Mary Poppins Racism Finally Exposed! (Not)

I don’t remember when I saw Disney’s Mary Poppins for the first time, but I was probably younger than five. The 1964 classic was made before I was born, but my mom regularly took me to theaters to see re-released Disney movies and Poppins also became a standard on TV around Christmas. We never missed it!

Little did I know that I was being insidiously indoctrinated into a culture of racial prejudice!

At least that’s what the UK is suggesting as they move the film’s rating from a “G” to a “PG” due to the presence of a racial slur.

Ummmm. Ok. When I first saw the headline I assumed it was talking about the stupidity of a couple of years ago when it was suddenly suggested that chimney sweeps covered in ashes and soot somehow represented people in blackface. That was absurd enough, as one would expect people who clean chimneys to be covered in soot, but now we’ve taken modern sensibilities out a whole new door.

Have you ever heard of a “Hottentot?” The only time I have ever encountered that word, as far as I can recall, is when Admiral Boom exclaims that he is being attacked by them when the chimney sweeps (along with Mary Poppins and the Banks children) are singing and dancing across the rooftops of their London neighborhood. I just thought it was a silly word and never gave it a single thought beyond that.

But WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It turns out my mom should probably be ashamed of herself for exposing me to this dangerous and ideologically charged word!!

“The word Hottentot,” according to OxfordReference.com, “is first recorded in the late 17th century and was a name applied by white Europeans to the Khoikhoi. It is now regarded as offensive with reference to people and should always be avoided in favour [sic] of Khoikhoi or the names of the particular peoples.”

Aren’t you completely outraged now?!?!?

No, me neither.

When Bill Walsh and Don DaGradi sat down to adapt the books of P.L. Travers into a screenplay for Walt Disney, it’s highly unlikely that they were secretly looking for the perfect moment to slip a racial slur into the works. It’s even more unlikely that the meticulous Disney would have either not noticed such a thing or allowed it if he had noticed it. What we’re dealing with here is case number 4,973,181 of applying modern sensibilities to contexts where such sensibilities did not exist.

But let’s say that was the intent. The chimney sweeps were intentionally sent up and down chimneys specifically so that they would have soot on the faces, allowing Admiral Boom to use a racial slur. Let’s say that was the actual intent of the writers. We can only say they failed epically. No one even noticed until some 60 years later, decades after both writers shuffled off their mortal coils.

This is why we can’t have nice things.

I think it’s far more likely that the writers, in their whimsy, found a word that sounded funny and used it for that purpose without any malice aforethought towards Khoikhoi tribal people or anyone else, for that matter.

Mary Poppins is, to this day, one of my all-time favorite films, one I watch often with my daughter and even sometimes, admittedly, without her! The soundtrack for the movie (and its eventual sequel, the delightful Mary Poppins Returns), is part of the regular rotation of music for the car and catch phrases from the movie are part of the family vernacular. A spoonful of sugar really does help the medicine go down, feeding the birds is a fine way to spend a sunny afternoon and “Let’s Go Fly A Kite” is something we frequently sing on Six Flags’ pendulum ride, The Riddler, which basically turns people into human kites.

In a world that has turned increasingly divisive, offensive and angry, how about we just enjoy a romp across the countryside of an English sidewalk chalk drawing without trying to make it part of the noise?

-B