I had a friend many years ago who thoroughly disliked the movie Sound of Music.  To him it was too sweet, too idyllic, too unbelievable.  On the other hand, he liked a gritty motion picture about gangsters and detectives.  I told him that the crime movie was just as unbelievable as the musical, and he finally agreed with my assessment.  Both movies had over-the top-characters, one set was almost impossibly good, the other irredeemably bad.  Both were modern fairy tales, one a “happy ever after” story, the other taken from the darkest pages of the brother’s Grimm.

Why were our reactions to Sound of Music so different?  I believe it was because of our different childhood experiences.  My friend came from a broken home and a difficult childhood, and he was a cynic.  I, on the other hand, was reared in a veritable cocoon of love, had experienced gentility, and I expected good in people.  Maria and Captain von Trapp were not so very different from some people I knew.  To my friend, however, they were like aliens from a foreign planet.

I still like fairy tales with happy endings.

How about you?