Mary Poppins Mussafer

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed watching Mary Poppins. After watching Snow White as well as rewatching other old disney movies, my memory of the movies always seemed to overtake the actual movies. What I mean by this is that I was slightly let down by the movie as my memory had made it out to be better than it actually was. However, this was not the case with Mary Poppins. The entire movie I was smiling and tapping my foot to the catchy and fun disney songs. I enjoyed that Disney made Mary Poppins more "disney" by making her seem a little less harsh. I loved the adventures she would take the children on as well as the humor Disney brought to her. I particularly enjoyed Mary Poppin's and Bert's relationship in the movie. I felt that Disney made them seem to have this adorable little love/friendship that made me smile the entire time they were together. As we spoke about in class, Disney creates more of a protagonist in Mr. Banks which I really think helped the story. The story in the book was more about the adventures the kids had with Mary Poppins and less about the family she helps "fix". I was very surprised by the relationship that Mr. and Mrs. Banks have in the movie, especially at the beginning. As I said in class, I could not tell if this superiority that Mr. Banks seemed to have was on purpose to dramatize the time period in which the story takes place, or if this was just the way that Disney viewed husband and wife relationships to be. The wife, while much more sympathetic to the children, has no power in the household and is always just complimenting and agreeing with Mr. Banks. I was so shocked by this as I did not see this when I first watched the movie or when I read the book.

I brought this up at the end of class but I was shocked when I saw the scene where the children run into Bert in the city. I had been swept by Disney's charm and happy music until I saw this seen. I was so caught off guard to see a scene where the children are screaming in fear as a black hand holds on to them in a dark alley. Unlike in the chimney sweep scene, in this scene Bert is completely covered in black making you wonder if there is an underlying message or symbol that Disney is trying to portray. While Mary Poppins has many good messages in it, this scene was very disheartening to see such an off-putting scene.
I think Bert's constant job change was a way to show children that they can be whatever they want to be just as Bert is. He is the happiest person in the storyline as he views everything with a half glass view approach even when the reality of the situation may be that he never has a stable job and income source.

I was much more satisfied with the ending to the movie rather than to the book. I liked how the book really showed a glimpse of Mary Poppins sadness for having to leave the children. This sadness really shows the love she feels for the children and how her job is not to have a relationship with the children but for the children to have it with their parents.