You feel that? The
wind just changed! That means it’s time
to talk about the one and only Mary Poppins.
Now, this is another one that’s not a fairy tale. However, it is fairy tale adjacent in a
number of places. I also realize that
this is a subject that can be a bit loaded when it comes to adaptation, the
wishes of the original author and what the limits should be for what an estate
can do with a property after the author dies.
But we’ll have to save our thoughts on that for the end.
Let’s start with some background. Mary Poppins is the star of a series of books
by author P.L. Travers. There are eight
books in the series, the first one published in 1934 and the last in 1988. The books revolve around the various exploits
of mysterious and magical nanny Mary Poppins as she cares for the four, later
five, Banks children. I have read four
of the eight books written by Travers (coincidentally, these are the four that
were written before Disney made their famous film version). They are, in order: Mary Poppins, Mary Poppins
Comes Back, Mary Poppins Opens the
Door and Mary Poppins in the Park.
Mary Poppins admiring her reflection. |
Mary Poppins as a character might be a little bit different
than you’d expect if you only know the Julie Andrews version. She’s a strict, no nonsense nanny who doesn’t
much appreciate disobedience, lollygagging or back-talk. She’s described as having shiny black hair
and blue eyes and is said to look like “a Dutch doll”. She must have been fond of these doll-like
looks, because she is also described as extremely vain. She loves to admire herself in mirrors. So, what’s the big deal about this strict,
no-nonsense narcissist? Well, she’s
magic. If you saw the Disney movie, you
probably expected that. However, it’s
not just that she’s magic, it’s that everything around her is as well. Wherever Mary seems to take the Banks
children (Jane, Michael, John, Barbara and little Annabel), the children and
the reader seem to get a glimpse into a magical world that exists hidden within
our own. They might go to a gingerbread
shop where the foil stars they decorate the gingerbread with are actual
stars. A statue in the park may come to
life. Everyone’s shadow may run off to a
Halloween dance. The balloon lady in the
park may sell you a magic balloon that takes you flying. Or you may find out that the lazy servant
that works for your family is actually the Dirty Rascal of nursery rhyme fame
(“I’m the king of the castle and you’re the Dirty Rascal”). Whether or not Mary Poppins seems to have any
control over these events varies.
Sometimes she brings the children right into the path of the magical
happenings and other times the magic finds her and she gets rather perturbed by
it. However these magical things show
up, it always feels like the magic was always there, but somehow no one could
see it before. Either way, don’t ask
Mary Poppins herself about it because she will deny everything and act like
she’s never been so insulted in all her life.
Mary Poppins with Jane and Michael. |
Now, here’s the thing about Mary Poppins’s tight-lipped
nature. It kind of gives her an air of
mystery. Every magical person she meets
seems to know and respect her (well, barring the Dirty Rascal when it comes to
respect). Sometimes they even suggest that
Mary is somehow special among them. Not
like a queen or an official of any kind.
Just special by the virtue that she’s Mary Poppins. However, Mary never explains what kind of
past she has with these characters. In
fact, she never explains anything. So,
at least if you’re like me, you find yourself wondering who she is and where
she comes from.
Tea with Mary's uncle, Mr. Albert Wigg |
None of the books have an overarching story. Instead, they contain a number of
self-contained short stories. However,
there is something of a pattern to the books.
All the books I read had a story in which they visit one of Mary’s relatives. All of them had one in which Jane and Michael
had to sneak out after dark in order to see what Mary Poppins was doing on her
night off. All of them had a story in
which Mary Poppins tells the children a story that relates to some strange
event that just happened. Almost all of
them have at least one story that takes place on a holiday, and the
books also had stories in which either Jane or Michael were in a bad mood and were
acting out on it. There were also Mary
Poppins’s rather spectacular entrances and exits, though Travers stopped
writing those after the third book because, to paraphrase a quote from her, she
cannot be forever coming and going.
However, in between the formulaic bits, sometimes there’s something
rather sad or beautiful. I’m reminded of
a story in the first book in which Jane and Michael go off to a party and the
twin babies John and Barbara are left with Mary Poppins. What we find out is that John and Barbara can
speak in their way and they can understand the languages of everything else:
the starling and the wind and the sunlight and many other things. They also think grown-ups are quite stupid
because they can’t. We also find out
they understand because they are so young and that everyone can understand
those things up until their first birthday.
Everyone forgets at that point whether they want too or not. Everyone except Mary Poppins, the Great
Exception. Sure enough, a few months
later, the starling finds that John and Barbara are no longer able to
understand him. The simple idea of being
able to understand the language of everything is kind of beautiful, and the
inevitability of losing it is rather sad.
