Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T13:36:19.238Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The business of myth-making: Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers and the Disney effect

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2015

Get access

Extract

In just one of the many extraordinary moments during the spectacular Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games, thirty Mary Poppinses floated into the stadium on their umbrellas to battle a 40 foot-long inflatable Lord Voldemort. This multi-million pound extravaganza was telecast to a global audience of over one billion people, highlighting in an extremely effective manner the grandeur and eccentricities of the host nation, and featuring uniquely British icons such as Mr Bean, James Bond, The Beatles and Harry Potter, as well as those quintessential icons of Englishness, the Royal Family, double-decker red buses and the National Health Service.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Burness, Edwina and Griswold, Jerry 1982. ‘P.L. Travers’, Paris Review, Winter, http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3099/the-art-of-fiction-no-63-p-l-travers.Google Scholar
Corliss, Richard 2013. ‘Saving Mr Banks: When movies lie and make you cry’, Time, 12 December, http://entertainment.time.com/2013/12/12/saving-mr-banks-when-movies-lie-and-make-you-cry.Google Scholar
Demers, Patricia 1991. P.L. Travers. Boston: Twayne.Google Scholar
Draper, Ellen Dooling 1999. ‘Introduction’, in Draper, Ellen Dooling and Koralek, Jenny (eds), A lively oracle: A centenary celebration of P.L. Travers, creator of Mary Poppins. New York: Larson, pp. 915.Google Scholar
Foundas, Scott 2013. ‘Film review: Saving Mr Banks’, Variety, 20 October, http://variety.com/2013/film/reviews/film-review-saving-mr-banks-1200745274.Google Scholar
Griswold, Jerry 2013. ‘Saving Mr Banks but throwing P.L. Travers under the bus’, San Diego State University Children's Literature, December, http://sdsuchildlit.blogspot.com.au/2013/12/saving-mr-banks-but-throwing-pl-travers.html.Google Scholar
Grove, Valerie 2013. ‘The strange life of the creator of Mary Poppins’, New Statesman, 12 December, http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/12/strange-life-creator-mary-poppins.Google Scholar
Haggarty, Ben 1999. ‘Refining nectar’, in Draper and Koralek (eds), A Lively Oracle, pp. 19–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heyneman, Martha. ‘About The Sleeping Beauty. The Veil Grows transparent – Or does It?’, in Draper, Ellen Dooling and Koralek, Jenny (eds.) A Lively Oracle (New York, 1999), pp.7286.Google Scholar
House, Adrian. ‘Ever Afterwards’, in Draper, Ellen Dooling and Koralek, Jenny (eds), A lively oracle: A centenary celebration of P.L. Travers, creator of Mary Poppins. New York: Larson, pp. 25–8.Google Scholar
Keegan, Rebecca 2013. ‘Is Saving Mr Banks too hard on Mary Poppins’ creator?’ Los Angeles Times, 28 December, http://articles.latimes.com/2013/dec/28/entertainment/la-et-mn-disney-mary-poppins-saving-mr-banks-travers-20131228.Google Scholar
Kermode, Mark 2013. ‘Saving Mr Banks- review’, Observer, 1 December, http://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/dec/01/saving-mr-banks-review.Google Scholar
Lane, Anthony 2013. ‘Only make believe’, New Yorker, 23 December, http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/12/23/only-make-believe-2.Google Scholar
Lawson, Valerie 1999. Mary Poppins She Wrote. New York: Simon and Schuster.Google Scholar
Mary Poppins Festival 2014. Website, http://www.marypoppinsfestival.com.au.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Victoria Coren 2013, The Secret Life of Mary Poppins. London: BBC.Google Scholar
Sibley, Brian 1999. ‘How are they going to make that into a musical? P.L. Travers, Julie Andrews and Mary Poppins’, in Draper, Ellen Dooling and Koralek, Jenny (eds), A lively oracle: A centenary celebration of P.L. Travers, creator of Mary Poppins. New York: Larson, pp. 5162.Google Scholar
Stewart, Sara 2013. ‘Disney trashes Poppins author in Saving Mr Banks’, New York Post, 8 December, http://nypost.com/2013/12/08/disney-trashes-poppins-author-in-saving-mr-banks.Google Scholar
Thomson, David 2013Saving Mr Banks is a 2-Hour Disney commercial’. New Republic, 19 December, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116004/saving-mr-banks-tom-hanks-and-emma-thomson-reviewed.Google Scholar
Travers, P.L.I never wrote for children’, in Draper, Ellen Dooling and Koralek, Jenny (eds.) A Lively Oracle (New York, 1999), pp. 177–85.Google Scholar
Travers, P.L.Only Connect’, in Havilland, Virginia (ed.), The Openhearted Audience: Ten Authors Talk About Writing for Children (Washington, 1980), pp. 323.Google Scholar
Van der Post, Laurens and Travers, P.L. 1999. ‘The First Storytellers: Excerpts from a Conversation’, in Draper, Ellen Dooling and Koralek, Jenny (eds), A lively oracle: A centenary celebration of P.L. Travers, creator of Mary Poppins. New York: Larson, pp. 151–6.Google Scholar
Woollacott, Angela 2001. To try her fortune in London: Australian women, colonialism and modernity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zaleski, Philip 1999. ‘At home with Pamela Travers: The Radcliffe Lectures’, in Draper, Ellen Dooling and Koralek, Jenny (eds), A lively oracle: A centenary celebration of P.L. Travers, creator of Mary Poppins. New York: Larson, pp. 168–74.Google Scholar
Ziner, Feenie 1999. ‘Mary Poppins as a Zen monk’, in Draper, Ellen Dooling and Koralek, Jenny (eds), A lively oracle: A centenary celebration of P.L. Travers, creator of Mary Poppins. New York: Larson, pp. 144–8.Google Scholar