The scene has been branded racist (Picture: Getty Images)

Classic Disney film Mary Poppins has been branded ‘racist’ by a university professor who believes the scene with Mary and Bert dancing with the chimney sweeps features blackface.

In the 1964 film, Mary and Bert take Jane and Michael on an all-singing and dancing tour of London with Bert’s pals that begins with them flying up through the chimney.

Famously, they become covered in soot and in a now infamous scene, Mary attempts to wipe it off only to discover that she has made it worse, and so owns the soot and adds more to her nose and cheeks.

Dick Van Dyke as Bert and Julie Andrews as Mary (Picture: Disney)

However Professor Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, an English and gender studies professor at Oregon’s Linfield College, has now suggested that the scene in question is a reference to the original PL Travers books which associated chimney sweeps’ blackened faces with racial caricatures.




‘The 1964 film replays this racial panic in a farcical key,’ he wrote in the New York Times.

‘When the dark figures of the chimney sweeps Step in Time on a roof and a naval buffoon, Admiral Boom shouts, we’re in on the joke, such as it is: These aren’t really black Africans; they’re grinning white dancers in blackface.

‘It’s a parody of black menace; it’s even posted on a white nationalist website as evidence of the film’s racial hierarchy.’

Step in time step in time! (Picture: Disney)

He goes on to claim that Travers used the sweeps as a stand-in for black people in her books; ‘don’t touch me, you black heathen,’ a housemaid shouts at a sweep in the 1943 book Mary Poppins Opens A Book.

However fans of the film have taken to social media to denounce the claims – and suggest that perhaps the ‘only insulting thing about Mary Poppins is Emily Blunt’s attempts’.

Ouch.

Can’t believe what I’m reading this morning. Mary Poppins was racist?! The only insulting thing about Mary Poppins is Emily Blunt’s attempts ? — ? (@blh2019) February 3, 2019

Woke up to read that apparently Mary Poppins is racist. The world gets more ridiculous by the day. — Jess (@Jessx90x) February 3, 2019

US literary professor Daniel Pollack-Pelzner says Mary Poppins is racist in the 1964 classic for blacking up her face when dancing with chimney sweeps.

What a load of Pollacks. You get this black stuff up chimneys – it's called soot! pic.twitter.com/uQRBgj3Y6C — Peter Barron (@PeteBarronMedia) February 3, 2019

Mary Poppins, racist?! Whatever next! ? — Alexandra Malone (@MissMalone2002) February 3, 2019

Metro.co.uk has contacted reps for Disney for comment.

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