"Chick Flick's," Misogyny, Revolution, and How to Make Me Cry

Every male reaches a point in his life where he sits down and asks himself important questions about the world around him. These queries are fundamental to the very operation of the universe.

Questions such as: "who the hell invented dark chocolate?" and "who cast Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane?". Since I am no exception to this natural order of the universe, I embarked on a journey to answer two of the most important questions I've ever asked myself: "what do women want?" and "how can I make myself cry by watching a movie?"

I decided to shoot two targets with one arrow, and, thus, I chose the perilous path of watching several movies to obtain the truth. Almost all women cry when they see emotionally moving movies, or as they are better known - "chick flicks."

Being a liberal sort of guy, I decided to watch the above classified female-market-targeted-films to see if they would, in any way, affect me emotionally. Titanic, A Walk to Remember, Dirty Dancing, and City of Angels were among the movies that I watched. I realized how sensitive a male I am; I was actually able to physically sit through many of these movies . without laughing.

Death is a very common theme in these movies, as is the most obvious - love. In fact, it seems those who are in love tend to die, (ironically enough) after overcoming several social and contextual obstacles in the way of their love. Although I must admit I was emotionally moved by A Walk to Remember (of all screenplays), I didn't cry during any of these films.

Heck, I didn't even feel like crying. In all honesty, the only reason I watched City of Angels was simply to memorize some lines that I could use to impress girls (and it worked). No - chick flicks were not something to make someone like me, a sensitive male, cry - never mind the masses of mindless buffoons who are about as collectively sensitive as a pole.

Regardless, I have cried as a result of watching movies before . Well, one movie, actually - Spike Lee's Malcolm X. I cried when Malcolm X dies; knowing my deep love and respect for Malcolm, this is not difficult to understand. The only other movie where I felt like crying was Ali - incidentally, the scene where Malcolm gets shot.

After watching the chick flicks referred to earlier, I felt that perhaps the flaw was inherent in my psychology rather than the Y chromosome within. Maybe I have become so desensitized by the mindless death and destruction I see around me everyday that Leonardo DiCaprio's onscreen demise has no power to move me.

It was then that I laid my eyes upon Life As A House and I Am Sam. I nearly cried, just nearly. There were tears in my eyes but that was as far as they got. Maybe I was hopeless, after all.

Redemption came in the form that I least expected, a Hindi movie. Anyone who knows anything about Hindi movies knows that they're the last form of entertainment (if that's what you'd call it) to be able to move people - other than to move them out of their seats to stop watching such heinous attacks on the human psyche.

I watched The Legend of Bhagat Singh, a movie about a revolution very similar in style and ideas to Malcolm X. The brutal, imperialist British occupiers of India executed him - Bhagat Singh, not Malcolm. I was brought to tears several times during this movie.

I then realized the correlation between my crying and the subject matter of the movie: real-life revolutionaries who give up their lives for their causes and their people are so much more tear-worthy than a moron who gives up his spot on a floating piece of wood for love of an arrogant woman.

Speaking of love, I return to one of my original questions - what do women want? Stopping short of Mel Gibson's trying on panty hose, I realized that women are looking for males who are sensitive, honest, sincere, devoted, and slightly effeminate (or "hot"). Having a certain bad-boy appeal also helps.

Furthermore, these "chick flicks" and personal interviews with several female friends led me to reach the conclusion that intelligence is not at the top of this list. Perhaps it's simply a matter of intelligent males staying away from girls. Likely, it is because women want to exercise a certain degree of superiority over men - comparing calculus marks is good for self-esteem and getting back for thousands of years of misogyny and female denigration.

However, it seems rather odd to me that some reasonably intelligent girls I know are dating guys whose IQ's would have difficulty rivaling a Chihuahua's. Ultimately, I must admit that I really have received no insight into the female mind - "chick flicks" may turn your brain into love-ified mush, but not much more.

God, the supreme asexual being who knows it all, must be the only one who has ever been called by a masculine pronoun to understand what women want. In fact, I even have women telling me they don't know what they want. It's a conundrum.

Alas, it seems there is no real solution to the problems that plague mankind. If great minds like Einstein and Jimmy Buffet can't figure out what women desire, I obviously have no chance. Furthermore, making a man cry is a difficult task, even a sensitive one like myself.

Of course, there are those who would say there are many more important issues to think of - war, oppression, disease, starvation, and a whole slew of other pertinent matters exist for consideration in today's disintegrating world.

It is to these critics that I ask, is pondering over all those things more important than thinking about finding a date for the prom? I rest my case.

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