Yes, where did this new and distateful trend for public weeping & wailing come from?
Well, keening and wailing at wakes and funerals has been a proud tradition for centuries amongs the Irish, and the public rending of garments and tearing out of hair accompanied by loud protestations of grief is an ancient Greek tradition, just to name two. So I don't think it is just a new and distasteful trend. The stiff-upper-lip school, essentially Anglo and Victorian, I think, is a fairly recent invention. It would make an interesting study what indigenous cultures do with their grief -- let it out or keep it in.