Tommy Wiseau’s The Room: An unintentional MRA classic?
A rare non-misogynistic moment in The Room
You may have heard of, if you haven’t already seen, the stupefyingly terrible film The Room. The film is so bafflingly inept and nonsensical that you’re hardly surprised to learn that writer, director, and star Tommy Wiseau had never made a film before; indeed, you might find yourself wondering if he’d ever even seen a film before.
The Room (released, barely, in 2003 and available on DVD) is a mawkishly melodramatic, and deadly serious, drama about a man betrayed by his fiancee, which Wiseau has been trying to market as a quirky comedy because no one can watch the film without laughing at his hero’s travails. Rent The Room if you want to stare dumbfounded at your TV for an hour and a half some night. Seriously, rent it.
Seeing it for myself the first time not long ago, I was struck by the manosphere-style misogyny that pervades almost every frame of the movie. It’s not an MRA film, and Wiseau is no MRA, but somehow he manages to encapsulate every terrible stereotype about men and women that most MRAs seem to believe.
The film tells the sad story of Johnny (played by Wiseau), a good-hearted, long-haired banker with an unclassifiable accent who is betrayed at work (he doesn’t get his expected promotion) and, more importantly, by his “future wife” Lisa, who blithely cheats on him with his best friend.
Lisa is portrayed like the evil bitch villain in nearly every MRA urban legend: she’s a self-absorbed twit who, in addition to cheating on Johnny, falsely accuses him of domestic violence and fakes a pregnancy just to fuck with him.
Johnny, meanwhile, is supposed to be seen as a loyal, helpful, compassionate man who cares deeply about his friends and treats his adored “future wife” Lisa like the princess he tells her she is.
I say “supposed to” because Johnny is hardly the great guy Wiseau thinks he is. For one thing, everything he does and says is bit … off, as if his body has been taken over by a space alien who’s learned everything he knows about women (and human interaction in general) by reading comments on Reddit and watching Christopher Walken as “The Continental” on Saturday Night Live without getting the joke.
For another, he’s a rage-filled narcissist with a bad case of “nice guy” entitlement and absolutely no self-awareness. When his friend Mark tells him about a woman beaten so badly she ends up in the hospital, he responds with a hearty laugh. (“What a story, Mark!”) And when he confronts Lisa about her false accusations of domestic violence (“You are lying! I never hit you!”), he angrily shoves her down onto a couch. It doesn’t seem to occur to Johnny (or to Wiseau) that this too is a form of domestic violence.
When, after learning of Lisa’s betrayal, he trashes their apartment and [SPOILER ALERT] kills himself with a conveniently located pistol, Wiseau presents it as the ultimate comeuppance to the cruel Lisa.
While you have to see the whole film to truly appreciate its epic badness, the following clips will give you some idea of what I’ve been talking about.
First, the trailer, which tries its best to cover up the film’s true weirdness:
The infamous “roof scene” in which Johnny tells Mark (the guy Lisa is sleeping with) about Lisa’s accusations of domestic violence:
A compilation of some of Johnny’s best (i.e. worst) moments:
This one (ignore the misleading title) gives you some idea of Lisa’s oblivious evilness:
Here’s Hitler reacting to the film. (Note: Not the real Hitler.)
And here, if you dare, is the whole damn movie in its entirely. (If you’re pressed for time, you may want to fast forward through the film’s five completely unerotic sex scenes, set to the worst slow jams ever recorded.)
EDITED TO ADD: Oh, and here’s the scene the gif above is from. Johnny is the most efficient flower buyer and pug-petter in the world.
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Posted on April 26, 2012, in $MONEY$, alpha asshole cock carousel, domestic violence, evil women, false accusations, misogyny, MRA, narcissism, oppressed white men, sluts, the enigma that is ladies, video, YouTube. Bookmark the permalink. 121 Comments.
Oh hai random man I’ve never seen before, and whose name I don’t know, yet who attempts to chew out lisa as if they know each other.
My god… Even his beserk rage and wails of anguish are half-assed. O_O
Not to mention the guy’s got a face that looks like it was made of Silly Putty.
Eh, don’t really care all that much about looks or the accent. You know what really gets me?
The entire movie, Lisa is the main character. She just is. Johnny is an extra until the last five minutes. Not to mention the fact that if you took out the sub-plots that didn’t go anywhere, and cut all the repetative and wasteful dialogue, and replaced the love scenes with actual porn, you’d get porn.
God, now I have to see it. It sounds awesome, Kirby.
