The Sound of Music

[Dreamsofasundayroast]

Not a terribly deep and meaningful post, but sometimes light moments are to be welcomed.

Watching the Sound of Music whilst DC played beside me. DS (10) was really surprised by Rolf singing to Liesl like she was a baby in You are 16 - "I'll take care of you etc". And then shocked when Liesl joined in. DS's actual words were "She's going along with this rubbish!"

Thankfully the whole relationship set up seemed really alien to him.

The scene with Rolf and Liesl is so funny because she's so obviously much more confident and up for it than he is - all the action completely undermines the words. He looks pretty terrified of her, to be fair.

Which is pretty standard for a boy and girl of their respective ages, and quite possibly accounts for him putting on the manly pose in such an awkward way. And in real life it's not all that uncommon for girls or even women to want to be swept off their feet.

A lot of these shows depict people or feelings who are realistic, or an exaggeration of a realistic type. I'm not convinced that makes them sexist, unless only stories that didactically point out everything "bad" are good stories. A lot of the time its the opposite.

I've never quite forgiven Fred Astaire for 'stealing' a rabbit toy from a little boy in the first five minutes of Easter Parade. He's a lovely dancer but was far too old to be paired with Judy Garland in that. See also Bing Crosby in High Society and White Christmas. They'd never have paired them the other way around. It did work in TSOM though, Maria has to be quite a lot younger.

One film I do love is The Happiest Millionaire, which ends with the girl's dad saying he'd never respect the fiancé if he didn't show her who was boss, so he throws her over his shoulder and off they go to elope! I think you just have to remember they're a) exaggerations and b) of their time.

The other thing which isn't terribly feminist in musicals (but I do still like!) are the songs that just use women in different outfits as a bit of time filler, like "The Girl I Love Is on a Magazine Cover" from Easter Parade or "Beautiful Girl" in Singing in the Rain.

I've never quite forgiven Fred Astaire for 'stealing' a rabbit toy from a little boy in the first five minutes of Easter Parade. He's a lovely dancer but was far too old to be paired with Judy Garland in that. The part was meant to be played by Gene Kelly but he was injured so FA stepped in and saved the film from not being made.

I though

Oops!

I didn't know that Sorrel, thanks! I know that Danny Kaye replaced Donald O'Connor in White Christmas, but couldn't do all the big dance numbers, which is why there's one with a man who is never seen or mentioned again.

Tangential, but made me laugh...

I've always taken that song to be ironic - the viewer knows how small the gap is, and Liesl clearly knows more about what she's talking about than he does anyway! I think the context of the rest of the film also shows that Liesl can't and shouldn't depend on him.