Marry Poppins: Sweet, loving nanny or blood thirsty she-demon?

Mary Poppins was one of my favorite movies as a child though I'm not certain why. I watched it for the first time in probably a decade not long ago and it was not as charming as I had remembered.
For those of you who have not seen the movie, or haven't in quite some time, let me give you a brief summary. (Spoiler alert?)

IMDB's one-line synopsis is: "A magic nanny comes to work for a cold banker's unhappy family." That's putting it nicely, I suppose.

A synopsis that I think is far more accurate: "A heinous witch comes to terrorize a cold banker's innocent and unsuspecting brood of victims." And let me tell you why.
 

Basically, this family hires a nanny that first falls from the sky and then falls in love with the family's chimney sweep who is almost always covered in soot. Being that this chimney sweep's hygiene is less than superb, it is safe to assume that Mary Poppins actually put him under a love spell in order to gain leverage with the family. She then uses her powers to get the chimney sweep to help her kidnap the children and force them to jump into chalk drawings on the sidewalk that operate as rabbit holes to an alternate dimension. An evil alternate dimension, no doubt. Furthermore, she not only condones the children's drug use, but actually participates in this act of debauchery WITH them and attempts to brainwash them with euphemisms such as "spoonful of sugar". Later, she encourages them to pester a poor homeless woman, probably motivated by the drugs in attempts to acquire MORE drugs, though that part of the plot is never fully realized by the average viewer. What's more, she has conversations with her umbrella. And it talks back.

Another clear indication of witchcraft: Mary Poppins is able to tote around seemingly impossible amounts of personal belongings and produce them from out of that creepy bag whenever she feels so inclined. Oh, and she can levitate at will. That's always a sure sign. By the end of the movie, she even has succeeded in getting the once sensible banker father to participate in her black magic through reciting spells that give him an instant high. The following is an excerpt directly from the screenplay: "Supercallifragilisticexpialidocious! Mary Poppins was right, it's extraordinary! It *does* make you feel better! Hee hee hee hee!" Unbelievable.

It's one thing to be an evil witch set out to destroy lives and confuse children. It's another thing altogether to be an ARROGANT evil witch. This "woman" clearly thinks she's the greatest thing since sliced bread. In one scene, she refers to herself as "Mary Poppins, practically perfect in every way." Practically atrocious in every way, Mary. Get a hold of yourself. And leave the children alone.

The bottom line is that this movie is inappropriate, terrifying, and quite frankly, a threat to the innocence of everyone everywhere. But don't take my word for it. Watch this trailer for the horror film that is Mary Poppins:

I rest my case.

Jesus Made Me Do It

At work today, I was reading an injury report filled out by one of our truck drivers. These consist of a series of questions relating to the driver's injury and the surrounding incidents. As I was perusing the report, I was befuddled by this particular driver's answers to some of the questions:

Question: Who was the injury reported to?

Answer: First to Jesus, then to [our company.]


Okay... I can understand if that may have been his answer. However, I'm not sure if I would have written it out on the official injury report...


Continuing on, I came to another interesting answer.


Question: How could this incident have been avoided?

Answer: It could have been avoided if I did not pull from the handle. (Note: I was instructed by Jesus to pull from the handle.)

Okay. At this point I was feeling like this was getting  a bit ridiculous. I understand there are many people in the world who are very in tune with their religious beliefs. But, really? This seemed like a pretty odd variant of "the devil made me do it." I don't feel like this would hold up in any kind of worker's compensation claim.

As my neighboring coworkers had already gone home for the evening, I sat there, wondering aloud to myself and being generally distraught and quite confused about this report for a good long while.

Then, as if it fell from Heaven, I was struck by a very important detail that I had been overlooking the entire time:


I live and work in Southern California where there are many, many Hispanic males named "Jesus."


Thank you, Christian college.

A Trip Down Memory Lane

When I was younger I watched too many movies. Well, not too many movies per se; just the same movies too often.

One Christmas Eve, I watched Dr. Seuss's "How The Grinch Stole Christmas" (the cartoon version) nine, I repeat: nine times in a row. ALONE! After the ninth time, I went and asked my mother how the deuce the narrator had so much stamina to repeat the same story to me over and over again. How did he do it so perfectly and with such consistency? I was legitimately impressed. This was a large part of the reason why I watched it so many times in a row. I was waiting for him to mess up. (Then what, I don't know.)

How is this "woman" not HORRIFYING?

Well, Mom told me that the narrator had merely read a script. Once. ONCE! And that I was simply replaying the same prerecorded story over and over. Suddenly, the world of film became way less magical to me.

When I was even younger than that, circa three or four, (back when film was still magical) I watched The Little Mermaid every single day for at least a year. This is not an exaggeration. Consequently, I developed a deep fear of the antagonist, Ursula aka "The Sea Witch." Every night before going to bed, I would beg my parents to thoroughly check my closet to make sure she wasn't lurking around in there. For some reason, unbeknownst to me to this day, they decided to tell me:

"Carst, don't be afraid of the Sea Witch. She is a sea creature. She can't come into your room. She has to stay in water!"

Great... so.... now instead of telling me the truth (that she was fictional) you've just given me cause for concern when approaching water. Awesome.

The murderous Mr. McGregor
chasing sweet and innocent Peter Cottontail.

Similarly, I really enjoyed the cartoon version of "Peter Cottontail"-- the story about the rabbits who lived in the garden of a grouchy old man named Mr. McGregor. I was terrified- I'm talking scared shitless- of Mr. McGregor. I was convinced that he was going to attempt to murder me with a garden hoe in the middle of the night while I slept. Mom would tell me I had nothing to be afraid of, for Mr. McGregor only chased rabbits around with garden hoes in attempts to murder them. But he wouldn't do that to me, because I'm not a rabbit.

SWEET, MOM! Why couldn't you have just told me that Mr. McGregor was FICTIONAL instead of verifying that I'm NOT a rabbit?

So that is the story of why I suffered traumatic years of avoidable anxiety surrounding visiting large bodies of water or becoming a rabbit.