Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins

Walt Disney Pictures

Released: 1964

Director: Robert Stevenson

Starring: Julie Andrews, Dick Van Dyke

Writer(s): Bill Walsh, Don DaGradi

Based on the book series by PL Travers

Rating: “U” – whatever that means

3.5/5

First off, I wanna talk about PL Travers.

Honestly, I really had no idea she existed (or that she was a she) until I saw Saving Mr. Banks, which is actually a pretty beautiful movie although it takes some serious liberties and skates over some of Walt’s more unseemly personality traits. PL completely disapproved of the movie adaptation of her books which is kinda sad. And she had an “ambiguous” relationship with a woman (Francis Burnand) for more than a decade. So….I’ll let you make your own conclusions on that. Even with Disney’s liberties on the story, the feminism (and lesbian undertones) are not completely lost in the adaptation.

Let’s skip over Dick Van Dyke for the most part. Bert is charming, but that’s pretty much it. 

He’s got some class undertones going on, but his accent is so offensively bad that he just ends up being a caricature of a working class Englishman of the industrial revolution.

This movie isn’t so much queer as it is feminist. Which is pretty cool coming from this era of Disney. I think credit needs to be given to the source material for a lot of that. There are really interesting extreme contrasts of feminist and patriarchal tropes. Let’s dive in.

But first, a short love letter to Julie Andrews:

Oh, Julie. My dear, dear, Julie. How I’ve loved you through the years. And how I wish you were my nanny. Your sweet songs, ability to clean without picking up a single thing, and bottomless carpet bag; you had me at a Spoonful of Sugar.

On the feminist side: We’ve got Mrs. Banks. She’s a suffragette. ONE OF THE FIRST SONGS IS “SISTER SUFFRAGETTE” CALLING FOR WOMEN’S VOTES! That’s AWESOME! 

She’s an outspoken feminist who wears a sash in almost every scene she’s in. And Mary herself is pretty damn feminist. She won’t take no for an answer from Mr. Banks. She almost blatantly disregards him on a number of occasions. She provides an unwavering female voice of authority and leadership. The nanny of all nannys. Pretty great role model for kids, gotta say. As much as the movie tries to hint at a Bert and Mary romance, she never really gives in to his hinting and advances. I’d speculate that she’s actually performing heterosexuality and not engaging in it as she participates in hetero dating tropes in the fantasy sequence. 

She’s an independent lady if I’ve ever seen one. Even when men faun over her, she remains unmoved. And she’s not afraid to get dirty when it’s called for. I always loved the moment when she powders her nose with dirt and gives military marching orders to Bert and the kids before “Step in Time.”

And the patriarchy: Mr. Banks. And anything to do with banks, really. It’s not only an extremist depiction of patriarchy, but of the rise of capitalism. This movie is actually kinda Marxist! Mr. Banks’ first song, right after “Sister Suffragette” is soooooo patriarchal and stuffy. He likes his wife at home, his kids with the nanny, his food made by his cook, and his life in perfect order. But his ideal of his life is far removed from his immediate reality. His wife is a feminist, his kids are troublemakers, and every hour on the hour his house suffers a minor earthquake from the canon that goes off from the crazy ship captain and his first mate who live next door. On to the Bank. The old crotchety bankers are set in their ways and terrifyingly so. 

This movie teaches kids to be scared of old white men bankers! I’m glad Disney chose to portray the true villains of the world (oof, this is getting way more political that I thought). The old white dudes CORNER poor little Michael to snatch up his tuppence to put into a bank account. I can totally relate to Michael. Finances are scary. I would have run away too.

There are a few queer speculation things we can point to:

1)   The Captain and his first mate. There are already a ton of gay men tropes associated with the navy and ships and all that. These two are convinced they are still living together at sea. They’re caught in their glory years. Two crazy old men still living together = gay men to me.

2)   The “I Love To Laugh” dude. Gay = happy. This guy is so damn happy he floats! Sounds pretty gay to me.

The ending is important to talk about in how the movie reconciles the feminist and patriarchal tropes. Mr. Banks flings off the oppressive shackles of his banking job, grabs his kids and his wife to go fly a kite. The film lands somewhere between the feminist and patriarchal themes. While the patriarchy gets subverted, feminism doesn’t exactly win in the end. It kinda, just drops off actually. With Mary Poppins taking off, we lose our feminist protagonist, and Mrs. Banks can’t hold her own to Mr. Banks’ storyline. He even gets a PROMOTION from the BANK! Ugh. A true win for the feminist narrative would have happened had they gone to fly a kite to celebrate women getting the vote in the UK due to the suffragette efforts. But nope, thwarted again by Disney.

MVQ: Uncle Albert. He’s just so happy and gay!

OTP: Mary Poppins and her sassy reflection.

Favorite moment: I LOVE “Step In Time.”