The chimney sweep dance in “Mary Poppins,” led by Dick van Dyk’s likeable all-rounder Burt, is reminiscent of typical blackface motifs, claims a scientist.

Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a professor of English and gender studies at Linfield College in Oregon, explained in a New York Times article that the sequence in PL Travers' book meant “race panic.”

Pollack-Pelzner simply refers to the scene as “blacking up,” and while this may seem harmless, it has other, more disturbing connotations.

“This might seem like a harmless comic scene if Travers' novels did not associate the chimney sweeps' blackened faces with racist caricatures,” he writes.

“'Don't touch me, you black heathen,' cries a maid in Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943), as a house broom extends its dark hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to stop: 'If that Hottentot goes into the fireplace, I'm going out the door,' she says, using an archaic insult for black South Africans that recurs in book and screen.

“The 1964 film re-enacts this racial panic in absurd fashion. As the dark figures of the chimney sweeps step onto a roof in time, a naval buffoon, Admiral Boom, shouts 'We are being attacked by Hottentots!' and orders his cannon to be fired at the 'insolent devils.'”

“We're in on the joke for what it is: these aren't real black Africans, but grinning white dancers with blackened faces. It's a parody of the black threat; it was even posted on a white nationalist website as evidence of the film's racial hierarchy. And it's not just fools like the Admiral who use this language. In the 1952 novel Mary Poppins in the Park, the nanny herself says to an exasperated young Michael, 'I understand you're acting like a Hottentot.'”

Pollack-Pelzner also pointed to other examples of archaic, racially charged language in Travers' Poppins books, which in one case even led to her books being banned from the San Francisco Public Library in the early 1980s.

Travers later rewrote the chapters in a revised edition of the book, in which Poppins, Jane and Michael Banks are abducted to a South Sea island, where the nanny uses the offensive phrase “pickaninny” and speaks in a racially charged South American dialect.

However, she later said that this was “not an apology for anything I have written, the reason is much simpler: I don't want to see Mary Poppins hidden in a closet.”

Disney has not yet commented on the matter.

But in an online post after the Times article was published, Pollack-Pelzner explained: “The main reason I wrote this article was in the hope that a Disney executive would read it, take another look at the upcoming Dumbo remake and ask if there was anything in it that was even the slightest bit racist that he should perhaps reconsider before it goes on the screen.”

“After writing this article and receiving tons of hate mail in response, I learned one thing about the alt-right: Mary Poppins definitely suits them very well!”

Read more
Duncan Jones criticizes David Bowie film
Russell Crowe transforms into Roger Ailes
Zombieland 2 first poster

The post ‘Mary Poppins’ chimney sweep ‘blackface’ dance is racist, claims tutorial appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Mary Poppins (Source: Disney)

The chimney sweep dance in “Mary Poppins,” led by Dick van Dyk’s likeable all-rounder Burt, is reminiscent of typical blackface motifs, claims a scientist.

Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a professor of English and gender studies at Linfield College in Oregon, explained in a New York Times article that the sequence in PL Travers' book meant “race panic.”

Pollack-Pelzner simply refers to the scene as “blacking up,” and while this may seem harmless, it has other, more disturbing connotations.

“This might seem like a harmless comic scene if Travers' novels did not associate the chimney sweeps' blackened faces with racist caricatures,” he writes.

“'Don't touch me, you black heathen,' cries a maid in Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943) as a house broom extends its dark hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to stop: 'If that Hottentot goes into the fireplace, I'm going out the door,' she says, using an archaic insult for black South Africans that recurs in book and screen.

“The 1964 film re-enacts this racial panic in absurd fashion. As the dark figures of the chimney sweeps step onto a roof in time, a naval buffoon, Admiral Boom, shouts 'We are being attacked by Hottentots!' and orders his cannon to be fired at the 'insolent devils.'”

“We're in on the joke for what it is: these aren't real black Africans, but grinning white dancers with blackened faces. It's a parody of the black threat; it was even posted on a white nationalist website as evidence of the film's racial hierarchy. And it's not just fools like the Admiral who use this language. In the 1952 novel Mary Poppins in the Park, the nanny herself says to an exasperated young Michael, 'I understand you're acting like a Hottentot.'”

