“Women’s lib” was just beginning to make a dent in the culture in the early Sixties, but Mary Poppins was boffo, the second highest grossing film of 1964. It’s probably not a coincidence that the film enjoyed a successful theatrical re-release in 1973, in the midst of the second-wave feminist movement.
Mary Poppins overturns not just Mr. Banks’s authority, but his ideals: it’s her imagination vs. his unwavering practicality. When Banks insists the children are spending too much time at play, she suggests he bring them to the office. What follows is a scene that terrified me as a five-year-old: a gaggle of greedy old menlecture the children, then take their money. Instead of donating to the local bird lady, they argue, the kids should “purchase first and second trust deeds. Think of the foreclosures! … You’ll achieve that sense of conquest as your affluence expands.” In the end, Banks learns that’s a hollow promise. Foreclosures, indeed.
Mary Poppins, her work accomplished, flew away on the west wind, leaving a restored Banks to tend to his own family. Today, the exit of this nanny extraordinaire might look a little different:
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