I've had it with this motherf****ing flag on my motherf****ing house

There are few episodes of manliness so great, so pure, so iconic as Captain von Trapp tearing down the Nazi flag. You know what we're talking about: Georg has solved a problem like Maria by marrying her and they’ve just returned from their honeymoon, during which time the Nazis entrenched themselves in Salzburg and Freidrich has abandoned the bright blue eyes of Leisl for the red, white and black of the National Socialist German Worker’s Party. And they’ve hung a big ol’ swastika flag from front door of the otherwise glorious Von Trapp estate.

The honeymoon is most decidedly over.

So what does the luscious Captain Von Trapp (as played by the eternally dashing Christopher Plummer) do? He tears down the flag. In one swift, decisive motion. He rips it in half in another, and bundles it up to hide it from the children, approaching in the car with Nazi-appeasing, laissez-faire stage parent Uncle Max.

It’s a scene lasting perhaps 15 seconds, but in these few precious moments Captain Von Trapp displays more gusto, more chutzpah, more cojones, more mensch-liness (yes, one of us is Jewish) than pretty much any man — real or fictional — that we have ever encountered. It is the ultimate benchmark by which we judge all men – how would they tear down the flag? Would they tear down the flag? What would they do with it once they tore it down?

Now before you get all up in our grill about being anti-feminist and only applying this thought experiment (if you will) to men, let us say that this is not always the case. We very much enjoy wondering how we, our female friends, and a host of other women both famous and not would react to the flag.

Having attended an “elite” university (as they say) where most of the females were both very smart and remarkably capable and where most of the males, while certainly “book-smart,” couldn't find their assholes with two hands and a flashlight, we grew to long for a man who could, quite simply, tear down the bloody flag. We thought this sophomoric male behavior might die after our sophomore year. But it didn't. Even after graduation it continued. In the workplace, in our day-to-day lives, every place you can think of, the waffling, indecisiveness and hem-hemming continues.

And we realized something profound: there are men both in college and out who would be too self-involved, too oblivious, too afraid, too self-conscious...to tear down the flag in the decisive way Von Trapp did. It's pandemic. Those collegiate boys (though dear to our hearts) would most likely face the flag in elaborate, emasculating scenarios involving tears, dramatic displays of false emotion, spoken word poetry, running away at breakneck speed, asking someone else to tear it down, long stoned speeches, etc. Would most of them tear it down? Would we tear it down (we like to think so...but we've never been place in a situation like that, so we don't know)? Who really can say for sure...the hypothesizing is the fun part.

Stay tuned for in-depth flag-tearing (or at least flag-encountering) scenarios, starring (to name but a few):

Joss Whedon!
Gerard Butler!
Timothy Geithner!
Edward Cullen!
Quentin Tarantino!
James Cameron!
Glenn Beck! (spoiler alert: he doesn't tear down the flag)
John Mayer!
Rahm Emanuel!
Justin Bieber!
Buffy Anne Summers!
Johnny Weir!
Ryan Reynolds!
President Barack Obama!
Alice Waters!
Seth MacFarlane!
Nancy Pelosi!
Anderson Cooper!

And so many more...

Welcome to....TEAR IT DOWN!