is Mary Poppins Returns anticapitalist?
When I first saw Mary Poppins Returns in early 2019, I left it feeling like there was a hint of an anticapitalist message underscoring the film. Fast forward to Social Distancing 2020 and the founding of the “is this movie anti-capitalist?” club, where we decided to make Mary Poppins Return the first official movie for the group to analyze. While we ultimately determined that Mary Poppins Returns is NOT an anticapitalist masterpiece, the song “Trip A Little Light Fantastic” emerged as the perfect anticapitalist activist anthem for our current moment.
Our club’s analysis of this movie landed on Sunday, April 12th 2020, a date on which many of us were feeling lost and hopeless about the direction of our country. We were about a month into quarantine in New York, and feeling concerned about the hundreds of thousands of people without employment, and subsequently without health insurance, during the midst of a pandemic. On top of this existential despair, Presidential Candidate Bernie Sanders dropped out of the race on Friday, April 8th. For many young socialists, this was an enormous loss, and felt like the end of a possible wave of change. I, for one, descended into a brief wallowing phase. Enter “Trip a Little Light Fantastic” in Mary Poppins Returns.
This song occurs about halfway through the movie when the Banks children get lost in the fog on their way home. Sub-textually, they are also losing hope in their ability to save their family home, which is being repossessed by the bank. Rather than let the children mope around and pity themselves for getting lost, their friend Jack the Leerie begins singing and immediately lays out their options:
“Let’s say you’re lost in a park, sure
You can give in to the dark or
You can trip a little light fantastic with me.
When you’re alone in your room
Your choice is just embrace the gloom
Or you can trip a little light fantastic with me.”
With these opening lines, Jack exposes our human tendency to “give in to the dark” and “embrace the gloom” when the goings get tough. The inclusion of “just” before “embrace the gloom” adds a bit of sarcasm to this option, making it clear that to Jack, this is a silly option. Instead, he invites the children to “trip a little light fantastic with [him].” He goes on to explain what this means:
“For if you hide under the covers
You might never see the day
But if a spark can start inside your heart
Then you can always find the way
So when life is getting dreary
Just pretend that you’re a leerie
As you trip a little light fantastic with me.”
Here he informs us that we all have a light inside us that can guide us forward. Even more specifically, that we must pretend to be a leerie in dark moments. When one of the children asks what a leerie is, Jack responds, “Why it’s what we lamplighters call ourselves of course. Leeries trip the lights and lead the way!” This explanation solidifies the metaphor; the leeries are the leaders of the movement, guiding everyone else along the path forward.
To “Trip a Little Light” is to organize; when we get momentarily lost and fall into despair, as is frequently possible in the fight for justice, we must choose to continue organizing and following the path towards justice. To do this, we often need help and reminders of what is at stake. In Mary Poppins, the Banks children need the help of the leeries, a whole group of lamplighters, to ignite their path. The leeries literally represent the working class, and centering the workers as the leaders reminds us who/what the movement is about. Continuing the fight for justice is what will always pull you out of this despair; as the movie demonstrates, following the light brings the Banks children back home. We are reminded of what’s at stake and become reinvigorated with the cause, and the Banks’ children hope is restored in their mission.
“Trip a Little Light Fantastic” is a reminder to keep organizing — a message and an anthem that is much needed as the movement for racial justice coincides with conversations about class and the coronavirus. It can be easy to fall into despair and feel lost with each disappointment and setback in the fight for justice, but Jack the Leerie reminds us that “when life is getting scary, be your own illuminary / Who can shine the light for all the world to see.” The only way out of this darkness is to double down, organize more, and keep pushing the movement forward. Mary Poppins Returns may not be the anti-capitalist masterpiece I was hoping for, but at least it gave us an anti-capitalist/activist anthem for the ages.
