Fictional Empathy on the screen

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Does anyone else not have a problem emotionally connecting to characters and circumstances in Movies/TV Shows, and getting upset/crying at fiction as opposed to real life? I can easily be drawn into a good quality Movie or TV Show and feel sad and cry at the sad bits, but "real" emothion as seen on a TV News report or for example just doesn't seem to resonate enough to trigger the same emotional response . . .

Yes, this happens to me all the time, yet I don't really know how to be empathetic in real life circumstances.

If you can connect with characters emotionally on-screen, that automatically suggests to me you are just as capable of doing so in real life. The barrier in real life being anxiety of course.

Can you give any examples of movies or characters you have connected with?

I can definitely connect with people in real life; particularly family, my kids and my other half. It just seems that I'm far more likely to cry or be excited/sad/happy if I'm watching events unfold in a work of fiction - if the exact same events are happening to a real person in a reality show, or something, it doesn't register.

Films that have made me cry (and still will) that spring to mind:

E.T (happy and sad tears)
Forrest Gump
The Lord of the Rings Movies (not so much cry, but just get sucked in and emotional, hairs on the back of my neck standing up etc)
The Green Mile
Up

...TV Shows also; Derek, Grey's Anatomy, The Walking Dead, deaths of characters etc will do the trick; sad events/deaths involving animals or kids are much more likely to trigger a tear, romantic stuff, not so much - Titanic, The NoteBook for example, not even a lump in the throat.

I think I get this too, often I feel like in real life that people aren't emotional enough or at least that their emotions aren't as clear. It feels kind of reduced emotion, anyway. With stuff on screen, even animated stuff, it seems like the emotions are stronger, as they should be sort of thing. Perhaps because they act to make them clearer, I don't really know? Especially in something like news reporting I think there's an element of masking emotion to maintain a sense of professionalism, and perhaps because of this I feel kind of emotionally numb when it comes to such things or unsure how to feel.

I'd probably shake your hand if I could, for being another guy to tear up over things like that. The only thing that manages to do it to me on a consistent basis is the movie Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey.

There was a particular film that made me feel like I was going to die of grief from watching (seriously!) and that film was Fluke. Anyone who watches this particular movie should have some antidepressants ready.

I remember watching the (original) Incredible Journey as a kid and sobbing my face off at the end when the old dog (Bodger?) presumed dead comes running over the hill. It's even making me feel emotional now thinking about it!

shakes agwood's hand

YES!
Currently I have about 3000 films and I can say that at least 5% of them, likely even more, cause me to feel intense empathy or sympathy, or even anger with/at characters. When I try to compare that to people in the real world around me the number falls closer to "maybe 1% at most".

I've long thought about why, and the best I can do is to explain that in the case of films (and I suppose books as well; however neither need be fiction to apply) it's because the experience in learning about a character is scripted, guided, and I can't possibly affect them in any way. I'm seeing what I've been shown, I can rewind or fast-forward, I can memorize and catalogue. It isn't at all like real people where my being around them changes them, where they're not deliberate or scripted, where I can't reply and learn.

In a movie, you don't have to worry about being judged or 'messing up'.

This is great, and the reason I registered and starting posting on WP in the first place.

Since my diagnosis (only about a month ago), I've accepted it, but felt the need to ask about certain things about the way I feel and think about things, I suppose as a kind of "backing up" of the diagnosis. Some very specific things have often had me wondering as they don't fit within the stringent definitions of Asperger's.

Seeing others who feel so similar strengthens things for me, and is a very positive thing for helping me process this and move forward. Thank you

Forgive me if it's naïve, but since you seem to be great at recognising emotions, I find it hard to see how you could fit into the ASD spectrum

I'm not sure what you mean...? Who seems to be "great at recognising emotions", what led you to think that?

Yes, badgerface, I know what you mean. I'm exhausted by my condition and have little emotional energy to offer other people in real life, so empathy is not my strong suit. Real people are never blank slates; they always want something and many of them have ulterior motives in expressing emotion. I don't know how to respond and it's hard for me to trust them.

I find it easier to empathize with fictional people in movies or TV, but even then my responses are rather muted compared to the average viewer.

No problem - it's something that I've thought about as well. I have 2 children, 1 of which, recently turned 7 was diagnosed with Autism at an early age. Part of it was genetic testing for him, me and his Mother; which showed up an anomaly in a certain string of his chromosones, which is associated with ASD. The same anomaly was present in my genes. This was the "final straw" in a long series of suspicions about myself that triggered me to investigate proper diagnosis. I recognise many, many similarities between him and me, and for (mainly) the adult years of my life has always been something I wondered about; the more I learned about Autism from being a Parent of Autistic child, the more I felt I was learning about myself.

I was diagnosed recently, and found the whole experience although stressful at times, very positive. I feel fortunate that I function OK in certain aspects, in terms of emotional communication, recognising emotion sometimes and in certain situations, and kind of why I posted this issue - I get it in Film & TV; maybe it's the music, the narrative, my obsessive nature and way in which I watch films (shutting off everything around me and wilfully allowing myself to be drawn in and taken along for the ride). But struggle in the "real world"...

I'm NT and don't have difficulty connecting to others (usually!) At any rate, I too find this and it's a pretty common experience. Catharsis was invented (? Identified?) by the Greeks who believed that the upwelling of emotion through drama was a cleansing, purifying experience. Drama is meant to do this. It's also a very SAFE experience which is part of the reason we can let ourselves go when watching fictional drama. There are no messy complications, there is no call to action. People on the news or documentaries, sometimes it gets to me and sometimes it doesn't. The more I know people the more it upsets me. So, for example, while I might have found Ebola news unsettling, I now find it really distressing because a friend of mine is moving to Sierra Leone in less than a month. And there's nothing I can do. Heck, I helped her get the job by helping her prep for interview.

I'm the exact same way. Films are just about the only thing that makes me cry and cause me to feel vivid emotional response. I can get it from other forms of fiction as well, and non-fiction told creatively, but it's not as common. The only other times I get emotional is if I'm pushed to a very foreign limit (anger, sadness, stress, etc.). Sounds weird, but sometimes I feel like I can use cinema as an indirect channel of distribution for emotional release.