People who cry at movies are not "real men"?

[Bonobo]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=1090551

Sometimes much can be gleaned from a single sentence. It can reveal the true mindset that lurks beneath all the poses.

This Group addresses in many ways what it means to be a man.

Some have attacked its existence, claiming that "real men" don't need to whine.
Implications that there is an element of woman hating or mother-seeking or inability to fight or make love.

All point to one thing. A deep-set insecurity about one's own manhood based on a false view of what it means to be a man.

And so, I leave you with these questions.

Did you ever cry during a movie and do you feel, like the OP linked above, that it undermines your manhood?

Or is actually this clinging to worn out ideas of manliness that is a central cause for some of the problems that exist for men, and indeed for women as we try to achieve a better balance and learn from each other?

[radicalliberal]

1. I first saw The Diary of Anne Frank on TV during the spring of my sophomore year ...

... in high school. The ending did bring tears to my eyes, and I felt embarrassed by my reaction (maybe even ashamed of it) because I had been conditioned to believe that guys should never cry for any reason.

Decades later I was chatting with my personal trainer at the local health club during one of my workout sessions. He's one of the most muscular guys I've ever met. I told him about my reaction to the ending of that movie. His reaction? Well, he said, "Everybody cries. That was something to cry about because it really happened."

[Warren DeMontague]

3. I'll tell you, if you go through Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum, in Jerusalem and you DON'T cry

at the child's shoe, there's something really wrong with you.

Your trainer was right. I'm not sure who thinks empathy and compassion are not masculine traits (and contrary to my reputation in certain corners, I actually do have a good bit of both) but I consider that bullshit.

Empathy and compassion are part of being human, and part of being a man. Absolutely.

[Warren DeMontague]

2. Ah, the dude spelled "bawls", "balls".

I wouldn't read too much into yon latest rant.

Shit, I cried at the end of "The Iron Giant". So did my wife.

It was touching.

[loli phabay]

4. i only cry during bad movies as i think of the time i lost ie titanic

But seriously everyone has a trigger thats personal to them whether its kids animals or their sports team.

[Upton]

5. I'm not much for emotions.

particularly crying...the only time I can actually remember doing so over some form of entertainment was when the Giants won the World Series in 2010. Might seem stupid to some, particularly those not into sports, but that did it for me..

I have nothing against men who do express their emotions openly. Except people such as John Boenher or Dick Vermeil..they just plain overdue it.

[redqueen]

6. Tears contain stress hormones.

By shedding tears, you are dealing with stress in a natural way.

Conditioning boys to believe that they shouldn't cry is detrimental to their health and well-being.

[Broderick]

7. I could never be accused of not being a man, and I can not be accused of not being manly

But, definitely I have a problem with movies. I can well up and it is uncomfortable. Anything to do with death, love, children, animals, pain and suffering and journeys into the abyss of the mind brings it.

I would say I was conditioned to think it was a bad thing when I was much younger and growing up. Now I don't give a fuck. I do avoid watching any movies that might bring it on with male friends. Too many other things to do anyway, and my impatience to sit for 2 hours makes watching a movie hard to do anyway. Some men hold that notion that it is wrong, but those types probably aren't my friends to begin with.

I notice I am much more affected by movies than any woman I have ever been with. Some movies I can say that make me cry are movies like Jacob's Ladder, 50 first dates, the Green Mile, Dead Man Walking, Million Dollar Baby, Marley and me, Big Fish, The Truman Show, The Pursuit of Happiness, and many of the usual suspects like The Notebook, Steel Magnolias, ET, Dead Poets Society, Shawshank Redemption, What Dreams May Come, The Sixth Sense, American Beauty, When Harry met Sally, Patch Adams, etc etc etc.

The two hardest movies for me to watch and I love to watch them are Jacob's Ladder and Big Fish. Both of those absolutely kill me. The journey of death and life I guess, and fear of death has nothing to do with being manly, but with general acceptance and mortality.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

8. I've cried during several films

Breakfast at Tiffany's being one I remember most.

I've been choked up at sporting events too, although amazingly not when the Bruins won the Cup, which was big for me, because they had been in control of Game 7 the whole way to the point it was anti-climactic.

[MicaelS]

9. Hell, I cry at movies all the time...

And I'm a middle aged white man. Happy, sad, nothing turns on the waterworks for me like a good film. Not a bit ashamed to admit it.

I think trumad just hates men.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

10. Wait, did I miss something?

Is this all in response to a "trumad bit"?

Fuck that noise.

[MicaelS]

11. Yup....

trumad

White Pastie Faced Doughboys who think they are tough guys...
I see it all the time... Ink some Tats, throw on a bandana, maybe some leather... carry a piece...

but underneath--- one empty insecure soul who balls like a baby at the end of Ghost.

[Behind the Aegis]

14. How odd.

I find those who can't cry tend to be the ones with "empty insecure souls." It may be why they act they way they do; no empathy.

[loli phabay]

24. i wouldnt say that, just some people deal with stuff differently, for some it may be a past trauma

but there are probuably a lot of people who just dont react the same, though they may cry at wired stuff.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

15. Oh, I saw that

Not as silly as I imagined....but I'm doubting he sees it "all the time".

Besides, who's he writing it for? The white supremacists lurkers here?

