Yet again, I am relieved I don’t have a penis. This week, a survey from YouGov found that one in six Americans think it’s “unacceptable” for a man to cry in public while only one in 12 think women shouldn’t.
Those attitudes are very different when it comes to crying in private (although the survey didn’t specify whether “private” means the bathroom at work, a fitting room at H&M or your parents’ couch – all personal favorites). Only 5% said it was unacceptable for men to cry in private while 3% said the same for women. It seems that as long as people keep their wet faces hidden, Americans aren’t so bothered.
This data upsets me. A lot. I can feel myself tearing up just thinking about how society allows women to cry but not men (then points at said women and says “calm down you overly emotional lil things”). There is no gender gap in crying frequency until the age of 12 then boom! Men claim they cry less often than women (just once per month on average compared to 2.7 times for women).
Dry your eyes guys, I’m going to help. See, social stigmas can often be fixed by normalization – that’s when we see something so frequently that it goes from being shameful to just plain mundane. So I present you with eight of the most beautiful man cries I have been able to find in the half hour I had this morning.
1. John Boehner
This former house speaker deserves a medal for his numerous salt-water outpourings. So many in fact that Daily Beast created a compilation set to the tune of Justin Timberlake’s tick-tock-depression-o-clock melody Cry Me A River.
2. Dawson and his miserable creek
Readers who are in their late 20s/early 30s will remember this appealing drama/the worst TV show to ever make it to six entire seasons. In it, Dawson lives on a creek (the show, which left about as much to the imagination as a video taped colonoscopy, was called Dawson’s Creek) with some of his friends where he feels sad sometimes and where his friends feel sad sometimes. In this clip, Dawson’s one true love Joey Potter (played by Katie Holmes) tells him that she still has feelings for him. Dawson, standing in the very public setting of his public creek, lets out a very public cry. This video may have been dubbed.
3. Man
I do not know this man, I do not know where he is and I do not know why he cries so. All I know is that I watched it all the way to the end and laughed – I mean cried – so loudly that four of my colleagues gchatted me: “What’s happening???”
4. Dr Tobias Funke
Much like my upper body at the beach, Tobias is a never-nude. Though you can’t see it, he is wearing a pair of denim cut-offs in this shower scene from Arrested Development. Yes, Tobias isn’t in private so this doesn’t technically count. But it’s amazing, so we’ve included it.
5. LeBron James
I’m no football fan, but apparently LeBron is a good player and when he plays very good, he cries like he did here. Also I know that he plays basketball not football but I thought maybe I could get some men to angry cry in public when reading this.
According to the Guardian US sports editor Tom Lutz, the significance of this weeping was that:
“They were the tears not just of a man who had waited his whole life to bring a title home to Cleveland but the tears of a city that had waited 52 years for a sports title. And also tears of relief of a man who hadn’t taken a kick to the groin from Draymond Green.”
6. Crying Jordan
While we’re on the subject of sports, no list of epic man cries could be complete without the epic omnipresent-meme creating moment that was Michael Jordan crying. In 2009, just before he began his acceptance speech for his hall of fame induction, Jordan’s face leaked a bit before he regained his composure in classic public crying man style.
No matter that the tears were tears of joy, the image of his wet face has now become an internet by-word for loss, failure and sadness. A few examples include:
— Emmanuel Acho (@thEMANacho) January 14, 2016
How all my #Powerball tickets looked! pic.twitter.com/luMZsL7AX3
I again asked our sports editor for comment before suddenly remembering that Tom is a man’s name. So I said, “Tom, have you ever cried in public?” Tom replied: “Yes, when I got drunk when I was 17 and poured pasta sauce on my head to impress my friends. Then none of them were impressed and just laughed and I felt humiliated.”
Thank you, Tom.
7. Don Draper
This man was supposed to be the manliest man out of a bunch of very manly men depicted on the TV show Mad Men. Then he starts crying and shockingly reveals that he is not in fact a man but a hu-man. It was a profound moment. Apparently. Again, Don is in his office at the moment he breaks down, but it’s too good to not include.
8. Obama
Men crying in public is one thing but a president who is moved to tears in front of the entire nation is quite another. And the image of Barack Obama crying while delivering yet another press conference about yet another mass shooting bears no comparison to any other emotional episode. It’s different because the words Obama attempts to deliver as his eyes fill with tears and his voice creaks:
“Our unalienable right to life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – those rights were stripped from college students in Blacksburg and Santa Barbara, and from high schoolers at Columbine, and from first-graders in Newtown. First-graders.”
View all comments >
comments
Sign in or create your Guardian account to join the discussion.
This discussion is closed for comments.
We’re doing some maintenance right now. You can still read comments, but please come back later to add your own.
Commenting has been disabled for this account (why?)