As terrible as it actually was, it was worth seeing if only for the experience. In a lot of ways, descriptions can’t do it justice.
Now to seek out some bleach.
I was wondering about that, myself.
I’ve finished the movie and I still don’t know… -_-
Talk about a guy with women issues.
Ah Tommy Wisaeu, king of the Gary Stu’s.
Wow, that must be some of the worst acting and dialogues I’ve seen in a while.
That roof scene? I mean, his girlfriend accuses him of domestic violence, he goes up and within 20secs completely changes topic and mood and everything.
So he wanted the guys to talk about x number of items and made them do so, even though it doesn’t make sense.
And you gotta love the friends who tell Lisa “we’re not worried about you, we’re worried about him”. And you’Re also going to upset our circle of friends so you better suck it up and be a good little woman.
There’s also this guided tour of the Room, http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/25743-the-room.
“That’s it! You reached the Nirvana of bad acting!”
Oh, I guess I should say that you can safely ignore the introduction. It’s a little strange.
BTW, no joke, this is one of the finest, most transcendentally beautiful pieces of cinema ever made. A true masterwork.
No, seriously, it’s fucking hilarious. Do-it-yerself MST3K-ready. AWESOME.
I think I’ll pass.
Oh my. I had never heard of this film before and I have been giggling about it all day. Thanks!
I saw that with my best friend. And yet I am still friends with him.
Still think Manos: Hands of Fate is worse.
It’s hard to ‘MST3K’ this movie. All the work is done for you
“I cannot tell you. It’s confidential. Anyway how’s your sex life?”
“Oh by the way I’m cheating on my husband with his best friend, and I’m going to date men to get lots of money and power and so forth.”
“Wow, you’re too much for me.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
X_X
Oh hai, Manboobz.
By the way, that You Tube clip with the pug dog officially marks the first time that comments on You Tube have ever been worth paying attention to.
I was going to express my offendness at the ableism in the Downfall mash up bit, but I suppose it is Hitler.
I don’t really have anything to add to conversation except I was able to watch the entire flower-shop scene, and I really liked how the clerk didn’t know it was Johnny until he took his sunglasses off. I am surprised she couldn’t tell by the horrible hair.
Also, that dog is a scene stealer.
I normally just lurk rather than comment, but I had to say something here because I’ve actually gone to a screening of this movie, and I have the picture of me and Tommy Wiseau to prove it. Anyways, at this screening he answered questions before the movie started. As you can guess, the questions were all sarcastically mocking the movie, but Wiseau seemed to not notice. Seriously, the audience was cracking up as people asked stuff like “at what point did you realise the Room was a masterpiece?” and he would answer as of he thought they were sincere.
I’d never thought of the movie as MRAish until you pointed it out, but in retrospect, Wiseau does seem to have that total lack of self-awareness and delusional worldview common to MRAs. Either that or he literally cannot understand sarcasm and thinks the people attending his screenings are legit fans…
“Favorite customer” = the one who’s in and out in literally 20 seconds.
I read this post and then promptly wasted half an hour watching the best parts and spoofs of this god-awful “film” Youtube.
“Still think Manos: Hands of Fate is worse.”
Oh my god THIS.
Even with the MST3K crew doing the snarking, the movie was still unbearable. I mean, my god. No amount of snark or bad reviews can do away the stink of that.
Well, that, and the animated movie, “Titanic: The Legend Goes On” and it’s sequel “Tentacolino”. Watch those two and prepare to stand in front of a mirror and cry for weeks.
I don’t think I can watch the whole thing — my brother-in-law has been trying to get me to watch it for a year, now, and I haven’t been able to get past the clips. Is it just me, or can anyone else seeing Johnny putting on a funny hat and becoming a Pickup Artist? Maybe he’s too “sincere” to pull off negging. Speaking of… [smooth segue] this was pretty funny: http://www.buzzfeed.com/annals/best-of-the-worst-of-online-dating-pickup-artists
True fact: I have high gives Wiseau. I saw the movie in theater and he high fived everyone in line. He did Q&A before the movie and was just as articulate as you’d expect.
Also, his hands were kind of clammy.
When the mad evil scientist and assistant apologize for the movie on MST3K, you know it sucks.
Best human actor in the entire film is the guy with the gun from that pointless, irrelevant scene with Denny.
@ Kirby - Thank you for the link to the Nostalgia Critic review! And now I’m going to go dive down the rabbit hole and see what else is on there.
