Spoiler Alert: The Dog Dies

Perhaps more contentious than any political report has ever been, the Cats Vs Dogs debate rages on among the readership.  Eric informed me that the dogs are on the defensive, in an effort known as Dog Fort.  Armed with overwhelming cuteness, they defend against the feline uprising.  Johan, meanwhile, suggests that resistance against the feline menace is futile.  They will, no doubt, disarm us with acuddle-puddle of kitten-cuteness and then attack.  

We'll continue with a dog story today, as Andrew Sullivan guided me to an essay examining the human emotional reaction to that moment in nearly every movie that features a dog when (Spoiler Alert) the dog dies.  Wilson offers an excellent look at why Where the Red Fern Grows is impossible to read aloud because the words get blocked by sobs, why we panic when Shadow is stuck in the train tracks during his Incredible Journey, and why we don't even want to talk about Marley and Me, please, no, stop, I can't even think about it even though I knew it would happen.  I think the analysis here is spot on with regards to the guilt angle, but I think he gets the empathy part of his analysis wrong.  I don't know that we empathize with the dead/dying dog, as Wilson suggests, but with those in the work who have a relationship with the dog.  It is Billy we empathize with when Old Dan and Annie die, and our heart breaks with Peter's when Shadow isn't there with Chance and Sassy.  Similarly it is Travis, not Yeller, whose shoes we put ourselves in.  Yes, we are there with Yeller in the end, but through the eyes of Travis; we don't take the bullet, we pull the trigger, but only because we have to. "He's my dog, I'll do it," Travis says, but we are there with him, just as we have been the whole time, to say, "He's our dog, we'll do it."

This complex combination of guilt and empathy makes "The Dog Dies" one of the most effective clichés in the movie world.  Of course, other clichés aren't nearly as emotionally effective.  Some of them, as this article points out, are just plain silly.  Rimstidt's observations are wonderfully entertaining, from calculating the infrequent correctness of the stopped clock to another thing (if not another thing, then one thing).  He's also got me wondering, what if in my attempt to eat my cake, too, I drop it in the driven snow?  Does the five second rule still apply?  Or is that a stupid question?...

Wax on, wax off, don't sweep the leg, but do feel guilty that you can't think of any role he played other than Mr. Miyagi; the late Pat Morita would have turned 80 today.