- Both
Tommy Wiseau , subject of "The Disaster Artist " and creator of cult film "The Room," and influencerCaroline Calloway 's art has been ridiculed, but they've achieved cult-like status as performance artists. - They share similar modes of self-presentation, going against mainstream aesthetic norms in favor of a slightly off-kilter look that makes them instantly recognizable.
- Have you tried "nature's PBJ" and said "oh hi doggie?" Caroline's and Tommy's most famous 'lines' seeped into everyday language. How many of us have written "oh HAI" (courtesy of Tommy) or "BB"(Caroline Calloway)?
- Both had friends write long-form work about them: "The Disaster Artist" and "I Was Caroline Calloway" are excellent pieces of writing, and their strength lies in the description of characters like Caroline and Tommy Wiseau themselves.
- Some might not like their art, but they are their own best artwork.
In the span of two years, Caroline Calloway has gone through a lot of phases: former American transplant at Cambridge University and writer of flowery Instagram captions; standard NYC cool-girl hanging out with the "right" crowd; "scammer" in the wake of her panned creativity-workshop tour; the subject of a viral tell-all penned by her best friend from NYU Natalie Beach chronicling their toxic but intense friendship; painter and crafter of dubious talents, and, lastly, acclaimed twitter personality and writer. The audiences' reaction has changed too: while she started 2019 being mostly ridiculed, now she achieved a cult-like status on Twitter and "New York Media," and her rebuttal to the infamous essay has raised nearly $50,000 in donations.
While her chaotic disposition is mostly unparalleled among other Instagram personalities, she is very similar to another cult-like figure in American
Similar to screenings of "The Room" which regularly sell out worldwide even though it's, objectively, not a good movie, Caroline Calloway commands the attention of online audiences, whether they genuinely like her or are there for the snark. Calloway and Wiseau have both crafted cult-followings around their seemingly unpredictable characters that are obsessed with their identities as artists, in the ultimate form of "so bad it's good" performance art.
Both of them have a very distinctive appearance, fueled by unique aesthetics, which is instrumental in the making of an icon.
Fashion-wise, Caroline Calloway is mostly known for wearing real flowers in her hair, ribbons, then either evening wear with chunky sneakers or the daytime-friendly combo of peasant top, sweatpants, and house slippers.
Tommy Wiseau flaunts his wavy mane of jet-black hair with outfits such as beige cargo pants, a black tank-top, and an oversized blazer; or skinny jeans, shirt, tie, form-fitting waistcoat, and two belts, one in its loops; the other cupping his butt. Why? "It keeps my ass up. Plus it feels good," he is quoted saying in "The Disaster Artist."
Calloway, similarly, often rhapsodizes about her own butt on Instagram. "Can you believe I built my whole brand without unleashing THIS ASS on you until today? It's taken me 27 years to arrive at this confidence, but I f-cking love my body. And I just want to take a moment to celebrate that. There are lots of beautiful asses in this world (all of them) and I think mine is a juicy peachy DELIGHT," she wrote on July 11, 2019. Wiseau flaunted his rear in an infamously long love scene in "The Room," justifying it by saying "I have to show my ass or this movie won't sell," per "The Disaster Artist."
Certainly, their appearance is pivotal in their own art: just like Bjork is closely associated with her Swan costume that was first panned as a "faux pas" but was then reimagined by Valentino a decade later, or how the legendary Drag Queen Divine is instantly recognizable for her elaborate eye makeup which made her look like a cartoon, so do Caroline and Tommy's distinctive looks cement their status as iconic performance artists. They do not necessarily don the most flattering outfits, but their fashion and beauty choices are an extension and manifestation of their artistic personas.
Calloway and Wiseau have dramatized their own lives and live aspirationally.
Self-confidence does not seem a problem for Calloway or Wiseau: Caroline calls herself a "Creative genius" while Wiseau seriously thought that he could submit "The Room" for consideration at the Academy Awards.
