Mental Illness In The Waterboy Movie

Frank Coraci’s, also known for his movies Zookeeper and Click, 1998 film, The Waterboy, stars Adam Sadler who plays the main character Bobby Boucher who suffers from a mental disorder. Bobby is an outcast due to his disability and I constantly picked on and taken advantage of by everyone in his life. This includes his mother, coaches, teachers, and his peers. This occurs up until and even after he discovers his true calling as a linebacker. He leads his team to many victories after not winning game in over 40 consecutive games and becomes loved by his whole school. Many people find this movie to be funny or even amusing, but I do due to its type of humor, the way it mocks child abuse and mental illness, and its inaccuracies.
The Waterboy targets

a teenage and college audience through its type of humor and methods. This movie uses several types of humor such as slapstick, screwball, and satirical. Slapstick humor is comedy that mocks violence by showing people getting hurt for a stage effect. (citation). An example of slapstick humor would be in the scene of Bobby’s first day of class. When his biology professor asks a question about alligator’s physiology, Bobby answers with a ridiculous answer that his Mama told him. When the class and professor laugh at Bobby, he loses it and tackles the professor to the ground and people have to pull him off. I did not find this scene to be amusing because they are teasing a mentally handicapped guy that doesn’t know any better. This scene, to me, is cruel. Screwball humor mocks and deals with unlikely situations and how people will react or respond to these situations. (citation). A scene in the movie that is an example of this is in the scene when Vicki Vallencourt, the girl Bobby likes, goes to Bobby’s house for dinner. Mama, Bobby’s mother, has called Vicki “the devil” since she was little. Vicki starts to show interest in Bobby and Mama starts naming things that are wrong with him such as his feet small so bad he has to wear two pairs of socks, he wears cartoon pajamas to bed, and he wets the bed. The camera then turns to show his sheets from the night before hanging outside. I do not find this scene to be funny because Mama is deliberately trying to ruin Booby’s shot at love for her own selfish happiness. She wants to keep him unexposed from the rest of the world so that she would never be alone. A method that is used in this movie is satire. It mocks a mentally handicapped person through bullying and people constantly taking advantage of him. One of the numerous examples of this used in the movie is when Bobby goes to his first practice for the new team as waterboy. The football players decide to “welcome” him by pretending to play and intentionally tackle Bobby to the ground and knock all of his water over. I did not find this to be funny because the team picks on him for his passion when all he wants to do is help. (Incorporate more on audience?) The type of humor and the methods used in this film are not funny, but truly insulting.
The movie The Waterboy is displays many forms of child abuse by Mama and Coach Red Beaulieu towards Bobby.

Mama has been mentally abusing Bobby since he was a young boy. She is the main antagonist behind all of his problems in life. I believe that she even cause him to become mentally handicapped due to being too overbearing. She did not let him go to school, or have friends. She “homeschooled” him so that she could make sure that he had to rely on her the rest of his life. Mama was afraid of being alone after her husband left her and took all of their money when he was pregnant with Bobby. She lied constantly to him, even about what happened to his father. Mama told Bobby that he died in the desert due to dehydration. He was 31 years old and had the IQ of a five year old. She had the audacity to tell him false stories whenever he asked her questions to only find out everything he knows is a lie when he goes to college. Bobby goes to college and plays football behind her back. I think it is sad that Bobby found his calling in the world and something he is passionate about and he has to hide it from the one person that is supposed to always be there for him. Coach Red Beaulieu gave Bobby the job as his team’s waterboy when he was very young. Throughout the years, he constantly picked on Bobby and turned his head when the players picked on him. Being a waterboy was the only out Bobby had away from his insane mother and the coach took his away from him. The coach fired Bobby

for “distracting his team” when the players were picking on him and roughing him up. The toll he put on Bobby goes unnoticed until Bobby starts taking his aggression on the field when he imagines the coach picking on him. The only two adults Bobby had to look up to his whole life were the two people that constantly tore him down and called him dumb. (Examples of each?)
The main plot of The Waterboy revolved around the main character, a mentally handicapped man.

I found this aspect of the movie to be very insulting for several reasons. Bobby does not have any friends except Vicki. Nobody has ever seemed to even give him a chance because of his disability, which would not even exist if it wasn’t for his mother. The football players were constantly both mentally and physically messing with him and he was taught that he wasn’t allowed to stand up for himself because they are more important than him. Bobby calls his idol, Captain Insano, and is laughed at by him. Even after he is fired and finds a new job as waterboy the players on that team, except one, tease him as well. Coach Klein, his new football coach, takes advantage of Bobby. He uses Bobby’s anger to better his own team. He even fakes a high school transcript to get Bobby on his team. Bobby later takes the fall for this and is accused of being a liar and cheater when in reality he had no idea. It was not until Bobby really proved himself as a football player did his teammates start to accept him. It was only because he was a somebody that people truly gave him a chance. If I wasn’t for Bobby becoming a great football player, his peers would have never given him the time of day. I don’t find picking on and talking down on a mentally handicapped person is

funny.
This film has many inaccuracies within its plot. One that I noticed was that it is not possible for a 31 year old man to become a freshman college football player. This is the age in most professional football players’ careers that they begin to think about retirement. Another one that I noticed was that I find it hard to believe that a college would overlook the error on Bobby’s “high school transcript.” Colleges take who they let into their schools very seriously and to not notice that the high school listed on his transcript didn’t even exist is ludicrous to me. The game of football is not being played correct in this film. There are rules to sacking the quarterback and he breaks all of them without being penalized. Also 20 sacks in one game is extremely unrealistic. Football is a team sport and a team cannot win because of one defensive player. This movie is extremely inaccurate making it even less enjoyable.
Many people find The Waterboy to be funny or even amusing, but I do not due to its type of humor, the way it mocks child abuse and mental illness, and its inaccuracies. This film is very insulting in several aspects.