Chick flicks with testosterone.

Among the lesser-known or acknowledged subgenres or modern cinema is the "guy-cry" movie. It's possibly a descendant of contemporary chick flicks; where those frequently focus on themes like sisterhood and mother-daughter relationships, guy-cry films usually invoke ones like chivalry, mateship (Australian ones specialise in that) and father-son relationships, obviously. Think Armageddon and Saving Private Ryan (both 1998), and assorted sports films et cetera. Now, before I proceed any more with this, female stories should indeed be told in all mediums and there's no such thing as a gender-specific theme or emotion, but there is such thing, I think, as a difference in what commonly validates or provokes those among the genders, not to mention how everybody reacts to their ways of being explored.

Guy-cry movies have been produced nearly since the start of sound cinema, but they didn't really become so commonplace until about the 1980s to my knowledge. That decade, my favourite for cinema, saw titles like Raging Bull (1980), Gallipoli (1981), Platoon and Stand by Me (both 1986), Rain Man (1988) and Dead Poets Society (1989; and funnily enough, Peter Weir directed it and Gallipoli) with male protagonists all wearing their hearts on their sleeves, cutting a template out into which many newer flicks have tried to fit themselves. Some that come to my mind are Good Will Hunting (1997), Gladiator (2000), Mystic River (2003), Into the Wild and Romulus, My Father (both 2007), The Black Balloon (2008, which a woman wrote and directed, too), Big Hero 6 (2014) and Hacksaw Ridge (2016). Two others which I've read cited as guy-cry movies are Schindler's List (1993) and Titanic (1997), but they don't quite fit the description for me (particularly Titanic as it's told from a woman's perspective).

Guy-cry movies are equally important as chick flicks, I believe, because they can remind us males that there's nothing shameful or weak about letting it out, at least in certain contexts. That's simply one of the things that makes us human. And where males can learn more about women and girls from watching chick flicks, they can learn more about what us tick from watching a guy-cry movie. As I've often said, art is meant to entertain and education, not just one or the other. And it should also help us when necessary.