The Hottest Trend in Movies: Male Tears

A recent trip to a Manhattan movie theater—to see Richard Linklater’s very good Everybody Wants Some!!—meant the usual exposure to 30 minutes of trailers. This is never a pleasant experience, but it’s a mundane one. What stood out was the number of male tears presented in the string of trailers.

There were male tears on the faces of Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, whose raucous Keanuseems like a fun-enough romp. (The crying comes in at about 1:33.)Tears dripped down Ryan Gosling’s dreamy visage, in a scene from The Nice Guys. (The crying comes in at about 1:19.)Zac Efron and Adam Devine turned in a snotty sob in the trailer for Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, though that might be the steroids. (The crying comes in at about 1:42.)This is all fine; men have tear ducts, too. It’s a little grating that writers find male tears funny enough to include them as a sight gag in so many forthcoming movies. Is it a writing crutch? Maybe, but it’s not worth crying over.