One Rotten Apple Spoils the Whole Barrel

One rotten apple spoils the whole barrel

This thesis is specifically based on the movie named “What about Bob” directed by Frank Oz and debuted in 1991. In the movie, Dr. Leo Marvin, the physiatrist of Bob Willey, has an interesting characteristic, an extreme egocentrism, that makes everyone even the members of his family dislike him and think of him as a boss who doesn’t listen to anyone instead of father. Even though he is considered to be a brilliant and successful man, all of his good sides seem to be ruined by his one bad side. In the other hands, Bob Willey, who is clearly having neurotic issues and multiple strange phobias, can get on with everyone better and make them like him even though he doesn’t even try. The only thing he has done is only being himself. The thought of everything revolving around him has several bad sides as well.

Having this personality can blind what other people tell you about your true color. For instance, in the scene when Dr. Marvin has a conversation with Anna, Dr. Marvin’s daughter. In this scene, Anna is obviously fed up with being commanded by her dad to do the things that she doesn’t want to, and she acts out clearly enough that she hates it by pointing out the things that her dad is incapable of proven by her saying “Bob Willey’s a very sensitive person, Bob listens to people and He is fun!!”. Even so, Dr. Marvin instead of accepting his incapabilities just blame it all on Bob. He thinks Bob is the cause why his daughter hates him. Another prof is when Dr. Marvin is having an interview with Good Morning America’s. He is too nervous to stay calm in the interview and do a lot of foolish and humiliating mistakes. For example, he can’t remember his own son’s name, and he gives an answer that isn’t what the interviewer are looking for. And he accidentally calls Bob as “boob”.  Fortunately, Bob helps him out and makes the interview end well because everyone appreciates what he does, and the interviewer herself even says that “That was wonderful”, but Dr. Marvin doesn’t think so. He thinks that it is a disaster and accuses that Bob has ruined his life, career, his book and turned his perfectly peaceful house into an insane asylum even though Bob is a life saver in the interview, and he hasn’t done anything bad to his book, career and house yet. Instead of accepting that he is the one who humiliates himself and almost ruins the interview, he just throws every fault to Bob. It is clearly that being egocentric is a cause of not seeing the bad things inside him.

Being self-centered also brings narrow-mindedness and incapability of feeling grateful. In my point of view, showing your thankfulness is an everyone-know action when you can survive from life-or-death situation with the help from other people. In the other hands, Dr. Marvin barely says thank you to anyone even though he is saved for several time by the same person, Bob. For example, when Dr. Marvin almost chokes to death, but fortunately he can survive because of Bob. Instead of feeling relieved of being safe and thankful, he just gets mad at Bob jumping on his back. He doesn’t care about the point that Bob just saves his life, and he still thinks about him as an annoying person. He still carries on trying to get rid of him and doesn’t want to do anything to him in return. The example about Dr. Marvin’s narrow-mindedness is when he asks opinions from his family about what he should put on the wall, a rifle or a picture. Even though his daughter says “I like the rifle because it is a symbol of virility” which is a very good reason, but he doesn’t listen to her opinion and still try to figure out what he should put on the wall. Eventually, he chooses the picture that seems to be the thing in his mind at the first place. By the way, the capabilities of accepting other people’s opinions and being grateful to his savior are very necessary things that he should have especially when he is the example for his children.

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