There are also some choice quotes that have a sort of depth and beauty
to them. Another story finds Jane and
Michael sneaking out to the zoo at night where they meet a hamadryad (i.e. a
cobra) who tells them this: “We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of
the Jungle, you of the City. The same
substance composes us- the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the
beast, the star- we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember that when you no longer remember me,
my child.” It makes some sense,
though. Travers was rather fascinated
with the symbolism and metaphor that’s often seen in fairy tales and
myths. The supposed hidden depths in
simple stories. Much of her later work
focused on it. It finds its way into Mary
Poppins too. In Mary Poppins in the Park there’s a story in which Jane and Michael
meet three princes who escape from The Silver
Fairy Book (clearly a fictitious Andrew Lang collection). They and their pet unicorn encounter some trouble from various people, the
park keeper, the policeman, the zoo keeper and the curator of the museum. However, when the adults finally realize who
the princes are their attitude changes.
They start talking about how they had once known them when they were
little children and had lost track of them.
This makes sense, because they would have read that fairy tale a fairly
long time ago when they were children.
However, there’s another layer to this.
The princes’ names are Florimond, Veritain and Amor. Loosely translated, their names mean Beauty,
Truth and Love. The adults knew beauty,
truth and love as children but lost contact with it as they grew up. That’s kind of a big metaphor right there.
It’s stuff like this that didn’t make it into Mary Poppins’s more famous cinematic adaptation. The metaphorical aspects are lost. The idea of the magic always being there just beyond the surface layer is lost. The idea that babies know the secrets of the universe but they can’t tell you is lost (as are the characters of John and Barbara entirely). However, it kind of makes sense when you consider the fact that in being translated from book to movie, it was also translated from being a piece of European fantasy to a piece of American fantasy. Now, nothing against American fantasy. American fantasy stories have their own strengths. For example, American fantasy stories tend to be a lot more free from the constraints of social class which seeps into a lot of European fantasy stories. We’ll put the metaphor issue aside for now, because a lot of that comes down to individual perception. However, the other issue still stands. European and particularly English fantasy stories have more a sense of “deep magic” to them. The feeling that the magic is there, in the hills and the stones and the trees and you could see it if you just had the means. Their ancestors could access it, so why can’t they? American fantasy, maybe because it’s a newish country and maybe because it’s a colonized country, generally doesn’t have that.
I should mention that not everything in these books is so
great by modern standards. There’s some
casual racism thrown around. Mary
Poppins sometimes tells Michael that he shouldn’t “act like a red Indian” when
he’s misbehaving. In fact, one of the
stories in the first book had suck overt racism that it had to be changed (I’ve
read an earlier edition too). A story
that consisted of Mary and the children traveling around the world with a
magic compass and meeting an Eskimo (now more appropriately called an Inuit,
but Travers’s words, not mine), an African tribesman, a Mandarin and a "red Indian" (again, not my words)
got turned into a trip to meet a polar bear, a macaw, a panda and a dolphin
instead.
Mary Poppins descends on a kite string |
However, back to the issue of the Disney movie. I think maybe it’s time to address that
particular elephant in the room. Mary Poppins Returns comes out this week
and the question comes up: should this movie have been made? It’s not a secret that P.L. Travers hated the
original Mary Poppins movie. Absolutely hated it. She hated it so much that she put a
stipulation in her will that Mary Poppins should never be made into a movie
again. However, years after her death,
Disney goes to the Travers estate and despite that stipulation makes a deal to
create a sequel. On one hand, Travers
made it very explicit that she didn’t want her character used in another movie.
On the other hand, the Travers estate
was essentially sitting on an intellectual property that has a lot of
potential. Sure, the books might still sell
okay. However, licensing is currently
the biggest way to make money from an IP, especially children’s
characters. There’s also the fact that
the damage has already been done. The
original movie is already more famous than the books. Looking back at the
original attempt by Disney and Travers, it’s hard to tell who was being more
unfair. Sure, Disney changed a lot of
things that Travers didn’t want changed.
That’s nothing new. Hollywood
does that all the time and it sucks. But
Travers didn’t come out smelling like a rose either. She was a notoriously touchy, anxious woman
who had a lot of baggage in her past.
She would hand out seemingly arbitrary rules to the filmmakers like
“Mary Poppins should never wear red”.
One wonders if maybe she were trying to find a way to keep the movie
from being made while simultaneously accepting Disney’s money (she was in
financial straits at the time). And to
some extent, Travers’s stipulation just feels like a stall anyway. In the long run (a very, VERY long run thanks to Disney, but that’s another story) the character and her stories will enter
the public domain eventually and Poppins is well-known and beloved enough that people
will make movies about her. Some will
draw on the Disney interpretation.
Others will try hard to stick to “the author’s original vision” and use
it as a selling point. But barring major
law changes or some kind of cataclysm, it’s likely to happen.
Mary Poppins Returns
comes out and though part of me thinks I shouldn’t see it because of Travers’s
wishes, my curiosity is piqued and won’t leave me alone. I want to see what parts of these four books
make it into the movie. I’m even more
curious after seeing the trailers, which show that Emily Blunt has more of a
handle on the literary Mary Poppins’s attitude and personality than Andrews did
(you have to love that “damn, I look good” look Blunt gives to the mirror in
that one part). I’m also not expecting
Travers’s wishes to stop anyone else from
seeing Mary Poppins Returns,
but if you’re going to see the movie you should also check out the books. I’m not going to say they’re “practically perfect
in every way”, but they’re pretty good and deserve a read.
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