"It’s a scientific fact—Ricky Schroder can make grown men cry.
As reported in Smithsonian.com, psychologists who study human emotions in laboratory settings have found that Shroeder’s performance in the final scene of Franco Zeffirelli’s “The Champ” reliably makes their test subjects sad on cue.
(Spoiler Alert)
“Champ, wake up!” wails Schroder’s T.J. as his father, a washed-up boxer played by Jon Voight, lays dying in the 1979 tear-jerker.
“The Champ” has been used in a wide range of experiments across the globe to gauge human reaction to sad events—the film is cited in more than 300 scientific articles.
Schroeder’s weepy towheaded T.J. helped scientists discover that depressed people are no more likely to cry than non-depressed people, that men and women are more like to spend money when sad, and that older folks are more sensitive to grief than their younger counterparts.
Dutch scientists even learned that a sobbing Schroeder didn’t make people with binge eating disorders reach for the Doritos more often than usual.
But how did an emotionally wrought scene from a cheesy ‘70s movie become a favored stimulus for scientists?
In 1988, UC Berkley psychology professor Robert Levenson and his graduate student James Gross started searching for film scenes that would reliably get their subjects sniffling.
It wasn’t easy—the project lasted years. In 1995, Gross and Levenson published their discovery that three minutes of a grief-stricken Schroeder made more people sad than any other film clip—including the bellwether death scene in “Bambi.”
“It’s wonderful for our purposes,” Levenson says of Schroeder’s schmaltz. “The theme of irrevocable loss, it’s all compressed into that two or three minutes.”
What do you think is the saddest movie moment of all time? Watch the clips and vote below. (More spoilers below)"
Source: (Includes several movie clips and a poll)
http://entertainment.blogs.foxnews.c...ry/?test=faces
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Originally Posted by BJJ-Blue
