[ SECRET POST #2731 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2731 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 033 secrets from Secret Submission Post #390.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[scrubber]

I know this isn't quite the definition, but I always figured that in order for that phrase to have any real purpose the pain the male character feels must have some kind of implicit assumption that the pain he feels can only be appreciated/understood by a man. That the trauma is in some way an affront to his masculinity. You're taking the tragedy of a female's life and making it all about how the male character has been taken down a peg as A Man, and now needs to avenge his manhood and surely all the guys in the audience can understand that right? That's fucked up.

If you're just laughing at "manpain" when it's something ANYONE would be upset over you're an idiot.

[ketita]

Yeah, this is what I thought.
There's also an issue of saturation, imo. Like after the Nth guy who is broken after losing mother/wife/daughter, you get a bit annoyed, because like you said, it's often alongside an implication that a Real Man wouldn't 'let' this happen. But it would actually be a legitimate storyline if not for the way it's overused/presented. Theoretically there's nothing wrong with telling the story of a person who lost someone they love, it's how it's done that's the issue.

[herpymcderp]

Well it's more than that.

It also has to do with the things you're "allowed" to feel emotional pain over if you happen to be male- international sociocultural differences aside. It's misogynist at best and blanket sexist at worst; it takes the idea that men can only identify with emotional pain in certain special circumstances to the logical extreme, which is that Real Men(tm) only feel pain in those circumstances. Anything other than that and you must be a hysterical woman who gets emotional over anything.

Real Men(tm) can only cry and feel sad if someone they love dies/might be dead or they just got their dick cut off, essentially. Anything else and your gender performance is incorrect, you are not a Real Man(tm) etc.

What you said also factors into it, and it is indeed fucked up, but superficially it does kind of fall into that category of things men are allowed to cry about, and on the outside that sure looks like they wrote it in to be able to give some manpain.