In this paper the role of gender in the reception of Tommy Wiseau’s film "The Room" will be discussed. In particular I will analyse how four YouTube review channels react to how the female main character Lisa is treated by the film. The focus of my research will be the comic value these reviewers find in Lisa’s actions with the goal of revealing some of their sexist or misogynistic assumptions about gender by what they find humorous. In order to do this, firstly I will discuss and describe the main scenes I will look at more closely and explain why they seem problematic from a gender, humour and film studies perspective. The first scene this paper focuses on shows a conversation where Lisa tells her mother that Johnny hit her. In the second scene, a story of a woman that has been beaten is recounted and, finally, in the last scene Lisa is made responsible for Johnny’s death. Secondly, I will introduce my chosen YouTube channels: CinemaSins, Channel Awesome, I Hate Everything and FanboyFlicks and then observe how they perceive the chosen scenes and whether they ignore the scenes and Lisa’s treatment or not. Additionally, I will compare these channels by looking at how they view and describe Lisa in general. As a last step I demonstrate that some of the reviewers I chose ignore the scenes and Lisa’s treatment in general. Based on my discoveries, I assume to find sexist standards in the majority of the channels, especially when they ignore or find humour in scenes in which Lisa is mistreated.
Table of Contents
1. THE PROBLEMATICS OF THE SCENES
2. REACTIONS OF THE REVIEWERS
3. CONCLUSION
Objectives and Topics
This paper examines how gender roles and sexism are represented in the film "The Room" and how four prominent YouTube review channels interpret these themes through the lens of humour and film studies. The central research objective is to investigate whether these reviewers perpetuate or challenge sexist stereotypes by analyzing how they react to—or ignore—specific problematic scenes featuring the female protagonist, Lisa.
- Analysis of gender dynamics and misogyny in "The Room".
- Application of humour theories (Superiority, Relief, and Incongruity) to film criticism.
- Comparative study of four YouTube channels: CinemaSins, Channel Awesome, I Hate Everything, and FanboyFlicks.
- Investigation of how audience and reviewer biases correlate with moral and cultural standards.
Excerpt from the Book
THE PROBLEMATICS OF THE SCENES
This section will describe the scenes and put them in context with the theory of film in order to show how the film is inherently sexist. Summed up, it is about Johnny, a banker whose fiancée Lisa does not love him anymore and has an affair with his best friend Mark. After various subplots that are not actually explained, Mark and Johnny get into a fight at the latter’s birthday party and Johnny proves that Lisa is cheating on him. He then kills himself and the film ends. The three scenes I chose as a base for my research have one thing in common: they show the sexist standards of various protagonists, which can be seen in how they treat and talk about women. This disempowerment is common in films, as Laura Mulvey writes in her essay:
[w]oman, then, stands in patriarchal culture as signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his fantasies and obsessions through linguistic command, by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her place as bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning. (Mulvey 484)
This means that the female figure should be silent and passive, she is “woman as spectacle” (Mulvey 488). With the example of pornographic movies, melodramas and horror movies, Williams described women in film as “embodiments of pleasure, fear, and pain” (Williams 210). Lisa is exactly that, the archetype of the bad female character; an archetype being a popular and often occurring trope (Eco 464). Together with that, woman in general “symbolizes the castration threat”, as Mulvey (483) states and the men have to fight against that. They do so by, for instance, saving or punishing her (Mulvey 489). Lisa is not exactly passive, she does seem to drive the story and, additionally, she embodies the bad. Therefore, she has to be punished by man, which can be seen in the following scenes:
Summary of Chapters
THE PROBLEMATICS OF THE SCENES: This chapter contextualizes the film's narrative within feminist film theory, identifying Lisa as the archetypal "bad" woman who must be punished for her agency.
REACTIONS OF THE REVIEWERS: This chapter analyzes how four YouTube channels address specific scenes through humour theories, arguing that ignoring mistreatment often reinforces sexist status quos.
CONCLUSION: The chapter synthesizes the findings, concluding that the reviewers' selective criticism often mirrors the misogynistic worldviews present within the film itself.
Keywords
The Room, Tommy Wiseau, Sexism, YouTube reviews, Film theory, Gender roles, Humour theories, Superiority theory, Misogyny, Lisa, Patriarchal culture, CinemaSins, Audience reception, Satire, Stereotypes
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the central research question of this study?
The paper investigates how four YouTube review channels interpret the gender dynamics in "The Room" and whether their humorous reactions reveal underlying sexist or misogynistic assumptions.
Which specific film is being analyzed?
The study focuses on the 2003 film "The Room," written and directed by Tommy Wiseau.
Which YouTube channels are used for the comparative analysis?
The author analyzes CinemaSins, Channel Awesome, I Hate Everything, and FanboyFlicks.
Which theoretical frameworks are applied to the film reviews?
The paper primarily utilizes film theory (specifically regarding the female gaze and patriarchal structures) and three humour theories: the superiority theory, the relief theory, and the incongruity theory.
What is the primary method used in the research?
The research uses qualitative content analysis by comparing specific scenes from the movie with the corresponding commentary or lack thereof from the selected YouTube channels.
What does the author conclude about the reviewers?
The author concludes that by ignoring scenes of mistreatment or finding humour in them, the majority of the channels perpetuate sexist norms, though some channels demonstrate less biased perspectives than others.
How does the author characterize the female protagonist, Lisa?
Lisa is identified as an "archetype of the bad female character" who, according to the film's logic, must be punished by the male characters for her active choices.
Why are the scenes chosen for this study considered problematic?
The scenes depict domestic violence, emotional manipulation, and victim-blaming, which the author argues are treated by both the film and some reviewers as either humorous or acceptable behaviors.
- Citation du texte
- Anonym (Auteur), 2017, Sexism in Tommy Wiseau’s film "The Room" and its YouTube reviews, Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/424170