Pollack-Pelzner also pointed to other examples of archaic, racially charged language in Travers' Poppins books, which in one case even led to her books being banned from the San Francisco Public Library in the early 1980s.

Travers later rewrote the chapters in a revised edition of the book, in which Poppins, Jane and Michael Banks are abducted to a South Sea island, where the nanny uses the offensive phrase “pickaninny” and speaks in a racially charged South American dialect.

The story goes on

However, she later said that this was “not an apology for anything I have written, the reason is much simpler: I don't want to see Mary Poppins hidden in a closet.”

Disney has not yet commented on the matter.

But in an online post after the Times article was published, Pollack-Pelzner explained: “The main reason I wrote this article was in the hope that a Disney executive would read it, take another look at the upcoming Dumbo remake and ask if there was anything in it that was even the slightest bit racist that he should perhaps reconsider before it goes on the screen.”

“After writing this article and receiving tons of hate mail in response, I learned one thing about the alt-right: Mary Poppins definitely suits them very well!”

Read more
Duncan Jones criticizes David Bowie film
Russell Crowe transforms into Roger Ailes
Zombieland 2 first poster

The post ‘Mary Poppins’ chimney sweep ‘blackface’ dance is racist, claims tutorial appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The chimney sweep dance in Mary Poppins, led by Dick van Dyk's affable jack-of-all-trades Burt, is reminiscent of blackface themes, one academic has claimed.

In an article in the New York Times, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a professor of English and gender studies at Linfield College in Oregon, said that the sequence in PL Travers' book means “racial panic.”

Pollack-Pelzner simply calls the scene “blackout,” and while it may seem harmless, it has other, more disturbing connotations.

“This might seem like a harmless comic scene if Travers' novels did not associate the blackened faces of chimney sweeps with racist caricatures,” he writes.

“'Don't touch me, you black heathen,' screams a maid in Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943) as a sweep extends his dark hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to stop: “If that Hottentot goes down the chimney, I'm going out the door,” she says, using an archaic insult to black South Africans that appears repeatedly on page and screen occurs.

“The 1964 film recreates this racial panic in an absurd tone. As the dark figures of the chimney sweeps step onto a roof in rhythm, a naval idiot, Admiral Boom, shouts: “We are being attacked by Hottentots!” and orders his cannon to be fired at the “insolent devils”.

“We’re in on the joke such as it is: These aren’t really black Africans; They are grinning white dancers in blackface. It's a parody of The Black Menace; It is even posted on a white nationalist website as evidence of the film's racial hierarchy. And it's not just fools like the Admiral who invoke this language. In the 1952 novel “Mary Poppins in the Park,” the nanny herself says to the upset young Michael, “I understand that you are behaving like a Hottentot.”

Pollack-Pelzner has also pointed out other examples of archaic, racially charged language in Travers' Poppins books, in one case her books were actually banned from the San Francisco Public Library in the early 1980s.

Travers later rewrote the chapters in a revised edition of the book, in which Poppins, Jane, and Michael Banks are transported to a South Seas island, where the nanny uses the offensive phrase “pickaninny” and speaks in a racially charged South American dialect.

However, she later said she “didn't do this as an apology for anything I've written, the reason is much simpler: I don't want to see Mary Poppins hidden in a closet.”

Disney has not yet commented on the matter.

However, after the Times article was published, Pollack-Pelzner posted online: “The main reason I wrote this article was in the hope that a Disney executive would read it, take another look at the upcoming Dumbo remake and ask “If it was there.” If it was all a bit racist, maybe they should think again before it hits the big screen.

“One thing I learned about the alt-right after writing this article and receiving countless hate messages in response: They really like Mary Poppins!”

Read more
Duncan Jones hits David Bowie film
Russell Crowe turns into Roger Ailes
First poster for Zombieland 2

The post ‘Mary Poppins’ chimney sweep ‘blackface’ dance is racist, claims educational appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Mary Poppins (Source: Disney)

The chimney sweep dance in Mary Poppins, led by Dick van Dyk's affable jack-of-all-trades Burt, is reminiscent of blackface themes, one academic has claimed.

In an article in the New York Times, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a professor of English and gender studies at Linfield College in Oregon, said that the sequence in PL Travers' book means “racial panic.”

