Boys Aren’t Supposed to Cry?

10 min readSep 29, 2022

You’ve probably heard the old adage, “Boys don’t cry” That sentiment has been floating around in our culture for a very long time. It’s a curious phrase though, isn’t it?

When we hear someone say “Boys don’t cry”, we know it isn’t meant literally. That is, we know that boys, and by extension men, do, in fact, cry. We see it all the time.

Both in real life — and at the movies. Even tough guy characters cry, occasionally. So, what does that phrase really mean?

Well, “boys don’t cry” is an assertion of a cultural ideal for manhood.

What most people mean is closer to, “Boys aren’t supposed to cry.”

But even that isn’t entirely accurate. Because there are a few situations where crying is permitted.

“Crying, acceptable at funerals, and the Grand Canyon.”

So, the more accurate statement would be, “Boys aren’t supposed to cry, except under a narrow set of circumstances.”

It doesn’t really have the same ring to it.

But it’s that narrow set of circumstances that we’re going to focus on in this article. Because those moments of vulnerability, however brief, can tell us a lot about the construction of masculinity.

Since they haven’t yet entered into manhood, boys and teenagers are usually given more emotional leeway on screen.

Even though we all understand that men and boys do cry, there’s still an unwritten rule that men are only allowed to openly and sincerely cry in a small handful of social situations.

Think of it like an emotional window, wherein men can display a measure of vulnerability — without jeopardizing their manhood status.

The more extreme the situation, the more unrestrained the crying can be.

So for instance, if a male character begins to sob in a dramatic role, audiences have learned this means whatever is going on, it must be

really, really unthinkably bad -

like never-going-to-see-his-family-again bad,

or just-killed-a-whole-bunch-of-people bad,

The most common set of circumstances, where the crying window opens,

involve death. Usually, the death of a loved one.

Especially if they have been victimized in some way.

This can include tears relating to an impending death, or a breakdown immediately following

a near-death experience.

War, in particular, is often represented as a setting that provides access to those extreme situations,

when it’s socially permissible to be openly vulnerable with others — but at a tragic cost. It’s also sometimes permissible

for men to shed tears relating to personal failure. Though it has to be a great failure,

like the failure to provide or protect.

Occasionally, that can include the failure of a marriage — but more often it’s the failure to stop a catastrophe.

The crying window also opens briefly in another social arena. Like in other men’s sports.

But notice it’s only around particularly heightened moments of competition -like the final game of the series, or qualifying for the playoffs.

These intense situations may be the only time all year where a grown man gets to cry in public and not be ridiculed for it.

Tears of joy are probably the rarest acceptable type for men in media. These are restricted to post-traumatic reunions,

recognition for a life’s work,

the birth of a child,

or a father at his daughters wedding.

Though, tellingly, very rarely at his own wedding — or the wedding of a son.

There are a few other fringe cases where the crying window opens.

But notice that all of these situations are rare. So rare that they may only come around a few times in a man’s entire life. On average we do see men crying slightly more often in dramas or romance stories.

But in order for men to cry in action-driven media, an almost supernatural level of trauma is usually required.

Even when it’s a tragic or miraculous event the flow of tears can still be noticeably constrained for male characters. We’re all familiar with the single tear cliche.

One solitary drop of emotion is allowed to fall down a man’s cheek,

to let the audience know that he harbors deep inner feelings -

feelings that will likely remain unspoken.

But often we don’t even get the single tear — we just see damp, wet eyes and the tears aren’t allowed to escape.

Crying releases stress and helps reduce anxiety. On a social level, the ability to cry and be openly vulnerable in front of others, is critical for human connection and relationship building.

It’s difficult to built and maintain emotionally supportive friendships without it.

With that in mind, it’s instructive. to consider the wide array of social situations that fall outside

of the permissible crying window.

Men may fear losing masculinity points — if they are seen crying due to things like pain -fear, heartbreak, pressure at work,

experiencing depression or anxiety, embarrassment or hurt feelings.

Crying is also frowned upon for men when doing things like watching a sappy movie or witnessing a beautiful sunset or even connecting on an intimate level.

Notice that all of these life events are relatively common. They’re the kind of things that are likely to happen to men in their everyday lives. If we do see men crying

for one of those everyday reasons in dramatic media, it feels so remarkable, that we sit up and take notice.

Like all social constructs, the rules governing the crying window can be bent from time to time. But if the rules are broken,

the guy runs the risk of becoming the objects of ridicule amongst his peers or worse being turned into

a meme on the internet.

