"The myth that women are more naturally empathetic than men" from BBC Future

I found this article fascinating--and hopeful, showing that empathy is innate and available to all.


"The myth that women are more naturally empathetic than men"
by Melissa Hogenboom* | BBC Future
February 15, 2026

Scientific research is up-ending age-old gender stereotypes about empathy – and revealing new ways of thinking about masculinity.

When women achieve great things, it was erroneously supposed that "they were not Women who did those Great Actions, but that they were Men in Petticoats!", the philosopher Mary Astell wrote in 1705. Even Queen Elizabeth I once famously said that she'd rule the country like a king, despite having the body of a "feeble woman" – as if ruling had to be a masculine path.

While these anecdotes are from the past, subtle gendered biases of what it means to be a successful, powerful individual still permeate.

Notably, we still typically describe traits like empathy as naturally feminine and traits like dominance and assertiveness as masculine. Even when displaying the same behaviour, men are seen as assertive and women as aggressive.

One particularly notable trait that is often gendered in this way is empathy. Women supposedly are natural empaths while men who show more empathy are typically seen as weak.

But why is that? Is it true that women are naturally more empathetic than men, or are we socialised to be?

Gender stereotypes like these have clear consequences on how we raise our children, workplace culture and leadership. But what's less visible is how early these biases start, and the fact that stereotypes reinforce our expectations – imposing significant constraints on how we expect others to behave.

The hormones behind empathy

Empathy involves both the ability to understand others' thoughts and feelings, allowing us to respond appropriately. It can also be thought of in terms of cognitive empathy – our ability to recognise emotions and take other perspectives – and affective or emotional empathy, where we have an emotional response to someone's thoughts and feelings.

Scientists use a variety of methods to empirically measure empathy, including questionnaires and experiential tasks.

And it's long been found that, on average, women tend to consistently score higher than men.

Simon Baron-Cohen, a clinical psychologist at Cambridge University, argues that it is because the female brain is "predominantly hard-wired for empathy", which makes women especially suited for caring roles, while the male brain is "predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems".

While social factors clearly influence empathy, says Baron-Cohen, his work suggests that hormone exposure in the womb plays a role in social development.

His 2006 study of over 200 children aged 6-9 found that testosterone levels in the amniotic fluid during pregnancy – which are higher in males than in females – are directly correlated with how the children performed on cognitive tests on systemising, defined as the ability to analyse rules or patterns. Indeed, testosterone exposure in the womb was a stronger predictor of a child's test scores than their sex alone.

A similar 2007 study also showed that foetal exposure to testosterone was inversely correlated with empathy test scores.

"What's clear is that something like empathy or systemising are a complex mix of biology and social factors," says Baron-Cohen.

Is empathy in the genes?

Many other researchers, such as neuroscientist Gina Rippon, find this hormonal theory problematic. "The idea that all women are naturally more empathic is part of the persistence of the so-called 'female brain myth'," she says. We also must remember, says Rippon, that young children's brains are "hugely responsive to outside influences".

In one seminal study that found gender differences in empathy tasks, the differences were not large: women were more empathetic in 36 of the 57 countries studied, but in 21 countries the scores were very similar, and the authors stated that they "cannot determine causation".

And though women do score slightly higher than average on empathy studies, the range of variation within genders is much greater than between them. "If you look at the spread of the empathy scores within the male and female populations, it's huge," says Rippon.

Girls and women are often said to be more attuned to the faces of others, an important skillset needed for empathy, but results are mixed, and recent research suggests this preference is not something they are born with. A meta-analysis published in 2025 examined 31 studies featuring 40 separate experiments on how one-month-old girls and boys observed others' faces, if they cried when others cried and how alert they were to those surrounding them. In all these measures, no matter the sex, the infants did not differ in their social awareness and keenness in understanding others' emotions.

Indeed, a 2018 large-scale genetic study of empathy involving over 46,000 participants who completed a questionnaire and submitted DNA samples, suggested that genes do play a role in how empathetic a person is. But none of these genes are associated with a person's sex.

Varun Warrier, an assistant professor of neurodevelopmental research at Cambridge University and author of the study, explained at the time that "since only a tenth of the variation in the degree of empathy between individuals is down to genetics, it is equally important to understand the non-genetic factors". This means that the environment in which someone grows up and lives must be playing a role.

The socialisation of empathy

Women tend to display empathetic traits more, not because they are innate, many scientists argue, but because girls and women are socialised to act on their emotions and to prioritise the needs of others from an extremely young age. Girls are also often presented with toys that emphasise softer, more nurturing skills, while boys are encouraged to play with toy tools and cars.

"Little girls are told to be nice and not to be unkind and rough, so it gradually becomes part of who they are," says Rippon.

Many studies have similarly shown that power distorts our empathy and inhibits people from feeling it. In my book Breadwinners, I outline the argument that, as men have historically had more power than women – and continue to do so in business and politics – they are therefore more likely to experience less empathy.