Pollack-Pelzner simply calls the scene “blackout,” and while it may seem harmless, it has other, more disturbing connotations.

“This might seem like a harmless comic scene if Travers' novels did not associate the blackened faces of chimney sweeps with racist caricatures,” he writes.

“'Don't touch me, you black heathen,' screams a maid in Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943) as a sweep extends his dark hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to stop: “If that Hottentot goes down the chimney, I'm going out the door,” she says, using an archaic slur for black South Africans that appears repeatedly on page and screen occurs.

“The 1964 film recreates this racial panic in a bizarre tone. When the dark figures of the chimney sweeps appear in time on a roof, Admiral Boom, a naval fool, shouts: “We are being attacked by Hottentots!” and orders his cannon to be fired at the “insolent devils”.

“We’re in on the joke such as it is: These aren’t really black Africans; They are grinning white dancers in blackface. It's a parody of The Black Menace; It is even posted on a white nationalist website as evidence of the film's racial hierarchy. And it's not just fools like the Admiral who invoke this language. In the 1952 novel “Mary Poppins in the Park,” the nanny herself says to the upset young Michael, “I understand that you are behaving like a Hottentot.”

Pollack-Pelzner has also pointed out other examples of archaic, racially charged language in Travers' Poppins books, in one case her books were actually banned from the San Francisco Public Library in the early 1980s.

Travers later rewrote the chapters in a revised edition of the book, in which Poppins, Jane, and Michael Banks are transported to a South Seas island, where the nanny uses the offensive term “pickaninny” and speaks in a racially charged South American dialect.

The story goes on

However, she later said she “didn't do this as an apology for anything I've written, the reason is much simpler: I don't want to see Mary Poppins hidden in a closet.”

Disney has not yet commented on the matter.

However, after the Times article was published, Pollack-Pelzner posted online: “The main reason I wrote this article was in the hope that a Disney executive would read it, take another look at the upcoming Dumbo remake and ask “If it was there.” If it was all a bit racist, maybe they should think again before it hits the big screen.

“One thing I learned about the alt-right after writing this article and receiving countless hate messages in response: They really like Mary Poppins!”

Read more
Duncan Jones hits David Bowie film
Russell Crowe turns into Roger Ailes
First poster for Zombieland 2

The post ‘Mary Poppins’ chimney sweep ‘blackface’ dance is racist, claims educational appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Mary Poppins (Credit: Disney)

The chimney sweep dance in Mary Poppins, led by Dick van Dyk’s affable jack-of-all-trades Burt, harks back to ‘blackface’ tropes, an academic has claimed.

In an article in the New York Times, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a professor of English and gender studies professor at Oregon’s Linfield College, has said that in the book by PL Travers, the sequence signifies ‘racial panic’.

Pollack-Pelzner flatly calls the scene ‘blacking up’, and while it may seem innocuous, it has other more troubling connotations.

“This might seem like an innocuous comic scene if Travers’s novels didn’t associate chimney sweeps’ blackened faces with racial caricature,” he writes.

“’Don’t touch me, you black heathen,’ a housemaid screams in Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943), as a sweep reaches out his darkened hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to quit: ‘If that Hottentot goes into the chimney, I shall go out the door,’ she says, using an archaic slur for black South Africans that recurs on page and screen.

“The 1964 film replays this racial panic in a farcical key. When the dark figures of the chimney sweeps step in time on a roof, a naval buffoon, Admiral Boom, shouts, ‘We’re being attacked by Hottentots!’ and orders his cannon to be fired at the ‘cheeky devils.’

“We’re in on the joke, such as it is: These aren’t really black Africans; they’re grinning white dancers in blackface. It’s a parody of black menace; it’s even posted on a white nationalist website as evidence of the film’s racial hierarchy. And it’s not only fools like the Admiral who invoke this language. In the 1952 novel Mary Poppins in the Park, the nanny herself tells an upset young Michael, ‘I understand that you’re behaving like a Hottentot.’”

Pollack-Pelzner has also pointed to other instances of archaic, racially-loaded language in Travers’ Poppins books, which in once instance actually saw her books banned from the San Francisco Public Library in the early 80s.

