‘Mary Poppins’ Is More Racist Than It Seems

in Movies

Dick Van Dyke with coal on his face in 'Mary Poppins.'

Credit: Disney

Recently, Inside the Magic reported that the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) updated its maturity rating of the beloved Walt Disney Studios classic Mary Poppins (1964). Many Disney fans decried the decision as “woke,” arguing there was nothing offensive about the movie. But according to a recent report, the opposite is true. The Mary Poppins maturity rating could’ve been much, much worse.

Like the Motion Picture Association (MPA) in the United States, the BBFC issues film maturity ratings on a letter scale. Mary Poppins was once rated U (“suitable for all” and equivalent to the MPA’s G) but is now rated PG (requiring “Parental Guidance”)

General viewing, but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children. A PG film should not unsettle a child aged around eight or older. Unaccompanied children of any age may watch, but parents are advised to consider whether the content may upset younger, or more sensitive, children.

The BBFC cited a racist, outdated stereotype used in the film for its updated rating. A minor character, Admiral Boom (Reginald Owen), uses the word “Hottentots.” Initially used by the Dutch in the 17th century to describe the Indigenous Khoikhoi people of South Africa and Namibia, the word fell out of fashion for its derogatory nature.

Mary Poppins with a bird on her hand
Credit: Disney

“We understand from our racism and discrimination research… that a key concern for… parents is the potential to expose children to discriminatory language or behaviour which they may find distressing or repeat without realising the potential offence,” the BBFC said in a statement.

Admiral Boom, who believes his house to be a naval ship, uses the word to describe Mary Poppins (Julie Andrews), Michael Banks (Matthew Garber), and Jane Banks (Karen Dotrice), who are covered in soot. Though the dark powder wasn’t intended as Blackface, the use of a racial slur adds a discriminatory edge to the scene.

Despite premiering just over a decade after the notoriously racist Song of the South (1946), Mary Poppins has received little other criticism. The film holds up even more than other Walt Disney Animation Studios pictures like Lady and the Tramp (1954) and The Aristocats (1970), both of which are heavily criticized for stereotypical, racist depictions of Asian characters.

Glynis Johns as Mrs. Banks, raising her arm
Credit: Disney

But Mary Poppins was closer to a “cancelation” than you might think. According to a recent Telegraph report, the film narrowly avoided a slew of outwardly racist interactions written in its source material, the P.L. Travers novels.

The first “Mary Poppins” book, which served as the main inspiration for the Disney movie, contains a chapter with “more controversy than anything else Disney adapted in the 20th century.”

In a chapter called “Bad Tuesday,” Mary Poppins takes the Banks children on a world tour, exposing them to different cultures and nationalities. The depiction of certain cultures was questionable even upon its 1934 release. Travers describes a “negro lady” carrying “a tiny black pickaninny with nothing on at all.”

Mary Poppins covered in soot.
Credit: Disney

The same woman is written with a dialect so offensive it could be satire: “My, but dem’s very white babies. You wan’ use a li’l bit black boot polish on dem.”

Travers revised the chapter twice- once in 1967 and again in 1981. The latter was a “direct response” to a 1980 decision by the San Francisco public library system to remove the eight Mary Poppins books from its shelves because of the offensive depictions of people of color. In the modern version of “Mary Poppins,” Mary and the Banks children visit a group of safari animals instead of people.

“A schoolteacher friend of mine, who is a devotee of Mary Poppins and reads it constantly to her class, told me that when she came to that part it always made her squirm if she had Black children in her class,” Travers said in 1972. “I decided that if that should happen, if even one Black child were troubled, or even if she were troubled, then I would have to alter it.”

Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins riding a carousel horse
Credit: Disney

But wait, there’s more.

Telegraph found numerous egregious lines in the book series. In “Mary Poppins Opens the Door” (1943), a maid yells, “Don’t touch me, you black heathen” at a chimney sweep covered in soot, a la Bert (Dick Van Dyke). In addition to threatening the Banks children not to act like “Hottentots” multiple times, Mary Poppins once tells Michael not to “behave like a Red Indian.”

There might be a reason these lines were never changed. In 1982, though, Travers expressed regret over ever editing “Mary Poppins.”

Tom Hanks and Emma Thompson on set of Saving Mr. Banks
Credit: Disney

“What I find strange is that, while my critics claim to have children’s best interests in mind, children themselves have never objected to the book,” she said. “In fact, they love it…When a white teacher friend of mine explained how she felt uncomfortable reading the pickaninny dialect to her young students, I asked her, ‘And are the black children affronted?’ ‘Not at all,’ she replied, ‘it appeared they loved it.’”

Despite later controversy surrounding the magical nanny, Walt Disney Studios revived Mary Poppins twice in the last eleven years. First came Saving Mr. Banks (2013), a dramatized depiction of the two-decade-long battle between Travers (Emma Thompson) and Walt Disney (Tom Hanks) over the film rights to her book series. Then, in Mary Poppins Returns (2018), Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) arrives just in time to help a grown-up Michael Banks save his family.

In the United States, Mary Poppins is still rated G. The MPA hasn’t announced plans to update the film’s maturity rating.

Have you read any of the “Mary Poppins” books by P.L. Travers? Share your thoughts on the series with Inside the Magic in the comments.

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