One study found that individuals who perceived themselves as having "lower subjective rank, lower income and belonging to cultural groups associated with the lower class" were better at reading the emotions of others, for instance. That women score higher on empathy could therefore stem from a need to be highly perceptive to those in power, coupled with their own relative lack of power.

Empathy is a malleable trait

Crucially, empathy can be learned, according to Nathan Spreng, a neurologist at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. "Once we understand this idea of a range of emotional experience, we can focus on it and learn what other people's emotions are, and improve our empathy," Spreng said on the BBC's The Documentary Podcast. "It's not static, it's a dynamic thing across the lifespan."

A 2023 neurological study clearly shows that both women's and men's brain waves respond in much the same way when shown images of painful or neutral facial expressions. But in the part of the experiment where participants completed empathy questionnaires rating how empathetic they felt, men scored lower than women did on average. That is, unless they were told beforehand that they'd score well.

In the group of men who were primed with information suggesting that men are also naturally "good at sharing and caring for the feelings of others", the gender differences in how empathetic they felt disappeared.

Not only do these findings suggest that self-reported empathy experiments are hard to untangle from a slew of personal and social biases, but they also further support the hypothesis that a person's expectations and motivations play a major role in their empathy.

Women "tend to come out as more empathic when they know their empathy levels are being assessed", says Rippon, of experiments like these. "It's a socially acceptable trait, so they want to score highly."

One study found that women only outperformed men on a task asking them to accurately infer someone else's feelings when they were first asked to reflect on how they felt. If they weren't nudged in this way, there was no observed gender gap. And when researchers offered participants money to infer others' feelings accurately, empathic accuracy improved for both genders. Participants easily learned to be empathetic because there was a reward for doing so.

Sara Hodges, a psychologist at the University of Oregon and co-author of this study, proposes that women may show improved empathic accuracy not due to an innate ability, but because they are more motivated to do so by societal expectations.

Rather than viewing empathy as a fixed trait we should see it as a process that draws upon multiple sources of information, including body language, speech, stereotypes, personal experiences and past interactions, according to Hodges. "When people are more motivated to know what someone is thinking or feeling, they recruit more sources for constructing that," says Hodges.

The dire consequences of the empathy bias

What is less talked about, says Hodges, is that empathy isn't just a soft skill used for good – it can also be used to manipulate others or exploit people. "For example, in negotiation, if you know the other person's bottom line, you're a better negotiator," says Hodges.

But ultimately, the consequences of expectations surrounding empathy and the like can contribute to inequality in society and have dire consequences for both women and men.

Women are judged as less likely to have leadership potential than men because we tend to see leaders as needing to be dominant and assertive, traits typically associated with masculinity.

But when it comes to loneliness, women are more likely to seek support from their social network than men. Social isolation, instead, is a known risk factor for attempting suicide, the rate of which is much higher among men.

Fortunately, the narrative about the importance of emotional skills among men and women is slowly changing, including the importance of empathy towards others and caring responsibilities, according to Niall Hanlon, a sociologist from Technological University Dublin, in Ireland.

"Broadly speaking, men and boys are socialised to not see care in the way that women and girls do, that it's not part of the trajectory of being a man," says Hanlon. "They do imagine themselves to be fathers, but they don't expect that they will be in a primary caring position."

But society is already shifting to pave the way for more men to embrace caring responsibilities and be more outwardly empathetic. Men are spending more time with children than in the past, and they state they want to spend more time with their family (though women still do the bulk of flexible working and childcare).

The work being done to reframe men as more caring and empathetic will open the door to a new type of masculinity that could help prevent loneliness, says Hanlon – one that emphasises interdependence and empathy rather than autonomous, power-focused individuals.

"There's a lot of research that shows this is much better," says Hanlon. "For men, women and children."

* Melissa Hogenboom is a BBC health correspondent and author of the Breadwinners (2025) and The Motherhood Complex.

Link to original article:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260213-are-women-naturally-more-empathetic-than-men

"Home" by Rufus Joseph

Powerful. Yearning. Authentic.
"Home" by Rufus Joseph.

Let′s go home
We can't hide here anymore
All alone
Watching skies become small

Let′s go home
We have fought for so long
We have proof that we're strong
Let's go home
Let′s go home

And I just wanna come back, run flat
Hear my mother cry about my growth

I just wanna unpack, fall flat
On my old bed and lie with my ghost

Walk into the garden, hardened
Let the rain seep straight into my bones

Find my old friend, make amends
Say goodbye, with a hand to his headstone

Let′s go home, Let's go home
Let′s go home, Let's go home
Let′s go home, let's go home

I just want the time to slow in a life that I have earned

See the place my lines were drawn, embrace the roots and burns

I will stand in place and shine until the monsters learn

The scars have faded, the dark′s now shade and they cannot return

Let's go home, let's go home
Let′s go home, let′s go home
Let's go home, let′s go home
Let's go home, let′s go home
Let's go home, let′s go home
Let's go home, let's go home