They also sport an obsession with youth, a lack of pride in their origins, and the worship of what they each deem as elite.
At age 28, Caroline Calloway continues to call herself a "young girl" and her love interests are always "boys."
"I call myself a young girl. The female life expectancy in the United States is 78. I see age as relative," she wrote on July 16, 2019. In "The Disaster Artist," Wiseau insists on being 28. "No one on planet Earth would have believed this," quipped Sestero. They both distance their current selves from where they came from, and had their names changed. Caroline says that she had to "pull [herself] out of the middle class," while Tommy Wiseau, despite his thick Central/Eastern-European accent, claims he hails from Chalmette, Louisiana, and his origins are still debated.
Despite what they call humble origins, Calloway and Wiseau have both created a self-mythology around what they perceive to be aspirational. For Calloway, it was the ivy leagues, Oxford, Cambridge, and aristocracy, while for Wiseau, it was legends James Dean, Cary Grant, and Tennessee Williams, as he earnestly thought "The Room" was celebrating the legacy of the greats of American theater — "You're Tearing me apart Lisa," an iconic quote from "The Room" is an ode to a James Dean scene in "Rebel Without A Cause."
Some would say this is a form of "fabrication" and drone on about a lack of self-acceptance, but, artistically speaking, for them, worshipping youth, elite institutions, and creating one's own backstory has been conducive to the creation of a persona that is a big focus of their own art.
Both have branded themselves with one-liners.
The script of "The Room" might be cheesy and Calloway's writing might be overly flowery and chaotic, but both somehow managed to have people adopt their turns of phrases, which failed to happen with more established writers and filmmakers.
Other than "You're tearing me apart," other famous phrases uttered by Wiseau entered common parlance: "Oh Hai Mark;" "You're a chicken, cheep cheep cheep cheep cheep;" "I did naht;" and "I am fed up with this world" have been widely used on Memes and viral parodies, most notably Star Wars. and several friends and I incorporated them into our everyday speech patterns.
The same happened with Caroline, who is fixated with idioms and turns of phrases: the "mannerist slope" of her neck, being "culturally f-ckable," and a "smol bean." Other highlights include: "bb" "tittay" "smart as f-ck, hot as f-ck, hard to f-ck," "eat your greens, kiddos," and "nature's pb and j," referring to a sandwich made with peanut butter and whole raspberries. I am ashamed to admit that me and my friends started addressing one another as "bb" and that I ate plenty of "nature's pbj" in the past months, and I've seen many adult women earnestly calling themselves smol beans. Borrowing speech patterns from someone does cement their status as an icon: in everyday conversations, we barely quote lines from "Harry Potter," "Titanic," or any award-winning memoir, but greeting someone with "oh, hai bb" has become fairly common.
Calloway and Wiseau blur the line between artist and muse.
—sarah fowerbaugh (@sarfow11) February 4, 2020
While both Caroline Calloway and Tommy Wiseau are both creators, fans think more about them as muses than as artists: hardly a day goes by without anyone posting fan art of Caroline Calloway, whether that be a painting, a digital illustration, or a video-game rendering. Tommy Wiseau has his bespoke videogame, "The Room Tribute."
The same consideration applies to the most famous works about them: both "I was Caroline Calloway" by Natalie Beach and "The Disaster Artist" by Greg Sestero are excellent works of prose, and their strength lies in the fact that they both pit two types of creatives against each other: the narrators, Natalie and Greg, are both self-restrained and straitlaced, while Caroline Calloway and Tommy Wiseau come off as larger-than-life and histrionic characters. The humor, or cringe, derives from the uneven relationship between the two types. And, as much as it hurts to admit it, character-wise, you'll remember Tommy and Caroline much more than the narrators.
In fact, while Caroline Calloway's and Tommy Wiseau's artistic outputs might not meet the standards of either mainstream nor highbrow
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