This volume examines Mary Poppins as a 1960s film reflecting and
invested in its radically changing times, a largely but not
unmitigatedly antiestablishment musical resonant with conditions and
issues powerfully affecting baby boomers.
Among the explosion of baby boomer films that rocked the 1960s, the most
stirring early work was likely Mary Poppins. This 1964 film captivated
young audiences, earning top-grossing ticket sales, multiple Oscars, and
landmark status as a cultural phenomenon. The book illuminates Mary
Poppins as a musical teeming with preoccupations of American youth in
the early-to-mid-1960s, including antiestablishment desires, anxieties,
and pleasures. Reading against the dominant grain, this book deciphers
Mary Poppins as a mid-century reflection that spans the generation
gap, dysfunctional nuclear family, youth unrest, activism including
feminist advocacy, counterculturalism, capitalist imperialism, race
relations, socially conscious music, and hallucinogenic consciousness
expansion. Conjunctively, the book explores tensions inherent in this
studio production as a mainstream Disney release evoking imperatives of
1960s American youth while sanitizing figures and values representing
radical change. Further, examining the film's collective authorship,
this volume traces Mary Poppins' origins in the writings and life of
nonconformist author P.L. Travers as well as in Disney cinema and the
studio's adaptation processes. Analysis extends to diverse facets of
Mary Poppins' reception, including the shifting image of its star,
Julie Andrews, the film's influence on popular culture and controversy
among some as an adaptation, its appropriation by drug culture,
association with the teenpic, and status as cinema of social
consciousness.
This book is ideal for students, researchers, and scholars of cinema
studies and youth culture.