Travers later re-wrote the chapters in a revised edition of the book, in which Poppins and Jane and Michael Banks are transported to a South Sea Island, where the nanny uses the offensive phrase ‘pickaninny’ and speaks in a racially charged southern American dialect.

Story continues

However, she later said that she did so ‘not as an apology for anything I have written, the reason is much more simple: I do not wish to see Mary Poppins tucked away in a closet’.

Disney is yet to comment on the matter.

But posting online after the publishing of the piece in the Times, Pollack-Pelzner said: “The chief reason I wrote this article was the hope that a Disney exec would read it, take another look at the forthcoming Dumbo remake, and ask if there was anything just a little bit racist they might want to rethink before it hits the big screen.

“Here’s one thing I’ve learned about the alt-right, after I wrote this article and received a zillion hate messages in response: they sure like Mary Poppins!”

Read more
Duncan Jones hits out at David Bowie movie
Russell Crowe transforms into Roger Ailes
Zombieland 2 first poster

The post ‘Mary Poppins’ chimney sweep ‘blackface’ dance is racist, claims tutorial appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Claim:

Dr. Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a professor of English literature at Linfield College, wrote an opinion column published in January 2019, in which he described elements of the 1964 film “Mary Poppins” as racist.

Rating:

In February 2019, news websites in the United States and throughout the world reported that a relatively little-known English professor in the Pacific Northwest had “branded” Disney’s classic children’s film Mary Poppins as racist. The London Evening Standard, for exaple, reported:

“The classic family film ‘Mary Poppins’ has been branded racist by a US academic who accuses Dame Julie Andrews of ‘blacking up’ with soot while dancing with chimney sweeps. In a piece for the New York Times, Professor Daniel Pollack-Pelzner criticises one of the film’s iconic moments, when Mary Poppins joins Dick Van Dyke’s Bert to dance on a rooftop for the classic song ‘Step in Time.'”

Similarly, the UK-based Metro news website wrote:

“Classic Disney film Mary Poppins has been branded ‘racist’ by a university professor who believes the scene with Mary and Bert dancing with the chimney sweeps features blackface. In the 1964 film, Mary and Bert take Jane and Michael on an all-singing and dancing tour of London with Bert’s pals that begins with them flying up through the chimney. Famously, they become covered in soot and in a now infamous scene, Mary attempts to wipe it off only to discover that she has made it worse, and so owns the soot and adds more to her nose and cheeks. However Professor Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, an English and gender studies professor at Oregon’s Linfield College, has now suggested that the scene in question is a reference to the original PL Travers books which associated chimney sweeps’ blackened faces with racial caricatures.”

That characterization of the much-loved movie prompted a bemused and even outraged response from some commentators, as well as enquiries from Snopes readers about the authenticity of Pollack-Pelzner’s opinion column. One reader asked, “Is this real or satire? It feels crazy to me …” while another wrote, “Please tell me it’s a hoax!”

The opinion piece was indeed written by a professor of English literature at Linfield College, a small private college in McMinnville, Oregon. Pollack-Pelzner’s controversial column was published in the New York Times on 28 January 2019 and was a straightforward effort (i.e., not intended to be satirical or humorous).

In that column, Pollack-Pelzner pointed to the thread of questionable racial imagery and stereotypes that run through the series of Mary Poppins books authored by Pamela Lyndon Travers and the classic 1964 film version, arguing that traces of that troubling material are echoed in the 2018 film sequel Mary Poppins Returns:

“Mary Poppins Returns,” which picked up four Oscar nominations, is an enjoyably derivative film that seeks to inspire our nostalgia for the innocent fantasies of childhood, as well as the jolly holidays that the first “Mary Poppins” film conjured for many adult viewers. Part of the new film’s nostalgia, however, is bound up in a blackface performance tradition that persists throughout the Mary Poppins canon, from P. L. Travers’s books to Disney’s 1964 adaptation, with disturbing echoes in the studio’s newest take on the material, ‘Mary Poppins Returns.’

One of the more indelible images from the 1964 film is of Mary Poppins blacking up. When the magical nanny (played by Julie Andrews) accompanies her young charges, Michael and Jane Banks, up their chimney, her face gets covered in soot, but instead of wiping it off, she gamely powders her nose and cheeks even blacker. Then she leads the children on a dancing exploration of London rooftops with Dick Van Dyke’s sooty chimney sweep, Bert.

