{"id":3946,"date":"2016-03-02T14:36:57","date_gmt":"2016-03-02T09:06:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3946"},"modified":"2016-03-02T14:36:57","modified_gmt":"2016-03-02T09:06:57","slug":"why-the-enduring-myth-of-mary-poppins-didnt-need-an-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3946","title":{"rendered":"Why the Enduring Myth of Mary Poppins Didn\u2019t Need an Update"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A<\/span><\/p><\/div>

\n\ns a child, when I found myself in trouble, I looked skywards. The gods were unreliable. Mary Poppins<\/a>, I felt wasn\u2019t. She came from the clouds. Her umbrella spoke out of turn. Holding a mirror, a lamp, and a hat stand, her bag seemed to have no bottom. When she sang, I\u2019d listen, but so would the birds on screen. Mary Poppins made my world come alive. I really was so thrilled Disney was bringing her back. \u00a0<\/span>\n\nBut after watching <\/span>Mary Poppins Returns<\/span><\/i>, my nostalgia is trying to resurrect the Mary Poppins that Disney<\/a> so brutally killed. The storytelling, let\u2019s face it, could never have been as sharp. The special effects would never have been as surprising, and more importantly, perhaps, I would have never been as wide-eyed. Directed by Rob Marshall, <\/span>Mary Poppins Returns<\/span><\/i> ticks far too many boxes. Yet the box it gets all wrong is Poppins\u2019 appeal.<\/span>\n\nMy father bought us the <\/span>Mary Poppins<\/span><\/i> VHS tape in 1989. I was six and my sister was ten. Though we were watching the film 25 years after it had released, both of us remember being thrilled. More than Moby Dick and Robin Hood<\/a>, Mary Poppins would globalise us all too completely. London, for me, was always Big Ben and a red double-decker bus. But after <\/span>Mary Poppins<\/span><\/i>, it was a city of chimneys, of kites, nannies, and kind constables. For years, I wanted to live on Cherry Tree Lane. <\/span>\n\nThe film\u2019s plot is easy to summarise. Mr Banks, a crotchety banker and Mrs Banks, a mostly absent activist, desperately need a nanny for their mischievous children, Jane and Michael. And Mary Poppins descends from the heavens to take up this position. She cleans the nursery<\/a> by clicking her fingers and takes Jane and Michael on many an adventure. They jump into paintings that are drawn on pavements. They laugh their way up to the ceiling to have tea. My sister and I were wonderstruck. <\/span>\n\nRaising children<\/a> is never an easy business. Parents need all the help they can get. There is a reason why my father would once think of our Mary Poppins VHS tape as a sound investment. Transfixed for the 140 minutes that it played, my sister and I would be out of his and my mother\u2019s way.<\/span>\n\nBack then, I usually wanted to ruin my sister\u2019s dollhouse with my fire engine and she wanted to humiliate my He-Man with her Barbie figurines. Though we bickered over the gender of our toys<\/a> and the stories we said about them, <\/span>Mary Poppins<\/span><\/i> was a narrative that appealed to us both. My sister, I figured, saw the film through the eyes of a giggly Jane, while I saw it as a slightly more defiant Michael. <\/span>\n\n

Mary Poppins made my world come alive.<\/p><\/blockquote> \n\nMary Poppins<\/span><\/i> also polished our enunciation of words. My sister and I would mimic Julie Andrews saying the words \u201csuspicious\u201d and \u201cextraordinary<\/a>\u201d. We\u2019d then spell \u201csupercalifragilisticexpialidocious\u201d backwards, convinced it was a word in some dictionary. <\/span>\n\nI suppose what had both of us was that Mary Poppins was never heavy-handed. She believed children could be disciplined even while they were having fun. It was only after seeing the film over a dozen times did I realise that Mary Poppins never descended from the skies to correct Jane and Michael. She was there to save Mr Banks from a life of stodgy joylessness. It\u2019s the adults<\/a> who need to be reminded of levity. The kids are really alright. <\/span>\n\nIn <\/span>Mary Poppins Returns<\/span><\/i>, a similar dynamic is at play, albeit with an update. Twenty-five years older, Michael is now the widowed father of three children who finds it hard to pay the bills. Trying hard to negotiate the absence of money and their mother, the children<\/a> too have little time for wonder. Even when they play, they seem grown up.<\/span>\n\nWhen Mary Poppins took Jane and Michael all around London, you discovered the city with them: London is both, marvellous and intimidating. On the other hand, Michael\u2019s kids seem so self-assured that you know nothing could ever beat them. When their nanny isn\u2019t looking, they quickly go back to whispering like adults, hatching plans to save their father<\/a> from penury. Kids, the film implies, need to be heroes too. <\/span>\n\nJulie Andrews, for her part, always had your back, even though she\u2019d never seem overtly maternal<\/a> or protective. She didn\u2019t control the material world \u2013 only fashioned its elements. In <\/span>Mary Poppins Returns<\/span><\/i>, Emily Blunt, however, can do a bit of everything. She can stop the Big Ben from chiming. She can put an end to everyone\u2019s woes. When the need arises, she can play matchmaker too. You sometimes tire of saying, \u201cMary\u2019s got this!\u201d<\/span>\n\nBut the myth of Mary Poppins didn\u2019t need any updating. The nanny<\/a> said so herself. Taking out a plant from her bottomless bag, she had looked at it and marvelled, \u201cA thing of beauty is a joy forever.\u201d I have that VHS tape. I know just what she means.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Raising children is never an easy business. Parents need all the help they can get. There is a reason why my father would once think of our original Mary Poppins VHS tape as a sound investment. Transfixed for the 140 minutes that it played, my sister and I would be out of his and my mother\u2019s way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":323,"featured_media":3947,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[1225,6126,18,7262,471,313,7277,7278,7279],"class_list":["post-3946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop-culture","tag-childhood","tag-classics","tag-family","tag-mary-poppins","tag-parenting","tag-pop-culture","tag-remake","tag-update","tag-vhs"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy the Enduring Myth of Mary Poppins Didn\u2019t Need an Update<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Raising children is never an easy business. 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Transfixed for the 140 minutes that it played, my sister and I would be out of his and my mother\u2019s way.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3946\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Arr\u00e9\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-03-02T09:06:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/1546755393.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1520\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"850\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Shreevatsa Nevatia\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Why the Enduring Myth of Mary Poppins Didn\u2019t Need an Update\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Raising children is never an easy business. Parents need all the help they can get. 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