Guy-cry

A guy-cry film is the masculine version of the chick flick genre. These films adress a male audience, but have strong emotional material. Sports films are important to the guy-cry genre, but sports action is not necessarily essential to qualify a film as a genuine guy-cry. Some notable sports films that could be defined as guy-cry would be Field of Dreams, Rudy, Brian's Song Jerry Maguire and The Wrestler.
While it may seem that guy-cry is a neologism, it is a genre that has been around for many years and is now receiving critical attention from scholars and trade publications. This is mainly due to the financial and often critical successes of films that fall within this genre. Early popular guy-cry films date back to the early 1970s with films such as Five Easy Pieces, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
Important themes to the guy-cry genre are concepts of brotherhood, sacrifice, loyalty, and family.
Popular guy-cry films
In 2005, Entertainment Weekly ran a story of the top 12 guy-cry films. Their choices were as follows:
#The Shawshank Redemption
#Armageddon
#(3 way tie -- "Chick Flicks") Terms of Endearment, Love Story, Steel Magnolias
#Field of Dreams
#(4 way tie -- "Movies with Dogs") My Dog Skip, Snoopy Come Home, Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows
#Good Will Hunting
#Brian's Song
#Big Fish
#Backdraft
#Hoosiers
#Saving Private Ryan
#Hotel Rwanda
(Source: Entertainment Weekly A Guy-Cry)
It should be noted that the above list is taken from a list entitled "Movies that Make Grown Men Cry", which is obviously different from a guy-cry, as guy-cry movies are targeted at males, and all of these movies are not targeted specifically at males.
Guy-cry in popular culture
In the hit series Entourage, guy-cry films were integral to the characters' rental choices. In the second season episode Exodus, which aired Sunday August 28, 2005, the characters discussed guy-cry films in this exchange:
Turtle: They rented Brian's Song, E!
E: I heard you. What do you want me to do?
Drama: The ultimate guy-cry movie.
Turtle: He cries in front of her, shows her he's sensitive, bang! he moves right in.
Drama: Yeah. His tears will basically act as a lubricant.
TV.com episode description

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