This might seem like an innocuous comic scene if Travers’s novels didn’t associate chimney sweeps’ blackened faces with racial caricature. “Don’t touch me, you black heathen,” a housemaid screams in “Mary Poppins Opens the Door” (1943), as a sweep reaches out his darkened hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to quit: “If that Hottentot goes into the chimney, I shall go out the door,” she says, using an archaic slur for black South Africans that recurs on page and screen.

The 1964 film replays this racial panic in a farcical key. When the dark figures of the chimney sweeps step in time on a roof, a naval buffoon, Admiral Boom, shouts, “We’re being attacked by Hottentots!” and orders his cannon to be fired at the “cheeky devils” [see below]. We’re in on the joke, such as it is: These aren’t really black Africans; they’re grinning white dancers in blackface. It’s a parody of black menace; it’s even posted on a white nationalist website as evidence of the film’s racial hierarchy. And it’s not only fools like the Admiral who invoke this language. In the 1952 novel “Mary Poppins in the Park,” the nanny herself tells an upset young Michael, “I understand that you’re behaving like a Hottentot.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I-b_GJ4ltk

Pollack-Pelzner, who studied history and English at Yale and Harvard, is an academic expert in Shakespearean adaptations but has also contributed cultural criticism and theater reviews for major publications including the New Yorker and the Atlantic Monthly.

The post Did a Faculty Professor Label the Movie ‘Mary Poppins’ Racist? appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Elon Musk’s electric car company Tesla allowed racial harassment of its Black employees to run rampant at its Fremont, Calif., plant and retaliated against some workers who complained, the federal agency charged with enforcing civil rights laws alleged in a lawsuit Thursday.

Black employees routinely faced racial slurs, including variations of the N-word, at the Fremont site, according to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and graffiti depicting nooses, swastikas and more were casually drawn across the facility’s public spaces. Tesla did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The lawsuit is the latest in a series of allegations blasting the billionaire’s workplace environments — the Justice Department sued SpaceX, also owned by Musk, last month, alleging the company discriminated against refugees and asylum seekers in its hiring process. Half a dozen women sued Tesla in 2021, arguing that the company fostered a culture of sexual harassment. That same year, a federal court in California ordered Tesla to pay nearly $137 million in damages after an employee said they encountered racist abuse at Tesla’s Fremont site. The Fremont plant faced scrutiny again last year, when the state’s workplace regulator sued Tesla over similar claims of racial discrimination and harassment.

According to the EEOC’s lawsuit, since at least 2015, Black employees at the Fremont facility “have routinely endured racial abuse, pervasive stereotyping, and hostility as well as epithets such as variations of the N-word, ‘monkey,’ ‘boy,’ and ‘black b*tch.’”

“Slurs were used casually and openly in high-traffic areas and at worker hubs. Black employees regularly encountered graffiti, including variations of the N-word, swastikas, threats, and nooses, on desks and other equipment, in bathroom stalls, within elevators, and even on new vehicles rolling off the production line,” the EEOC wrote in a press release announcing the suit.

The agency added that employees who objected to the hostility were terminated, transferred or had their job duties changed.

“Every employee deserves to have their civil rights respected, and no worker should endure the kind of shameful racial bigotry our investigation revealed,” EEOC Chair Charlotte Burrows said in a statement.

Tesla’s Fremont site is the company’s first manufacturing facility, and where it continues to produce the company’s Model S, Model 3, Model X and Model Y. Tesla has since grown to include facilities in Nevada, Texas, New York, Shanghai and Berlin.

The lawsuit is filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The government seeks compensatory and punitive damages, back pay for the affected workers and measures to reform Tesla’s employment practices.

“When you let a standard slip, you’ve set a new standard. Determining that prolific racial slurs do not merit serious discipline and failing to correct harassing conduct sends an entirely wrong message to employees,” said EEOC San Francisco District Office Director Nancy Sienko. “It also violates an employer’s legal responsibility to act swiftly and effectively to stop race-based harassment.”

