I’m finally secure enough to admit this, but only secure enough for a semi-anonymous message board, obviously. =)
For a grown man, who is otherwise (and almost stereotypically) emotionally muted, I well up a little too readily at movies. I bawl like a baby at touching, happy, heartwarming moments in film. Almost never because something is sad, only happy tears. Of course when this happens, no one may know. I have to make it look like I’m scratching my cheek or something to wipe away the evidence. And I gotta hope no such scene happens too close to the end of the movie, because if the lights come on I’m busted.
I was reminded that I might me more of a wuss than normal just last week when I was watching Transformers. A couple tears rolled down my cheek when the Autobots rolled in for the first time and we see the heroic Optimus Prime transform. I couldn’t quite understand why I was tearing up, and it was then that I knew I had a problem. Maybe if Transformers had been a big influence on me as a kid or something it would make sense. But that’s not the case…I’m apparently just that sensitive. Or Michael Bay’s style and choice of music is just that stirring (but I doubt it). Speaking of which, there are like 3 spots in Armageddon that can make me struggle to hold back tears almost every time. One of those is actually the sad part. Dammit…maybe it is Bay.
Also, for some reason animated movies make it happen more than usual. I think I’ve choked up at some point in every Pixar film, all the Shreks, and various movies like that. I don’t think it’s anything particular to animation, except the fact that those movies are the most likey places for me to see the kind of happy ending that turns me to estrogen-soaked mush.
During these same times, I tend to look over at my wife if she’s watching with me, and I never see her get so emotionally overcome. That certainly doesn’t help me feel better about it. I need some support here…to know I’m not totally alone. So, all you manly men out there, here’s your opportunity to tell the rest of the board how sensitive you are. And for the ladies, an opportunity to reassure me that chicks dig sensitive men.
I’m gonna go watch Rudy and see if I can make it through. I’m not holding my breath, though.
You’re now officially out of the club.
Please turn in your “Man” card on the way out.
OK, OK, I admit it. I get choked up at the littlest things sometimes too. Pixar and other animation stuff? Not so much. Anything involving a parent losing a child is certain to get me going though. I can’t imagine if happened to me/my kids.
I think it’s the music. When the emotional music swells up, I can’t help myself. If they didn’t shamelessly manipulate your emotions that way, you wouldn’t cry.
I’m male, and I never, ever cried at films as an adult until a couple of years ago (I’m in my mid-40s). In fact, I almost never cry at all.
Then I was watching De-Lovely on my own, and in one scene where a female character quietly cries, suddenly I found myself crying in sympathy. Weird! It felt good, too, in a cathartic sense.
I put it down as just a one-off event, but then when I watched the film again with someone else a couple of day later, the same scene had exactly the same reaction.
Ever since, I’m inclined to cry - or at least to feel close to tears - whenever I see something powerfully and romantically sad or happy on screen. Odd, isn’t it?
I’m one of those types of guys. I’ve gotten past the need to feel embarrassed about it or to try to hide it, but I tend to tear up at inappropriate things or at least things that other people around me are either ignoring or maybe even laughing at. It goes back a long way into my past and it may even be to some small extent hereditary: my dad had a similar problem but his was even more embarrassing. He would choke up over stuff that I could see no reason even to care about, much less get emotional over. His problem was that he would cry in public over silly stuff and it made me feel very conspicuous to be close to him.
The odd thing is that after some number of years being embarrassed for Daddy’s inability to control himself, I got to that same point. My moments are a little easier for me to see why they affect me to the point of tears, but there are occasions when I can’t explain to others what about whatever it is that makes me cry.
In any case, I can certainly add myself to your team of crybabies if that helps any.
There are quite a few songs that I will involuntarily cry over.
There are certain movie scenes that I’ve seen enough times to be well past the point where there’s any surprise left in them, but they’ll bring tears every time.
I have even cried at fireworks displays when they get so loud and beautiful that I feel as if the heavens are opening up and God is speaking.
On a little lighter note, do you know what you get when you cross a donkey with an onion?
For that matter, I don’t even need a movie - Hell, just last night I lost it over a story on the news about a handicapped little girl getting her wish to meet a chef in NYC fulfilled by the Make-A-Wish Foundation. All it took was seeing this darling little girl saying “thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you” and it was all over.
Of course, any of the old musicals (Music Man, Carousel, Sound of Music, et al) are guaranteed to result in a waterfall that would make Niagara jealous. And, yeah, the folks at Pixar, and Disney can hit the button every time. I have a real hard time just sitting through the open credits of Old Yeller without a box of tissues handy … I know it’s all going to end in tears, so I get a good head start!
(Funny thing though, I can watch the last 15 minutes of, oh, let’s say The Sound of Music, for example, and - nothing. Seems like I’ve gotta watch the whole thing to get me going.)
Guess I’m just a sucker for ‘feel good’ stories and happy endings. Never bothered me, though. I guess being raised by a ‘Manly Man’ that bopped me upside the head to ‘give me something to cry about’ must have knocked something loose in the tear control module.
