tommy wiseau, creative genius

The greatest event I ever attended in Los Angeles happened on October 30, 2010, at a movie theatre in West Hollywood. It was a movie screening: the stars of the film were present, and hundreds of people gathered to watch the midnight showing of the movie.

This was not, however, a good movie. Quite the contrary, it was a movie so lacking in substance, style, and quality that it boggles the mind to think that it was created in sincerity by someone striving to make a work of art. If you are familiar with this movie, you’ve already jumped ahead of me: Tommy Wiseau’s 2003 magnum opus, The Room.

The Room has become a punchline for many a joke on the internet, and it’s best to just let the film speak for itself. (My apologies, some of these clips contain profanity.)



...I have no words.

The badness of the film has created a bit of a cultural monster, as it has grown into a cult phenomenon à la The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The movie is screened monthly at various theatres in Los Angeles, and across the country. The mother of them all, however, was the monthly screening in West Hollywood, with the movie shown on every screen at midnight after the last Saturday of the month, and Mr. Wiseau himself often attending, to the delight of irony-loving twenty-and-thirty-somethings everywhere.

The first time I went (and only time I went to a screening Mr. Wiseau himself attended) was the day before Halloween, so the crazies were out in force. Many people dress up for the event anyway, but the Halloween spirit pervaded and many people showed up dressed like their favorite characters from the film.

The screening of the film features a great deal of audience interaction: throwing spoons, yelling at characters, getting up and dancing, and so on. Perhaps even better than the film itself, though, was the Question and Answer session with Tommy Wiseau himself before the screening. My video from the night is below:


Now, my good friend Simon (who attended this screening with me) penned his own thoughts about The Room over a year ago, and you should give his post a read because it's more insightful than my own. But here's my reflection...

There's something inherently mean-spirited about a lot of internet-spawned humor. Behind the anonymity of a computer screen, we can laugh at a guy lip-synching in his bedroom or a kid pretending to be in a Star Wars lightsaber battle and feel okay about it because we never have to interact with the guy. Jokes about physical appearance, accent, race, and so on abound because there's no consequence like there probably would be in real face-to-face interaction.

What sets The Room apart (in my mind, anyway) is the sheer reckless abandon with which Mr. Wiseau has embraced the cult around his movie. Wiseau has defiantly defended his movie to critics time and time again; in his own words (and own style), he says, "The Room is a special place, a private place, my own place, and it's not a room but 'The Room' and I think that a lot of people will relate to it. The Room is a place where you live or invite your friends and you have a good time and a bad time." Not only has Mr. Wiseau accepted the insane fandom around his film, he encourages it and participates in it himself.

For that, I must say that Mr. Wiseau oddly sets an example worth emulating (in some regards) when it comes to being creative. Once you produce something and put it out there, people will do with it what they will. What you view as something intensely meaningful and profund may be received as ridiculous and poorly done.

But Mr. Wiseau triumphs over his critics by doing two things: 1) Maintaining his own belief in the quality of his work, and 2) Allowing his fans the freedom to mock it. May I have a similar mixture of pride and humility as I engage in my own creative endeavors.