Troublesome

I was sitting in my living room last week with three other people, watching a very good movie. "An Unfinished life" starring Robert Redford and Morgan Freeman--two ranchers who've lived together on their farm in Wyoming almost their whole lives and who probably love each other but would never admit to anything so propesterous. The movie is touching and heartwarming (in a roughneck sort of way) and is an all around good movie about reaching out and finding a connection with someone.

Yet at the end of the movie, as the credits began to role, the lulling sense of a good movie was brutally interuppted by the loud voice of the person sitting beside me "well that was a chick flic!" Said the booming bass. The other two people heartily agreed. I protested that it was not a chick flic because it showed emotions. The reluctantly downgraded the movie to a "date movie."
I have noticed a pattern (mostly with males) that any movie that displays a person's emotions candidly and vividly is written of quickly as a "chick flic." That is to say, any movie that breaks through this shell people put around them and expose the naked and vulnerable side of who we really are cannot be enjoyed by guys--emotions are for chicks. Such a mentality leaves a taste in my mouth not unlike old milk. What are we so afraid of that we cannot openly look at the relationship between two people without the need for some sexual controversy to justify this foray into their feelings? More importantly why is it automatically assumed that because a movie is dramatic, it cannot be enjoyed outside the context of romantic involvement?