Thursday, August 27, 2009

Crying

crying woman


Here is another instance of the differences between men and women.  Men don't go out of their way to cry and they certainly wouldn't pay money and bring along a carefully prepped small ziplock bag filled with Kleenex to the movie theater.  (The ziplock bag keeps the Kleenex from getting dirty, because yes, there are sites out there that tell you the best way to carry your Kleenex around.) 

And now I'm one of them.  Damn.

Moving swiftly along,  there is a genre of movies, books and blogs that exist in the "tearjerker" category.   Unabashedly sentimental, pulling on your heart strings, gushy sweet things that cause your eyes to swell up and transparent drippy snot to come out  of your nose.

Even better is a tearjerker book that is turned into a movie, like My Sister's Keeper.  Then you can cry twice.  Sweet.  Through your tears you can shakily gasp out how the book was different from the movie because they changed the ending.  But you still cried.  Obviously.

If you're uncertain if you are seeing a tearjerker, check for the dead dude.  Every once in a while, if I am trying to maneuver my husband into seeing a tearjerker, I tell him about the movie and try to entice him by mentioning the hot chick in the movie, if there is one.  (By the way, pickings are slim in the Tearjerker + Hot Lead Actress category.)

These are the movies I am itching to rent on DVD (even I wouldn't be so idiotic as to try to make him pay for an $8 movie ticket -  I figure the low rental cost balances out the "2-plus-hours-of-my-life-I-wasted-on-that-rubbish" response that I am almost guaranteed to hear afterward.)
 
Usually the title is the dead giveaway, though (dead giveaway, get it?  huh huh?)  and Karl pulls out the Death-O-Meter:

"Is someone dying in this movie?" (Instantly his Death-O-Meter has swung over to "Doornail" setting.)

(Me frantically avoiding eye contact:)  "Um, maybe.  I haven't seen it yet."

(This is usually a lie, I saw it in the theater with girlfriends but now would like to really sob it out in the privacy of my own home.  Also, I might have missed some of the sappy dialog and I have to support fellow writers so really, it's my duty to watch P.S. I love you again.)
 
 "Did you read the book?"

Confess?  Never.  Demure some more.  "I read a lot of books."

 "Well, I don't want to watch it."

If someone croaks, it's okay to cry.  If they allude to someone croaking (a life-threatening or incurable illness, especially in a little kid) it's definitely okay to cry.  If an offshoot character dies in order to bring the two leads together again - sob away.  It's also very acceptable to start crying if a beloved family pet dies.  If you start tearing up when you hear those Irish flutes playing Celine Dion's "My heart will go on" in Titanic (even though you hate Celine Dion and it's totally against your will) - still, I wouldn't judge you.


But if you're weeping at 27 Dresses, you're reading way too much into that movie.

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