fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #1180 ]

[ SECRET POST #1180 ]

⌈ Secret Post #1180 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

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Secrets Left to Post: 08 pages, 186 secrets from Secret Submission Post #169.
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They did this to Anne of Avonlea in the crap TV movies (which I haven't watched, but which nevertheless force me to think about the fact that Anne and Gilbert's sons probably would have gone off and died in the War.)

My boyfriend also completely destroyed my childhood enjoyment of Mary Poppins by pointing out that it was a conservative film written against the backdrop of the burgeoning women's movement in the 60s, and when I sat down and thought about it I realized it is an anti-feminist film that explicitly endorses the status quo and condemns the women's movement. And that made me sad.

"explicitly"

How?

The mother's involvement with the suffragettes is depicted as the reason the children are "neglected," and thus is the root of the central conflict of the film, and why Mary Poppins is needed. That conflict is resolved by the mother giving up her life outside the home and staying with the children, where she "belongs." The father's gender role is likewise strongly and explicitly reaffirmed by his success in business, where he "belongs." She then ties her suffragette ribbons to a kite and flies them off, which is about as subtly symbolic as an anvil.

D:

I need to rewatch that shit

Don't. It'll just make you mourn your childhood.

Oh... I always thought she tied her ribbon to the kite as a supportive gesture to the suffragette movement, putting it where everyone would look up and read it. I feel stupid now.

I never thought about it critically as a kid, and never revisited it until this was brought up to me and I actually parsed through the contents of the film and what leads up to that scene. While normally I like being aware of this sort of stuff, I always liked Mary Poppins and now I cannot unsee it. :(

Aren't both the parents shown as being responsible for neglecting the children? I thought the dad's focus on work was shown as being as much of a problem.

The father's focus on business is part of the problem, but the solution is ultimately for him to give up an afternoon to play with the kids while the wife tends to them day in and day out. His storyline is primarily concerned with him recovering from his mishap on the job so he can continue being a good provider.

This is weird to think about, 'cause the movie is full of other subversions, like the... one kid's mistrust of the bank's system of investment and return, the children's dignifying the woman who feeds the birds, etc. But (if you couldn't tell) I haven't seen it since I was a wee child, and if even just that ribbon-kite scene exists then this movie is Messed.

It's been a little while since I've seen the film so I don't remember exactly how the bit with the bank plays out, but doesn't the child end up depositing some of his money with the bank after his father explains why it's a good thing? Mary Poppins is a strange film when viewed in a critical context. Ultimately it's probably a product of its time as a Disneyfied and stereotyped view of the world (a productive, working father, a domestic mother, happy, well-attended children, kindness to those less fortunate, trust in authority, success of the hard worker, etc) but I think the more troublesome aspects are probably intentional, especially given that the film was made very shortly after the Feminine Mystique was published and there was a lot of pushback to middle class and wealthy women wanting to move beyond the domestic sphere. The film was an easy vehicle in which to slip that message because it's an innocuous kid's film, and in it's set in a period even more traditional than the early 60s. It's also possible that there was more than one person responsible for adapting the novel and writing the score, and that the end result is a combination of messages from different writers with different agendas.

You are sound on all counts except:
Nope, he literally starts a BANK RIOT like a short-statured MASTER OF ANARCHY, RISE AND DANCE IN THE ASHES OF THE ESTABLISHMENT.

It was all very punk.

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clarice.livejournal.com - 2010-03-30 06:35 (UTC) - Expand

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clarice.livejournal.com - 2010-03-30 16:18 (UTC) - Expand

I always saw her tying the suffragette sash to the kite as a sign that she wasn't going to give up the fight -- that those ideas were going to fly out into the world -- but that's probably just me trying to put as positive a spin on it as possible.

That's hardly explicit, though. At most, it's heavily implied.

That's explicit by my standards. The ending is very clear cut; it's not as if character A needs to turn to character B and say "Traditional gender roles are awesome and women are happier in the home!" for that message to be explicit.

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carey-pontmercy.livejournal.com - 2010-03-30 04:01 (UTC) - Expand

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clarice.livejournal.com - 2010-03-30 04:47 (UTC) - Expand

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carey-pontmercy.livejournal.com - 2010-03-30 05:04 (UTC) - Expand

The original L.M. Montgomery books actually did end with one set during WWI...but I can count on one hand the number of people I know who've read all eight. You've made me curious now to find out what was done in the TV version.

Ha, yeah, I am not one of those five people. I made it through most of them, but not all. The first three were really the ones I cared about.

Apparently the third movie is just indefensibly awful and doesn't follow the books at all. If you haven't seen it, the first one is pretty charming, and if I remember correctly the second one is decent.

I've read all eight!

Oh, Walter. :(

Oh Rilla-my-Rilla!

(Yeah, I was sorry about Walter too, but I think I cried more over the damn dog)

I loved Walter. I was pretty devastated by that book, but I kept rereading it anyway.

God, I bawled my eyes out when Walter died.

I've read each of them at least three times. The Blythe and Meredith children would have lived through WWII too.

My babysitter had a compiled version of Green Gables, Avonlea, and House of Dreams. I read those so much I'm surprised I never gained the ability to recite passages. I can't be so sure about the rest, but I know it was a lot of rereads. And now my brain is wishing I knew more about Canada and WWII so it could make up further adventures...

I have! Oddly, I think the last book stuck with me more than some of the early ones did.

As for the TV movies, I really love the first one, and it preserves the book really well. I love the second one too, but it blurs a lot of events of the next three books together and might even invent some subplots altogether. )I kind of think of it as an AU of the series, so its continuity errors bother me a little less.) But the third one goes so far off the rails I can't even watch it. Gilbert goes off to fight in the war.

If you read the last book of the series, one son does die in WWI. Sadly, it's canon.

(I actually really enjoyed the first two of those movies, but the one where Gilbert goes to fight is absolutely ridiculous.)

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