There was a time I felt this ... this yearning, this need, to return and go back to a place or time called home, so powerful it manifested in my body, and made me sick ...and I get it, I am with him, every word.

https://www.rufusjoseph.com/

Sanctuary/Compassion

“We must remind ourselves that in uncertain times our own steadiness can become a sanctuary for others.”
--Jack Kornfield

Painting by Truls Espedal

"Compassion asks us to look into our own hearts, discover what gives us pain, and then refuse, under any circumstance whatsoever, to inflict that pain on anybody else."
--Karen Armstrong

"You And I" by London Grammar

London Grammar just released a new album, "The Greatest Love" and on the heels of yesterday's overwhelmingly emotional song "Black Poppies" from Underworld (here), this stirring, empathetic song "You And I" is a standout.

https://www.londongrammar.com/

"Black Poppies" by Underworld

I have a little lump of trembling emotion in my throat as I listen to this new song, "Black Poppies" by the divine Underworld (Karl Hyde and Rick Smith). From their album "Strawberry Hotel" to be released on October 25th, 2024.

The melody...I...Hyde's voice...I just...it's just so...it's so...*sigh*

Who can handle who cares
And who never came, who cares
And keeps adopting, adapting and embracing change
And change you may feel a little strange at first
But keep changing

We got the best books and the best boys and the best buys
And the first the second will be last
And the dance floor is always full
To be it, to the rush
We got steps, well come in

You are, you are beautiful
You are, you are beautiful

Who can handle who cares
And who never came, who cares
And keeps adopting, adapting and embracing change
And change you may feel a little strange at first
But keep changing

You are, you are beautiful
You are, you are beautiful
You are, you are beautiful

"Cut a hole in the news
don’t make it complicated
we’re no longer alone
you may feel a little strange at first
Mr Mickey Marley
wild black and white
my eyes go crazy
keeps adopting, adapting
if nature is heaven
in her arms you live happy
glitter finger, numbering four weeks
studs like tiny stars
machines playing tunes to block out the life, block out the light
set fire to it if you want to see it go up in flames
follow the line to the rising sun
we are all of these things and more things"

Arranged for strings by Gus Nicholson

Violin 1- Will Clark
Violin 2 - Rocket Brooks and Sungeun Kang
Viola - Catherine McCardel
Cello - Maddie Johnston
Double Bass - Jonny Hayward

https://www.underworldlive.com/

"There is no answer. That is the beauty of it."

“Since you must have love as a human being, what will you do? There is no time. You can't say, ''Well, I can't have it. I can live without love because I have lived without love for two million years, and I will live another two million years without love'' - that means perpetual sorrow for the next two million years. So what can you do? You understand my question now? Sorrow cannot be put away or be resolved through time, nor can love be invited through time. And time is: ten days ahead, or the next minute, or the next second. What will you do? Will you jump in the lake? Unless you find love, you are already in the lake. And you have to find it, as you have to find food. This is a much more demanding, much more strenuous thing that demands intense vitality.

So what will you do? If you say, please tell me what to do, then you are missing the bus entirely. But you have to see the importance, the immensity, the urgency of that question - not tomorrow, not the next day or the next hour, but see it now while you are sitting. And to see that, you must have energy. So just see immediately - the catalyst that makes the liquid into solid or vaporizes it immediately does not take place if you allow time, even a second. All our existence, all our books, all our hope is tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. This admittance of time is the greatest sorrow.

So the issue is with you, not with the speaker from whom you are expecting to get the answer. There is no answer. That is the beauty of it. You can sit cross-legged, breathe rightly, or stand on your head for the next ten thousand years. Unless you have put this question to yourself - not superficially, not verbally, not intellectually, but with your whole being - you will live with it for two million years - those two million years may be only tomorrow. So problems and time are intimately related - do you see it now?”
--Krishnamurti, in Rajghat, India from his Fifth Public Talk, 1964

https://jkrishnamurti.org/

"Remedy" by Durante feat. Running Touch

Ah, this is how I like my dance music...sopping with melancholy and emotion. Here is the yearning, tugging symphonic swirl of "Remedy" by Durante with breathy, tender vocals by Running Touch.

"Some day soon..."

https://durantemusic.com/

"Thumbs Up" by The Howl & The Hum

Here's another wonderful, touching song that addresses the problem of young men and depression and suicide, all stemming from a stifling, damaging, traditional masculinity (please do take a few minutes to hear and see Sam Fender's devastating song "Dead Boys" previously here.)

