Might I Add: Eat My Shorts

It seems obvious once you think about it, but it hadn’t occurred to me before. Mary Poppins, filled as it is with childlike whimsy, even as it turns the lives of tots Jane and Michael topsy-turvy and catalyzes the wind change that brings their family together, doesn’t set out to alter the children’s nature. Ms. Poppins may introduce chaos wherever she goes, but the mayhem unnerves no one the way it unsettles the story’s true protagonist: Mr. Banks.

Played with meticulous British rigor by David
Tomlinson, Mr. Banks is the only character to change significantly throughout the film. While he transforms from a brusque and exacting master of the house to a father eager to celebrate his children’s fleeting youth, Mary Poppins moves on, claiming (I’ve tried and failed not to overthink this; either Mary is a cold-hearted so-and-so or a big fat liar) that she feels no emotion whatsoever towards Jane and Michael. What would become of her, she muses, if she loved all the children to come under her care? (This, aside from the inability to perform magic, is the reason I could never be Mary Poppins. Or a teacher.)

Meanwhile, the household at large changes only in that it grows more light-hearted. Jane and Michael delight in the antics provided for their amusement. The domestics, having never previously tolerated each other, sing in the kitchen. And Mrs. Banks prioritizes her family over the Votes for Women rallies that the movie dismisses as frivolous (“You know how the cause infuriates Mr. Banks,” she babbles). If we weren’t focusing on Mr. Banks here, this would be the perfect place to launch into a feminist critique of the film: it takes a tantalizingly borderline sexualized pixie woman’s magical touch, the narrative says, to draw a gruff father with his nose stuck in meaningless numbers back to the earth- and hearth-bound concerns of his home and family, and back to the women-and-children’s realm of the supernatural. Yep; good thing we’re not getting into that.

Mary Poppins merits a repeat viewing just to witness Dick Van Dyke’s remarkable agility for yourself; you’ve heard his virtues extolled before, but no description can do his flailing limbs and unfaltering grin justice. You’ve also heard his Cockney accent maligned to no end, but Van Dyke’s positively elastic performance as Bert far outshines his shortcomings. (One has to wonder about Bert’s relationship with Poppins; with the two obviously at ease in each other’s company between long absences, does she have a Bert in every town?) The unflappable Julie Andrews, for her part, gives the most empathetic possible interpretation of Mary Poppins, a character whose two-faced callousness renders her borderline cruel at worst and an enigmatic feminine tease at best.

The enigma of Mary Poppins is what ensnares and ultimately pushes Mr. Banks to his furious limit. After failing to fire Mary Poppins, taking his children on an outing that leads to his getting sacked, and coming home to find himself playing host to a band of filthy chimney sweeps, Mr. Banks would be right to trace his troubles back to the perplexing nanny. (Incidentally, the bankers firing Mr. Banks has become my favorite scene; the gasp of “No, not that!” preceding the ceremonious inverting of his umbrella gets me every time.) Only a dejected chat with Bert, followed by the last-act innocence of his children – handing their father back the tuppence that led to his sacking – finally pulls him out of his dark frustration and back over the supercalifragilisticexpialidocious edge.

Mary Poppins isn’t even present for Mr. Banks’s metamorphosis; she merely sets the wheels in motion for his change to come from within. After manipulating everyone within her reach, letting the madness build to this act of mercy – to the wind change in the Banks household – is the least she can do. Watch this movie again, but prepare to justify much of it to yourself along the way.

She Is the Slayer

At the advice of just about everyone I know, I’ve finally embarked on my Buffy the Vampire Slayer journey. And a double episode in, I can tell you quite confidently that I want more.

Sure, some of the dialogue needs work, and not all the actors have wholeheartedly committed to it yet (it’s tricky to write fake teenage lingo into Joss Whedon’s florid-yet-snappy style; delivering such a line believably is trickier still.) Sure, we’re very much still in the 90s (judging by the theme song, Cordelia’s teased hair, and her cellphone antenna.) And sure, the plot manages to get simultaneously convoluted and oversimplified (the gang stopping to confer in the library, for instance, when facing imminent doom – and when inevitably all will be resolved in a grand fight scene anyway – really irks me.)

Overall, though, I’m surprised at how effectively the show has already established its voice. The characters – and much of the dialogue, really, for all my nitpicking – are right on target straight out of the gate. Buffy’s far more bearable than I had expected, and even, dare I say, pretty cute. Xander’s conversational fits and starts when he shoots off little quips actually remind me of Joss Whedon in interviews I’ve seen. Giles’s dry delivery offsets the sarcastic teens perfectly. And Willow’s unassuming nerdiness (to Buffy’s saying she’ll be right back: “Oh, that’s all right; you don’t have to come back,”) has won me over heart and soul.

