The Wonderful World of Historical Revisionism: Walt Disney, Mary Poppins and Saving Mr. Banks

If you went midsummer, it's possible you didn't. They tend to have fewer characters just roaming, so you've got to stand in line to meet them. Especially fur characters (the full body costumes), which present health concerns in the heat.

I think the movie was about as accurate as the Disney company would have realistically allowed it to be. Because let's be real, the Disney company is never going to release a movie that paints them in too negative of a light. If there was to be a movie that showed the more nasty interactions between Walt Disney and P.L. Travers, it would have to be produced by a different studio. That being said, I really liked Saving Mr. Banks. Despite some of its inaccuracies, I thought it was a neat look into the negotiations that have to take place when making a movie. That's something you don't see a — the business aspect of filmmaking. And Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks were terrific.

Josh Janney

The socialism, for lack of a better word, in the movie is not unique to this Disney endeavor. Pirates of the Caribbean 3 has some interesting things to say about mastery of skills and finance, and Newsies is straight up pro-union which is shocking for a Disney film. If you ever feel like exploring that (or indeed the hour long one that includes confederate monuments), I'll be there popcorn in hand.

Fabrisse ter Brugghe

Honestly, this one did originally have a rabbit hole about confederate monuments, but I realized that I didn't have time to dedicate to that issue (plus it would end up taking away the focus from Disney) so I decided to save that one for Another Day.™

Lindsay Ellis

I'm sure you've probably heard of / seen Escape from Tomorrow (2013). While it isn't a great film, it appropriates Disney in a manner unique to other appropriations. It would be interesting to deconstruct that, as well as Disney's response.

Mary Dutterer

That was a great viewing. Always so stoked about your way of reflecting on pop culture! As a person who actually works in Disney comics, this was a video that I enjoyed thoroughly, as in the last years I've reflected a lot about the Disney ways of portraying characters and plots as I dealt with the scripts of the pages I drew for them. One realizes the "good" and the "bad" of it all, and the parts you touched about here were parts that I was thinking about too, so I was very moved by this one =) Thanks for your videos, I don't think there has been any that I haven't enjoyed!

Lindsey, if you want to make an hour long video with real-world examples of historical revisionism, then I would in NO WAY BE OPPOSED. You could probably make a six-hour mini-series about any subject that interested you and I'd still love it.

Yes, quite extensively. .

Lindsay Ellis

There is another piece of historical revisionism here. Travers wasn't English, she was Australian. Does the film cover this?

i don't know whether i'm more impressed or disappointed that I didn't spot any Yondu appearances...

Peter McDevitt

Thank you for pointing all this out - I should have clarified (as well as tied in, as is mentioned in Mr. Banks) that Disney changed a LOT of the source material because middle class 1960's American families would have a hard time relating to a middle class English Edwardian (i.e. the scene of "why are you making Mrs. Banks a silly suffragette?"), so the socialism curious nature of Poppins is not only incidental, but created by Disney. That said because this project is to be updated (owing to my travel computer not cooperating with footage I shot on my phone) I CAN add that in, so thank you, Nicole. :)

Lindsay Ellis

Did you go to Disneyland just for the sake of those video shots because this video was about Walt Disney, or a convenient coincidence that you took advantage of?

Will Park

God, this video was wonderful!!! I really enjoyed it.

Kathrin Shawcross

I think I've heard people say that her relationship with her son wasn't... great. I kind of assumed that was what the "not really" line was about.

A. M.

I know this is only tangential to your main point, but I'm surprised you didn't mention at all that the movie pretty radically straight-washes P.L. Travers, even erasing her adopted son into her "not really" having children. Or do I have to check my sources on that? It has been a few years (i.e. since the movie came out) since I read up on the topic.

TalysAlankil

I was just at Disney this summer (for the first time in my life, though I am 51 now), and though I recognize all of what you say, and remember "Saving Mr. Banks" (which I have not yet seen), I still did not know that "Mary Poppins" was a Disney movie! How could I not know that? For me it has always been a Julie Andrews movie - tied together with "The Sound of Music" in my mind, both beloved childhood movies. But I must have seen Mary at the park (I cannot remember seeing any of the princesses, nor Mickey, but I must have? Mustn't I?)

