Mary Poppins is branded racist by US academic over famous rooftop scene because when she gets covered in soot she 'gamely powders her nose and cheeks and gets even blacker'

Dame Julie Andrews’s performance as Mary Poppins is racist, says a US academic who accuses her of ‘blacking up’ when her face is covered with soot as she dances with chimney sweeps.

The scene in which Poppins joins Dick Van Dyke’s Bert and his fellow sweeps on a rooftop for the song Step In Time is one of the best-loved moments in the 1964 Disney classic.

But writing in the New York Times under the headline ‘Mary Poppins, and a Nanny’s Shameful Flirting With Blackface,’ Professor Daniel Pollack-Pelzner attacks the scene. Not surprisingly, the film’s legions of devoted fans have reacted with disbelief.

The literature professor acknowledges that Poppins’s face is covered with soot because she has gone up the chimney with her charges, Michael and Jane Banks.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6661605/Mary-Poppins-branded-racist-academic-blacking-iconic-sweeps-rooftop-scene.html

another lefty moron

The saddest thing is not that the odd professional whinger writes about these things, but that others who should have more sense actually report on them and publicize them.

I blame the parents.

Syl wrote:The saddest thing is not that the odd professional whinger writes about these things, but that others who should have more sense actually report on them and publicize them.

There is a lot money in telling people how to feel.

Lord Foul wrote:another lefty moron

100% agree

Didge wrote:Dame Julie Andrews’s performance as Mary Poppins is racist, says a US academic who accuses her of ‘blacking up’ when her face is covered with soot as she dances with chimney sweeps.

Academician, not "Academic". Academic is an adjective; academician is a noun.

Original Quill wrote:

Didge wrote:Dame Julie Andrews’s performance as Mary Poppins is racist, says a US academic who accuses her of ‘blacking up’ when her face is covered with soot as she dances with chimney sweeps.

Academician, not "Academic".  Academic is an adjective; academician is a noun.

Seriously, who gives a fuck?

I never wrote the article, so why are you highlighting my name to something I have not said?

This person is also an academic, a perverse left wing idiot at that. Who is trying to fuel racism, based off where no racism exists

Also you are talking bullshit, as it can also be a noun. Hence in this context it is being used as a noun

Noun. academic (plural academics) (usually capitalized) A follower of Plato, a Platonist. [First attested in the mid 16th century.] A senior member of an academy, college, or university; a person who attends an academy; a person engaged in scholarly pursuits; one who is academic in practice. 

academic - Wiktionary

Score one again for Quill to attempt to change the subject yet again from the topic at hand

Didge wrote:Score one again for Quill to attempt to change the subject yet again from the topic at hand

Yes, the language is evolving...and not always for the better.  But, 'ic' is a suffix for an adjective, like tragic or holistic, whereas 'ian' is a suffix for person having skills, as with a technician or a musician.

The term academic is no longer specifically a student of a Greek academy, and has become an adjective for things (not persons) scholarly.

Syl wrote:The saddest thing is not that the odd professional whinger writes about these things, but that others who should have more sense actually report on them and publicize them.

LOL
the Right Wing Media Goes out of it's way to promote these Idiots that have ZERO voice among the Left Wing, because it suits the Right wings Fictional Narrative around what the Left stand for 

How do you expect the likes of Lord Foul and Didge to Maintain their hate-boners with out a constant supply of Unrepresentative Bullshit to keep them Quivering in fear at the Bogeyman of Progress?

Lord Foul wrote:another lefty moron

Where is your evidence that that moron is a "lefty"  ???

And not just yet another "black racist"/black-armband revisionist troublemaker, riding on the coattails of various human rights movements, without actually having any interest in the actual causes that they wilfully misappropriate..

But rather simply to create a little notoriety for himself,  ably helped along by a right-wing media all too ready to showcase any fruitloop that they can find, to help their scaremongering against their "evil left" bogeymen.

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

Lord Foul wrote:another lefty moron

Where is your evidence that that moron is a "lefty"  ???

And not just yet another "black racist"/black-armband revisionist troublemaker, riding on the coattails of various human rights movements, without actually having any interest in the actual causes that they wilfully misappropriate..

But rather simply to create a little notoriety for himself,  ably helped along by a right-wing media all too ready to showcase any fruitloop that they can find, to help their scaremongering against their "evil left" bogeymen.

He is a gender studies professor.

You know one of the those made up lefty bullshit studies

In otherwords, he is on the idiotology side of the left

Its idiots like this that see racism in anything

Thor wrote:

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:


Where is your evidence that that moron is a "lefty"  ???

And not just yet another "black racist"/black-armband revisionist troublemaker, riding on the coattails of various human rights movements, without actually having any interest in the actual causes that they wilfully misappropriate..

