I mispelled embarrassing twice. How emberesing.
I often feel bad for the actors when they have to do embarassing things. I just think about how much it must have sucked to do that with all the crew watching and stuff…
There’s a love scene (and I use the term VERY loosely) in the movie Werewolf between a couple that looks kind of like Neve Campbell and Jim Carrey. I have a hard time watching their painful adolescent fumbling because I always end up being embarrased for them.
What about being embarassed for the actor or actress simply because they are in the movie? A once great performer has fallen, kind of thing. Like Bela Lugosi’s small part in Plan 9 From Outer Space or Marlon Brando in almost anything he does now.
I didn’t care much for that movie as a whole, but I related all too well to that particular scene. At the time I saw it, I was newly divorced after 6.5 years of marriage… meaning I hadn’t tried to call a woman for a date (or even tried to flirt with a woman) in over 8 years.
Truth to tell, I wasn’t good at it to begin with, and I sure hadn’t gotten better at charming small talk after 8 years of marriage. I never embarrassed myself in real life the way Mike did, but I could imagine it WAY too easily! That was truly painful to watch.
Make that 5 for Meet the Parents. That is exactly what I was thinking of when I read the topic. Same thing with Ellens show, I am like “JUST SHUT UP NOW!” when they make it worse and worse and worse pants
There are also some scenes in movies that are just so cringeworthly off that they rub me the exact same way. Most recently the “torch in the face”, and “Lets go hunt some orcs” moments in FOTR. I just squiiiiirrrrm! Ick!
There’s a great directors commentary on Blade 2 where the director gets the same cringes. At a scene of particulairly clunky dialogue he first says “Now you’re about to hear the worst line in the movie” and after it starts going on about the fights he and the screenwriter had about keeping that line in. He does the same thing about 2 of the more obvious CG shots. It’s a very entertaining commentary.
I think I’m all right with embarassing scenes, but I found out the hard way that a male friend of mine doesn’t like The Gods Must Be Crazy because of the embarassing way the hero completely clutzes out whenever he’s around the heroine. I still feel kind of bad about that evening. :o
CJ
My answer is yes. I’ve noticed it in regular movies and television (especially when it’s obvious an actor is acting well beneath their abilities, and not enjoying it at all), but it’s most striking for me when I see a porn film (a rare enough occurrence in itself), in which the participants clearly don’t want to be there.
I saw one a few months ago in which the young-ish girl in one scene had this scared/confused deer-in-the-headlights look throughout her scene, and the guy just looked bored. It was not at all pleasant, and I shut it off pretty quickly.
Ahhhh… I see I have plenty of company! How reassuring 
Thanks for pointing out some films I had better avoid: Meet the Parents, Swingers (and it sounds like a good film on imdb) and, oh yes, Liar Liar.
We finished watching The Party this evening (we stopped it yesterday because of a phone call and the fresh memory of some of the beginning cringes made me find something else to do)
I steeled myself and sat through it, much to my enjoyment. It really is a funny movie, totally within the Henry Blake/Peter Sellers style.
Oh man. when I opened this thread it was to post exactly this moment. I’ve still never watched it all the way through.
The remake of Lolita just made my skin crawl off my body and run into the nearest sewer. There was so much hype about this movie that I had to see what the big deal was. There’s a scene late in the movie where Humbert (or whatever the hell his name is) and Lolita are in a motel room and she’s all over him like ugly on an ape. I stopped watching after that. Some books should never be made into movies.
Count me in as another person who cringes at scenes like this. It’s not so much that I feel bad for the characters (although that’s part of it) but that any person in real life would ram their head into the wall until unconscious rather than doing or saying what the character(s) involved are doing or saying.
Just a nitpick, but Henry Blake was Mclean Stevenson’s character on MASH. You’re thinking of Blake Edwards.
I agree with your OP. I react much more strongly to onscreen embarassment than to say, dismemberment.
“Birdie num nums!” Best line I ever heard from Sellers.
I used to squirm watching poor poor Gilligan. The others made him feel so stupid. All he was trying to do was help.
Add one more vote for Meet The Parents. Being the outsider, trying to fit in is harsh enough in real life. To see it blown so far out of proportion was painful. But funny. Painful. Funny. Hey! We may be on to something here!
Yep, this is the first thing I thought of as well when I saw the thread title. Watching it in the theater for the first time, I was (literally!) squirming so bad I was almost under the seat in front of me. I noticed a lot of other people (men & women both) in the theater doing the same thing as well. One guy shouted out, “Please! Stop!”
I hate to throw in a me too, but that’s exactly what I thought about when I saw the thread title. In fact, I couldn’t sleep the other night, so I started watching that movie, but as soon as that scene started, I couldn’t bear to watch it. Partly I feel bad for him, another part because I’ve done something like that. Not nearly as extreme, but still can’t stand thinking about doing that.
Memo to self: booze and romance do not mix.
It seems that my brain is mush recently. At least they both have “Blake” in them 
Yesterday, for one reason or another I was going to bring up Miles Davis in conversation and I spent a few moments saying “You know the guy… uh. what’s his name…um… Birth of the Cool… Kind of Blue… That guy!”
I must not have enough paint chips in my diet.
Me too. I see no humor in it. I just feel bad for the character.
If you enjoy the comedy of embarrassment, you should certainly try to check out the BBC sitcoms The Office and I’m Alan Partridge. But be warned, they can be excruciating viewing.