A couple of weeks ago, I uploaded a clip of Angela Lansbury becoming emotional when talking about the cancellation of Murder, She Wrote.

The show was canceled in 1996 and this interview was conducted that same year. Maybe six months later.

It was on 60 Minutes and Leslie Stahl was the interviewer.

I showed maybe 30 seconds of that interview on a reel on Instagram and it also posted to Facebook.

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A post shared by Lisa R. Howeler | cozy mystery author (@lisarhoweler)

Before I knew it I had thousands of views and hundreds of comments on both platforms.

Most of the comments were extremely sweet and reflected on pleasant memories of the show. Men and women remembered watching it with their grandparents, watching it themselves, or just starting to watch the reruns now.

Many expressed sadness that the cancellation hit Angela Lansbury so hard. It was hard for them to see Angela crying.

Murder, She Wrote ran for 12 seasons on Sunday nights CBS before being moved around a few times in its last season.

There are different theories as to why the show was moved, but whatever the theory, it essentially killed viewership, as loyal fans no longer knew where to find the show.

After 12 years, Angela, who was now a producer of the show and the star — playing mystery writer and amateur sleuth Jessica Fletcher — had been told her show was over.

No amount of letter writing from fans would help. The production ended and Angela, doing an interview very shortly after the cancellation, was still emotional.

In the 30-second clip I showed, Angela teared up talking about it and had to reach for a cup of tea and then a glass of water to keep her emotions in check.

While most comments were supportive of Angela, there were other callous, unsympathetic, and downright rude comments left, and I couldn’t figure out why. Those who commented actually seemed angry at Angela for crying.

Many of those comments focused on how long the show ran.

Almost all of them had poor punctuation so they read like this: what’s her problem? it ran 12 years come on get over yourself lady

It ran for 12 years lol nothing to be sad about

12 years. Over 200 shows. Get a grip woman, you had a good run

And this one was the worst I got out of more than 20 comments like the ones above: She was an aging hag. And all her alcoholic actress friends were on the show looking rancid.

Another horrible one I deleted very fast called her a classy lady who was “being classless by crying.”

There is one thing every single one of the mean, nasty, and rude comments had in common.

They were almost all written by men or people with profile photos that showed they were men.

These men had a very big problem with a woman showing emotion.

It was so uncomfortable to see chauvinism happening right in front of my eyes.

Something about a woman over a certain age crying just set them off.

There were a few semi-rude comments from women on both platforms, but most of those comments were more encouraging like they felt bad she was sad, but it was a good run.

I was surprised, though, by the men who felt the compulsion to stop their scrolling, pause on this reel, and take the time to comment something ignorant.

Yes, 12 years is a long time for a show to run, and Angela knew it. It was the way the show was cancelled that hit her so hard.

The show had become special to her and beloved by millions. It was a wonderful escape from life on a Sunday night.

I  mentioned these comments and how many of them were men to my friend Erin, and we agreed that they were misogynistic comments, one, and that, two, people can no longer handle emotion because so much of our world is fake, even the emotion.

I shared this with her in an Instagram chat: “What people don’t seem to get is this interview was held shortly after it all happened. Her emotions were raw. She was sad. It is called human emotion. The issue is that we now live in a world where we watch videos all the time where people use fake emotions to manipulate people, so when somebody is faced with real emotions, they don’t understand it, and they recoil from it. They think it’s another manipulation attempt. That’s the real big problem with technology and social media. It has warped our humanity. It has made us question human visceral reactions that are real in a way that we start to hate the people who have legit emotions.”

And hate is an accurate word based on the comments. These people were angry about a woman crying. Not just confused or questioning. Many of the comments, which I couldn’t quote here, were legit full of rage over an older woman with tears in her eyes, experiencing real sadness.

I started deleting the comments, not because I don’t support free speech or do support censorship, but because the comment section was full of people connecting in a positive way through nostalgia about a show that had positive memories for them.

Many commentators remembered watching the show with their grandparents or parents, many of those people now passed on.

Many agreed that 12 years was a good run, but they related to Angela’s sadness at how it all happened, at how moving the show was a horrible way to end the show and marred its legacy.

Of course, we know now that it didn’t really ruin the legacy of the show, which is still popular in reruns. At that time, though, Angela felt it was a horrible ending for a wonderful time in her life.

I’m going to keep deleting those horrible comments, whether from men or women, not because people aren’t allowed to have an opinion but because these comments were meant to strike at the pleasant memories of others and inject negativity into positivity.

I just don’t have patience for that anymore.