What do Titanic and La La Land have in common besides winning several Oscar and Academy awards? They have sad endings. When Rose is on the floating wood and Jack tells her to survive but himself sinks into the sea, their romance is like a burst of fireworks: passionate but ephemeral. Similarly, in La La Land, after five years of separation, both characters have already had their own lives. But when they accidentally meet each other, all the beautiful moments flash back; their eyes are filled with tears, but they know they cannot come back to each other again. <\/p>\n
These movies are well appraised. But we do not just praise them, we actually LOVE them. We love sad movies. Thousands of consumers still rush to the theatres even after being told the movies are sad by their friends or online reviews. It seems to be common sense that we are attracted to something that makes us feel pleasant, such as enjoyment and diversion, so why are we drawn to something that makes us sad (Schramm & Wirth, 2010)? Doesn\u2019t it seem counterintuitive? <\/p>\n
Before actually tackling this question, I will briefly go over some reasons for us to love those sad movies. For one thing, those movies are delicately made by famous studios and produced by professional directors, which renders excellent visual and audio effects. However, this is not what this article is going to address. This article is going to take a philosophy-of-emotion approach instead: regardless of artistic merits, I seek to investigate why we like sad movies from the perspective of how sadness in movies affects us emotionally. <\/p>\n
My arguments are based on how sadness affects our views on the following three aspects: (1) ourselves; (2) our lives; (3) the external world. <\/p>\n
Sadness & Ourselves <\/p>\n
The first explanation for our love of sad movies is that watching sad movies makes us feel ourselves as better people. While seing fictional characters going through or suffering difficulties such as loss of their significant other in the movies, we imagine and project ourselves as the characters going through all the sufferings. Solomon calls such ability to feel for and feel with others \u201ccompassion,\u201d which requires both spontaneous reactions and cognitive knowledge (Solomon, 68). Solomon further argues that the ability to feel with others is built in us. He argues because we, human beings, are \u201cby nature social animals,\u201d we have the ability to react to and feel for others\u2019 loss or danger (Solomon, 64). <\/p>\n
This suggests that compassion is a fundamental emotion, and it \u201cprovides the basis of ethics\u201d (Solomon, 63). It is an emotion that is about others\u2019 emotions. As a result, when we feel bad for others, we feel good about ourselves because we feel that way. This sounds pretty contradictory. Solomon argues that grief, an extreme sadness especially regarding someone\u2019s death, is a \u201cmoral emotion\u201d; we almost feel \u201cobligatory\u201d to feel sorrow for others\u2019 suffering (Solomon, 75). Then, as ethics and compassion are so related, when we watch sad movies and we feel sad for the characters as if we are actually going through the difficulties, we are subconsciously telling ourselves that we are doing something ethical. We are exercising what makes us ethical and moral. <\/p>\n
Sadness & Our lives<\/p>\n
According to Solomon, all emotions require reflection which is to examine how we react and engage with what is going on and then recognize our emotions (Solomon, 265). In Solomon\u2019s point of view, an emotion becomes eventually complete when we reflect and then recognize it. Thus, reflection is part of emotion. This indicates an emotion is a process, a process of constantly making sense of the way we engage with the world. It is during the process that a variety of emotions are unfolded (Solomon, 76). By this means, the sadness from sad movies is a closed door, and reflection is the action of opening the door so that a variety of emotions such as sorrow, anger, and compassion are led in. <\/p>\n
I want to further this argument more: sadness does not open the door to the same variety of emotions every time, and this is because of different context. As Solomon argues, all emotions have the \u201caboutness,\u201d so sadness also has such intentionality; but since every time when we get sad it is due to different reasons, the aboutness of sadness always changes. As a result, when we get sad, we usually have a variety of other emotions different from the last time we get sad. Especially when we watch movies whose narrative is different, we are led to some emotions we don\u2019t often experience or have never experienced before. <\/p>\n
