Re: IndieWeb Movie Club: June 2025

I saw a post come through my RSS about an IndieWeb Movie Club. dead.garden chose Mary Poppins as the movie for June 2025. Ruby and I watched it together a few nights back.

Ruby said she didn’t remember it all besides the “Spoonful of Sugar” scene. I thought I remembered it, and certainly remembered most scenes, but for a lot of songs I was surprised at stuff that went much longer than I remembered. Also there were so many more songs than I remembered. They are (at least listed from the soundtrack):

• Overture
• Sister Suffragette
• The Life I Lead
• The Perfect Nanny
• A Spoonful of Sugar
• Pavement Artist
• Jolly Holiday
• Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
• Stay Awake
• I Love to Laugh
• A British Bank (reprise of The Life I Lead and trying to tell off Mary Poppins)
• Feed the Birds
• Fidelity Fiduciary Bank
• Chim Chim Cher-ee
• Step in Time
• A Man Has Dreams (Mr. Banks and Bert talk-sing-mixing before Mr. Banks goes to the bank for the meeting)
• Let’s Go Fly a Kite

There are also so many little scenes where the characters drift in and out of singing like Bert’s One-Man-Band at the start and especially “A Man Has Dreams”. Some of this is fine, though unexpected and doesn’t feel super motivated, but this was made in a different film culture and also at the end of the mainstream popularity of the musical film.

One thing I noticed this time around is that a good bunch of the songs didn’t really have strong connections to the growth of the characters. The only dynamic characters in the film are Mr. Banks, Jane, and Michael, who over the course of the film learn to really see and respect each other. Everyone else are just about the same at the end as they were at the start. This I had noticed before (or more likely my sister pointed this out to me), but so many of the songs didn’t really lead to any character growth (or only contributed some of the things Mr. Banks would realize were charming at the climax).

I don’t necessarily think it’s mandatory for every song in a musical to be tied to the plot, but it does feel important to my enjoyment of them. The ones that don’t contribute much are still charming as hell and fun scenes, but largely feel meandering. I have here each song paired with what I think it’s contribution was to the growth of Mr. Banks, Jane, and Michael.

Title	Character Growth/Learning.
Sister Sufragette	Introduce Mrs. Banks and her condescending relationship to the people she employs and her children.
The Life I Lead	Introduce Mr. Banks and his condescending relationship to the people he employs (which from his view here, the employees group includes his wife and children). They are here to serve him.
The Perfect Nanny	Introduce the children’s wants in how they want to be treated (but really what they want from their parents).
A Spoonful of Sugar	Mary Poppins is here, takes no shit, and is magical. Teaches Jane and Michael about how to get through a hard task.
Pavement Artist	Nothing really except that Bert is cute.
Jolly Holiday	Nothing except that Mary Poppins is incredibly magical.
Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious	Teaches the word to Jane and Michael as a setup for Mr. Banks’ epiphany.
Stay Awake	Mary Poppins is sweet to the kids. Motherly lullaby. Something otherwise missing.
I Love to Laugh	Teaches Jane and Michael the wooden leg joke as a setup for Mr. Banks’ epiphany.
A British Bank	Mr. Banks digging in his heels that discipline is the one true way, despite how much happier everyone else is with what Mary teaches.
Feed the Birds	Mary Poppins shows the kids some class consciousness! But also this sets up the conflict where the kids stand up to their dad.
Fidelity Fiduciary Bank	Mr. Banks tries to appeal to the kids… through investment? Gives a face to the world Mr. Banks is in that the kids haven’t yet seen.
Chim Chim Cher-ee	Charming as hell! But otherwise just a tonal break between the crisis at the bank and the kids apologizing to Mr. Banks. And gorgeously filmed.
Step In Time!	See Chim Chim Cher-ee.
A Man Has Dreams	Mr. Banks is on the verge of his epiphany. What is truly important to him? Leads us into the climax.
Let’s Go Fly a Kite	The family is together and happy in seeing each other fully as people.

There’s certainly an argument that introducing a concept for a later payoff is key, but generally the songs that stay with me the most are the ones that are tied to character growth. Those are the ones that give me the warm feelings and goosebumps.

But also, these scenes are delightful and fun and I do love them. Including them is certainly not a bad thing. I think it stands out to me because so many songs in Disney movies especially are so tied to the characters and where they are in the film.

And maybe there’s something I’m missing about these scenes and would love to hear about what you’re seeing that I’m not. Thanks to dead.garden for triggering this rewatch and getting me to think on a movie beyond the evening.