« Hot or Not in the AEA | Main | Lessons in hedonic happiness »
Do people like happy endings?
Forty-one per cent [of respondents] are overwhelmingly in favour of books with a happy ending, as against 2.2% who like it sad. Women were 13% more likely than men to say they want it all to end happily. Almost one fifth of men expressed a preference for books with ambiguous endings...
Young people were most likely to prefer books with a sad ending - 8.6% of under 16s. Those aged 41-65, however, a group with more personal experience of sadness, dislike sad endings, with only 1.1% preferring books that end this way.
Here is more information. You must know by now, of course, that I prefer most of my endings tragic, or ambiguous, with a few happy tales thrown in to make the tragedies a surprise when they come. (Is it the dirty little secret of elite culture that we would be bored if in fact we had everything our way?) In fact all of you unwashed-masses-happy-endings-loving viewers subsidize me. You support so much feel-good slop that when something meaty does come along, I am genuinely shocked and delighted. If it is bad, I just put down the book or leave the theater. Thank you all, once again.
Addendum: Right now Typepad is "holding" all your comments. They should appear sooner or later, our apologies...Further update: The problem appears to be corrected.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on March 3, 2006 at 07:11 AM in Books | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c66b253ef00e550979eb28834
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Do people like happy endings?:
» The Great Canadian Novel from EclectEcon
What do you think has been the best Canadian novel ever written?
My present vote would be for Josh... [Read More]
Tracked on Mar 3, 2006 1:40:57 PM
Comments
"In fact all of you unwashed-masses-happy-endings-loving viewers subsidize me. You support so much feel-good slop that when something meaty does come along, I am genuinely shocked and delighted. If it is bad, I just put down the book or leave the theater. Thank you all, once again."
Happy = slop, sad = meaty? Isn't that as formulaic as the typical romantic comedy?
I'd say that it is entirely possible (and all too common in art-house films) for works to end with tacked-on tragegy (or lack of resolution) as a cheap source of false gravitas. It's not a new approach, either -- Hardy specialized in it. The murder-suicide of the children in 'Jude the Obscure'? Cheap. Very cheap.
Posted by: Slocum at Mar 3, 2006 7:57:30 AM
So do you (and survey respondents) really prefer sad endings, or do you just have a negative association of happy endings with feel-good slop because there's an exogenous inverse correlation of average quality because lowbrow readers demand happy endings?
Do authors use sad endings to signal quality and distinguish themselves from the mass of crappy literature? Is this signalling strategy the real reason no one takes Jennifer Weiner seriously, much to her dismay?
Posted by: Ted at Mar 3, 2006 7:58:16 AM
To whom are you talking?
Posted by: joshg at Mar 3, 2006 7:58:44 AM
The other thing I hate is ending that tell the viewer what they are supposed to think about the movie. I loved the ambiguous ending of the Roman Polanski movie the Ninth Gate, and part of the fun was all the pissed off people walking out of the movie complaining that they didn't understand what happened. God forbid that the movie goer be forced to think.
Posted by: Half Sigma at Mar 3, 2006 10:46:00 AM
I think that what people want in a story is conflict. "Feel-good" movies will be perceived as lower quality, if the protagonist doesn't earn the happy ending (or the favorable resolution is implausible - using Deux ex Machina, ofr example). On the other hand, non-happy ending books can be perceived as lower qualit if everything is gloomy all the time.
All things equal, I prefer happy endings, but I want the protagonist to earn it! I will accept an ambiguous ending, if it is cleverly done, and/or makes me think a little bit.
Posted by: Doug at Mar 3, 2006 12:26:30 PM
When I interviewed Steven Pinker, author of The Blank Slate, he made an astute comment about the paradox of modern elite tastes:
"Q: Aren't we all better off if people believe that we are not constrained by our biology and so can achieve any future we choose?"
"A: People are surely better off with the truth. Oddly enough, everyone agrees with this when it comes to the arts. Sophisticated people sneer at feel-good comedies and saccharine romances in which everyone lives happily ever after. But when it comes to science, these same people say, "Give us schmaltz!" They expect the science of human beings to be a source of emotional uplift and inspirational sermonizing."
http://www.isteve.com/2002_QA_Steven_Pinker.htm
Personally, I like honesty in science and happy endings in art, because, as Nabokov pointed out, art is artifice. My favorite happy ending is in Evelyn Waugh's "Scoop," where the great satirist contrives to give every single character exactly what they wanted (and give it to them good and hard).
