A Tear-able Realisation

The latest Hiccup in my life

I’ve recently discovered I cry during children’s films.

I’d say it’s because I’ve been attending a lot of dusty cinemas. Who’d have thought that the brand new A380 making its maiden public flight would be so dusty too. There was so much of it that I found myself blubbering all the way through the inflight movie How To Train Your Dragon. Dust. I swear.

No, I think what’s happening now is films are treating young people seriously and take on board a kid’s emotional intelligence. The stories are deeper and more moving. That and the fact that I’m a wuss.

Today watched Despicable Me and there was a tender moment when the protagonist teenage girl hugged her adopted father and said, ‘I love you’. The waterworks appeared on cue.

It was a similar moment in HTTYD that got me. Hiccup’s father said something incredibly poignant and heartbreaking. My downfall was I’d watched HTTYD and found a gay subtext (Hiccup’s love of dragons is forbidden, therefore equals gay). Indeed Hiccup is different and has a dark secret, which when discovered by the townsfolk leads to social rejection. His father turned his back too.

Most significantly, when Hiccup talks about his bond with his dragon Toothless my gay subtext klaxons went wild:

“I looked at him and saw myself.”

Of course, the movie ends with a happy ending. After many trials and tribulations and demise of an evil giant dragon, Hiccup’s father says to him,

‘I’m proud to call you my son’.

Oh, if all fathers said that to their gay sons (and hetro sons), the world would be a better place.