I love hyperbole more than life itself.

And in 2013, we hate, or at least love to hate, sad twentysomethings. Have you ever read anything negative about Girls*? If so, you know what I’m talking about. (If not, is this your first time on the Internet? Welcome. There are a lot of smart opinions about Girls here.) The crux of the hating is that youngish people who have grown up vaguely privileged and female shouldn’t make art about their problems when there are bigger problems out there. Now, Braff and the character he created are not female, but he’s something just as bad: not traditionally masculine. Garden State came out in a time of peak male sadness, when a band like My Chemical Romance could go platinum. Over the last half-decade or so, however, culture has turned its back on dudes that just want to feel something. Don Draper, Ron Swanson, the recent rise of hunks in TV and movies, the Old Spice guy: We fetishize men who are “men.” And it comes from all sides: thirtysomethings who look down upon their former wimpy naïveté, manly men who never understood why men were acting like women in the first place, and effeminate men who respond to this masculinity shift by denying that part of themselves. If Brown is correct and Garden State was a response to our insecurities toward President Bush’s shortsighted macho-ness, then in turn we decided to now hate it to cover our insecurities over having a contemplative president who wears well-fitting suits. Garden State represents a male whininess that the culture decided should once again be banned. And I get it — it’s a heavy movie. Hell, basically the plot is built around a grown man’s desire to cry. But we can’t all be Ron Swansons — some of us grow facial hair to cover the tracks of our tears. It might have gone out of style, but earnest, emotional, nerdy men exist and have problems and are often the types who write films. Just because Zach Braff doesn’t look and act like Chris Hemsworth does not mean he didn’t write a good movie.