tear jerker

I've had a thing for sour candy since I was a kid - Sour Patch Kids, Sour Straws, and the list goes on - anything harshly acidic and tart. Perhaps it was originally to prove my tolerance level was high, but ultimately out of pure enjoyment. Publix grocery stores used to stock big ol' bags of sour gumballs called Tear Jerkers that were all the rage with certain demographic. My response to atomic fire ball cinnamon candy was always a bit more heated.

I can equate my attraction to the intense, lip wrenching candies to my taste in film. I like 'em dark, harsh, and visceral. There's something amazingly pleasurable to me about the squirm factor. However, as I ponder my ability to digest flicks with edge, especially those that are rife with the controversial, mature, and often graphic material, I wonder whether they would warrant the tear jerk response.

Tearjerkers make me think of that gender debate during Sleepless in Seattle wherein it was An Affair to Remember versus The Dirty Dozen. Stereotypes, anyone?! What I realize is that many of my favorite films are several steps beyond that response. They are in ways so painful and saddening to watch that you simply can not respond that way.

The Ice Storm, Dancer in the Dark, Away from Her, and Maria, Full of Grace come to mind. These are pure, devastatingly beautiful films. I know I'm just not quick to emote in this way, but Kramer vs. Kramer hit me that way. On TV it was various episodes of Rescue Me and Six Feet Under that left me numb from empathy. I think it comes down to how much you allow yourself to fall into the world being created. I don't think we need to find ourselves in the characters so much as the potential that we could.