Postcolonial Mary Poppins

On the surface, Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins (1964) tells a cautionary tale about a father who fails to dedicate enough time to his children, children who desperately crave his attention and love. The film, however, is littered with colonial references, though overarching the entire plot is the single message of: one cannot hope to succeed elsewhere if one’s own country is disorderly. Mr. Banks enters the film stating “I run my home precisely on schedule”, yet we’re already aware that his wife is a secret political activist, his children are missing and his nanny has just “forfeited her post”. Mary Poppins, in the guise of ‘mother Britannia‘, sails into “Cherry Tree Lane”, in order to teach her colonial subjects how it’s done. The empire of domestic is often interrupted, however, by Admiral Boom “Late of his Majesty’s Navy”, who resides on the corner of the street in a house that has a ships deck on its roof, including mast, sales and steam funnels. We’re told “He likes to have things ship-shape at all times”, and fires his cannon at exactly six o’clock every morning and evening. The placement of Admiral Boom is hardly an accident, he is a symbol of British naval pride in the heart of London, and acts as a resident reminder that what goes on overseas affects those living in the London suburbs. Just how he reminds those present becomes evident soon after entering the household of Mr. Banks at number seventeen. Mrs. Banks calls “posts everybody!” and with finely tuned co-operation the household races to secure the goldfish bowl and precious china ornaments from falling as the cannon of the Admiral booms and the entire house shakes. This cannon fire rattles the supposedly safe and secure British family home, and the occupants have to cling to their acquisitions of the outer empire to stop them falling apart. A direct metaphor for how conflict abroad and in the colonies shakes the very foundation of Britain, although not for long, the household manages this interruption smoothly and within seconds peace is restored. (1)

The two visions of empire, those of “world” and “home” are made clear during the song entitled: “A

British Bank.” Mr. Banks, as “Sovereign” and “liege”, has visions of his children taking their place in the world, his world, of imperial finance. In order for this to happen, the future generation must be raised accordingly:

“A British nanny must be a General. The future empire lies within her hands. And so the person that we need to mould the breed is a nanny who can give commands!” 

What his vision fails to take into account, however, is the fact that in hiring someone to “mould”, and “command”, he is inviting a colonist into his home. The children know this, and present their concern thus:

“If you [the new nanny] won’t scorn or, dominate us,
We will never give you cause to hate us.”

A child’s plea that echoes strongly of the plight of the native Kenyans in Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s A Grain of Wheat, who suffered and fought under the oppressive British imperial regime: “they felt Gandhi, Napoleon, Lincoln were watching the black folk of Kenya in their struggle to be free”. Appropriately, as a symbol of British imperial excellence on an individual scale, Mary Poppins sails into Cherry Tree Lane with the Easterly wind in her umbrella; it had to be an easterly wind, as the British were colonizing the east. With the fool-hardy confidence of any invading force she takes a critical view of those she has come to work for, or colonize, and decides to give them a trial week, during which time she will establish whether or not her labours will bear fruit. (1, 7)


Through the course of the ensuing few days Mary Poppins takes the children on various outings of the magical variety. The first of these is lightly dusted with colonial references, Bert warns the

children: “When you’re with Mary Poppins you end up in places you ain’t never dreamed of”, perhaps hinting that she, like Britannia, has power that stretches beyond the borders of their known world; they travel only as far as the English countryside though this is an adventure beyond their usual domestic sphere. In the song Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, Poppins exemplifies how language can have a powerful impact on those of different cultures. In the first verse Bert describes how he was afraid to speak until someone bestowed upon him “the biggest word you’ve ever heard”, and suddenly he could communicate. A state of affairs similar to that of teaching the natives of the British colonies, English. As Chinua Achebe said in his essay “The African Writer and the English Language”: “But on the whole [English] did bring together many peoples that had hitherto gone their several ways. And it gave them a language with which to talk to one another.” The song, however, goes further than just Africa:

“He traveled all around the world and everywhere he went
He’d use this word and all would say ‘there goes a clever gent’.”

This suggests that cultures throughout the world view this language as superior. A superiority that the children learn very quickly, but Mr. Banks can’t pronounce at all. (1, 3)

The colonization of number seventeen by Mary Poppins is having an effect on everyone resident apart from Mr. Banks who complains about all the little changes that are taking place. As colonial subjects go, Mr. Banks is reminiscent of Okonkwo in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, who can’t understand why a culture would turn away from what he’s used to and what has worked so well in the past: “...a source of great sorrow to the leaders of the clan; but many of them believed that the

strange faith and the white man’s god would not last.” He calls Poppins to task over this and is easily hoodwinked, by the superior invading force, into believing that he intended to show the children his world. In this conversation he is, to Mary Poppins, exercising “the educated native’s latest dodge... the younger generation believe in a show of manly independence. They think it will pay better with the itinerant M.P.” as described in E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India. The Bank sequence is full of imperial ambition, and well dressed officers of finance that are strikingly reminiscent of the “amazing... chief accountant” in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, they perform a stately and erect dance while Mr. Dawes attempts to persuade Michael to “achieve that sense of conquest” by investing in:

“Railways through Africa! Dams across the Nile. Fleets of ocean Greyhounds16. Plantations of ripening tea!” 

