English Original
Real men don't cry. We just get something in our eye.
A short walk from my house in Hampshire, on a hill overlooking the heathland, is a plaque marking the spot where Richard Pryce Jones deliberately crashed his Halifax bomber during the war. He could have parachuted to safety, but that would have meant crashing into the village. The epitaph reads: "He died that others might live."
It never fails to move me. Not to tears, you understand. That would be disrespectful. But I do usually manage a lump in the throat and that film of moisture over the eyes that men have in their emotional armoury. Gordon Brown demonstrated the non-crying cry beautifully when he made his farewell speech on the steps of Number 10. That catch in the throat. The determination not to weep in public. At that moment, if at no other, he had nobility.
Not everyone can carry it off. I don't think Paul Gascoigne ever quite got the hang of it, for example. But I like to think I have it down to an art, my technique honed from years of watching The Railway Children, Sleepless in Seattle and that scene in Dumbo when the mother elephant is locked away. "Daddy!" my sons will say, pointing the accusing finger. "You're crying!"
"Me? Over Dumbo? Ha ha ha. No, boys, what I am doing is man-crying, a sort of non-crying cry. I'll teach you it one day. Very useful."
They are too young to appreciate the nuance yet, but when they are older I will explain that open sobbing is associated with being female, and so inappropriate for men. The Charlie Chaplin analogy might be useful here. He once said that the way to act drunk is to imagine yourself a drunk man trying to act sober. The same is true when a man learns the non-crying cry. To be convincing, you must look as if you are trying to avoid tears.
In this respect, it is important for a young man to appreciate the difference between male tears and female. I remember once asking the actress Emilia Fox if she could cry at will, right there and then, over lunch. To my astonishment, she could – from a standing start. Fat tears rolling down her cheeks. When she had finished, she resumed her smiling countenance.
Those are female tears, and the reason you never hear anyone say: "It's enough to make a grown woman cry." That expression only works when it refers to "grown men" and though that may seem tautological, the "grown" is justified. Not all men are grown. The emotionally incontinent exhibitionists who cry when they are kicked off talent shows such as The X Factor are not grown men, for example. Men have to be careful what they cry at, because some subjects are more worthy of tears than others. Grief, obviously. But not self-pity. And rarely should a man cry in pain. And never at the death of a princess he didn't know. Those are the rules.
I suspect my colleague Matt Pritchett might be with me on this. One of his cartoons this past week showed a father next to a television tuned to the World Cup, explaining to his children that "at some point in the next few weeks, you are going to see me cry". And the day after the last survivor of the Great Escape died, he did a cartoon showing a gravestone with a mound of tunnelled earth trailing away from it. I seemed to have something in my eye when I saw that, and I expect he had the same something in his eye when he drew it.
中文翻译
真男人不哭泣。我们只是眼睛里进了东西。
从我在汉普郡的家出发，走一小段路，在一座俯瞰荒原的山上，有一块牌匾，标记着理查德·普赖斯·琼斯在战争期间故意驾驶他的哈利法克斯轰炸机坠毁的地点。他本可以跳伞逃生，但那将意味着飞机会坠毁在村庄里。墓志铭上写着：“他死，是为了他人能生。”
这个故事总能打动我。但不是让我流泪，你懂的。那样会显得不敬。但我通常确实会感到喉咙哽咽，以及眼眶里蒙上那层男性情感武器库中特有的水汽。戈登·布朗在唐宁街10号台阶上发表告别演说时，完美地展示了这种“非哭泣的哭泣”。那种喉咙的哽咽。那种决不在公开场合流泪的决心。在那一刻，即便在其他时候没有，他也显得高贵。
并非每个人都能做到这一点。例如，我认为保罗·加斯科因就从未真正掌握其精髓。但我愿意相信我已将其练成了一门艺术，我的技巧是通过多年观看《铁路少年》、《西雅图不眠夜》以及《小飞象》中母象被关起来的那一幕磨练出来的。“爸爸！”我的儿子们会指着我说，“你哭了！”
“我？因为小飞象？哈哈哈。不，孩子们，我正在做的是‘男人式的哭泣’，一种非哭泣的哭泣。总有一天我会教你们的。非常有用。”
他们还太小，无法理解其中的细微差别，但等他们长大了，我会解释说，公开的抽泣与女性特质相关，因此对男性来说是不合适的。查理·卓别林的类比在这里可能有用。他曾说，扮演醉汉的方法是想象自己是一个试图表现得清醒的醉汉。男人学习“非哭泣的哭泣”也是如此。要想令人信服，你必须看起来像是在努力避免眼泪。
在这方面，让一个年轻男性理解男性眼泪和女性眼泪的区别很重要。我记得有一次在午餐时问女演员艾米莉亚·福克斯，她能否当场随心所欲地哭出来。令我惊讶的是，她可以——而且是毫无准备地开始。大颗的泪珠从她的脸颊滚落。哭完后，她又恢复了微笑的面容。
那些是女性的眼泪，这也是为什么你从没听人说过：“这足以让一个成年女人哭泣。”这个表达只有在指“成年男人”时才成立，虽然这看起来像是同义反复，但“成年”二字是有道理的。并非所有男人都是成熟的。例如，那些在《X音素》等选秀节目中被淘汰时就哭泣的情感失控的表演者，就不是成熟的男人。男人必须注意为什么而哭，因为有些主题比其他主题更值得流泪。悲伤，显然是的。但自怜不是。男人很少应该因疼痛而哭。也绝不应该为一个他不认识的公主的去世而哭。这些就是规则。
我怀疑我的同事马特·普里切特可能同意我的观点。上周他的一幅漫画展示了一位父亲坐在调到世界杯频道的电视机旁，向他的孩子们解释：“在接下来的几周里的某个时刻，你们会看到我哭。”而在“大逃亡”的最后一位幸存者去世的第二天，他画了一幅漫画，展示了一块墓碑，旁边有一堆从地下挖出的泥土延伸出去。看到那幅画时，我眼睛里似乎进了什么东西，我猜他画的时候眼睛里也进了同样的东西。