Rifftrax did “MST3K” it, and it’s one of their best.
(first time poster, long time lurker …)
Watched this movie today, then again with the Rifftrax. Probably should have done the Rifftrax first since they sorta warn you about the sex scenes.
But yeah. Misogynistic in general. Whole (nonsensical) scenes about how women are just evil enigmas - but if they’re beautiful, they’re sorta tolerable? Even Lisa’s mother pressures her into thinking buying-me-stuff = you owe him your bod. Bleck.
“True fact: I have high gives Wiseau. I saw the movie in theater and he high fived everyone in line. He did Q&A before the movie and was just as articulate as you’d expect.”
Pardon me while I bow before you.
I would give ANYTHING to see Wiseau in person.
Also, famous author Hans Von Hozel watched the Room (or not, probably) and wrote some fanfiction - http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6670715/1/The_Room
An RPG podcast I listen to is mildly obsessed with The Room as well, heres their tribute thread on the forums featuring all kinds of crap, multimedia, information, etc - http://slangdesign.com/forums/index.php?topic=465.0
http://i.imgur.com/rWRdp.png
Oh, and if you want to delve even more into the Wiseau filmography, he has another movie “The House that Drips Blood on Alex”
OMG THE ROOM. I still haven’t managed to see it.
If you need a palate-cleanser afterward, Kirbywarp, I recommend either ‘Eegah’ or ‘Wild Zero!’
In the interest of convincing my bf (with my evil feminine manipulation) that long hair can be sexy as hell on a man (a Machiavellian plan that is actually working not so bad), I think I need to hide to him that this movie and this man with his creepy hair ever existed.
(PS: I’d like to thanks Mozilla’s English correcter that allows me to post while being drunk without making two typos a word. And hug to all non-trolling Manboobzers)
Honestly, Wiseau has always set of my mystical Amazonian bullshit-detecting sense.
Given the overwhelming unlikelihood, despite appearances, that he is an extraterrestrial trying and failing to pass as human, I suspect that he was a down-on-his-luck theater major who created the persona of “Tommy Wiseau” and ran with it. Basically I suspect that he is the world’s gutsiest performance artist, and the most epic troll in the history of trolldom. I would even bet my mustache on it.
* set OFF
My monstrously thick, sweaty dyke fingers can make typing a little difficult.
Sometimes I accidentally the verb. Or the noun. Or an article here and there.
Dykes have big fingers? I only new about the long ring finger. You learn every day.
Mitchell by MST3K is amazing because it is actually a watchable film on its own.
Mitchell and Eegah! are both fantastic! However, my absolute favorite is Space Mutiny. That’s for your lack of knowledge of antique dental equipment!
@Rutee Yeah, it’s just, with the MRAs constantly claiming these things as if they’re the most common crime out there (some claiming as high as like 50% of rape reports are false, and treating wrongful imprisonment of rapists as if it’s like an epidemic), I felt like these showing back to back was kind of weird for SVU. Then the next episode, those key phrases were yelled out by people who appeared to be “hysterical” and whatnot, so they weren’t introduced in the most positive of lights. Then at least Det. Benson commented on it in a reasonable way, but still. It’s starting to rub me the wrong way.
@kariface The amount of times he repeats people’s names just in that clip above alone, why is he doing that???
And now we know the story of how buttman became an MRA.
As for mst3k, it’s all about Pod People and Soultaker. They’re the best of the best.
Oh hai, is it bad that I’ve been listening to this song kind of a lot since yesterday? I think it’s stuck in my head now!
My friend Will and I just watched this for the first time last night. I don’t remeber the last time a movie made me laugh throughout the *entire thing*… seriously… a most terrible work of genius.
Whoa. Is English Tommy’s fifth language or something? It’s like watching Fabio’s less buff, less attractive, zero talented, zero humored brother.
I was forced to watch this movie twice by my so called ‘friends’ (admittedly they like horrible movies). I now have a new reason to hate them for it but I think I’ll stick to being tied up and having to watch the movie.
Oh, Pod People! Such a strange, bad movie. Here’s the best bit:
And the MST3K version of the song:
Yes, my absolute favorite.
…meanwhile, in yet another movie.
Seriously though, Soultaker
I watched the clip of Hitler watches The Room and died laughing. It made me want to see Downfall on Netflix, which I did a day later. Downfall was pretty disturbing, and put me in a depressed funk for a few days. I don’t think I can watch The Room, unless it involves playing a prank on my husband : )
The Room is a good example of a movie made for under a tenner.