By David Futrelle
So I recently rewatched The Room, probably my favorite bad movie of all time, and was struck again by how much director Tommy Wiseau’s views of women mirrors those of Men’s Rights Activists and, well, a pretty high proportion of those who post regularly on Reddit.
If you haven’t seen The Room — and if you enjoy this blog you definitely need to! — it’s a comically inept film about the ultimate “Nice Guy” being wronged by his cruel, narcissistic and thoroughly hypergamous “future wife.”
I did a post on The Room as an unintentional MRA film a while ago but I’m not sure if I managed to convey just how Reddity it is. One line that stood out for me when I watched it this time was this bit of wisdom from Mark on the female of the species:
I just can’t figure women out. Sometimes they’re just too smart, sometimes they’re flat-out stupid, other times they’re just evil.
It’s not even the strangest, or worst, line in that infamous scene, but watching it this time, that line struck me as pretty much what you’d get if you could scientifically reduce all of Reddit to a single comment.
Since I couldn’t find a clip of just that line, here’s the entire scene. Trust me, it’s well worth the one minute and fifty-seven seconds it takes to watch it.
The Room was made in 2003. I don’t think you could make a comparable movie today, as all the male characters, in order to be believable, would have to spend so much time on Reddit they’d have no time left over to interact with anyone else in the real world.
@Bina I thought “The Room” was where they stored Denny when he wasn’t randomly wandering in and out of doors and creeping on women.
I can’t remember where I found it, but somebody programmed a Flash Game version of The Room and one of the highlights is that they rendered Denny’s “apartment” as the janitor’s closet at the end of the hall.
In the Disaster Artist, Greg Sestero tells an anecdote about how Wiseau creeped on all the actresses who auditioned for Lisa. I was not at all surprised by that.
On the bright side, that movie cause me and my friends to coin a new word. During the awkward and poorly staged sex scene, it looks like Wiseau is undulating his butt. So we called it ‘bundulation.’ Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I don’t get a lot of opportunities to use that portmanteau. But I still think of it and laugh sometimes.
Yeah, that’s pretty much everything to do with this movie in a nutshell. Every intention Wiseau had, the audience had the opposite reaction.
@WWTH:
I’m not surprised, and I’ve never even seen the movie. Only heard about it (and the douchebag who made it) on and off, now and then. That’s how utterly predictable this shit all is.
Snurk. Now I’m gonna HAVE to sit through this whole heap-o-schlock just to see that and laugh till I cry. The description alone reminds me of one of the few scenes from Sex and the City I’ve seen…the one where Carrie is in bed with an extremely inept partner who flops around on top of her like a frantic fish. She describes it something like this: “We made love like teenagers. He didn’t know what he was doing, and I was too afraid to tell him.”
@Gussie: Yeah, the janitor’s closet sounds like a good place for him. Maybe he could fashion himself a new, perfect wife out of old brooms and mops.
Bina,
The good news is, the bundulation scene is right at the beginning. I do recommend the whole thing. The key is to watch it with other people and mock it together. Preferably with alcohol if you drink it. It’s the kind of movie that only fun if you can mock it with friends.
Kupo, since i cant watch it i went to tv tropes instead ?
@Bina It must be seen in its magnificent entirety. Even the questionable dialogue and line delivery of the bit characters open up worlds of possibilities and they take on lives of their own. Why is Johnny the flower shop lady’s favourite customer? Why was Pete concerned about the weirdos at Bay To Breakers that year? Why does Denny keep showing up in their apartment like he lives there? Why the framed spoon photo???
It’s something you can just puzzle over and build whole worlds in your mind….
I have an off topic question. Does anyone have a good recipe for a vegetarian cold pasta salad? I’m not a big fan of the standard corkscrew pasta, vinaigrette, tomato kind and most other pasta salad recipes always seem to have tuna or chicken.
@Gussie Jives
I believe Vinny of Vinesauce played that Flash adaptation of “The Room”. You can find the full stream on his Full Sauce channel. (He also was listening to the audiobook of The Disaster Artist in the timespan that he was playing Super Mario Sunshine, and wound up doing some Wiseau imitations during it.
