The following post contains info about "Marley and Me" and "The Sound of Music." I was disappointed for two completely different reasons, but feel the need to share my experiences here, in my blog, my home of my thoughts.
I took my girls to see that feel-good, holiday movie "Marley and Me". I must say that the movie was not bad, it was well written, and the story was true and realistic...for a grown man and woman. The girls, having seen all the advertisements on Nickelodeon kids' shows, seemed to think that the movie was about Marley, the dog - how wrong they were. This movie is about marriage, child-rearing, relationship struggles, and a mid-life crisis. My children were subjected to talk about sex and various images thereof, child loss, post partum depression, and a couple of scenes of neighborhood violence. And this was a PG movie. It kind of makes you wonder what Hollywood would market to children, label as PG, and show on Nickelodeon.
My other spoiler for today comes from an article I read in the Arkansas Democrat yesterday. (Long road trip + Sunday paper=Sheree OD on news.) Do you know how much truth is in the Sound of Music? Very little, as it turns out. There were seven children and the governness named Maria. But Liesl is not a part of the family. There is no young love story, no sixteen year old girl sweetly taking care of the younger kids. The oldest child, a male, was 27 years old when the escape was made. The Von Trapps made it over to America in 1938 and performed as family singers for years. Maria had three children of her own, and all of them lived in an inn in Stowe, Vermont. Maria was certainly not a lovely songbird - she was domineering and demanding and forced all the children to abide by her wishes and serve her. Pretty much all of the children rebelled against her and her youngest, a son, was put upon to run the inn. He resented it, saying that he would rather do something he wanted to do, but could not battle with the powerful force of mommy Maria. She died in the mid Eighties, and after which all the kids had interests in the inn and started suing each other. The animosity amongst the children was great and it took years of battles before everyone backed out of the inn, which is now run by Maria's grandson and son of her youngest child. And you know how they play that movie at Christmastime and the live production in the theater - the family gets nothing from that. The father sold the rights to the story back in the 1950s for $9,000, so that means the kids are burdened with the Von Trapp legacy as being singing cherubs in short pants and skirts made from tacky curtains. And they get jack squat. I am so glad my name is not Von Trapp. I so love the movie and cannot imagine a big meanie Maria, but the past employees of her inn, not to mention her own family, have painted her in a different light. It kind of ranks up there with finding out that Mrs. Brady had a thing going with her TV son Greg - just plain sick and wrong.
We learned this "shocking" truth about SofM prior to our visit to Salzburg in October. In fact, the famous "Sound of Music" tours offered to unsuspecting tourists purportedly taking them to "authentic" spots where the events of the story took place are all scams. And yet, every year tens of thousands of people fall for it and pay good money to be fooled - a testimony to Hollywood's ability to make people believe in the "virtual-reality" world it creates.
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