As a child I grew up in a family where my father was a strong role model. He was a proud and confident man who has influenced my now adult part of my life. He was the bread winner of the family whilst my mother looked stayed at home and looked after my brother and I and still corrects me to this day when I don’t pronounce my t’s and glares at me for swearing. I remember at one point when I was younger thinking why is it so uncomfortable when I saw him crying after initially fearing that something had gone horribly wrong which is why he was weeping. I’m not sure why my brain jumped to this conclusion because he is only human and he does have feelings, stress and problems so why can’t he cry. Is it really just a woman thing or does it show loss of control for a man and vulnerability?
It’s a shame we stereotype that real men don’t cry as it means they’re weak but sometimes I think crying does make you feel better at times. I asked a group of the people I work with when they last cried. Some of the women said from a day to two weeks ago whereas the men hadn’t cried for some time, up to two years ago. The time difference correlated with the gender as we would expect, that the men hadn’t cried for a longer time than the women. When I am watching a film or TV program when a man cries I always think oh dear this is bad for this guy to be crying and if you think about it, it’s strange to do so.
Sam Taylor Wood has taken this idea and turned it into a photograph collection. She has taken photos of well known men whilst they are crying. These include Dustin Hoffman, Woody Harrelson, Laurence Fishburne and more. Some of the images were staged making themselves cry whereas others were caught in the moment. When I initially looked at the images, I empathised with the subject and tried to work out why they may be crying which links back to when I was younger with my dad but then I realised I didn’t have to do this, I could just look at the pictures for what they were of a man and crying and they are beautiful. I was watching a film with Woody Harrelson in it recently called Zombieland, it is an amusing take on what would happen if the world had been overtaken by zombies but Harrelson’s character is far from one that would cry. He plays the typical macho protagonist of the film, quite happy to kill the diseased inhabitants but this image contradicts that.
Taylor Wood uses such soft lighting which halos the men in some of the pictures and I do personally think they look vulnerable because it’s not something the viewer is used to. Saying this, there is a quality about these images which draws you in makes you want to investigate, to find out what has occurred and console them to make them smile again. It shows you that these men, famous as they are, are in fact just men and have emotions and struggles to deal with in their own lives and these images make them look a little more human.
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