The post Tesla sued by federal gov for racial harassment, racist graffiti, slurs appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Mary Poppins (Credit: Disney)

The chimney sweep dance in Mary Poppins, led by Dick van Dyk’s affable jack-of-all-trades Burt, harks back to ‘blackface’ tropes, an academic has claimed.

In an article in the New York Times, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a professor of English and gender studies professor at Oregon’s Linfield College, has said that in the book by PL Travers, the sequence signifies ‘racial panic’.

Pollack-Pelzner flatly calls the scene ‘blacking up’, and while it may seem innocuous, it has other more troubling connotations.

“This might seem like an innocuous comic scene if Travers’s novels didn’t associate chimney sweeps’ blackened faces with racial caricature,” he writes.

“’Don’t touch me, you black heathen,’ a housemaid screams in Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943), as a sweep reaches out his darkened hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to quit: ‘If that Hottentot goes into the chimney, I shall go out the door,’ she says, using an archaic slur for black South Africans that recurs on page and screen.

“The 1964 film replays this racial panic in a farcical key. When the dark figures of the chimney sweeps step in time on a roof, a naval buffoon, Admiral Boom, shouts, ‘We’re being attacked by Hottentots!’ and orders his cannon to be fired at the ‘cheeky devils.’

“We’re in on the joke, such as it is: These aren’t really black Africans; they’re grinning white dancers in blackface. It’s a parody of black menace; it’s even posted on a white nationalist website as evidence of the film’s racial hierarchy. And it’s not only fools like the Admiral who invoke this language. In the 1952 novel Mary Poppins in the Park, the nanny herself tells an upset young Michael, ‘I understand that you’re behaving like a Hottentot.’”

Pollack-Pelzner has also pointed to other instances of archaic, racially-loaded language in Travers’ Poppins books, which in once instance actually saw her books banned from the San Francisco Public Library in the early 80s.

Travers later re-wrote the chapters in a revised edition of the book, in which Poppins and Jane and Michael Banks are transported to a South Sea Island, where the nanny uses the offensive phrase ‘pickaninny’ and speaks in a racially charged southern American dialect.

Story continues

However, she later said that she did so ‘not as an apology for anything I have written, the reason is much more simple: I do not wish to see Mary Poppins tucked away in a closet’.

Disney is yet to comment on the matter.

But posting online after the publishing of the piece in the Times, Pollack-Pelzner said: “The chief reason I wrote this article was the hope that a Disney exec would read it, take another look at the forthcoming Dumbo remake, and ask if there was anything just a little bit racist they might want to rethink before it hits the big screen.

“Here’s one thing I’ve learned about the alt-right, after I wrote this article and received a zillion hate messages in response: they sure like Mary Poppins!”

Read more
Duncan Jones hits out at David Bowie movie
Russell Crowe transforms into Roger Ailes
Zombieland 2 first poster

The post ‘Mary Poppins’ chimney sweep ‘blackface’ dance is racist, claims tutorial appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

The chimney sweep dance in Mary Poppins, led by Dick van Dyk’s affable jack-of-all-trades Burt, harks back to ‘blackface’ tropes, an academic has claimed.

In an article in the New York Times, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a professor of English and gender studies professor at Oregon’s Linfield College, has said that in the book by PL Travers, the sequence signifies ‘racial panic’.

Pollack-Pelzner flatly calls the scene ‘blacking up’, and while it may seem innocuous, it has other more troubling connotations.

“This might seem like an innocuous comic scene if Travers’s novels didn’t associate chimney sweeps’ blackened faces with racial caricature,” he writes.

“’Don’t touch me, you black heathen,’ a housemaid screams in Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943), as a sweep reaches out his darkened hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to quit: ‘If that Hottentot goes into the chimney, I shall go out the door,’ she says, using an archaic slur for black South Africans that recurs on page and screen.

“The 1964 film replays this racial panic in a farcical key. When the dark figures of the chimney sweeps step in time on a roof, a naval buffoon, Admiral Boom, shouts, ‘We’re being attacked by Hottentots!’ and orders his cannon to be fired at the ‘cheeky devils.’

