Mrs. Banks and the Problematic Tail
Mary Poppins. It's one of my favourite things ever put on film. But every time I watch it (which is a lot, our daughter loves it) the problem of Mrs. Banks (Glynis Johns) and the kite tail leaves me troubled. Let me explain.
Mr. Banks (David Tomlinson) is a typical Edwardian patriarch. Aloof, fond of order, disdainful of frivolity. He's introduced with the song The Life I Lead.
It's a neat summation of his character, ("Tradition, discipline, and rules must be the tools") and an important statement of one of the film's key subtexts.
"It's grand to be an Englishman in 1910, King Edward's on the throne; It's the age of men", he sings. But this "age of men", this calcified world that makes Mr. Banks feel like "a king astride his noble steed", is under threat. From the suffragettism of Mrs. Banks and from the "Disorder! Catastrophe! Anarchy!" of Mary Poppins (the trickster who has arrived to create a new order out of chaos).
Ultimately, of course, Mr. Banks rejects this world of men and embraces the world of "frivolity" and imagination he previously despised. Telling the ancient Mr. Dawes Snr (Dick Van Dyke), "Do you know what there's no such thing as? It turns out, with due respect, when all is said and done, that there's no such thing as you!", before dashing home to fly a kite with his family. To "soften" what would have been too radical an ending for Disney, he gets readmitted as a partner at the end – albeit on slightly changed terms.
But let's return to the kite. As the family sets out to fly the kite Mrs. Banks says:
A proper kite needs a proper tail, don't you think?
She pops into a closet and pulls out…her "Votes for Women" sash. It's tied to the bottom of the kite and sent soaring "up where the air is clear". Now, how are we supposed to read this? Earlier in the film she tells the maid (Ellen) to hide her sash away, saying "You know how the cause infuriates Mr. Banks".
Now it has re-emerged and is on very public display. So…is this an expression of the new-found freedom she has to openly articulate her politics? A sign that her politics can be integrated into the new family order Poppins has helped create?
Or, is this, instead, her way of saying goodbye to such activities? Is she letting go of the sash? Is she surrendering it? Will she now be a parent first and everything else a distant second?
Over to you readers. Go!
November 6, 2012
6 responses to Mrs. Banks and the Problematic Tail
Always saw it as her feeling more free to embrace the cause. No longer needing to hide the sash from her husband. She attaches to the kite, where it will fly, for all to see (as you pointed out yourself, “up where the air is clear”, away from the smog of London, where it might be choked and almost invisible from the smoke which plays its own part throughout the film).
George Banks spends most of the movie as a tyrannical bully. aggressive towards his wife, kids and servants. Unable to stand up to him directly Mrs. Banks could possibly be using the suffragette movement as a means of attacking the system George is very much a part of. Pulling the proverbial rug out from under his feet. Biding her time and conducting her actions in secret. Eventually her moment comes in the form of George’s catastrophic mental collapse upon losing his job. Humiliated by the system he toiled for. She parades him in front of his ex co-workers and neighbours. Hysterical, dishevelled, broken and waving a kite for women’s rights in the park.
Wait, wait, wait! Kites are on strings! It’s going to come back to them, surely? So she’s not giving up her liberation, just flying her flag freely. I choose to go with this reading
Mr Dawes Snr is also Dick Van Dyke? Holy Crap! I had no idea!
I always saw her as a “Fashion Feminist” driven more out of an innate boredom with her life and a need to be seen by her peers to be involved in something/anything rather than having any real desire for social change.
Not only this, her “lady of leisure” lifestyle is enforced with the outsourcing of parental responsibility to a “team” of helpers which only serves copper-fasten her involvement in these social engagements.
I used to love this film until now, until you went and politicized it that is. What’s next, Toy Story? I need to find a quiet place to have a sob!
One of the reasons Mary Poppins was hired was to liberate the parents to follow their ideologies while she looks after the children.
My reading is that the bank is patriarchal (Mr Banks is subject of and to patriarchal ideologies), the sash matriarchal and the kite symbolic of children. When the kite and the sash are together, the family fly the kite, both matriarchal and patriarchal symbolism are subverted and thus highlights the importance of family values.
@bren – That was (as soon as I was old enough to consider it) my initial reading.
@tucker – I’m not sure Mrs. B is as dedicated to the destruction and humiliation of George as all that! Besides, his state of “broken-ness” at the end is clearly meant to be read as a rebirth. Happy ending. Happy.
@Jo – Goof point. It’s not as if she chucked it on the fire. Plus, as someone else points out, she has other sashes.
@Stephen – Don’t know if I agree. Such “outsourcing” would hardly have been unusual among the Edwardian professional classes. We don’t have much to go on, but based on Sister Suffragette etc I think we can give her some credit for genuine devotion to the cause.
@Dulach – The reunification of the family (with a common focus and purpose) is, of course, an important theme (and a very Disney one). But is she surrendering her ideology or actually integrating it into this new family dynaimic?