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.
Might be talking of this: https://mobile.twitter.com/iamRucka/status/878050688189607936
… or not, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were multiple obnoxious questioners.
@troubelle
What is wrong with tv tropes? I will get a virus?
Valentine,
If I had to guess, you’ll lose time in TV Tropes because of all the rabbit holes you’ll fall down.
It can be addicting.
Ok! ? ? well i have nothing else i can do…so i will go in the rabbit holes…
Valentine,
It’s fun. You’ll see! ?
@ valentine
Been nice knowing you. We’ll miss you. 🙂
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DownTheRabbitHole
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/UpTheRealRabbitHole
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/RabbitHole
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Manhwa/TheRabbitHole
@WWTH: I make my pasta salad with red kidney beans. Noodles: any shape you like. Dressing: olive oil, balsamic vinegar, chopped onion, garlic powder (fresh garlic is too strong and would take forever to mellow), oregano, sugar, salt and pepper to taste. You can toss in other veggies too: sweet peppers, tomatoes, capers, broccoli, whatever you like. It always gets good reviews!
https://www.polygon.com/features/2017/6/27/15880582/anita-sarkeesian-garbage-human-vidcon-interview
This is a pretty good breakdown of what VidCon crap.
Anita did the same thing Rebecca Watson did… and Zoe Quinn did… and Brianna Wu, and Jessica Valenti, and Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris, and Amy Poehler, and Lena Dunham, and Emma Watson, Katie Mack… the same thing Gloria Steinem did in her time, Emma Goldman and Susan Anthony in theirs, hell, the same thing Joan ‘Arc did in her time…
THEY CAME TO THE ATTENTION OF CONSERVATIVE WHITE MEN FOR DOING SOMETHING THAT DIDN'T CENTER CONSERVATIVE WHITE MEN AND WASN’T ABOUT CONSERVATIVE WHITE MEN!!
I urge everyone who wants to watch The Room to watch the Rifftrax version of The Room preferly the Live version. Rifftrax are done by members of MST3K and so if you are a fan of that series. Google it.
“Johnny: It’s not over! Everybody betray me! I fed up with this world!
Kevin [as Johnny]: I’m going back to Brazilaromanislovakia . . . stan”
Yeah, people on the gaming website I frequent are howling to the skies about Sarkeesian again too. Even after all these years, they’ve never realized that if they just didn’t pay attention to her, they wouldn’t actually be impacted by literally anything she does.
Weird Eddie,
Don’t forget Zerlina Maxwell. She went on Fox News and said that as a rape survivor, she thought the right wing idea that women need to carry guns to prevent rape is unhelpful and offensive. She was subjected to a shitload of harassment for that.
Or Leslie Jones who got harassed for being in the new Ghostbusters.
Or Janet Mock, a black trans woman who dared to school Piers Morgan on how to talk about trans issues.
It doesn’t take much on the part of women of color to bring the wrath of the conservative white man. Or for that matter people who aren’t conservative and/or male.
All their attempts to destroy her only make her more powerful. The Gamergate-related tag on David Gerard’s Tumblr is a description of where this process could very well end up if ‘gators keep pushing: Anita I, Empress of Known Space.
Didn’t he die in Fox River? ?
@booburry
Yup, he played the victim online, acting like she attacked him for no reason. There’s nothing she could’ve done to prevent this, he didn’t just go there because he was curious, he went there early specifically to attack her and piss her off.
Late as usual, but:
@Valentine
PeeVee is correct. Hopefully, folks…we’ll see him in a couple weeks.
Right? As someone who isn’t a gamer other than the oh so dreaded puzzle games on my phone, I wouldn’t even know who she is if mangry gamerbros didn’t subject her to a tsunami of harassment. They’re the ones who made gaming related harassment a feminist issue.
The funny thing is, they all claim she made up or exaggerated the harassment to get attention. She didn’t. But even if she did, the simple solution would be to stop harassing her, stop talking shit about her, stop engaging in harassment apologia when her name comes up, just stop obsessing about her in general.
@Dan Hoan
Thanks, I shared that on my FB with a choice quote for my lead to see.
@WWTH
I’ve never understood harassing someone because you think they made up harassment, especially when you think that being a victim of harassment gets someone some kind of special SJW status points.
That scene was the most hilarious thing I’ve seen all day, but I bet it’s pretty much all I could take of a movie like this.
Although, I think I’d totally audition for the Jhonny role!
Come think of ir, I have a blurry memory of my child’s father being somewhat of a fan of this movie. Ew.
[WARNING for talk on violence and suicide]
———————————————————————-
Today an elderly man gave a heartbreaking speech and then shot himself at the social security office 🙁
All social benefits are being cut off, the new Macri administration is dismantling all health, pensions and retirement. New requirements are added de facto every day for no reason. Old people a going through hell right now as well as all of our families.
He said he was tired of fighting, thanked his niece for her help and then that.
This is so heartbreaking. And it’s not just them. They want to roll back the vaccines calendar so poor people don’t get them for free. They arbitrarily set the minimum salary 25% lower than the poverty line. They are not paying most of the salaries of State workers, including teachers, doctors, hell even the police! Not to mention buying debt (yes, paying for it) for 100 years.
This is bad, bad bad.
And going back to the police bit, things are getting really, really ugly.
We’re already on track for primaries on August and mid-term election on October. Hopefully we’ll be able to stop some of this slaughter.
All polls show CFK for senator is #1 by far. One can hope. My biggest fear is , I know this isn’t even the worst things can get :/
No time to feel sorry though. Way too much work to do.
Also, I have the best fairy godmother ever:
@WWTH
This one is pretty good (but it does have tomato):
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/19338/zesty-southern-pasta-and-bean-salad/?internalSource=rotd&referringId=16188&referringContentType=recipe%20hub&clickId=cardslot%201
The garbage human and others like him try to get Anita banned from speaking at a convention by spamming tweets at those in charge of it, and threaten a mass murder spree with guns and a bomb to get her speech at a university cancelled. Yet they bash her for “censorship” and “inability to take criticism” for disabling comments on her own videos. Never mind that they’re still able to voice their “criticisms” on multiple hour long videos of their own.
They go to her panel specifically to antagonize and try to belittle her, and whine about not getting to “debate” with her (never mind that’s they’re audience members in a Q&A panel, not an opposing team in a debate panel), they piss and moan about how terrible she is for calling out the abuse they dish out, and they get donations and Patreon payments for it. Yet they call her the “professional victim.”
…Going by the Wikipedia entry it seems likely Tommy Wiseau suffered a serious head injury prior to making The Room.
@Bryce
It truly can’t be understood without watching it. Preferably with RiffTrax and your beverage of choice. But do not attempt any drinking games because you will lose.
Actually, I stop now because sadly I must also work (( but I think I will not read any more on Tommy Wiseau – little bit sad and he is creepy. Everyone suffer on that film and also before seems like Tommy also suffer something – maybe ‘the Room’ is funny, but I just feel sad reading about when they film it. Maybe next is Alan’s links on rabbit holes after my watch?
I’m currently watching the Nostalgia Critic review of The Room, since I kind of need that as a filter for it in the same way I need David’s mockery and sense of decency in order to make it through WHTM’s subject matter.
Now I see where the “Hi Doggie” meme came from, and without the context of the scene I used to think that Tommy was calling the dog his favorite customer.