For example, a sad homosexual movie may evoke compassion and anger regarding injustice among nonhomosexual audiences, and a male superhero movie with a sad ending may evoke sorrow among female audiences. Thus, vicariously experiencing a variety of emotions makes us more profound and less shallow in terms of better understanding our lives, as well as the people around us. <\/p>\n
Sadness & the External World <\/p>\n
Finally, sad emotions lead us to view the world in a more positive way. This sounds contradictory because when we are sad, it seems more reasonable to view things in a negative way. However, when we are sad, we actually put ourselves in a humble and modest position. The humbleness and modesty do not eliminate hope from us. Instead, they lead us to view things with greater admiration and awe. This is because compared to our modest position, even the seemingly least important thing or the things we used to take for granted appear to have greater value. Such admiration and awe evoke an emotion of gratitude for things in our lives. <\/p>\n
In addition, we also feel united when we are sad with other people. Solomon makes a social-support argument when he discusses grief. He believes grief is not just about the past, but also the present and the future because it brings commemoration for people. It is through commemoration that people are drawn closer and more united. <\/p>\n
When watching movies, we emotionally engage with the characters, and we gain emotional resonance with the characters. We are then reminded of moments when we may have the same or similar experience as the characters in the movies. Such emotional resonance confirms to us that we are not alone, and there are people who feel the same as we do. This is why sadness makes people feel they are understood, and the strong sense of emotional support makes people feel more positive when dealing with difficulties in their lives.<\/p>\n
Objections & Implication <\/p>\n
Solomon may have various responses to the above explanations, but one thing worth mentioning is that the above explanations all presume sadness is an unpleasant or even negative emotion. Even the above arguments say sadness makes us more profound and opens the door for various emotions, the arguments already assume all emotions can be classified as \u201cnegative & positive\u201d or \u201cpleasant & unpleasant.\u201d However, such an assumption is what Solomon strongly encourage us to abandon. <\/p>\n
As a believer in cognitivism, Solomon points out emotions reveal how we construe the world. Thus, if we feel something unpleasant, it probably suggests things don\u2019t go the way we expect or things exceed our current ability so we cannot handle it. It is the gap between reality and our expectations or abilities that creates the seemingly unpleasant emotions. However, this doesn\u2019t suggest the emotion itself is negative; rather, our engagement and our perceptions are the points to focus on, not the emotions. The seemingly unpleasant emotion shouldn\u2019t bear the blame. <\/p>\n
This is why Solomon may respond that sadness is not an unpleasant emotion just like anger, fear, and grief shouldn\u2019t be considered so either. It is not because of their capacity to produce other pleasant emotions that they shouldn\u2019t be called unpleasant emotions; it is because they themselves are NOT unpleasant emotions. Therefore, Solomon may say there is nothing paradoxical about being obsessed with sad movies. If you enjoy how sad movies make you feel, you can indulge yourself in them. <\/p>\n
Finally, Solomon may want us to accept various emotions, and this is what he means by emotional integrity (Solomon, 267). In order to embrace various emotions, we have to be open and be vulnerable to emotions first. However, it is undeniable that we have pressure from work and school. The daily routine which we are adapted to builds up concrete walls between us and the world, and it deprives us from being vulnerable to emotions. And watching sad movies is a good way to tear down these walls and be exposed to emotions. <\/p>\n
References <\/p>\n
Schramm, H., & Wirth, W. (2010). Exploring the paradox of sad-film enjoyment: The role of multiple appraisals and meta-appraisals. Poetics, 38(3), 319\u2013335. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.poetic.2010.03.002<\/p>\n
Solomon, R. C. (2007). True to our feelings. Oxford University Press.<\/p>\n
Wirth, W., Hofer, M., & Schramm, H. (2012). Beyond Pleasure: Exploring the Eudaimonic Entertainment Experience. Human Communication Research, 38(4), 406\u2013428. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1111\/j.1468-2958.2012.01434.x<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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