Singer-songwriter Sam Griffiths spoke about the song:

"'Thumbs Up' is the confession that us men don’t know how to talk to other men about important stuff...This song was written in the silence after suicides of friends, during depressive episodes, and over non-existent conversations about how we communicate our feelings: our highs, our lows, our loves and losses. It also references 80s movie icons Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a brief admittance of vulnerability in the face of what we call masculinity...It’s an odd one, isn’t it? But then I went to an all-boys school, where there’s so much silence and you only talk about objective truths, football, but not the emotional flow of feelings...It’s that masculinity; that thing of pride. But now we’re in age where masculinity can take a different guise and suffering is a huge part of that, and it feels such a shame that we can’t talk about it...Looking back, we may see our friends as being like superheroes at school, like my best mate at school, who killed himself a month after leaving. No-one, No-one had taught us how to talk to each other."

Lay by my side
We’ll watch all the films that you like
Silent all, silent all night
If that’s what you want

TV screen blue
We’ll sit and watch Predator 2
Cos it makes you feel silent & strong
Silent and strong

I think we should talk
I think we should talk

You give me a thumbs up
Just like the terminator did
When drowning in lava
Is it any wonder
Is it any wonder
I worry about you kid?

Open your mouth
The darkness can finally come out
As Bruce Willis cries
You realise
You could be alright

I think we should talk
I think we should talk

You give me a thumbs up
Just like the terminator did
When drowning in lava
Is it any wonder
Is it any wonder
I worry about you kid?

There’s a hole in my home town
All my friends seem to fall down
But never will float out
But you’re not alone now
You’re not alone now

Watching films with my brother
Wondering our place on this rock
And wondering what it’ll take now
To ever just stop

https://www.thehowlandthehum.com/

"Ichi go ichi e" leads to "mono no aware"

Two Japanese phrases compliment each other: Ichi go ichi e leads to mono no aware.

"Try" by Keaton Henson and Daniel Herskedal

Keaton Henson's new song "Try" with brass musician Daniel Herskedal, from his soon-to-be-released "Somnambulant Cycles" out May 31st, 2024. The achingly beautiful sound of existence, a trip to the end of the world...just look out the window and see.

https://keatonhenson.com/

"Time" by EELS

Well, this must be the season for profound songs...with Guster's lovely "Keep Going," and yesterday's new song "Boys" by Amen Dunes...here is "Time" by EELS. Oh, where do I start... where we come from, who we love, who we must leave behind, how we miss them, our own journey, the limitation of our presence...you'll need a tissue for this.

Time, it's all about time now
Tick-tock I rock, but then I look at the clock
Knock-knock, who's there?
Well, I don't dare...
Open the door

Time, there was nothing but time there
Click-clack riding down the tracks
Never worried about coming back
Anyplace looked good to me
Why not stop and see...
What's there?

Time, there isn't much time now
What's the fear, well, I like it here
With the ones I love so near
Maybe there's just somе way
Dear god...
I can stay

https://www.eelstheband.com/

Valentine's Day 2024: In Love

Just watched "All Of Us Strangers"...

...by writer-director Andrew Haigh, starring Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Claire Foy, and Jamie Bell.

Well, actually I watched it several weeks ago but I have been unable to really speak about it or even write about it without being overcome with emotion. The story concerns itself with a script writer, Adam (Andrew Scott) who is attempting to write about his childhood and parents who tragically died in a car accident when he was 11. At the same time, Adam meets Harry (Paul Mescal) the only other inhabitant of the new highrise apartment building they live in, and they begin a relationship. Motivated by his script, Adam returns to his childhood home to reconnect with a time long past, and through some sort of...power of...something...he encounters his parents, still living in the house, appearing exactly as they did before they died.

Normally when I write about a film here, I don't include spoilers, but I just can't do it this time. Warning: major complete spoilers ahead.

When I saw the trailer for this film late last year, I felt a resonance with it. I lost my parents in a very tragic way as well, albeit not at such an early age like Adam, but still young enough to regret that they were unable to see much of my later adult life and how things turned out. Like Adam, I am an only child and carry a theme of loneliness and alone-ness inside me. And of course, Andrew Scott is an out gay actor playing a gay character...and I am an out gay actor who has played gay characters. But what really shook me was his encounter with his parents. After my mom and dad died, I had dreams of them, which is not all that unusual when one loses a loved one. My father took his own life and interestingly, my dreams revolved around him coming to terms with what he did, not me coming to terms with it. But when my mom died many months later, they both came to me in dreams many times. These dreams had a very different texture than "regular" dreams. While I still dream of them at this much later stage in my life, the dreams feel more like "regular" dreams...not the hyper-real encounters I experienced just after they died. So I knew the idea of seeing someone encounter their dead parents in such a meaningful way was going to stir me, move me, perhaps upset me. But I was prepared for it. I can "go there." After all, I have been there, and come back. People can be so skittish of films (interestingly, books not so much) that take them to difficult places where they might be emotionally vulnerable. But as I said, I have been emotionally vulnerable, A LOT in my life, and it didn't kill me. So I was prepared. And looking forward to it. The film seemed to be something I needed to ingest.

