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There’s a number of reasons for this. As you said, happiness seems artificial in substance because overall, every person experiences ups and downs like a perpetual emotional rollercoaster in their routine, daily lives. Nothing is ever just happy. The superficiality of a happy ending doesn’t go unnoticed. Sure, we might feel light-hearted and slightly inspired by a happy ending, but we aren’t capable of suspending our disbelief for very long. There’s always that voice in the back of our minds that reminds us of the starving children in third world countries, of child abuse, spousal abuse, hazing, harassment cases, of unrequited love, of injustice, of rejection, failure, and death. These “truths” are what, then, leave a hint of dissatisfaction at the end of a happy story. Why? because we aren’t moved, touched, we don’t feel compassionate. In truth, we might, instead, feel jealous, irritated, impatient, and disheartened by the pretenses behind these character’s obtaining that elusive, abstract thing we all strive for: happiness.

And more often than not, stories with happy endings usually don’t involve very complex, well-structured characters that we can relate to and sympathize with. Instead, like a commercial romance novel, the character’s tend to be type-casted, fitting a specific formula. The women are either feeble and needy or she-women who can withstand even kryptonite. The men are the stereotypical alpha males or the geeks. In short, they are not fully developed, “real” people to us, and so our emotions aren’t fully provoked.

This is never the case with story’s with sad endings because the author/director/screen writer absolutely MUST make the reader/viewer understand, relate to, and sympathize with the protagonist in order for the climax of the story to impact us the way it is intended. Consequently, the character’s are so well developed that they are like 3 or even 4 dimensional people, living and breathing on on the page/screen. We have all felt pain in one form or another and we all love the underdog, so we tend to emotionally attach ourselves to this character more so than one that will receive their happy ending, because we see more of ourselves in that person/character.

But this goes even beyond character development and story structure. Psychology also plays a role in this. With the way that society operates in most developed countries, people find themselves over-worked, over-stressed, pushed to the brink, without time for rest and relaxation, without time for self analysis and without time or the ability to release all of their repressed emotions of anger, frustration, depression, indifference, sadness, etc.

Men are bound even more than women to repress emotions because of the stigma attached to over-emotional behavior. Women, now trying to push further into the “man’s” world, are also beginning to feel the weight of these expectations as they juggle work, home life, family, and whatever else.

So they appreciate the sad endings because it liberates them from the perpetual strain of repressing their emotions on a daily basis. This too, has to do with our anatomy and the release of chemicals in our body when we cry or mourn. It relieves the pent-up stress that we contend with daily. (Though I am certainly not an expert on this and won’t argue this matter any further).

I think, too, that people don’t just read and watch movies to escape the monotonous and stressful routine of their lives, but to also seek out some sort of meaning to it all. Why they’re here. What their purpose is. Why they react/act the way that they do. Why people a better or worse than others. All of these “great,” and unanswerable questions are always in the back of our minds as we try to make sense of the world and our role in it. And more often than not, sad endings tend to offer theories on these questions, points to ponder, messages of morals and values. They make us think about the bigger picture and cause us to ponder; which is, ultimately, what we really want.

Life is a progressively evolving learning process for Humans. We never stop learning, even if we’re unaware of it. And we seek answers even if our conscious mind is distracted with something else. So sad endings often hold more substance to us, cause us to remember them longer, and recommend them to other people because they, somehow, in someway, forced us to face these questions. They inspire our inner curiosity and our hunger for knowledge and our need to feel emotion. And they, above all else, resonate with us on a deep level because, in some way, we relate to and become those characters. That ending is, or will one day be, our own, even if it varies slightly from the story.

We like these endings because they’re real to us and because they force us to think and feel in a day and age when emotion and thought are consider and preferred to be separate.

We are social creatures, we are emotional creatures, we are thoughtful creatures, and we want to be touched emotionally, spiritually, and cognitively by a story. And a sad story does this. It is sad because it is emotionally provocative in a way that forces us to relive our own pasts and fears. It’s sad because it is the human story, the story of a lifetime of struggling, a lifetime of pain, of good and bad experiences, of traumatizing events, or euphoric events, of learning experiences-both good and bad. It’s our story, and our story, as humans, is beautiful…its romantic..we are flawed, we are mortal, we are imperfect..but we keep TRYING to be better.

So, in summary, sad stories touch us more because they’re truer to life and truth. All sad stories reflect ourselves on some level, so, ultimately, it is us we cry for.

So for the long-winded response. I’m not talented at limiting my thoughts to a few words. But I thought I’d add my two cents because this article didn’t quite explain why to the extent that I thought it should have.

Cheers,

Mel W.

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