Guys sometimes cry at movies

By Rick Burnham
Editor

I am watching this movie the other night with a friend and she started crying. Just busted out right then and there, right in front of God and everybody. It was the grave scene in "Forrest Gump," where Tom Hanks is talking to his deceased wife about their son. And my friend just lost it.

I started laughing at her for crying, and that went over real well. She started shouting, and blowing snot bubbles, and that made me laugh even harder.

"You insensitive expletive," she said. "Don’t you ever cry at movies? Has a movie ever made you cry?"

"No," I said. "I am a guy, and guys are not allowed to cry during movies. If we feel like we are going to start crying, we are supposed to stand up and bang our leg on the coffee table or something so it will appear the tears are from actual pain. Says it right there in the Guy’s Handbook."

"You have never cried during a movie?"

"No."

But I figure some of you have. For that reason, I went around asking guys at the Peanut Festival on Saturday if they have ever cried during a movie. I promised not to reveal their full name or occupation. The results were quite amazing.

"Joe," from Fanning Springs, said he used to have a dog growing up, and that dog used to drive him crazy. But Joe loved that dog, right up until the day his dad backed over it with his truck. So I guess his response was only natural.

"Old Yeller," he said, his eyes tearing up as he talked. "When that boy is faced with shooting Old Yeller because he has rabies, I have to leave the room."

That is understandable. That movie gets to me a little bit too.

Another guy –Bill, from Chiefland – went with a sports movie.

"Brian’s Song," he said, referring to the 1971 flick about football player Brian Piccolo. "That guy dies from cancer, and it is almost too much for me to take. He tried so hard to make the team. You want him to make it, and then he dies."

Eddie, also from Chiefland, took us back to the animal world, this time in animation.

"I am a hunter, and have been for as long as I can remember," he said, looking around to make sure no one was listening. "But when Bambi’s mother gets shot, it just about rips my heart out. He goes into the woods and waits on her, but she never shows up. Why do they make movies like Bambi? Why?"

Jon, from Newberry, continued with the animal theme.

"The Lion King," he said. "When Mufasa gets killed by the wildebeest herd and the little guy is left to fend for himself, it’s almost too much for me to take. It makes you want to pick your own son up and give him a hug."

Warren, a Gainesville resident, also spoke of hugs, albeit in a somewhat different manner.

"Brokeback Mountain broke my heart," he said, lip quivering. "They were just misunderstood." I kept my distance from Warren the rest of the peanut festival.

But David, another Chiefland resident, restored my faith in mankind when he spoke of "Saving Private Ryan."

"He has lived out his whole life and they go back to that graveyard in France, and he asks his wife whether or not he has lived a righteous life," David said. I couldn’t make out the rest of it because he started babbling, but you could tell the movie really moved him.

Which brings me to me. I can watch all those movies and many more and not even get misty-eyed.

And then Titanic comes on, and, well, Titanic kicks my butt.

That old lady drops her necklace in the ocean, and then lies down and dies. And as she passes she is thinking about all those folks on the boat, and you have that Celine Dion song playing, and, well … I better stop. The eyes are tearing up, and as a guy, I can’t be caught with teary eyes.