Bishop Williamson's SOUND OF MUSIC pronouncement seems to have been pulled from the web but Damian Thompson reproduced most of it in a blogpost in 2009.
blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/3682301/The_Sound_of_Music_will_rot_your_soul/EXTRACT
Julie Andrews: where's her sense of discipline?
According to Williamson, Maria as portrayed by Julie Andrews is a sluttish adventuress. Having abandoned her godly vocation, she is undermining the discipline of Captain von Trapp's family and probably planning to steal his children.
Writing to fellow members of the rebel Society of St Pius X to warn them against re-runs of the film on television, the Winchester- and Cambridge-educated bishop adopts a tone of biting sarcasm:
[WILLIAMSON QUOTE BEGINS]
Julie Andrews is nice (of course), but she is too high-spirited to be a nun (of course), for instance she dances over the Austrian mountain meadows, in springtime, waving her arms around and singing (presumably to the grass) that 'The hills are alive with the sound of music'. The hills seem unmoved but they do look beautiful, as does Julie Andrews (of course. We know she would wear perfume and make-up to go jogging).
Fortunately the Mother Superior is also nice (of course, at least in 1965. Today she would be a child abuser), so she and the other nuns let Julie Andrews go, to try out being governess of a tyrannical widower's unruly children Â… Sure enough, she gives a dazzling demonstration of the superiority of liberty and equality over stuffy old Austrian ways! Immediately undermining in front of the children the Captain's discipline over them, she proceeds to win their hearts (of course) by a combination of being their friend, taking their side, making them sing and have fun, all this without a trace of motherliness and all the time looking as cute as a kitten. She even looks cute when she prays; in fact, who would not pray when it makes you look so specially cute?
The stern Captain is soon won over by his domain being turned into a gigantic playpen, so he breaks out in that favourite Austrian number Edelweiss, whereupon they all burst into song. By now Julie Andrews is looking goofy around the Captain (of course), so there is a ball, and they dance, whereupon the Captain also looks goofy around her. But enter now the villains! Firstly a glamorous Baroness schemes to get Julie Andrews out of the way, back to the convent. Secondly, villain of villains, a – a – a NAZI!
Pan back to the convent for a heart-warming feminine dialogue: Mother Superior: 'Are you in love?' Julie Andrews: 'Oh, I don't know.' Mother Superior: 'Go back to him.' He is delighted when she returns, so there is a duet of swooning, spooning and crooning by moonlight. Shiny white wedding dress (of course), wedding bells all over the place and a lovely ceremony, to be spoiled only by the brutal re-appearance of the nasty Nazi.
The family tries to sneak away. The nasty Nazi spots them, so now they all break out into singing Edelweiss. The nasty Nazi is foiled when the family escape to the convent … The last shots show the 'family' climbing a mountain path to get out of the Third Reich, amidst hills which are once more 'alive with the sound of music'. How truly heart warming.
Clean family edification? Nothing of the kind! Can you imagine this Julie Andrews staying with the Captain if 'the romance went out of their marriage'? Would she not divorce him and grab his children from him to be her toys? Such romance is not actually pornographic but all the elements of pornography are there, just waiting to break out. One remembers the media sensation when a few years later Julie Andrews appeared topless in another film. That was no sensation, just a natural development for one rolling canine female.
The Sound of Music puts selfishness in the place of selflessness between husband and wife, and by putting friendliness and fun in the place of authority and rules, it invites disorder between parents and children. This is a new model family, which in short order will be no family at all, its liberated members flying off in all different directions.
[WILLIAMSON QUOTE ENDS]
The nuns in The Sound of Music, I seem to recall, helped shelter the von Trapps from the Germans. You can't help wondering: if Bishop Williamson had been the convent chaplain, would the family have managed to escape?
END
A few comments:
(1) The reference to the Julie Andrews character representing "liberty and equality" against "stuffy old Austrian ways" is a deliberate echo of the French Revolutionary slogan of "liberty, equality, and fraternity". For the SSPX the French Revolution is not merely a more or less problematic political episode - it represents a revolt against the God-given principle of authority and as such is a demonic irruption with which there can be no compromise. His views on women may also be influenced by the early-modern view that the absolute rule of the king over his subjects derives from the divinely-instituted absolute authority of the father over his family
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarcha (This is an Anglican version but I would be surprised if French monarchists did not develop the same line of argument).
His reference to the Andrews character as "not having a trace of motherliness" also implies that he sees motherhood purely in terms of authority to the exclusion of affection/nurturance.
His definition of the film's version of family life in terms of "selfishness" v. "selflessness" also implies that he sees any form of enjoyment as selfish (unless it is the enjoyment of exercising absolute power over others) and "selflessness" consists of submitting to the will of your superiors, a form of selflessness of which Bishop Williamson's own career has been singularly devoid.
(2) He treats it as self-evidently outrageous that the nuns should allow the Julie Andrews character to take leave from the convent, and eventually encourage her to leave the convent and marry the Captain, even though the character is clearly a novice and has not taken final vows. He seems to have no concept that a novitiate is not a binding commitment but involves trying one's vocation to religious life, with the possibility of a negative answer.
(3) He objects to a Nazi being portrayed as a villain. 'Nuff said - I wonder if he makes the same objection to THE SCARLET AND THE BLACK, which also features Christopher Plummer as a Germanic military type:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Scarlet_and_the_Black (4) Underlying the whole thing is a view that all human relationships can be reduced to expressions of power, with any apparent altruism, sympathy, etc simply being a means of control. This view is particularly associated with that eminent Christian moralist Friedrich Nietzsche, whom the "good" bishop probably read too much of when he was an atheist
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_and_slave_moralityHere is another German philosopher's argument that one cannot be truly human unless one escapes from this mindset, which is the soul-destroying worldview of the Platonic tyrant - he can never achieve fellowship with another human being because he sees them simply as instruments of his will, to be used as he sees fit:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master-slave_dialectic and here is a variant on the theme:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Either/Or I can think of two very nasty mindsets which resemble that of Bishop Williamson
(a) Some radical feminists, basing themselves on the assumption that all human relationships are simply matters of power politics, argue that prostitution is the only legitimate basis for male-female relationships, since the basis of the parties' dealings with one another is made quite clear - because they assume love, affection etc are simply male devices to deceive and exploit women,
(b) Pornography is often based on a deliberate desire to degrade and humiliate women and reduce them to instruments of male pleasure who are to be used and discarded at will (hence the term "sex object" - an object, unlike a person, has no rights against the person who uses it and it is impossible to incur obligations towards it). This mindset apparently reflects resentment at the thought that men's attraction to women gives women power over them (the idea that women are parasites who use their sex appeal to trap men into marriage and leech off them is a recurring theme) and that this power can be neutralised by brutalising and degrading them so that they are seen as they "really" are. [There are forms of misogynistic religious asceticism which use this sort of rhetoric about women and their demonic wiles as well - it's a recurring danger. The mediaeval use of the sheela-na-gig as personification of lust would be an example of this.]
Another source for this mindset appears to be the fact that men who use pornography are often sexual inadequates and use it to engage in revenge fantasies against women for not being attracted to them.