What I was not prepared for was the extent of emotion and the tone of the film. It feels like a dream. There is a subtle, hushed quality from the writing, directing, and certainly the acting that creates an arresting sense of intimacy. All four leads are masterfully penetrating and perfectly thorough in what they are presenting...these might be career defining performances for each. Andrew Scott's staggering performance and his interactions with the equally amazing Paul Mescal give the film its real intimacy.

We are introduced to Adam and his seemingly lonely--and very alone--life in a London highrise. On a walk outside at night, he looks up to see the only other inhabitant of the building, Harry, staring down at him. Once Adam returns home, Harry knocks on his door and introduces himself. It quickly becomes obvious that Harry is quite drunk with bottle of whiskey in hand, and he asks to be let in so he and Adam can hang out, maybe have sex or not...Harry innocently and desperately says, "We don't have to do anything," which is a little heartbreaking right there. While both men flirt with each other, Adam declines and Harry wanders off back to his flat. So now we know our two main characters. And this interaction proves to be the paradigm for the entire film.

I've read some journalists and critics writing about this film who have come to the conclusion that Adam's interactions with his parents are completely in his imagination. But I am going to posit that it is completely not. After taking a train out of London to the town where he grew up, he first sees his father while on a walk on the heath. It actually plays out a little like a cruising situation, with the as-yet-unknown-to-us dad beckoning to Adam to follow him, and Adam follows out of a sense of curiosity, and probably that the man seems strangely familiar somehow. Dad, played by Jamie Bell, takes his son home...to the house he grew up in. When his mum, played beautifully by Claire Foy opens the door for them, Dad says to Mum, "Yeah, it's definintely him...look in his eyes." It is finally made clear who they are. And Adam of course is dazed and speechless at seeing his parents, as they were before they died when he was a child.

He begins a series of regular visits to see and spend time with them...to catch up. He tells them he is a writer and they are proud of him. He has an afternoon alone with his mum where she asks if he has a girlfriend and he comes out to her, letting her know he is gay. She is a little put off, asks him if people are mean to him, and expresses concern for this new disease gay men are suffering from called AIDS. He assures her that things are different now and while she needs time to adjust to the idea, one can sense that her love for her son is greater than any anxiety about his sexuality. And in one of the most touching scenes, he spends a different afternoon alone with his dad. They speak of Adam crying alone in his room after being bullied at school, and his father confesses that he heard him but never came to offer comfort. This is a very common situation with young gay boys and their families but particularly their fathers, where culturally imposed homophobic beliefs and attitudes cripple and prevent fathers from connecting in a nurturing way with their sons. Adam's dad mentions that he probably would have harassed a gay kid like him when he was in school, but is now understanding of what it truly means. Dad breaks down and apologizes for not being there in the way that was needed the most. Andrew Scott plays Adam's reaction to this in one of the most powerful, authentic pieces of acting I have ever seen.

Meanwhile, the relationship that Adam and Harry are forging is really quite beautiful and authentic. The sex scenes are phenomenal...frank without being tasteless or merely titillating, and they are needed to show the closeness between the two. They bond over their shared loneliness--Adam speaks of his life long terror of being alone, and honestly, how could one not have such a morbid fear, after having one's family ripped away from them at such a young age--and the fact that while Adam's parents departed his life, Harry's parents basically disowned him for being gay. In a way, they are both orphans. But Adam is very excited to reveal to Harry that he has been spending time with his deceased parents, and begs him to come to the childhood home so he can meet them. Harry is dubious about seeing people who have been dead a long while and once they arrive at the house, the lights are off and no one answers the door, very unlike all of Adam's encounters so far. Adam is confused and doesn't understand why his parents won't let them in. He leads them around the house to the back French doors where, shockingly, both Adam and Harry can actually see the parents inside, simply standing side by side in the blackness. It's as though Harry's presence in the mix somehow interrupted the magic or power at play.

Adam has a final lunch with his parents at an American-style diner they all loved when he was young. The waitress mentions that the three meals ordered is a lot of food...for one person. Clearly the waitress cannot see his parents sitting in the booth with him. As they wait for their food, his mum and dad want to know details about the car accident that took their lives, they express their love for Adam and wish him well in his life, to not feel the crippling loneliness he has felt his whole life, and they urge Adam to promise to invest his emotions into a relationship with Harry whom they say they saw through the French doors as well. Once they fade away into another realm where they can finally rest, Adam is left alone in the diner. But he can now return to his building to see Harry and tell him about what has happened, that he is ready to dedicate himself to a life they can share, that he no longer feels alone because he can open himself to someone without carrying--or even perhaps clinging to--an idea of loneliness. He comes to Harry's apartment, and when there is no answer, he lets himself in. We see he is immediately overcome by a horrific smell and consequently discovers Harry dead in his bed, wearing the same clothes as the night they met at Adam's door, clutching the same now-empty bottle of whiskey. Apparently, Harry has been dead for quite a while. But then Adam hears a noise in the living room. There stands Harry, agitated, on the verge of tears, imploring Adam, "Is that me in there? Am I in there?" We sense Harry is now regretful for the end of his life--perhaps his death was an accident (an inadvertent mix of drugs and alcohol), perhaps it was a deliberate suicide, but the real tragedy is that Harry has fallen in love with Adam and has seen that he too no longer has to carry around a motif of loneliness...and now it is too late.