[opiate69]

12. He truly is a Prince of Projection....

and as for the crying issue, I find myself tearing up during all the tear-jerker moments on shows like Hells Kitchen (when they bring in the contestants families for example) and a shit ton of other times... moreso since my singer/best friend died 3 years ago (the last time I completely fell apart with sadness and openly bawled like the proverbial baby)

[Warren DeMontague]

17. Maybe he just hates dic....tionaries. Nt

[DavidDvorkin]

13. I never cry at movies

I'm much too manly for that.

I do, however, occasionally wipe my eyes and blow my nose. There's something about the air in those places.

[Denninmi]

16. Dude, I would blubber like a baby at the right scene.

And I wouldn't be the least bit ashamed of it.

And I would go see a rom-com film like 'Pretty Woman' any time over a dumb bang-bang shoot em up Rambo type movie.

Yeah, I've had issues at times in my life, when OTHER people have decided I wasn't "manly" enough. Like my late father, who pretty much told me so because I wasn't interested in HIS particular vision of masculinity, which was going out into the fields and streams and blowing away Bambi. I would rather stay at home and cook and garden and putter with things like making birdhouses. And I wasn't really what you would call a metrosexual, but there was a time in my life when I was more concerned about clothes and image etc. than I am now that I'm older, and he didn't approve of that either.

I still don't do the things that many men are into and are considered uber-masculine. I'm not an athlete, and I'm not a sports fan, either. I don't hunt or fish. I don't womanize, or get into bikes or cars or anything like that. And I'm not the least bit ashamed of it. And frankly, I think I would make an awesome husband to any woman and awesome father in a lot of ways, well, other than the dirt-poor part

I think real masculinity isn't macho garbage, it's being a good, decent human being who treats others with respect.

Edited to add - I read the linked thread and the OP. I don't remember tearing up at the ending of Ghost, but I'm pretty sure I had a really hard time during Schindler's List.

[4th law of robotics]

19. Not really my thing

but if you want to cry go for it.

Frankly I would say letting someone else define your masculinity for you isn't particularly manly.

[teenagebambam]

20. For years, I thought Bambi was a girl

because society told me that men were incapable of being tender and kind. Fuck society.

[Broken_Hero]

21. I have cried at movies,

and each time I felt like a weakling initially, but then my don't give a flying fuck meter takes over.

First movie I cried at was Terminator II, I hid it from my dad pretty good. The first time I couldn't keep it hidden was Schindlers List. I think a majority of the patrons that night were in tears.

[lumberjack_jeff]

22. Yes. For me, it's the Nicholas Cage movie "Family man".

And I find it intriguing that the only person unwelcome here is the one so heavily invested in his stereotype of what it means to be a man.

[Warren DeMontague]

28. Okay, Jeff, I think I watched that movie on an airplane many years ago, so I may not be remembering

it right; it's sort of a "wonderful life" in reverse, where he's this lonely yuppie who wakes up and has this different life where he is the same age, but has a low paying job, is married to his high school sweetheart, and has a couple kids, right?

So he goes through the whole movie, decides he likes this life better, then he wakes up again as his old lonely self... and of course, the end of the movie is he, as the lonely yuppie self, tracks down the HS sweetheart so they can get back together.

Am I right on this, so far?

So.. okay, great- WHAT HAPPENED TO THE KIDS? I found that part kind of upsetting. Are they just lost to the void? Is he supposed to make new ones? Is the fact that he and the wife the same age as they were when they had these older children, gonna matter, are they still gonna have the same children?

It didn't make any sense. I mean, obviously the premise requires suspension of disbelief, but...

and like I said, it was a long time ago, and on an airplane. I may be remembering the flick wrong.

[lumberjack_jeff]

29. Yup. That's the one.

I'm not going to say it was a good movie, in general I can't stand Nicholas Cage (except in Raising Arizona), but it effectively yanked my emotional strings.

[Warren DeMontague]

30. You can't say Nick Cage is a bad actor.

He's actually a HORRIBLE actor.

But you know what I'm talking about, right? It was sort of a touching premise, except, again, what happened to the kids???

[lumberjack_jeff]

31. Gone. Poof. Never existed.

Only in his memory.

I have enough friends and family whose children died, that this struck me as the only thing that could be worse (in a suspended disbelief kind of way).

So yeah. Not gonna watch THAT one again.

[loli phabay]

23. seriously though im not a crier, i dont think ive ever cried at a movie

cant remember the last time i cried except on the other side with laughter.

[Warren DeMontague]

25. For the life of me, I can't stop thinking of how to make a Fred Willard joke.

Does that make me a bad person?

[loli phabay]

26. lol isnt that the guy caught pulling the pudding in the theatre.

[Warren DeMontague]

27. To be fair to Fred Willard, he handled it with his usual aplomb.

The embarrassing situation, that is.

Phrasing!

[Sick of the GOP]

32. I cried at the end of Toy Story 3...

And during 10,000 BC, but for an entirely different reason...

[jorno67]

33. I generally only cry during baseball movies...

These always get me:
The Natural
the Sand Lot
Field of Dreams
A league of their Own

[TreasonousBastard]

34. I cry at movies all the time, and...

if you got a problem with it I'll kick your ass into next week.

But seriously, folks...

Many of the old distinctions between men and women are fast being overturned and while a lot of well-deserved attention is being paid to the girls as they're growing up into this new world, I'm not sure the boys are being taught how to deal with the changes.