Friday, November 19, 2010

Moaning Myrtle

I've always been quite sentimental. Emotions created by books, movies, church meetings, and Maxwell House commercials quickly well up into tears, and I have had to master the art of crying silently to myself in order to avoid detection. When I'm pregnant, the sentimentalism moves into the realm of the ridiculous. This morning as I read the movie review for the newest Potter installment, I was moved to tears in anticipation of being sad during the actual film! When I was pregnant with Noah, and the final installment of the new Star Wars movies came out, I was humiliated to find I was crying as Anakin strangled Padme! Anakin and Padme, for crying out loud? Nobody cared about that romance, least of all me. And I confess I wept when the animated lightning bug from "The Princess and the Frog" was squashed by the bad guy. I wasn't pregnant that time.

I was sobbing over the morning paper the other day, glad that everyone was off at work and school and unable to see the spectacle of the matriarch of the family weeping big tears of sympathy over a man who had lost his wife two years hence. He deserved those tears of course, much more than George Lucas and Disney did, and more than JK Rowling will, when I shed tears in the theater tonight for Harry Potter and his friends. I think I might be more happy about all this weeping if it were more logical--if I wept only when something was truly sad, or truly beautiful, and not because I have allowed my emotions to be manipulated by Hollywood or an instant coffee marketing campaign.

I'll work on being more choosy about where and when I dissolve into a flood of tears. In the meantime, however, I count at least five fictional characters who will meet their demise tonight. I'm bringing plenty of tissues.

3 comments:

  1. I cry to country music...pitiful but true. They may kick me out of Texas if they find out. When a good cry is needed I drive to the grocery store and listen to country music for the first half of the drive and cry..then switch if for the last half of the drive to compose myself.'

    yep my tears turn right off with the change of station.

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  2. I sobbed watching Star Wars III in the theater. It was awful - body shaking, loud sobs that I couldn't seem to control. And between the torso burning scene and the child massacre, I spent a good portion of the movie wailing. I've had plenty of other embarassing crying scenes as well - I remember very vividly crying while seeing a friend off at the MTC, because of the mormon ads. Good luck holding yourself together tonight!

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  3. I only cried at the very beginning, when they were leaving their families; predictable for a mother, I guess. No tears for Hedwig, Madeye, or Dobby, either. Guess I'll save them up for part two.

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