Deleuze Becoming-Mary Poppins: Re-Imagining the Concept of Becoming-Woman and Its Potential for Challenging Current Notions of Parenting, Gender and Childhood

Donna Carlyle,Kay Sidebottom

doi:10.3390/h10040113

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the major and controversial lexicon of Deleuze’s ‘becoming-woman’ and what an alternative re-working of this concept might look like through the story of Mary Poppins. In playfully exploring the many interesting aspects of Travers’ character, with her classic tale about the vagaries of parenting, we attempt to highlight how reading Mary Poppins through the Deleuzian lens of ‘becoming-woman’ opens up possibilities, not limitations, in terms of feminist perspectives. In initially resisting the ‘Disneyfication’ of Mary Poppins, Travers offered insights and opportunities which we revisit and consider in terms of how this fictional character can significantly disrupt ideas of gender performativity. We endeavour to accentuate how one of its themes not only dismantles the patriarchy in 1910 but also has significant traction in the twenty- first century. We also put forth the idea of Mary Poppins as an icon of post-humanism, a nomadic war machine, with her robotic caring, magic powers and literal flights of fancy, to argue how she ironically holds the dual position of representing the professionalisation of parenting and the need to move beyond a Dionysian view of children as in need of control and regulation, as well as that of nurturer and emancipator. Indeed, in her many contradictions, we suggest a nomadic Mary Poppins can offer a route into the ideas of Deleuze and his view of children as de-territorialising forces and activators of change.

Highlights

Children’s tales are evocative in their curious portrayals of escapism and adventure, they contain hidden treasures of meaningful metaphors and insights with which to play and ponder
“In order to master the psychological problems of growing up- overcoming narcissistic disappointments, oedipal dilemmas, sibling rivalries; becoming able to relinquish childhood dependencies, gaining a feeling of selfhood and of selfworth, and a sense of moral obligation . . . spinning out daydreams- ruminating, rearranging and fantasizing about suitable story elements . . . give better direction to his life”. (Bettelheim [1975] 1991, pp. 6–7)
As Travers plays with the tacit behaviour of Mary Poppins, one in which she is part of the patriarchal Western culture, we suggest by viewing her social world not through a docile body but one which interjects a particular rhythm opposing such patriarchy whilst ‘becoming-with it’—she both repels and replays ideas of masculinity and femininity

Summary

Introduction

As Travers plays with the tacit behaviour of Mary Poppins, one in which she is part of the patriarchal Western culture, we suggest by viewing her social world not through a docile body but one which interjects a particular rhythm opposing such patriarchy whilst ‘becoming-with it’—she both repels and replays (enacts) ideas of masculinity and femininity. We concur with the idea of an emerging subject, rejecting ways in which discursive power produces and performs sex/gender through the structure of a heterosexual matrix (Butler 1990) This means subjectification is not seen as fixed and stable with disparate entities, but as a Deleuzian process of affective forces and flows of material-discursive power.

Umbrellas and Nomad War Machines

Mary ‘becoming-with dog’

Becoming-With

Conclusions