This is the empire that Mr. Banks dreams of; the empire of money made possible by trade: “money have pretty face for everybody, but for that man money pretty like pretty self, he can’t see nothing else.” Words that echo through Jean Ryse’s book, Wide Sargasso Sea, and this film both. Mr. Banks is so caught in his vision of imperial wealth that he has become alienated from the values of importance at home. Along with the expansion of the empire it became possible for British subjects to invest money in a monetary institution that would provide their investors with some return: “If you invest your tuppence wisely in the bank... soon that tuppence... will come pound.” We are, however, reminded of the fragility of this arrangement when Mr. Banks is later called for his dismissal. The younger Mr. Dawes relates a story about an officer of their bank who wisely invested a loan on a shipment of tea to the American colonies. This shipment was badly timed as it coincided with certain tea taxes, the practical effect being that all the tea was dumped into Boston harbour in protest, the loan was defaulted and a run on the bank ensued. The distant fire of a cannon that caused the institution of the British bank to shake. (2, 5, 4, 1, 6)


A sequence of most poignant significance involves Bert, as the chimney-sweep character, who introduces the children to a land of “enchantment,” with “things half in shadow and halfway in light”. The parallels with Conrad’s Heart of Darkness are palpable throughout, though all metaphorical. Mary Poppins warns Michael to “be careful, you never know what might happen around a fireplace,” just as Marlow warns Kurtz “you will be lost,” when they were within yards of

the nearest fire. As she says it Michael’s swept up away from the British home and into another world described by Bert as “a trackless jungle just waiting to be explored.” Mary Poppins leads the expedition by becoming the British General she was hired to be. She makes the children and Bert form ranks and leads them through “the impenetrable forest” of chimney pots and smoke. Soon after they start, Michael puts his face into a chimney and emerges completely black with soot, in doing so he becomes one with the landscape and the natives. The reprise of Chim Chim Cher-Ee ends and their song is answered by multiple calls of “Cheroo!” and immediately many black figures appear from the jungle of chimneys. They commence a wild dance “a burst of yells, a whirl of black limbs, a mass of hands clapping, or feet stamping, of bodies swaying”. Their movements over the rooftops prove how they are “like the wilderness itself”. Mary Poppins joins in in a section of dance that requires her to perform a sequence and the ‘natives’ to imitate, however, she doesn’t recreate their movements but performs neat steps that they copy. Eventually she shows her imperial superiority by twirling multiple times in mid air, and then nods, having outwitted the natives in a dance competition. They can no longer follow her, but must gaze in admiration. This choreography mimics the British feeling of being one step ahead of their colonial subjects at all times. Leading them in a dance of manners and fashion that they will never be capable of developing independently, but must follow as best they can: “I was only thinking how the worthy doctor’s collar climbed up his neck.” (1, 4, 5)

While the natives of the rooftops are dancing around brandishing their brushes, Admiral Boom spies them from the next roof over. His world is definitely not of theirs, separate and immaculate, an image of British naval efficiency. He calls “They’re being attacked by hottentots! Give them what for! Teach the beggars a lesson!” The imperial fire-power turns out to be fireworks (a chinese import) stuffed into “the long six-inch guns” and as soon as they start “shelling the bush” the sweeps scatter in panic

and we’re treated to wide angle shots of “vague forms of men running bent double, leaping, gliding, distinct... as if the forest that had ejected these beings so suddenly had drawn them in again”. (1, 4) 


The natives all dance into the Banks house which has become a melting-pot for the differing ideals of Empire. The maid is swept up in the rhythmic dance and when she next whirls into shot there’s perfect black handprint on her previously white apron, a sign that the household itself is being tainted with the marks of imperialism. With Mary Poppins’ influence the previously distinct ideas of empire, abroad and at home, are becoming indistinct. Despite this she gives the word and all the sweeps file out, amongst them is Michael, with his blackened face and chimney-sweep’s hat. Mr. Banks grabs him and Michael says “Good luck guv’nor!” he has ‘gone native’ both in appearance and language. (1)

In the end Mr. Banks allows himself to be educated by the colonial influence. He grasps the language (Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious), he loses his position in the imperial world of finance and turns to correcting his position as “liege” in the home. The song “Let’s go Fly a Kite” refers to a preferable state of freedom, where the characters can feel the wind in the sails of the British fleet, while keeping

their feet firmly on English soil. This becomes more poignant as, having secured his position and his home empire, Mr. Banks is taken back into the world of imperial finance and promoted: a metaphor for the supposed British notion that once the natives could be trusted to rule themselves, the British would leave them to it and work with them on an equal basis. Having thus succeeded, Mary Poppins takes her leave. The final conversation between Poppins and the parrot-shaped handle of her umbrella is full of the noble pathos of a colonial leaving a colony to independent rule:

“That’s gratitude for you! Didn’t even say goodbye... they think more of their father than they do of you.”
“That’s as it should be... practically perfect people never permit sentiment to muddle their feeling."

She is feeling “the silent pain, almost agony that people feel at the knowledge that they might not be indispensable after all”. Poppins leaves quietly, setting sail westward, her task complete - at least in Cherry Tree Lane. Mr. Banks’ red carnation is placed back in his lapel, and he is allowed, once more, to hold the (purse) strings of the “Ocean Greyhounds” flying across the empire. (1, 7)

Primary Source:1. Mary Poppins (Dir. Robert Stevenson 1964) Walt Disney Productions
Secondary Sources:

2. Achebe, Chinua Things Fall Apart: Penguin Red Classic (2006)

3. “The African Writer and the English Language” (Chrisman &Williams, Colonial Discourse)

4. Conrad, Joseph Heart of Darkness: A Bantam Classic (1963)
5. Forster, E.M. A Passage to India: Penguin Classics (2005)
6. Rhys, Jean Wide Sargasso Sea: Penguin Essentials (2011) 
7. Wa Thiong’o, Ngugi A Grain of Wheat: Penguin Modern Classics (2002)