“We’re in on the joke, such as it is: These aren’t really black Africans; they’re grinning white dancers in blackface. It’s a parody of black menace; it’s even posted on a white nationalist website as evidence of the film’s racial hierarchy. And it’s not only fools like the Admiral who invoke this language. In the 1952 novel Mary Poppins in the Park, the nanny herself tells an upset young Michael, ‘I understand that you’re behaving like a Hottentot.’”

Pollack-Pelzner has also pointed to other instances of archaic, racially-loaded language in Travers’ Poppins books, which in once instance actually saw her books banned from the San Francisco Public Library in the early 80s.

Travers later re-wrote the chapters in a revised edition of the book, in which Poppins and Jane and Michael Banks are transported to a South Sea Island, where the nanny uses the offensive phrase ‘pickaninny’ and speaks in a racially charged southern American dialect.

However, she later said that she did so ‘not as an apology for anything I have written, the reason is much more simple: I do not wish to see Mary Poppins tucked away in a closet’.

Disney is yet to comment on the matter.

But posting online after the publishing of the piece in the Times, Pollack-Pelzner said: “The chief reason I wrote this article was the hope that a Disney exec would read it, take another look at the forthcoming Dumbo remake, and ask if there was anything just a little bit racist they might want to rethink before it hits the big screen.

“Here’s one thing I’ve learned about the alt-right, after I wrote this article and received a zillion hate messages in response: they sure like Mary Poppins!”

Read more
Duncan Jones hits out at David Bowie movie
Russell Crowe transforms into Roger Ailes
Zombieland 2 first poster

The post ‘Mary Poppins’ chimney sweep ‘blackface’ dance is racist, claims tutorial appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Mary Poppins (Credit: Disney)

The chimney sweep dance in Mary Poppins, led by Dick van Dyk’s affable jack-of-all-trades Burt, harks back to ‘blackface’ tropes, an academic has claimed.

In an article in the New York Times, Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, a professor of English and gender studies professor at Oregon’s Linfield College, has said that in the book by PL Travers, the sequence signifies ‘racial panic’.

Pollack-Pelzner flatly calls the scene ‘blacking up’, and while it may seem innocuous, it has other more troubling connotations.

“This might seem like an innocuous comic scene if Travers’s novels didn’t associate chimney sweeps’ blackened faces with racial caricature,” he writes.

“’Don’t touch me, you black heathen,’ a housemaid screams in Mary Poppins Opens the Door (1943), as a sweep reaches out his darkened hand. When he tries to approach the cook, she threatens to quit: ‘If that Hottentot goes into the chimney, I shall go out the door,’ she says, using an archaic slur for black South Africans that recurs on page and screen.

“The 1964 film replays this racial panic in a farcical key. When the dark figures of the chimney sweeps step in time on a roof, a naval buffoon, Admiral Boom, shouts, ‘We’re being attacked by Hottentots!’ and orders his cannon to be fired at the ‘cheeky devils.’

“We’re in on the joke, such as it is: These aren’t really black Africans; they’re grinning white dancers in blackface. It’s a parody of black menace; it’s even posted on a white nationalist website as evidence of the film’s racial hierarchy. And it’s not only fools like the Admiral who invoke this language. In the 1952 novel Mary Poppins in the Park, the nanny herself tells an upset young Michael, ‘I understand that you’re behaving like a Hottentot.’”

Pollack-Pelzner has also pointed to other instances of archaic, racially-loaded language in Travers’ Poppins books, which in once instance actually saw her books banned from the San Francisco Public Library in the early 80s.

Travers later re-wrote the chapters in a revised edition of the book, in which Poppins and Jane and Michael Banks are transported to a South Sea Island, where the nanny uses the offensive phrase ‘pickaninny’ and speaks in a racially charged southern American dialect.

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However, she later said that she did so ‘not as an apology for anything I have written, the reason is much more simple: I do not wish to see Mary Poppins tucked away in a closet’.

Disney is yet to comment on the matter.

But posting online after the publishing of the piece in the Times, Pollack-Pelzner said: “The chief reason I wrote this article was the hope that a Disney exec would read it, take another look at the forthcoming Dumbo remake, and ask if there was anything just a little bit racist they might want to rethink before it hits the big screen.

“Here’s one thing I’ve learned about the alt-right, after I wrote this article and received a zillion hate messages in response: they sure like Mary Poppins!”

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