@Valentine
I speak from experience: be careful on that site.
@Gussie Jives:
All of which sound more interesting than the movie itself.
@WWTH
I’m a big fan of a healthy pile of pesto in my pasta salad. If you eat dairy, I’d also recommend feta cheese.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/06/28/texas_republican_pete_olson_has_an_x_chromosome_but_can_t_get_pregnant.html
H/T to Boink x ❤????
There’s a gorgonzola pasta salad they sell at my local grocery that has walnuts and grapes and chicken that I’ve always felt would be just as good without the chicken. I think it has a mayonnaise base.
OR rant: my lead is being Neutralier Than Thou at me *again* today over the Anita and Sargon incident that I actually know nothing about but since he knows I’m a feminist he feels the need to lecture me about how Anita was wrong, too. I’m sure it’s a false equivalence but I can’t be assed to look into it. I just want to get work done.
Ah, Anita S, one of the few people mentioned by name in the comments policy. (in context of “not wanting to hear MRA/MGTOW opinions about”)
Sorry you have to deal with that at work, kupo. Failure to understand “lead” doesn’t mean “want to discuss ‘feminism’ with” *sigh*
That line is made all the more fitting by how completely oblivious Mark is every time Lisa comes on to him. There’s, like, five scenes where Lisa’s like “I don’t like Johnny, I like you” and Mark’s like “what are you talking about?”
@ kupo
How did you guess? Yup, Sargon and some of his cronies turned up at a seminar about harassment and sat in the front rows. Anita S (who was a panelist) said that one of her harrassers was in the audience. She didn’t actually identify him by name.
Now Sargon is saying that’s the real harrasment.
Kupo,
Essentially Sargon and a gang of his goons showed up early to a panel Anita was on in order to get front row seats. They took up 3 of the first rows on one side. During the panel she referenced him making videos about her called him a garbage person. Cue Sargon and the people who support him losing their shit and trying to say Anita is now the harasser. They spammed tweets at the Green brothers trying to get her banned from VidCon. And if course trying to pretend Sargon etc. had no motives in doing what they did. I guarantee he got the exact response he wanted seeing as he was smiling as it happened. He knows this means more views for him and a reunited hate for Anita, for the crime of not taking abuse for years on end silently like a good girl.
Fuck Sargon and fuck his followers too.
… pass….
O.T., the cyberbully-in-chief sticks its foot in it again with waaayyyy off-color tweet about Mika Brzezinsky….
@booburry
Years of following her since her kickstarter up to now and I’m still livid that Anita can’t ever seem to get a sense of relief and piece because of these malignant malcontents. Sargon and the rest of them are literal professional victims aiming to push their toxic bile while jackasses from the sidelines think Anita has totally same faults as POS Carl of Swindon.
What this stuff looks like to men:
The Room
What this stuff looks like to women:
Room
(Or, what Margaret Atwood said.)
What this stuff looks like to men:
The Room
What this stuff looks like to women:
Room
Or: http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-men-are-afraid-that-women-will-laugh-at-them-women-are-afraid-that-men-will-kill-them-margaret-atwood-39-20-47.jpg
bekabot, your links don’t work.
Re: Anita, my lead was saying she “berated” an audience member for asking a question. I’m guessing the question was antagonistic and she didn’t say anything that bad.
Sorry. If I could delete the quote at this point, I would (alternatively, if I knew how to do it I would do it, but I don’t).
Here are new links
The Room
Room
and I hope they work out better. (Though it’s just reference-brandishing, anyway, and it’s not that important.)
I’m pretty sure I know how I screwed up the first time, but the clock’s run out (so far as I know) on my being able to fix it (ugh).
@kupo your lead is definitely missing the whole “Sargon and friends harrass Anita for years” context before that panel happened. I’m sorry you have to deal with that at work, and with a supervisor who should know better. Even if she was really mean to poor fragile-ego Sargon (she wasn’t), he deserved every minute of it.
Knowing Sargon (Carl of Swindon), I’d believe an english-speaking puppy was telling the truth before I’d trust a word he gibbers.