Appendix 3.2: Sample films, synopses and character lists
MARY POPPINS US 65
with a firm but gentle hand,
Noblesse oblige.
is revealed, as the narrative unfolds, to have little
relevance to the actual behaviour and interdependence of the
characters depicted. Winifred's involvement with the
suffragette movement is depicted as a merely frivolous
diversion. Despite her assertion
We are soldiers in petticoats
Dauntless crusaders for women’s votes
Though we adore men individually
We agree that as a group they're rather stupid
when her husband comes home she quickly removes her
suffragette sash, telling her maid
Ellen, put these things away.
You know how the cause infuriates Mr Banks.
And in the wild dance of the sweeps at the end of the film
Winifred's cry of 'Votes for Women!' is equated with George's
lWhat's all this?' as the sweeps include both in their song,
reducing them to meaningless repetition, mere rhythm in the
dance :
Votes for women, step in time
What's all this, step in time.
In the animated sequence fox hunting and horse racing are
depicted, the fox hunting scene being particularly interesting
for its implicit anti-Britishness. Bert, riding a merry go
round horse, rescues the fox as it is about to be caught by
the savage hounds. In a broad Irish accent the fox, now in
safety on the back of Bert's horse, says 'Faith and begorrah!
'tis them redcoats again' referring not only to the red
hunting jackets to be seen on the screen but also to both the
American war of independence and the long standing conflict
between Britain and Ireland. The implication is that the
British (the hunters) are the agressors, the enemy, and the
fox (the Americans, the Irish) the valiant quarry who will
eventually succeed/survive, having right on his side.
Finally there is the fundamental level on which these various
details of the film rest and in which its enormous popularity
on both sides of the Atlantic is likely to have been based.
This is the level of myth. George's transformation is
achieved by the magical intervention of Mary Poppins. She is
recognised by George as 'this person with chaos in her wake'
and by the child, Jane, as 'wonderful1. She is the catalyst,
the fairy godmother, the witch. She is the woman who makes
things happen, and she operates outside the constraints of
time and space. As Bert tells us at the opening of the film:
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