Man Pain

Brought to you by men.

There’s a video we watched in my Law, Technology, and Culture class that compiled the parallel stories of many movie and television leading men who suffer from man pain.  I’ll give a go at explaining man pain, but first, here’s the video, which will likely clear up a lot of confusion. 😉

Still confused? Man pain is the presence of horrifically traumatizing occurrences in a man’s past that give him a reason to be moody and broody and special.  It also gives a man a reason to cry- because they’re super manly so without this man pain there could be no crying.  Unfortunately, man pain frequently comes from the violent deaths of female non-characters.  And we feel a bit more sorry for our introspective, cynical man than we do for our poor sacrificial ladies.  It’s not a hard and fast rule.
But face it. When you think of woman pain or lady pain, you think of period cramps.
And now when you think of man pain, you will now always think of:

• Harry Potter: “I never wanted you all to die for me.” Textbook man pain. And breaking up with your girlfriend for her safety? Man pain.  Dead/murdered parents helps. Speaking of which:
• Batman
• Kubo, from the recent Kubo and the Two Strings: Mom’s catatonic and Dad’s dead, creepy aunts and grandfather out for your death? Mom ends up dying because of your foolishness (Oh, yes, um, spoiler).
• Maximus, Gladiator: Now he can meaningfully touch blades of grass. Are you not entertained?
• Mel Gibson in Braveheart: What happened to his girlfriend again? Who cares, something bad. FREEEEDOOOMMM!
• Deadpool: Cancer sucks.
• The Joker: He crazy. Acid.
• Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker, Luke Skywalker: Oh my god, so whiny, both of them. You know Luke’s line, “I care”. He cares because he has man pain. Also because he doesn’t know Leia is his sister yet and men think man pain is very attractive to women.
• Carl, Up: YES EVEN CARL 😥
• That dude in Memento
• Inigo Montoya: You killed my father, prepare to die.
• Bond, James Bond: Okay, there are so many renditions of this character, and maybe they don’t all have man pain. But some def do.
• Leo DiCaprio in Inception: I would be sad if my relationship with Marion Cotillard were that complicated too, tbh.
• Spock from the new Star Trek movies: Vulcan go boom.
• The Phantom of the Opera
• Disney: Bambi, Beast, Simba, Tarzan, Mowgli, WallE, Quasimodo
• Ebenezer Scrooge, A Christmas Carol: FORGIVE ME, FAN!
• Max de Winter, Rebecca
• Sweeney Todd
• Norman Bates? Something’s up with him anyway.
• Jack Frost, Rise of the Guardians
• The Boy with the Cuckoo Clock Heart: Guess what makes him special?
• That guy in The Sting whose BFF dies
• Colonel Brandon, Sense and Sensibility
• Citizen Kane: Rosebud.
• Edward Scissorhands
• Harrison Ford, The Fugitive: THE MAN WITH ONE ARM KILLED HIS WIFE!
• The English Patient: Which Fiennes was that anyway?
• The Revenant: So much man pain/ Man Pain for the Oscar win!

There are lots and lots more and maybe now you’ll be seeing them everywhere like I have been (Damn you, Brad! (That’s what we call my Professor)).  There are also some great non-menstrual examples of woman pain (though they’re more rare (is it only because lady heroes/heroines are more rare, or is it because women don’t need an excuse to show emotion? o.O ) And there are also some excellent sends of man pain- but mostly in comedy.