My wife … never sheds a tear. 'Course she likes The Chain Saw Ax Murderer Teams Up With An Alien Predator Commando To Take On The Anaconda 'Cause Freddy’s at a Halloween Party Killing Jason and Is Currently Unavailable to Make Anyone Scream (Parts 1 through 64) kind of movies …
Lucy, your wife sounds just like mine. Right down to the love of gory movies. I don’t care much for slasher movies, but only because they don’t make me feel terror, or suspense, or anything for that matter. So they don’t have much value for me. I watch them feeling pretty numb…which is not what I want out of a movie. Make me laugh or something. Or even cry.
I also agree that the music can be particulary manipulative. It’s probably what pushes me over the edge when a similar story in a TV show or book would not. Funny thing is, I don’t typically notice the score when that’s happening. Must be something on a subconscious level.
Zeldar, firewroks get me too sometimes. So do certain really patriotic moments. once again, it’s probably the music. Not that the national anthem before a ball game will make me weep, but given the right setting…
Well guys, it’s good to know I’m not the only one. I didn’t think I really was, of course. But it’s good to hear I have company.
Ok, so I’m a girl (woman, whatever), but that part made me tear up, too. I totally never cry at movies. Ok, like very, very rarely. But I think it was seeing them all there and the music and everything like you said. I found myself tearing up again when they captured Bumblebee. Sentimental about the huge robots of my youth, I guess.
I’m easy like that…I’ll cry at movies, animated or not if there’s a particularly strong scene.
What surprised me, though is when my husband and I went to see “O” in Vegas. The music just hit me like a fist. I cried like hell. I looked over and my husband was doing it, too! That’s a really good memory for us. It’s a great show. The “clown” that the story centers around is fantastically sad.
Oh, and for anyone who WANTS a good movie to cry to, “What Dreams May Come” starts me five minutes in and I don’t stop until 20 minutes after the credits are done. That one is the absolute benchmark for tearjerking in my book.
When the touching part comes in any movie, my kids turn around to see . . . yep, Mom’s crying. They kid me about it. Say I’m easy. I call them heartless in return. Say they laughed when Bambi’s mother died. All good fun.
Oh, you might want to avoid reading URL=http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=428707&highlight=puppy]Auntbeast’s thread, it got my waterworks going.
Aw, my GF rides me constantly about this. “You cry for that? Fttt. You’re like a girl.”
I don’t bawl, by any stretch of the imagination - my eyes just get moist. It doesn’t take much. An episode of Intervention will do it, usually - unless the subject is somehow impossible for me to sympathize with.
The last time this happened was, uh… last night, watching a fragment of Spanglish. Téa Leoni’s character had just given her little girl her “present” of a load of nice clothes that are a few sizes too small for her, as “encouragement.” Aw, crap - that’s just heart-breaking, and that young actress did such a great job of it.
I get very self-conscious about stuff like that, because she teases me so damn much.
I haven’t seen an episode of Gray’s Anatomy since we hooked up. That would be asking for it. (And god forbid we should ever screen something like Dancer in the Dark, which actually does get me almost to the “bawling” point. I mean – there’s gonna be snot. )
I just popped in to say “are you me?”. Fortunately, I still need to watch all of Stargate on DVD, so I can retreat to the computer room when Saw II or whatever the crap comes out.
I don’t cry at movies. See, it’s my allergies that make my eyes water.
Ok. I cry at stupid, sentimental stuff. Even worse, I cry when I watch Oprah make someone’s dream come true. I mean, I’m a guy, I watch Oprah, and I’m a guy who watches Oprah knowing her charitable endeavors are going to make me tear up. I should probably just wrap up my testicles and turn them in now.
(FWIW, Saving Private Ryan made me sob like a little baby).
Well, I think it’s great. I am a person who very rarely cries when I’m actually sad about something real in my life. Sure I cry at Disney Movies (cried, on the plane yesterday, watching Meet the Robinsons), heart-wrenching songs, and all the typical stuff. For the last two months I’ve been watching Extreme Home Makeover and bawling at the end of every episode. All that stuff is kind of embarrassing, but it’s at least somewhat normal. You can at least be considered ‘‘sensitive’’ in this regard.
But my sensitivity to stuff like this borders on freakdom. It gets ridiculous when you start cranking out tears for orange juice commercials and Full House. I can be driving down the road, hear a terribly executed radio spot for a jewelry commercial and burst into tears. It’s maddening.
My theory is that I’m just sad real life isn’t like that.
At any rate, you guys should be proud. Not enough people care about others these days. Those reactions have to translate to your goodness in real life, somehow.
Himself will tear up at an especially happy or sad moment, but his first reaction is to look at me to see if I’m crying, first. Then he gets a big cheese-eatin’ grin on his face, 'cause he thinks it’s cute that I’ll cry at the drop of a hat.