And here is why I think Adam was actually seeing and interacting with his parents...because he was actually seeing Harry the entire time, too. Unlike his parents, Adam did not know Harry was dead...he had never been to his apartment since they had always spent time together in Adam's flat. And I don't--I can't believe that Adam was completely hallucinating an entire relationship with Harry. That would make him truly delusional, and the brilliant script-writer/director Andrew Haigh gave us no indication, clue, or information leading us to believe that Adam suffers from any sort of mental illness. Adam has been having a love affair with a ghost, to put it too simply. But a ghost that was somehow, inexplicably made of matter.

Of course where the film ends up is absolutely gutting, for three reasons: 1) Adam had just broken through his loneliness by working through the loss of his parents and was ready to dedicate himself to another person, 2) Harry too had worked through his ostracization and was ready to dedicate himself to another person, and of course 3) the couple cannot have a relationship since Harry is no longer alive. Now, you'd think this would be tragic, and it certainly is, (I have not been able to think about this film without crying and I am tearing up as I write this) but how the film closes is extraordinary. Adam now has emerged from his inner exile and has the strength and understanding to lead someone else out of isolation. Adam convinces Harry to accompany him back to his own flat. There, he leads him to bed and cuddles the ghost of Harry so he can heal and presumably move on from the physical realm, like how Adam's mum and dad dissolved. We see Harry, and then the pair of them turn into a pin point and a ribbon of light that expands and joins a universe of pin points and ribbons of light. So they are together...? However,  Adam is alive since the actual physical world interacts with him. But perhaps seeing human beings as illuminated light, whether alive or dead, is meant to suggest that none of us are truly alone, that we are all connected in deeper, invisible, and powerfully immutable ways. However--and this could be my own issues of alone-ness--I just can't get past the idea that Adam is once again completely alone. He succeeded, he did it, he healed, he worked through his past and the death of his parents, and opened himself to life, but now he cannot be with Harry, and, having suffered two great losses now, he is still, horribly, utterly alone. My heart and spirit goes to Adam...but perhaps he has the strength now to either endure/reframe the idea of loneliness as well as the openness to allow someone else in to his life.

 

Recommend? Yes. It contains not only an incredibly moving, touching, tender story but also presents some of the finest performances on film. The film and actors have won several awards already including from the British Independent Film Awards, the London Film Critics' Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, and as of this writing has received six BAFTA nominations (awards given February 18, 2024).

https://www.searchlightpictures.com/all-of-us-strangers/

"Turn The World On" by Bombay Bicycle Club

Bombay Bicycle Club's (previously here) new song "Turn The World On" made me weep, lyrics and video. Don't make me explain why...

You always think you've blinked and missed it
on your last lap round the sun
I never felt so optimistic
since the days when I was young
I'd dream of growing old
and all the things I thought I would have done

Turn the world on

You'll make a fine young man
you'll smooth it out you'll see where I went wrong
You'll find your merry gang
they'll hang their bags a couple pegs along
They're leaving one by one
they're calling out they're begging you to come

Turn the world on

You make your bed just how you wanna
Make your bed how you intend
You take the page and fold the corner
Try to skip right to the end

You'll dream of moving on
to all the things you thought you would have done

Turn the world on
(It won't wait for you)

Their new release "My Big Day" will be out October 20, 2023.
https://bombaybicycle.club/

10 Emotions You've Felt But Had No Name For

John Koenig is the marvelous author of THE DICTIONARY OF OBSCURE SORROWS, a book of neologisms to express new terms for subtle emotions. His made up words are combinations of word roots from languages all around the world. While the words themselves might sound clinical, their definitions are lyrical and touching. I have felt a few of these and am happy to know others have too...and that we finally have names for them, thanks to Koenig's imagination!

1. Chrysalism
[kris-a-lizim] The feeling of tranquility when you’re indoors when it’s raining heavily outside.

2. Lilo
[ly-lo] The friendship between two people who feel as if no time has passed when they see each other after a long period of separation.

3. Sonder
[son-der] The realization that every stranger and passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own. That each person is occupied by their own personal ambitions, worries, and problems.

4. Monachopsis
[mo-na-kop-sis] The inability to adapt to your surroundings and the feeling of being out of place.

5. Eramnesia
[eram-nee-ja] The realization that you were born in the wrong time period, wishing you lived in another time.