As should be evident by some of the pictures. we’ve just been looking at, when men are depicted getting emotional

outside of the permissible window, their tears are routinely played for comedy.

It’s a world where men who cry too long, too intensely or at inconvenient times

are mocked — mercilessly.

Comedy that makes fun of men for crying consistently frames outbursts of emotion or vulnerability as pathetic, weak — and decidedly unmanly.

The association of tears with femininity is explicitly illustrated in the countless jokes deriding men for crying like a little girl.

The insult is used to police men’s expression of emotion

or lack self-control.

Even though crying is a basic human response for everyone, regardless of their gender, it has come to be thought of as a gendered phenomenon.

This is why the social pressure for men

to put on a brave face and not cry in the presence of others is enormous.

As therapist Terrance Real has noted,

“We live in an anti-relational, vulnerability-despising culture, one that not only fails to nurture the skills of connection but actively fears them.”

If men do get emotional in media, notice where and when they do it.

Most of the time, vulnerable moments only happen in private.

It’s a classic bit of cinematic sleight of hand, because we, as the audience, get to see protagonists experiencing moments of true vulnerability.

But they rarely share those feelings with other characters. Since the expression of vulnerability

is so strongly coded feminine, in our culture stories often have women acting as conduits for men’s feelings.

The emotional labor of caring for men’s pain

typically falls on the women in their lives. And, more often than not, that support only goes one way.

One of the consequences of living in a culture, where men are taught to low the vulnerability, is that they don’t want to be around

other people who are crying.

Men may be unwilling to take care of or provide emotional support to those who are shedding tears -because that close proximity to vulnerability undermines their own sense of masculinity.

When in the vicinity of another man who’s crying -They might pat their friend on the back -or give a quick hug before reestablishing distance.

In fact, if caught shedding tears, male characters will frequently deny it

Variations on the classic quip “I just have something in my eye.” are written to communicate to viewers that the character does indeed have feelings while also giving him a measure of plausible deniability Popular media frequently reinforces the belief that men need to hide their feelings.

In the fantastic stories Hollywood tells, feeling and action are often presented as opposites -as if one precludes the other. Movies tell us over and over again that if men allow themselves to feel vulnerable they will be rendered useless.

Not only will their emotions paralyze basic motor functions, but the whole world may fall apart around them.

It’s not true, of course.

Crying does not preclude action.

But the myth that vulnerability is synonymous with a complete loss of control and therefore incompatible with power is so corrosive and so strong that many men have come to believe they must kill their emotional sides in order to be useful members of society.

Emotional disconnection has other even more harmful consequences.

The process of working through hurt or loss

can be slow and painful,

but it’s also necessary for emotional healing. And yet when we do see men breaking down on screen

the moment passes quickly.

That’s because the permissible crying window

only remains opens for a short time.

Even when finding the dead bodies of his family,

the tears come and go in the space of one or two minutes.

This means we very rarely see male characters who are given the time to properly mourn.

In fact, in countless pieces of media

men’s tears essentially function as a bridge to violence.

Sometimes the transformation from profound grief to extreme aggression even happens within the same scene.

Far too often in media we don’t see men getting sad, we see them getting mad and then getting even. In this way violent retribution

is presented as a replacement for the normal grieving process.

This pattern then encourages men

to channel all of their feelings into aggression and to use that aggression to express themselves

in nearly all situations.

Now anger isn’t necessarily a destructive emotion. When directed in constructive ways, it can be an appropriate response to injustice.

The problem is that since aggressive outbursts are in many ways the opposite of vulnerability. Rage and anger are almost universally seen as signs of strength for men.

Whereas prolonged grief or sadness is seen as weakness.

Or worse as a sign of instability.

This helps explain why filmmakers

will so often use men’s tears

as audio-visual shorthand for a descent into madness.

Or a descend into evil

Or both.

It’s illuminating to consider just how often men’s emotional pain is translated as self, destruction, in Hollywood narratives.

Just like violence directed outward, violence directed inward is often portrayed as an intrinsic, almost inevitable manifestation of men’s emotional pain.

Rather than being critiques of disconnected or violent masculinity these depictions end up glamorizing or at least mythologizing and poetizing male characters

who rarely figure out how to deal with their feelings in a healthy way.

So instead we are treated to images of men destroying themselves in lovingly realized, cinematic spectacles.