Over the years, lots of stuff has made me really sad…you know, stuff like Where the Red Fern Grows. Bridge to Terabinthia. The R.L. Stine Goosebumps book where they all turn out to be dogs (I wasted an hour on that?!). There’s a whole thread about it. I’ve sometimes seen people, in that one, and others, post things like, “I’m so glad I never read it then” or “I hated it because the dog died” and so forth.
It made me wonder…when something affects you that much, are you genuinely upset/wish you hadn’t? For me, it’s more like…even if I’m really sad, that’s kind of a good thing. Because I had to have been so attached to the character/book in the first place, so it’s a testament to how involved I was/how good the book was. I’m always happy to experience that.
Usually, if the thing that made me cry is a necessary part of the book, but not the entire focus of the book, then I am okay and happy I read it. There’s a Stephen King book that makes me cry buckets over the death of a character, but I’m so glad I had the experience of “getting to know” that character even though the death was traumatic.
However, if the crying thing is more or less the crux of the story, then I would rather just not read that kind of story. When I ask for book recommendations, I always make that clear. Where The Red Fern Grows is in this category for me … I’m sure it’s a perfectly good book, but it’s not a book for me.
Also, the other extreme, if the traumatic thing is not even that necessary to the plot, but it feels more like it’s in there for shock value or whatever, then I have no interest and will put a book down at this point.
Yeah it depends for me, too. Things like Old Yeller, for example, I truly hate. The whole point of that was to upset you and fuck with your head. Not cool. Emotional manipulation for its own sake I dislike. If it’s a good storyt hat happens to have some tragic stuff in it, but that when you look back at it, you think of the whole story, not just “oh, that’s the story where X dies” or whatever… then I can like it despite the sadness.
But is writing a story about death necessarily writing something to fuck with someone’s head? I don’t really see Where the Red Fern Grows or Old Yeller as books that are trying to fuck with people’s heads. Dealing with the death of an animal (even if it’s as horrible as having to kill your own dog who saved your life) doesn’t seem like it’s coming up with a scenario so twisted/emotionally manipulative. Stuff like Hostel seems like it’s that way but books where pets die do seem to have a point.
We’ll have to agree to disagree. Yes, I think Old Yeller was written specifically to be tragic. I don’t think the author’s intention was to tell a story, and then it just happened that the dog dies because it works for the story. I think the whole point behind writing the story was to get you attached to the dog so you’d be upset when it died.
But characters don’t just so happen to die in any book. The author decides all these things. If you’re saying that some deaths seem better because they’re more incidental/we’re not attached, then I think I understand. I just don’t agree that writing an inherently tragic book necessarily is a mindfuck. But to each their own!
I don’t mind a story that ends sadly. If I cry when a character dies than that means to me that the book was well written.
however, I absolutely can not stand books where the whole point of the book is to make you cry. There seems to be a whole sub-genre in chick lit of “kleenex novels.” Books where a character dies in the end just because the author wanted you to cry. There was no point in the death, they just needed the death so it could be a “serious” book instead of a “beach” book. blech.
I also hate songs that try to do the same thing. Obvious emotional manipulation is garbage not an art form.
I’m a huge sap. I’m a big, tall guy who is described by his loving wife to strangers as “kind of scary looking”. But I’ll cry at sad bits in movies. And I don’t hate it. It’s a normal human reaction. When we first met, the first movie we watched together was “The Elephant Man” - and we were both sobbing through the film. I just checked the IMDB Quotes page for the film, read through it, and I’m misty-eyed right now. I’m convinced that anyone who doesn’t, at the very least, get choked up at that film is not actually a human being.
The YA novelist Lurlene McDaniel seems to fall into that category. They didn’t make me cry b/c it was so obvious what they were all about. Also the characters were so wooden, I spent most of the time praying they would just die and get it over with. I guess most of those books don’t bother me on the sentimental level because they just irritate me more than sadden me.
Old Yeller, the death was necessary, as well as in Where the Red Fern grows. the point of telling the story is the love and devotion of the dogs. They sacrificed their own well being for the sake of the boys they loved. It’s the sacrifice and love that makes the story, therefore, the death is necessary.
In Message in a Bottle, a chick movie, the love interests are about to figure everything out and get together when the guy drowns in a storm
Completely pointless. The writer/director just wanted a sad ending to be different.
I feel the same way about books that are funny. You know, the kind that just put in a bunch of jokes just to make you laugh, and not because they’re part of the story. That kind of obvious emotional manipulation is garbage.
I don’t mind if I cry from a book or movie. I really like it when a book/movie changes my mood, actually.
BUT…I do not like to think about animals dying. Be it a dog, deer, horse, marmoset, pig…any mammal reminds me of my dear sweet baby Dolly (a dog) and the thought of her dying sends me into a tailspin for days. One time I made the mistake of reading a “my dog died” thread on the SDMB and I actually ended up having a panic attack because of it.
So…crying is fine. Crying over a dead animal - yes, that makes me upset to have even read/watched. shudder
I like sad movies and will watch them but I will pretty much never watch them a second time. I have a huge collection of DVDs from various genres but no tear jerkers since I will never watch them twice.
I enjoy a well made sad movie that can tug at the heart-strings (as opposed to Cancer Baby type glurge). Thoughtful-sad rather than “What’s the saddest thing we can think of to add to this?” sad. My wife hates it and says that she sees enough heartbreak working at the hospital so why would she want to watch it for entertainment?
Makes sense. But then she goes and watches (and cries at) Cancer Baby stories on Grey’s Anatomy or whatever so… women. Who can figure 'em out?
I’m with ya, brother. However, I DO hate it. Especially when it catches me by surprise. I caught the last half of “My Dog Skip”, and my wife came in from the back room to find out why I was sobbing so loud. Also the ending of “Millennium Man”. I absolutely refuse to watch either of those flicks again.
Yes, I think the key word here is glurge. But again, glurge doesn’t irritate me because it pulls at my heartstrings. It irritates me because it’s not even capable of making me the teeniest bit emotional.
Also, I thought we established in another thread that My Dog Skip didn’t end with a dead dog. I mean, the dog dies years later of old age but not on screen or in a traumatic way.
I like books and movies and songs that elicit an emotional response, with two caveats.
First, as others have mentioned, I don’t like b/m/s that are intentionally emotionally manipulative, where clearly the only intent is to make you cry. I feel like not only is the author trying to muck with my emotions, he or she thinks I’m stupid and won’t know that’s what’s going on. I wouldn’t join Opal in putting Old Yeller in that category, but I know just what she’s talking about.
Second, I also don’t enjoy (or repeatedly enjoy) b/m/s where the effort is so successful that the result is for me painful. There are a small number of books and movies (no songs that I can think of), where I was so affected that I literally never want to see that movie/read that book again. I’m not sure I could say whether I “liked” those books/movies or not, though I recognize their power.
Jesus…I’ve never seen My Dog Skip, but that sentence by itself has me welling up. I’ve never seen Brokeback Mountain, but just thinking about the final scene (as has been described to me) with Ennis holding that shirt and saying, “Jack, I swear” can make me come close to tearing up.
I’m a giant sap, and it’s one reason I don’t watch tearjerker movies much.