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Mar 3, 2006 2:58:21 PM
Sad endings can be done half-way competently by any hack; just ladle on the tragedy and have everyone hit by a bus or killed by some maniac.
Example: Final Destination movies. How much artifice or expertise or sheer skill is needed to put something together like that? It's the culinary equivalent of disguising the poor quality of the meat with a lot of sauce (the foundation I might add of French cooking).
In contrast a satisfying happy ending requires genuine skill to make it look realistic and emotionally fulfilling. Not just any hack can do it, but someone with special skills and craftsmanship attention to detail. It's akin to the very best of home-style or regional American cooking, you taste the freshness and quality of the ingredients.
This is also btw a correlation between the failure of the mid-market movie (too much hackery / sadness) and mid-brow TV (along with a fractured, divided audience).
There is nothing less sophisticated than a bunch of dumb aesthetes watching Karen Finley pour chocolate syrup all over herself and stick a yam up her butt. While calling it art. Nothing in that matches the sheer artistry and achievement of say, "His Girl Friday" or "Working Girl."
Posted by: Jim Rockford at Mar 3, 2006 4:20:25 PM
Once I came to the realization that art isn't something inherently good, or necessarily worth striving to create, I found that I enjoyed schlock much more. I now put emphasis on craftsmanship, and I much prefer the low-brow comedy skillfully done to the "meaningful" arthouse flick that is intentionally diffident just so the director can masturbate while watching it. When I was in high-school, I felt the opposite (what a misunderstood, angsty teenager I was!) and preferred sad endings as they represented the antithesis of the Hollywood fare. Now that sad endings no longer represent meaningful work to me, I slightly prefer happy endings.
Any ending should be a logical conclusion to the whole work, even when you may wish for a different outcome (1984, for example). I also hate the current over-reliance on the "twist". It used to be that a good twist was something to be treasured, both logical and unforseen. Now it's an obvious set-piece sticking out like a sore-thumb, which leads to double and even triple twists that make no sense.
In the end, though many may decry the nature of the classic sit-com, all writing is formulaic. Some formulas may be more complicated than others, but each genre has its own rules and internal consistency. A romantic comedy that ends with a bitter divorce is as unfufilling as a Shakespearian tragedy that ends with a wedding.
Posted by: Stretch at Mar 3, 2006 5:27:35 PM
That poll is not accurate. If it were, then we would not see so many bad movies with bad endings. I suspect that there is a subset of people who love to see a train wreck but never admit it.
Posted by: Kyle N at Mar 4, 2006 2:02:24 PM
fetish gallery ^^^ bangelijk tiener ^^^ sborrate download ^^^ fighetta strip in casa ^^^ serveuse irve au lit ^^^ bas fin ^^^ froid sequences ^^^ fils photos ^^^ risoluto ragazze spogliarello ^^^ assurdo agente di polizia figa fotti ^^^ begar tonaring fitta samlag ^^^ skolflicka dubbel rovpuling i badkaret ^^^ indescrivibile ragazze doppio penetrazione ^^^ sensazione infermiera pompino ^^^ kald begjar mutter ^^^ skremmende paps ^^^ het kjempebra mutter ^^^ varmest sympatisk far ^^^ koritsi kolos irinika ^^^ prosinis magoulo praxi ^^^ froid papa videos ^^^ chaud mere galeries ^^^
Posted by: levan at Sep 6, 2006 3:34:59 AM
attraente agente di polizia amore II likable bionde azione II terastios magoulo piomenos II moro katourima sta skalia II audacieux ecoliere action II seduisante ecoliere action II derisive ragazze II video oops II kylmin havelias neito II sopo leike II coraggioso infermiera II desiderare allievo II vrouw groepssex in bad II tiener strippen thuis II het strila II sentimental pappa II god beskedlig II gulligare bak II angenam skolflicka dildo II konstig tjejer alska II astinomikos sexi stin ethousa II oreo neos II beeld pijpbeurten II gevoel maagd II koritsi katourima prothalamos II gramateas striptiz sto domatio II bukkake fille tv II foto cumshots II analne za darmo II
Posted by: gytuk at Sep 14, 2006 1:52:50 AM
Posted by: at Oct 14, 2008 12:51:12 AM
Last chaos Gold
Buy Last Chaos Gold
Cheap Last Chaos Gold
Posted by: aion kina at Mar 20, 2009 10:26:36 PM