The metaphors have already made themselves apparent if you know to look for them; this show focuses on misunderstood teenagers dealing with unknown adversity in all its forms. Buffy aches for a social life while struggling with her identity as a Slayer, out of the bounds of the rest of the world. Her whole little club of outcasts are even more misunderstood than most angsty teenagers (“Everything’s life and death when you’re 16,” scoffs Buffy’s mother), considering that they face doomsday scenarios they can’t tell anyone about.

Incidentally, it seems that with every episode, more and more students at Sunnydale High learn about the supernatural and then forget about it. After the incident with Luke feeding on half the attendees at the Bronze, for instance, Cordelia and her pals shrug off the whole incident with some line about gangs. And we’re in for seven seasons of this. How long before residents of Sunnydale deduce that something fishy’s going on?

Speaking of metaphors, I can’t help noticing the sexual overtones overtly apparent when vampires appear in the upper-world. All the petting and caressing from the vampires; all the writhing and moaning from their victims: something about this experience is pleasurable for the vampires in ways most snacks are not. It speaks to the characters’ experience, too; on top of being teenagers battling their way through a school situated over a hellmouth, they’ve got to figure out the demons of their sexuality.

Vampires represent the unknown and are thus terrifying, but also curiously tempting – exotic in their power, their mystery, and even their confidence. When erstwhile pal Jesse becomes a vampire (spoiler!), he claims he feels better than he ever did while alive – like “a new man” – and tries to redeem his old loser self by attempting to rape Cordelia. And if you’re looking for proof that enigmatic vampires are sexy, tell me you haven’t undressed Angel with your eyes.

From here on out, Buffy’s world is bound to get more profound, more confusing, more disturbing – but I’ll take it. Bring it on.

Riding the Wild Waves

It’s here; it’s here! At long last, after months and month of waiting, it’s finally here. It’s prepared to meet your expectations, but simultaneously soar above them and thwart them in ways you’d never imagined. It makes perfect sense; it knows you better than you know yourself; it molds itself to the confines of your mind and clings to needs and wants and worries you’d never even imagined were there. And while at times it may be terrifying to behold, it leaves you with a glimmer of hope that millions of others like you, just as frightened, are standing alongside you, as you tentatively explore the same uncertain future together.

I’m talking, of course, about Google Wave.

Like Where the Wild Things Are, Google Wave finally crashed to the shore this month, after a seemingly endless wait. And like Where the Wild Things Are, I wanted to get there before anybody else, so I planned ahead and got my tickets to a midnight showing. Er, my invite from a Google-employed friend. The service is a big buggy, to be sure. This morning, for instance, I noticed that all my old waves had disappeared; if that happened with G-mail I’d be quaking in my boots. For now, Wave functions mostly as a toy – a shiny and comely and intuitive toy, of course – but until a larger chunk of the population switches over, the revolution won’t be arriving just yet.

Where the Wild Things Are, on the other hand, upholds every aspect of its reputation. True to director Spike Jonze’s vision, we voyage not through an adult’s idyllic recollection of childhood, but through the raw experience of a nine-year-old mind. Camera angles knock jarringly against each other; the weather matches our mood; the lines between fantasy and reality blur as pieces of Max’s real world invade his dream.

The beasts Max envisions vaguely recall his real life: one Wild Thing not unlike his sister spends all her time with inscrutable new friends, while a male-female couple fill an ambiguous void in Max’s family. Carol, the Wild Thing voiced by James Gandolfini and only truly understood by Max himself, destroys houses (which resemble a knickknack from Max’s nightstand, and recall the events that precipitated Max leaving home) when he gets upset. More than characters Max knows, though, the Wild Things depict crude emotion, embodying Max’s range of destructive streaks, loneliness, confusion, fear, and at times, unfettered joy. They follow his whims and build the fort of his dreams, thanks to their beliefs in the myths Max tells about himself, and to their earnest engagement in his tales of one-upmanship that only authentic nine-year-olds would tell.

True to the not-always-sunny childhood experience (and to the original book), Max, unfit to run a world of his own design and populated by his own limited understanding, eventually returns home to his mother. After all the terrors of one’s own mind coming to life and the invocation of the audience’s inner fears, the capacity to come home to a warm dinner in a house with a caring parent has its appeal. It’s a little bit disappointing, in a way, this last truism of childhood: you’ll never be as free as you want to be.

But you never know. Maybe, with the aid of Google Wave and a little imagination, we can finally become that child’s vision of a grown-up, as free as we’d always wanted. We’ll have to wait and see where this journey takes us.