Eric Riley

Funny enough I rewatched Anastasia last week. I don't think it quite holds up as well as Saving Mr Banks, if we were to talk about historical revisionism in films especially when you actually do some Russian history in school or university. It's still beautifully animated and the songs hold up among my childhood favourites, and I think that it is better than Pocahontas. Even if it takes some jabs at the Soviet Government, which were justified given this was Stalin's USSR.

I wrote about a similar thing in the thesis I just submitted on mermaid stories -- the pressure to conform to the real world on stories with fantastic elements (looking at three forgotten early 20th century mermaid texts in particular), and how there was a push-and-pull between a desire to delight and enchant with magic, and another to provide explanations for how fantastic things worked and still conform with reality (in this case physical laws, rather than historical accuracy, but still a pressure for things to be "real"). There was a lot of satire and self-reflexivity in those texts too. I had a moment of empathy when I thought re:loose canon, when I thought of all the stuff I had to leave out of this thing in order to make my argument cohere, and here I am with 25,000 words to play with.

Also does this mean your Disney vacation is eligible as a tax rideoff?

Timothy Morrise

One of my favorite elements of this is the integration of the Disney Parks as a live element with the points about consumerism.

Timothy Morrise

After watching SMB with my family I made the mistake of looking up P L Travers on wikipedia... a moment only rivaled my the A level history lesson when I found out what actually happened to Anastesia. Its a grim world.

Grace Curtis

Walt is just a creative... Also possibly autistic. Would not surprise me if he had aspergers, knowing about how obsessive and controlling he was.

Jennifer Miller

I broke down at the little girl and Mary Poppins.

Jennifer Miller

Another great video from my favourite video essayist. Eagerly anticipating the next one.

Kind of wanted to see you narrating this with a different drink at a different country in Epcot the whole video lol.

I think it's interesting that you mention Saludos Amigos/Three Caballeros as being "vaguely" South American considering the research that went into those films. That's not to say that they are in any way authentic to the experience of people who live there or not culturally appropriative (since they are basically propaganda films), but they at least do have segments that focus on individual countries, rather than presenting a pan-South American or Latino identity. If you haven't seen the documentary Walt and El Grupo, it provides an account of Walt + his animators' trip to South America (though speaking of historical revisionism, it's produced by Disney, so it presents a certain narrative of Walt). But that was a great video! An interesting topic and very well done!!

Samantha Cornelius

AND THE BANK RUN WASN'T EVEN IN THE BOOKS! It isn't "why Disney picked a project that was socialism-curious," it's "why that scene got added in." I mean, obvs, you need an antagonist, and, as you noted, the dad who spends too much time at work is a pretty easy target. (Not that it's just the father, in this case. Mrs. Banks gives up her dream of women's suffrage to spend more time parenting. Which is also not in the books.) The framing device for the original story is about a just-barely-middle-class family who has a child each year, except for the year they have twins, and is trying to hold it all together. (Enter Poppins. Also yes there are five Banks children, which seems like a missed opportunity for Disney to use more adorable child actors.) Which means that the central conceit of Saving Mr. Banks, which is that both Disney and Travers are using the Poppins story to center and solve their emotional relationships with their fathers, is the ultimate revision. At best, Disney was taking the British parenting customs of the 1930s, i.e. "have a nanny even if you can barely afford one because that is what middle-class people do (and also because childcare is labor-intensive)," and rewriting them as the American parenting ideal of the 1960s, e.g. "spending time with your children should be the most important part of your life."

Thank you. I really liked this film when it came out, and knowing the real story of PL Travis and her relationship with the Disney corporation didn't hinder my enjoyment of it.

Chelsea Monk

Excellent as per usual, Lindsay. I must say that I am quite enjoying your recent treatise on the Disney brand.