Season 2 Terrible funeral scene

ivand67

Sydney's Lover
I thought the Danny Hecht funeral scene on the pilot was EXCELLENT and everything about it was very appropriate.

In contrast, the Diane Dixon funeral scene was baaaaad.

Dixon didn't show the emotions a man would show when losing his wife. I don't know if the directors told Carl not to be too emotional or if it's because he was self medicating (I wouldn't buy that, he'd still cry).

Fact is, those are supposed to be very emotional scenes and I thought it was really bad.

Well, just a quick thought... what did u guys think?
 
Sometimes grief is expressed not with a lot of crying and overt expression--sometimes it's an emptiness. Depression--especially the clinical kind--is often manifested as a lack of feeling. But that does not mean that there is no feeling or grief beneath the surface. The shock of an event can delay the reaction--especially when the person involved has ways of forestalling feeling the full impact of the event, whether it be through going through the motions of arranging the funeral, turning to drugs to get himself through, or trying to rely on his work. But if you have strong feelings, they come home to roost eventually--and with Dixon they did so with a vengeance. We saw a ton of emotion--it was just delayed.

Plus you have to remember that Dixon is a man, and like it or not, in American society, a man is still expected to be strong and not break down and cry and show a lot of weakness. He has kids and he feels that he must show strength for them, whether he feels it or not--he has to reassure them.

BTW, have you actually been to a lot of funerals?
;)
 
verdantheart said:
Sometimes grief is expressed not with a lot of crying and overt expression--sometimes it's an emptiness. Depression--especially the clinical kind--is often manifested as a lack of feeling. But that does not mean that there is no feeling or grief beneath the surface. The shock of an event can delay the reaction--especially when the person involved has ways of forestalling feeling the full impact of the event, whether it be through going through the motions of arranging the funeral, turning to drugs to get himself through, or trying to rely on his work. But if you have strong feelings, they come home to roost eventually--and with Dixon they did so with a vengeance. We saw a ton of emotion--it was just delayed.

Plus you have to remember that Dixon is a man, and like it or not, in American society, a man is still expected to be strong and not break down and cry and show a lot of weakness. He has kids and he feels that he must show strength for them, whether he feels it or not--he has to reassure them.

BTW, have you actually been to a lot of funerals?
;)
I HAVE been to funerals and you usually see people trying NOT to cry.

Heck, even Dixon's kids simply looked very sad - but at least the kids should have been crying.

I've been to 5 funerals my whole life and people always cry at them. Family members always cry. It also depends. If it's a very old person (that was 2 of those funerals that I went to), then no, it's more expected for the family and they might not cry at the funeral.

The first funeral I went to, one of dad's younger cousins, Edgar, died in a tragic car accident. This was a long time ago, I think 1991 or 92. My entire family was devastated. They weren't just crying - this was really bad. He was a very nice, quiet guy, he had lots of skills, he was nice to old people and rarely complained about anything.

Diane Dixon - well, she was murdered in a completely horrible way. Dixon witnessed the car exploding less than 100 feet from where he was. This is definitely a tragedy where you would see people crying.

And yes, people don't cry during the entire funeral, but in a case like this, I think Dixon definitely would have cried.

So that's why I critiqued this scene! ;)
 
ivand67 said:
I've been to 5 funerals my whole life and people always cry at them. Family members always cry. It also depends. If it's a very old person (that was 2 of those funerals that I went to), then no, it's more expected for the family and they might not cry at the funeral.
Like V said, people react to death many different ways. Dixon was most likely experiencing all sorts of rage/guilt/disbelief/etc - not to mention, he probably wanted to appear strong in front of his children.

As for family always crying at funerals (and speaking for Dixon's children not crying) - that is not true. I was 13 when my dad died and I can say I did not cry at the visitation, funeral or at the wake - I did that in private.
 
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