‘Mary Poppins,’ and a Nanny’s Shameful Flirting With Blackface “Mary Poppins Returns,” which picked up four Oscar nominations last week, is an enjoyably derivative film that seeks to inspire our nostalgia for the innocent fantasies of childhood, as well as the jolly holidays that the first “Mary Poppins” film conjured for many adult viewers. Part of the new film’s nostalgia, however, is bound up in a blackface performance tradition that persists throughout the Mary Poppins canon, from P. L. Travers’s books to Disney’s 1964 adaptation, with disturbing echoes in the studio’s newest take on the material, “Mary Poppins Returns.” One of the more indelible images from the 1964 film is of Mary Poppins blacking up. When the magical nanny (played by Julie Andrews) accompanies her young charges, Michael and Jane Banks, up their chimney, her face gets covered in soot, but instead of wiping it off, she gamely powders her nose and cheeks even blacker. Then she leads the children on a dancing exploration of London rooftops with Dick Van Dyke’s sooty chimney sweep, Bert. This might (might!) seem like an innocuous comic scene if Travers’s novels didn’t associate chimney sweeps’ blackened faces with racial caricature. “Don’t touch me, you black heathen,” a housemaid screams in “Mary Poppins Opens the Door” (1943), as a sweep reaches out his darkened hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to quit: “If that Hottentot goes into the chimney, I shall go out the door,”she says, using an archaic slur for black South Africans that recurs on page and screen. @monacoger
That article was in the New York Times. No doubt far-right, Christian Americans will be doing their nut over it calling it "political correctness gone mad" while at the same time condemning Mary Poppins for being a witch dabbling in the dark arts.
Literature is full of what we'd now shy away from in terms of racial slurs. Enid Blyton's books included Golliwogs who were dark skinned mischievous creatures and made out to be the bad-guys. I've been catching up on some classics and read Lord of the Flies, imagine my horror and disgust at hearing Piggy refer to the gang of wild boys as ******s. Only said once and it was in context but I expect this book will be banned from the school curriculum if it hasn't been already. What do the Americans insist their schoolchildren read now? Maya F.ucking Angelou who's body of work just looks like the kind of pish you find inside greetings cards and on the kind of crap "inspirational" cushions and photo frames Mrs Grove likes from Dunelm. Vomit inducing twaddle like "Be nice to the world and the world will be nice to you" "Give love to receive love" "Never eat yellow snow" and that sort of mind-numbing twittery.
If there is a hell then I'm destined to spend eternity wandering the aisles of Dunelm. Or Ikea. It's a toss up as to which is worse. At least Ikea has seats dotted around you're allowed to sit in so I suspect it'll be Dunelm.
I feel your pain, imagine trailing behind the wife as she points these out and goes "oooh, that's nice, it would look good in the lounge" as you contemplate going to the kitchen department to find a very large carving knife please log in to view this image please log in to view this image please log in to view this image (Copyright M. Angelou)
Glad to see I'm not the only person who hasn't decorated their home with trash such as tacky wooden ornaments with the word "love" or the soppy couple's initials either side of the mantelpiece or indeed hanging in the window but there's a hell of a lot of people that are into that. More than half the population, I'd estimate.
It's a disease. We used to have a perfectly respectable living room but now it's festooned with wicker hearts and candles and all that tutt. I blame the Sister-in-Law who first started to have the puke inducing Hallmark type quotes on family photo frames and on bits of random slate. If you go to Clintons there is usually a stand next to the tills with wallet or purse sized "inspirational" cards with quotes, I think Ms Angelou must have done a bit of work on the side because they are all the same trite drivel as her body of work. I think she was a lovely woman by the way but if she had been Agnes Windlethorpe from Grimsby writing all that sh.it she'd never have got a look in.
