Sunday, September 30, 2012

Mary Poppins explains capitalism

One of the benefits of having kids is that you get to watch all the old classics again.

Should your kids ever want you to explain how the global financial system operates all you need to do is show them Mary Poppins. Here is young Michael, who only wants to spend the tuppence he has saved up to feed the starving pigeons outside St Paul's Cathedral. His father, who works at the bank, won't let him and instead insists that he invest it ... which is overheard by the chairman of the bank ...


8 comments:

  1. nice...I have Mary Poppins on vhs, but I haven't watched it with my son. He's watched it with his mom before. Musicals have to be top notch musically or I can't abide. That is, if you don't like the music in a musical, it can be pretty hard to enjoy watching it.

    Might give her a try and see what happens. It's been since I was a young child myself since I watched Mary Poppins.

    This clip is hilarious. Stealing tuppence from a child and not noticing the bank run...perfect.

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    1. MP is really quite subversive. It's basically a story about a white witch, or maybe even a supernatural goddess, who intervenes in a tragic family situation in which the love-starved children are being held hostage by a father who has lost his soul to imperialist capitalism.

      She takes the kids through the doors of perception into a hallucinogenic world and dissolves the father's psychic power over the family by forcing him to undertake a transformative test (getting fired) thus melting his perceptions in the process. Numerous sprites are conjured (the chimney sweeps) and the father experiences an epiphany and everyone is raised to a higher level of consciousness.

      With singing and dancing.

      You son will love it, once you get past the first 20 minutes in which 'nothing happens' (according to my kids who have been raised to expect an adrenaline rush from the first minute).

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  2. Mary Poppins seems to be the classic that draws the most ire for Americans (Dick Van Dyke) poorly immitating British accents. I have had several people tell me that it drives them to distraction. I of course, don't really know any difference.

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    1. I quickly decided that the Dick Van Dyke character was an immigrant from some island in the mid-Atlantic where they speak with a mixed American/English/Irish/Welsh/Cockney brogue. More distracting is the father figure's seemingly upside down mustache ...

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  3. I just watched MP the other day and my jaw dropped when it got to that scene. OMG I exclaimed, they just described Capitalism! Loved your explanation of the magic of the movie. Nice how she wields an umbrella that's both broom and familiar!

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    1. Yes - apparently P.L. Travers (who wrote the books) knew her way pretty well around mythology and would do things like living with the Hopi Indians. Of course, Disney shafted her and her stories and she wasn't even invited to the film première.

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  4. so like my last blog was synchronistic for you...this was actually the start of some crazy synchronicity for me. Seconds after I posted my first comment I opened up a box that had been sitting in my garage for months. The box was mailed to me from my mother in California...part of her operation mail all of the shit that she kept from my child hood to me to make room in her garage.

    At any rate, I opened the box up and there was a copy of Mary Poppins on VHS. Also in the box was a Mary Poppins lunch box that belonged to my recently deceased grandmother. Inside of the lunch box my mother had placed my four favorite G.I. Joes from my child hood.

    I don't know wtf is with Mary Poppins but that's kinda freaky. We must be riding the same wave.

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