6. Anemoia
[an-em-oh-ya] The feeling of nostalgia for a time or place that you have never experienced.

7. Pâro
[pah-ro] The feeling that no matter what you do, you’re doing it wrong.

8. Xeno
[zee-noh] The powerful moments shared between random strangers, such as a smile or a laugh, which reduce feelings of loneliness.

9. Acatalepsy
[aka-ta-lep-sy] The apparent impossibility of humans ever comprehending the universe.

10. Liberosis
[lib-ero-sis] The desire to care less about things, to feel less.

https://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/
And you can buy the book here on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Obscure-Sorrows-John-Koenig-ebook/dp/B08VJMFFRB?ref_=ast_author_mpb

I Miss My Mom

"Grief is the price we pay for love."
--Queen Elizabeth II

Valentine's Day 2023: In Love

For Valentine's Day: In Love 2022

Wes Anderson: "Cinema's most misunderstood filmmaker"

I have been a fan of Wes Anderson and his films since his debut film "Bottle Rocket." And for those who think that Wes Anderson films are just all style and weird people for the sake of being stylish and weird, here is a wonderful article Mark Allison wrote for BBC Culture that explains how I feel about the work of this incredible director.

Cinema's most misunderstood filmmaker

By Mark Allison 20th October 2021 | BBC Culture

Is there anything more to Wes Anderson's films than twee whimsicality and aloof performances? Much more, argues Mark Allison: they tell us the truth about being human.

"The paths of glory lead but to the grave." So reads the headstone above the burial place of Eloise Fischer, mother of Jason Schwartzman's Max Fischer, in Wes Anderson's 1998 film Rushmore. An extract from Thomas Gray's 1751 poem Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, it might seem a more fitting epitaph for the tomb of a great military hero than this unremarkable grave. But Anderson's films don't exist within our dull reality – his worlds are fairy tales, and like all good fairy tales, they begin with death.

Everything Anderson dreams up is ultimately about life's first inevitability, and the craterous absence it leaves in the lives of the bereaved – even if they might not be prepared to admit it. Max's traumatic loss of his mother, for example, is mentioned just twice in Rushmore's script, and both times briefly. But her presence, or lack thereof, defines all that Max does – particularly his strange, Oedipal obsession with the widowed Mrs Cross (Olivia Williams). Rushmore is a film about lonely, damaged people seeking human connection, and this spectre of unresolved grief haunts the Texan director's output.

In The Royal Tenenbaums, Ben Stiller plays the cartoonish but traumatised Chas
(Credit: Alamy)

Despite this thematic absorption, death is unlikely to be the first thing that comes to mind when considering Anderson's oeuvre. His distinctively affected visual style has been subject to both criticism and parody. A 2013 Saturday Night Live sketch imagined an Andersonian horror film called The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders; brimming with twee pretensions, dad-rock needle-drops and oddly detached performances. But this preoccupation with the offbeat surface of Anderson's work underestimates his deep understanding of the human condition and the gentle empathy which pervades his filmmaking.

From his debut feature Bottle Rocket (1996), the director's reliance on understatement has lent his work a unique profundity. When Luke Wilson's awkwardly inept crook Anthony Adams candidly remarks, "I'm usually so exhausted now at the end of the days that I don't have time to think about blown opportunities or wasted time," he betrays an immense and existential sadness that cuts disarmingly to the heart of his lot in life.

This peculiar aloofness is a distinctive trait in Anderson's characters, but it is only a varnish on deeply rooted experiences of tragedy and emotional trauma. Ben Stiller's Chas Tenenbaum in The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) appears to be a cartoonish figure with his hypochondriac mania and bright red tracksuit, but at his core he is a man disturbed by the death of his wife and the weight of his continuing responsibility towards their children.

Steve Zissou (Bill Murray) in The Life Aquatic is a protagonist whose journey is defined by grief
(Credit: Alamy)

Likewise, Bill Murray's title character in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) is a transparently absurd personality from the moment he first dons his crimson beanie and holstered Glock, but the brutal death of his best friend, for which he vows revenge, is no less ghastly as a result. Anderson's protagonists bury their trauma beneath a facade of caricature, and their journeys are defined by how they deal with their grief.

Loss continues to hang over Anderson's latest film, The French Dispatch (2021), which is perhaps his most nakedly sentimental work. Opening with the death of a long-serving magazine editor, the film is structured as an episodic obituary for a man, a publication, and an entire industry facing gradual extinction. The name of the fictional French city in which the film is set, Ennui-sur-Blasé, unsubtly signposts this atmosphere of melancholic nostalgia. The colourful characters we've come to expect from Anderson are still present, but their eccentricities contribute to a tableau of mid-century journalism as an exciting and noble arena, since lost to time.

Death had an even more explicit presence in an earlier version of the film. The writer and filmmaker Matt Zoller Seitz tells BBC Culture, "The prologue to The French Dispatch originally ended with Owen Wilson in a graveyard having a picnic near the grave of a young woman, presumably his wife". It seems there is so much mourning in Anderson's worlds that he can afford to cut some of it for pacing.

