I went to the Hunger Games movie with three guys, which is why I had to pull my hair forward to hide my face when Katniss covered Rue with flowers and saluted District 11. It was Rue, yes, but it was also the faces of the people in District 11.* I am a sucker for the people who stand up against injustice.
I never used to cry in movies. I never used to cry at all, except when I was mad.
And then sometime in my early twenties, all those grown-up lady hormones kicked in. I am still not a cryer. I don't cry at sappy movies. But I do, sometimes, cry. I almost cried when Katniss volunteered for Prim, and I did cry for Rue.
I still remember the first movie in which I cried: Rules of Engagement. That doesn't seem like a crying type movie, but it was the embassy, and the evacuation, and the people left behind.
I had just barely gotten to a place in life where I could allow myself to remember that I had a life before trying to fit into an almost entirely all-white suburban high school. It had been ten years since we left Liberia on 48 hours notice, but in all that time, I didn't think about Liberia much. I couldn't afford to, not if I wanted to survive high school with anything resembling friends.
It wasn't until I got to college and met people who were not All The Same that I dared to remember that I, too, had once been someone else, someone not from just exactly the same place as everyone else.
The leaving that other place I came from was hard. So was the shutting down of the person I was.
And so, when I let myself start to remember and then I saw a movie where people were evacuating a country, I cried.
...
* And then there is this. Really, people? REALLY? Sometimes, I am left speechless. That casting was perfect.
I never used to cry in movies. I never used to cry at all, except when I was mad.
And then sometime in my early twenties, all those grown-up lady hormones kicked in. I am still not a cryer. I don't cry at sappy movies. But I do, sometimes, cry. I almost cried when Katniss volunteered for Prim, and I did cry for Rue.
I still remember the first movie in which I cried: Rules of Engagement. That doesn't seem like a crying type movie, but it was the embassy, and the evacuation, and the people left behind.
I had just barely gotten to a place in life where I could allow myself to remember that I had a life before trying to fit into an almost entirely all-white suburban high school. It had been ten years since we left Liberia on 48 hours notice, but in all that time, I didn't think about Liberia much. I couldn't afford to, not if I wanted to survive high school with anything resembling friends.
It wasn't until I got to college and met people who were not All The Same that I dared to remember that I, too, had once been someone else, someone not from just exactly the same place as everyone else.
The leaving that other place I came from was hard. So was the shutting down of the person I was.
And so, when I let myself start to remember and then I saw a movie where people were evacuating a country, I cried.
...
* And then there is this. Really, people? REALLY? Sometimes, I am left speechless. That casting was perfect.
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