Posted on 08/01/2018 11:59:29 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Many who saw Mary Poppins as children may remember only chimney sweeps dancing precariously on the rooftops of London, or birds flapping their wings around the cathedral, or the image of Dick Van Dyke dancing madly with those animated penguins.
But there is more to Walt Disney’s 1964 masterpiece than meets the eye.
Ostensibly a fantastical children’s story about the George Banks family and the nanny (Julie Andrews) who brings songs and magic to their London home (Number 10, Cherry Tree Lane), Mary Poppins has a powerful subtext that connects deeply with those ill-at-ease in the modern world.
The Bank versus the Cathedral
All the Disney animated classics share a Romantic, anti-modernist worldview. Threads of dissent from the mechanistic, impersonal, and industrial nature of the modern world run through these films and give them, in spite of their differences, a sense of unity. Each offers escape into another world, one where the worst of the modern world is replaced with lush visuals and magic that ensure a happy ending.
In most of the early animated Disney films, the tension between the harsh modern world and this other, more hospitable one is quiet. But in Mary Poppins it’s a full-blown critique.
George Banks (David Tomlinson) is pulled between these two worlds. He is, unknowingly, in a battle. His family and soul are at stake. When the film opens, Mr. Banks is consumed both by the pursuit of profit and also by a vision of rational order that extends first to the members of his household and then, via the British Empire, to the whole world. He is a thoroughly modern man. By the end of the film, however, Banks is someone else—a man who has surrendered worldly ambitions in order to turn his attention toward family, a man open to serendipity and to wonder.
Yet none of these changes comes as a result of his choice. Rather, Mr. Banks is transformed by a series of events, beginning with the arrival of the mysterious Poppins and ending with his dismissal from the bank. The bank here is no mere employer. It is a symbol for the modern world: the world of buying and selling, the world of selfish pursuit, the world that—despite his service to it—ultimately expels Mr. Banks without regret.
Mary Poppins consistently contrasts the bank with another symbol: the cathedral. In the world of the story, the cathedral is conveniently located directly across the street from the bank. It represents the other world, with all its opposing values. It is no accident that when Mr. Banks finally takes his son Michael (Matthew Garber) to work with him, Michael wants desperately to go to the cathedral instead. Nor is it an accident that Mr. Banks, on his way to be fired from his job, first goes alone to the cathedral.
His choice at that crucial moment reveals Mr. Banks as a sort of symbol. He represents all of us who feel the emptiness of modern life and, where we are able, resist its totalizing and pernicious influence. All of us, torn between the forces of the bank and the cathedral, are, in our own ways, Mr. Banks.
Victory for the Better World
No one can imagine a Mary Poppins in which Mr. Banks stays firmly within the clutches of the bank. Such a film would be a tragedy. But the story is not a tragedy. It’s the story of how mysterious, beneficent forces work to free a man from the bondage that serves as both foundation and purpose for so many modern institutions.
When Mr. Banks is finally freed, the victory is decisive. The other, better world has won: the world of preferring family over wealth, of shoring up one’s little platoon over furthering the aims of the empire, of humane values over the impersonal forces of commerce and efficiency. As viewers we share, however fleetingly, in that triumph.
Mary Poppins is a film with a happy ending because the right side, the side for which every modern heart roots, wins.
This guy has too much time on his hands. It’s a movie made from a very popular book. The gist of the story is NOT Mr. Banks’ Mid-Life Crisis.
The Daddy goes to work to make money to afford his family a luxurious lifestyle. The Mom is kind of a ditz. The Children are taken care of by a Nanny (who is Magical!) which was pretty much the norm for that place in time and their economic status.
Does EVERYTHING need to be analyzed to the Nth degree? Everything?
Sit down, shut up and pass the popcorn! It’s Movie Night!
P.S. Don’t let this guy analyze ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ or, ‘It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World’ or, ‘Doctor Doolittle’ or, ‘The Nutty Professor!’
You don’t say so. Disney feminism is anti-modernist??
Mary is all about rebellion to Christianity. Mary is far to the left of Bank's wife who wants the vote for women.
I see. Perfect gift for on Father's Day.
Lost me when they got the street address wrong.
17 Cherry Tree Lane.
All this talk of allegory and Mary Poppins reminds me of people trying to read politics into The Wizard of Oz. Stop and think. It MAY just be a fun story for children that takes place when social upheaval is happening.
I think your complaints are with the 1910s, not, with Disney.
Reformed and pro-gay?
I always took it be a criticism of parents who are detached and not terribly interested in their children - the dad a pain in ass taskmaster who worshiped the bank, the mother a paint in the ass women’s libber who blew off the kids to go protest, hiring the help to be the parents.
I don't buy that either. Something tells me it's Turkish Delight.
A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down.
I always thought the deep meaning to Marry Poppins was that Brits are weird.
You beat me to it!
Never saw it. Have wondered once or twice along these many years what the hell it was about.
He was “re-educated”
Video is restricted for me. Need to sign in to view it. And don’t recall UN or PW for YouTube account.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious is not one word.
Do you know how many times I tried to fly with a umbrella? Our roof was the starting point I knew I needed “lift”
All right! You've got me there. Touché!
It MAY just be a fun story for children
From what I remember of “Saving Mr. Banks,” this is all Disney had in mind; to create a fun story for his two daughters.
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