But rather simply to create a little notoriety for himself,  ably helped along by a right-wing media all too ready to showcase any fruitloop that they can find, to help their scaremongering against their "evil left" bogeymen.

He is a gender studies professor.

You know one of the those made up lefty bullshit studies

In otherwords, he is on the idiotology side of the left

Its idiots like this that see racism in anything

You conveniently call it some kind of "made up 'lefty' bullshit studies"...

Some of the more cynical and world-weary observers out here would call people like that lecturer from some 3rd-rate backwoods college an opportunistic racist pot-stirring troublemaker, frequently seen these days infiltrating/co-opting/riding on the backs of..  various social causes, more interested in pushing their own agendas while completely sidestepping the actual cause itself..

In this case we see this "black racist" professor, not even all that 'black' himself, looking for "racism" at every turn -- shame on him, and even more shame on those who hired him, and then allow him to preach such nonsense in their institution's name.


From some of the ignorant comments from both that loopy "professor" and the journo' reporting his nonsense,  it seems to me that neither of them knows anything about the author herself, either..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._L._Travers              

WhoseYourWolfie wrote:

Thor wrote:

He is a gender studies professor.

You know one of the those made up lefty bullshit studies

In otherwords, he is on the idiotology side of the left

Its idiots like this that see racism in anything

You conveniently call it some kind of "made up 'lefty' bullshit studies"...

Gender studies is a made up leftist ideology

Hence Like I said the Professor is a leftist

Original Quill wrote:

Didge wrote:Score one again for Quill to attempt to change the subject yet again from the topic at hand

Yes, the language is evolving...and not always for the better.  But, 'ic' is a suffix for an adjective, like tragic or holistic, whereas 'ian' is a suffix for person having skills, as with a technician or a musician.

The term academic is no longer specifically a student of a Greek academy, and has become an adjective for things (not persons) scholarly.

Technically you are correct, but as you say the English language is evolving, and the word "academic" has been used and widely accepted as a noun for decades. Even by, er, academics.

Whether it is "not always for the better" is something probably more open to dispute now than disregarding the rules of grammar once was.

If my recollection is correct, it was The Times, for example, that most publicly broke the once golden rule about the non-splitting of infinitives and in the 1930s made a point of it in the newspaper's editorial style book...which is something akin to The Bible in newsrooms.

Being passionate about the use of English I still attempt to avoid splitting an infinitive... though as a devotee of Star Trek I applaud the mission of Captain Kirk and his crew "...to boldly go where no man has gone before."

Fred Moletrousers wrote:

Original Quill wrote:

Yes, the language is evolving...and not always for the better.  But, 'ic' is a suffix for an adjective, like tragic or holistic, whereas 'ian' is a suffix for person having skills, as with a technician or a musician.

The term academic is no longer specifically a student of a Greek academy, and has become an adjective for things (not persons) scholarly.

Technically you are correct, but as you say the English language is evolving, and the word "academic" has been used and widely accepted as a noun for decades. Even by, er,  academics.

Whether it is "not always for the better" is something probably more open to dispute now than disregarding the rules of grammar once was.

If my recollection is correct, it was The Times, for example, that most publicly broke the once golden rule about the non-splitting of infinitives and in the 1930s made a point of it in the newspaper's editorial style book...which is something akin to The Bible in newsrooms.

Being passionate about the use of English I still attempt to avoid splitting an infinitive... though as a devotee of Star Trek I applaud the mission of Captain Kirk and his crew "...to boldly go where no man has gone before."

When I say language is evolving, I am referring to the denotation of words, not to be confused with incorrect grammar.  The etymology of the word academy is as follows:

Etymonline Dictionary wrote:...properly the name of the public garden where Plato taught his school, from Old French (Modern French Académie) and directly from Latin Academia, from Greek Akadēmeia...
https://www.etymonline.com/word/academy

The root word academia has gone from describing a garden or park, to a definite school, to describing an associated field or endeavor.  But because metaphorical denotation migrates is no reason to legitimize improper form.  The language is not migrating.

I realize that occasionally language form does transition and grow, but mostly when necessary.  For example, informal English has no second-person plural...the word you is used for the singular and the plural both the same.  By contrast, in formal English there is the plural ye to distinguish from the singular thou.    As a result of this shortfall in common English, the Scots invented y'all to mean more than one, and distinguish from the singular you.  (The Scots and Irish populated the American south, hence this idiom is most popular there.)

But that is a case where the language was deficient and in need of repair.  It is not the situation where a gratuitous misjudgment in attending the formalities of language took place.  Nor is it migration of the referent.  The latter reason cannot cover for such an impropriety.  

It is not racist.
The twat who said it is a twat.