[ SECRET POST #1180 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1180 ⌋

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

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Notes:

April 1st Submissions Post is open!

Secrets Left to Post: 08 pages, 186 secrets from Secret Submission Post #169.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 3 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - ships it ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[ferricent.livejournal.com]

"explicitly"

How?

[clarice.livejournal.com]

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.

[soymade.livejournal.com]

D:

I need to rewatch that shit

[clarice.livejournal.com]

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

[(Anonymous)]

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.

[clarice.livejournal.com]

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. :(

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

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.

[clarice.livejournal.com]

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.

[ferricent.livejournal.com]

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.

[clarice.livejournal.com]

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.

[ferricent.livejournal.com]

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.

[clarice.livejournal.com]

I completely forgot that's how the bank run started. I guess every punk rebel starts off as an underage upstart hellion in short pants with a healthy animosity toward authority.

But, you know, it's all because he didn't have a soft and maternal figure in the home 24/7. SUFFRAGETTES BREED UNREPENTANT CRIMINALS.

[ferricent.livejournal.com]

"Save your breadcrumbs, generous woman. Soon I will bring your birds the scrap of society's unrepentant, pollutants wearing flesh, fat from the honest labor of others. Soon, I---Oh! Sorry Mary, yes, I'm coming!"

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

The thing that always struck me about it was less the idea that her interest in the movement was the cause of the crisis and her chucking it would fix things, but just that she made for a silly representative of the cause anyway. I mean, Sister Suffragette is a silly song and she's a silly character. I never got when I was a kid what it was she was even interested in--I figured it was some meaningless thing, iirc. I didn't realize until I was older that she was fighting for something really important.

Like, I can't imagine a similar take on a housewife involved in the Civil Rights movement if it was set later and in the US. "Take heart for Mrs. Pankhurst has been clapped in irons again!" etc.

[clarice.livejournal.com]

Also very true. Regardless of the fact that she gives it up, it's a very demeaning and patronizing depiction of the suffrage movement. I'd like to wish that wouldn't fly today, but the broadway musical is still going strong.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

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.

[carey-pontmercy.livejournal.com]

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

[clarice.livejournal.com]

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.

[carey-pontmercy.livejournal.com]

Well, who am I to stop you from defining "explicitly" however you like?

[clarice.livejournal.com]

Well, there's some stupid snark the reason for which I cannot possibly fathom. Thanks for this useful contribution.

[clarice.livejournal.com]

Gee, thanks for mansplaining that for me, because I was totally confused. (That's sarcasm, since I guess we need this spelt out.) And, believe it or not, I know the denotative meaning of the word explicit. Apparently you do not. Here it is:

fully revealed or expressed without vagueness, implication, or ambiguity : leaving no question as to meaning or intent

There's nothing about the message in that film that's vague or ambiguous, honey. Like I said, subtle as an anvil. Next time look it up before you snark.

[carey-pontmercy.livejournal.com]

Sorry about deleting the comment; I regretted it and didn't think that you'd reply so quickly.

The rest still stands. I do know what the word means-I looked it up before I commented to make sure-but I still don't think that you're right about it. Other people have different interpretations; some of them have backed those interpretations up in this thread. It's not unambiguous.

[clarice.livejournal.com]

If you want to dispute my conclusion that's fine, just do it. The plot and script itself relies on highly gendered and conservative notions of sex roles. Other people have cited a different interpretation of a specific scene in the film, but the rest of it is simply the plot itself and what the characters literally do and say. Whether you think that's a good/bad/neutral thing is a different issue, but it's in the film itself, not the interpretation of it.

[carey-pontmercy.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry. That was unnecessary. I just don't think that you can fairly call it "explicit" when other people clearly have different interpretations which they can back up, even if you disagree with them.