Truth is, I don’t own a Dirndl – yet! I am gonna buy one with my friend Eva in August, because having been an ex-pat for over 5 years now I really need one. I do sing, and I’d like to say quite well (at least when I and everybody around me are drunk), but not that randomly, and certainly not in a yodelling fashion (though I would love to be able to do that). And: before I moved to New Zealand, I had never, ever seen the Sound of Music before. Shocking, I know! Especially as a media theorist/activist I feel it is my obligation to watch, deconstruct and churn out what it means to people on an individual level and on a shared consciousness level with all sorts of products of popular culture.

Well, I finally did watch it 3 years ago. And something never quite sat right with me. Why on earth is that movie so popular? Ok, Julie Andrews twirling is beautiful. I knew the songs by heart after just seeing this thing once. For a movie geek like me: first big scale aerial shot at the beginning of the movie: that is pretty awesome. As movie goers, we do have a good excuse to watch it: wholesome family-ness resisting evil Nazis. But it is a pile of crap, really.

Now, Matthew just sent me this video, and this guy is totally onto something here. It pretty much sums up the underlying awefulness and twistedness of the visual messages in The Sound of Music. Watch it, remember the movie, and go “aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!”