HUMAN CONNECTION

While Anderson is deft in walking the line between farce and tragedy, he occasionally suspends his broadly comedic sensibility for moments of unadulterated horror. When Richie Tenenbaum attempts suicide, the frankness with which it is depicted is sudden and distressing. Equally, the death of Steve Zissou's son Ned, or the fatal accident during the river crossing in The Darjeeling Limited (2007), deliver an unexpectedly brutal gut punch. These moments of catastrophe enforce a sense of real and terrifying consequence into Anderson's fantastical worlds.

Anderson's films – including The Grand Budapest Hotel – frequently address the theme of death
(Credit: Alamy)

"Death is the biggest thing that we can't control. We can't even know what lies beyond it," Seitz tells BBC Culture. "Accepting this constitutes a harsh lesson for Wes Anderson protagonists, who are often obsessed with controlling everything."

Anderson is not shy in crediting his influences, from filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger to the writer Stefan Zweig, but the director's own experiences also provide a major source of inspiration. His films are littered with autobiographical details; Rushmore, for example, was filmed in the director's own alma mater, St John's School in Houston, Texas, while the family conflict at the heart of The Royal Tenenbaums was inspired by his own parents' divorce.

The most sobering moment in The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) comes as Zero Moustafa reveals to M Gustave that his entire family was killed in an earlier war. Speaking to Seitz for his 2015 book on The Grand Budapest Hotel, Anderson elaborates that Zero's harrowing story was inspired by his partner, Juman Malouf, and the experiences of her family in Lebanon.

Perhaps it's because there's so much of Anderson in his own work that it never feels crass when he mixes sensitive themes with absurdist humour. As producer James L Brooks writes in his introduction to Anderson and Owen Wilson's Rushmore screenplay, "They have pulled off the hardest trick in all of contemporary American film: they have won the freedom to use movies as a form of self-expression."

During the director's commentary on the Criterion edition of The Royal Tenenbaums, Anderson explains the dual impulses of visual invention and emotional authenticity that motivate him. "This is a movie where there's a lot of artifice… and it's fun for me to work on those things," he says, "but ultimately the movie didn't mean anything to me until the characters started to become connected to things that I had been through."

In The Darjeeling Limited, three brothers travel to India in search of enlightenment but find instead a new respect for each other
(Credit: Alamy)

So powerful is Anderson's empathy for his characters and their emotional distress that there is rarely room for outright villains in his stories – the farmers in Fantastic Mr Fox (2009) and the fascist ZigZag movement in Grand Budapest being exceptions. As director Martin Scorsese reflected for Esquire in March 2000, "[Bottle Rocket] was a movie without a trace of cynicism, that obviously grew out of its director's affection for his characters in particular and for people in general. A rarity."

A common thread across Anderson's work is the healing power of simple human connection. When Chas Tenenbaum confides to his father, Gene Hackman's Royal, "I've had a rough year, Dad", the response is simply, "I know you have, Chassie''. Both understand all that he's going through, and simply vocalising it is the first step in a deeper reconciliation.

Similarly, when Steve Zissou finally faces the Jaguar Shark that killed his best friend, having lost his own son in pursuit of revenge, all he can say is, "I wonder if it remembers me?" It's a phrase loaded with the meaning of a thousand monologues. How many of us have wasted time in search of things we didn't really want, and neglected what we do in the process?

For the Whitman brothers in The Darjeeling Limited, their journey to India may not have brought the intended spiritual enlightenment or reconciliation with their estranged mother, but they nevertheless find their love and respect for one another renewed. In the film's closing moments, as they toss aside the hideously printed leather luggage they inherited from their father, they cleanse themselves of the emotional baggage that had pushed them apart.

The French Dispatch is a portrayal of mid-century journalism – and loss is a theme throughout the film
(Credit: Alamy)

Not all of Anderson's characters are able to come to terms with their grief so cleanly. The scale of Zero's loss in The Grand Budapest Hotel is such that he is unable to recover. Concluding his life story to Jude Law's author, he glosses over the execution of M Gustave and tragically premature death of his wife and child. As the playwright Anne Washburn writes in her introduction to Seitz's book, "In the character of Zero Mustafa, we see a man who has adapted to his losses but has never rebuilt his life, choosing instead to enshrine his past; he is a testament, rather than a true survivor".

Being a survivor comes with its own responsibilities to continue the memory of those who have passed, a burden that Anderson is keen to bear. The end credits of The French Dispatch duly feature a dedication to a number of 20th-Century writers and journalists, all of whom have long since filed their final dispatch. The lasting impression is the same sentiment of fading glory and inevitable decay that decorated Elouise Fischer's grave in Rushmore, and has since reached across Wes Anderson's career.

Link to original article:
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20211015-cinemas-most-misunderstood-filmmaker