everyone has their 'sound of music'

we all have that one movie, tv show or band we started out mocking, and now we love.

it starts out simply enough. you think it's entirely ridiculous, and you make fun of it. you watch or listen with your friends in a purely ironic way, because you're way too cool to actually enjoy it. any praise you give it oozes with sarcasm, but once you've spent some time watching or listening, however sardonically, after a while you realize you've actually started to like it for real. at first you're horrified that you actually like it, and you call it a guilty pleasure, but soon you realize you're actually okay with it.

for me, it's 'the sound of music.' my baby sister and i grew up with 'sound of music,' mainly because our mom and grandma love it so much. we complained and complained when they made us watch it; we thought it was the stupidest thing ever. we giggled along when our dad made fun of it, and after a while we joined in on the playful ridicule. before we knew it, we were watching it just so we could jeer at the corny dialogue and screech along with julie andrews. and i do mean 'screech.'

i don't know when the switch flipped, but now we love it. my sister and i have seen it so many times we could probably run through the entire movie without actually seeing it. we genuinely appreciate the sixties-tastic vibe, julie andrews' four-octave range and thoroughly cheesy dialogue, whereas before we thought it was about as cool as death valley in august. we clearly just didn't understand the magic.

we have a tradition, tess and me. on christmas eve night, we hole up in our basement with a case of red bull and two cans of pringles, and we make and/or wrap all our presents for christmas morning. while we do this, we watch 'sound of music' until we finish with our gifts. this means we could watch maria scuttle back and forth from the abbey to the von trapp mansion several times before we can finally go to sleep.

we don't just watch, either. we provide our own running commentary throughout the entire movie, engaging in meaningful discussions about how much we hate the baroness von schraeder and conversely, how much we love maria. we hypothesize that liesl isn't really anywhere near as innocent as she sounds while singing 'sixteen going on seventeen.' we explain to each other over and over that the answer to a question like 'how do you solve a problem like maria?' is 'marry her off to christopher plummer, of course.' we observe, each time as if it were the first time, that julie andrews probably couldn't hit that crazy high note at the end of the 'doe, a deer' song if she didn't put one hand on top of her head and stick the other arm in the air.

not many people would be up for a tradition like this. in fact, i can count all the people who could put up with our annual christmas eve 'sound of music' party on two fingers: me and tess. you see, as far as baby sisters go, mine is totally boss. she's the one person who understands everything i say, and has exactly the same sense of humor as me. the fact that the christmas eve viewing of 'the sound of music' is probably both of our favorite traditions probably goes a long way to explaining why she's my best friend. it also explains how we can start out in vehement opposition to something, then grow to love it enough to watch it over and over again on christmas eve.

it's not a classic great movie like 'casablanca' or 'north by northwest.' it's not a 'watch it because it's on' movie like 'the fugitive.' it's not a 'so bad it's hilarious' movie like 'plan 9 from outer space.' it's not even a guilty pleasure like 'the davinci code.' it's in a category all on its own, and we all have a movie or band or what have you that we place in this category.

for my former spanish teacher turned co-chaperone on my sister's 8th grade cedar point field trip, it was neil diamond. her and her friends thought he was ridiculous. they went all-out buying t-shirts, attending concerts and buying cds, all in the most ironic sense. the sarcastic 'we love neil diamond!'s turned non-sarcastic, and they started wearing their concert tees in public, not just on laundry day.

for my job-hunting buddy turned moviegoing friend, it was the jonas brothers. at first she thought they were beyond hilarious. she made fun of them with me and joked with me about how we didn't buy for a second that those promise rings were legit. then somehow, as her collection of jonas memorabilia grew, her outlook changed from ridicule to... appreciation. she's 22, it's not normal. but it happens to the best of us.

i'm not too proud to admit i love 'the sound of music.' i can recite the names and ages of all the von trapp children in order. i know all the lyrics to all the songs. if called upon, i could probably even duplicate that dance they do on the patio during the baroness' welcome ball. i'm glad i have my baby sister to watch with me, if only because i'd feel pretty silly and pathetic being this fanatic about such a cheesy movie all on my own.

but that's what it's all about, isn't it? embracing the cheesiness.