YMMV / Philip Marlowe

• Fan-Preferred Couple: Generally, fans preferred Phillip Marlowe with Anne Riordan from Farewell, My Lovely to Linda Loring in The Long Goodbye. This was because Anne was clever and a very active participant in the cases versus Linda's rich debutante. Fans of the movies also preferred Mrs. Rutledge from The Big Sleep despite the fact they didn't have a romance in the book.
• Ho Yay: Marlowe has a tendency to misogyny, but also to extreme idealization of his relationships with certain men, in particular Red Norgaard in Farewell, My Lovely and Terry Lennox in The Long Goodbye. Some modern readers suspect that this implies that Marlowe is something of a closet case.
• Values Dissonance: By modern standards, Marlowe's not the most politically correct chap. He frequently displays misogynistic and homophobic attitudes in many of the novels, and in Farewell, My Lovely he casually uses numerous racist slurs to refer to African-Americans, although he does interact with several African-American characters in a reasonably polite and tolerant fashion. Notably, he uses the slurs when talking to openly racist people; maybe he felt the need to talk down to their level.
  • Phillip Marlowe's opinion on pot is expressed as such in The Little Sister:
    “Anybody can smoke reefers,” I said. “If you’re dull and lonely and depressed and out of a job, they might be very attractive. But when you smoke them you get warped ideas and calloused emotions. And marijuana affects different people different ways. Some it makes very tough and some it just makes never-no-mind.
  • Phillip Marlowe suspects Doctor Lagardie is a gangster due to his past as an abortionist.