tony stark and mary poppins: the fun-v or the humdrum-v?

Well, they’re not books, but movies can be studied in much the same way.  

In this blog, I am going to draw completely unfounded connections between a 2008 comic book adaptation, Iron Man, and a 1964 Disney musical, Mary Poppins, solely because I saw the two within a day of each other.  (I’m not versed in film crit, but in lit crit, we could accept this connection as long as there’s the flimsiest floss to tie them together.) 

While Mary Poppins sets out to teach the daddy (the banker Mr. Banks) a lesson about valuing his children over his monetary ambitions, Tony Stark realizes he is the daddy who has been similarly valuing profit and his penetrating escapades with both his military missiles and his other missile and thus decides, like Mr. Banks, to fly kites instead, which for Tony means creating suits and defeating his dirty-dealing surrogate father. 

It must be said that I saw Iron Man over the weekend not because I am a comic book fan (much to the chagrin of every male friend it seems I’ve ever had), but because I am a Robert Downey, Jr. fan.  Few celebrities elicit such sexual energy from my being.  In fact, only three: Jack White (who sings “You look pretty in your fancy dress, but I detect unhappiness” to me and me alone), Barack Obama (who beams those teeth just for me and moves those hands just for me), and RDJ.  Okay, four: I’ve also got a dirty job for Mike Rowe. 

Robert Downey, Jr. gets me every time, the quintessential quasi-intellectual bad boy: in Less Than Zero, when I wanted to wipe his brow during his drug withdrawal, in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which left me incanting for weeks “Harold, use your awesome might to save me from this hopeless plight,” in Wonder Boys, when I wanted to be his James when he says “I feel this kid in my bones” and Grady so appropriately responds: “Only in your bones?”, and now in Iron Man as the nearly-admirable Tony Stark, which makes me think I really am Pepper Potts, after all, the only one who can’t have his sex.

The movie is admittedly not the best action flick ever.  The gang of boys with whom I attended the theatre seemed to be rather disappointed, in fact.  But they did not have the same voyeuristic pleasure as I did acting out fantasies of being not Iron Man but Mrs. Iron Man.  (But then maybe only Iron Woman, who in some sense I am, allowing suits to do the work for me.)

So I began wondering, in a spasm of unoriginal thought, what is the female equivalent of a superhero?  Although many little girls read comic books, I’m sure, the target audience has traditionally been male.  (And let's face it: Wonder Woman is just a man with boobs, long hair, and a killer costume.)  In Iron Man, in Spiderman, in Superman, and all the others, little boys see themselves: usually ordinary Joes with flaws who get to cope with the enormous responsibilities their powers bring.

Enter the rebellious nanny played by Julie Andrews.  With the maternal instinct to care and teach—but without the obligation to stay—Mary Poppins lives a floating life, literally floating in and out on her umbrella, not unlike the wild thing that was Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s only three years prior.  And then of course there is also the character Vianne, so beautifully played by Juliette Binoche in Chocolat, who also comes and goes with the wind after she has imparted her maternal wisdom on an early sixties French village. 

Not having seen Mary Poppins since I was a youngster, I was particularly struck by the spoonful of sugar-coated (pardon me) but unabashed political agenda of the film, which pushes for a rosy “female” sentiment, as Mr. Banks calls it, to take the place of uptight masculinity.  Repression, begone! it seems to shout, but in the same breath that it accuses the little suffragette wife of being a scatter-brained fool.  When the painting scene comes around, with the adorable Dick Van Dyke, I wonder if my literary training (which some call borderline pornographic) is to blame for my thinking, on this viewing, that Mary Poppins is just a big ole tease, flirting with Burt but always leaving him.  She is the butterfly, the Cara McFall of early 20^th century London.  Burt sings: “When Mary holds your hand, you feel so grand; Your heart starts beating like a big brass band.”  And Mary, although later she is visibly miffed when Burt begins to list positive attributes of other women, compliments him in turn on his never “pressing [his] advantage.”       

Iron Man's Tony Stark, on the other hand, is quite good at pressing his advantage.  Though Robert Downey Jr. lets us know Tony is grappling with his, for lack of a better word, morality, he still disposes of women, condones violence, and has the unforgiving financial prowess of a Mr. Banks.  Perhaps loosening Mr. Banks' tie was never the answer and the floating femininity solved naught.    

And so my question, I suppose, is this: male or female, does the fun-v always drive away?  Is part of being a hero always sacrificing hum-drum (but stable and loving) domesticity in order to roam the world slaying enemies, delivering chocolate, and caring for rich kids?  And why do the movies always have to make that look so fucking glamorous?