 1973 adaption of Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye, a role that Roger Ebert described as “a 1953 character in a 1973 world.” He’s a chain-smoking dark cloud in sunny Southern California. I wouldn’t say he’s proto-goth, but Gould’s take on the famous private detective is a study of a guy who doesn’t belong somewhere and doesn’t really seem to care. A true individual in Tom Wolfe’s “Me Decade.” Finally, in 1974’s California Split, he’s a free-spirited gambler who, you just know, is going to get his ass kicked—and does, a few times—for being a smart ass. But he’ll never change.
In all of these roles, Gould is an old-school nonconformist who still finds a way to exist in these very complicated worlds—even if that means taking the occasional punch on the nose. Remember his quote from the 2016 interview: “I always had a dislike for having to conform... But one has to be realistic, to deal with the real world.”
The thing is, it’s 2021. Despite the Bacchanalia of our Post-Vax Summer, the real world can send you running for the Klonopin. People are fascinated by the idea that we're living through the Roaring '20s Part II, but 2021 is more like 1971: the Summer of Love is dead and gone, replaced by Altamont, Kent State, and Nixon. We’ve seen the worst and we’re just trying to recover. Whether we know it or not, we're experiencing a collective PTSD. And so, modern nonconformity looks more like a coping mechanism; we reject all the so-called authority figures by narrowing our worlds to certain media outlets, podcasts, and books. We filter the real world instead of finding a way to exist within it. We avoid the occasional punch on the nose altogether.
Gould was the perfect actor for the early '70s, which is why he feels more relevant than ever: he was a sardonic smart-ass, talking trash and causing trouble. Yet he was still warm and emphatic. He stuck up for the underdog. Despite it all, he seemed somehow joyful. We can all learn from this balance he struck.
Importantly, Gould was never sanctimonious or overly serious. He clowned around for the camera during his honeymoon with then-wife Barbara Streisand—photos that recently went viral—became a punchline in Friends, and played the goofy boss Ruben Tishkoff alongside George Clooney and Brad Pitt in the Oceans franchise. Just find the episodes of Saturday Night Live he hosted. Each time he’d show up dressed like he put on whatever was laying around, and it always translated to ridiculously stylish fits, from a cardigan over a High Times T-shirt to a Southwestern style pattern jacket and yellow beanie that looks like it has influenced Ralph Lauren collections ever since.
There has always been a certain degree of control over how we, the public, see famous people. Gould wasn’t the first to suggest: “This is who I am, this is what I do, and I don’t care what you think.” It’s the way he did it that’s so awesome. He’s a hairy Jewish guy from Brooklyn. He’s never been Paul Newman hot or Steve McQueen badass, but he’s undeniably good looking (and at 82, remains that way) and it’s just as fun to just watch him goof off and down cans of beer in California Split as it is to watch McQueen dart around in a Mustang. Elliott Gould has always worked because he’s an imperfect person living in far from perfect times. And right now, with the world in the most messed up shape it’s been since Gould’s rise to prominence, looking to his way of doing things is a welcomed change.
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