‘Racism’ is probably not the first word that comes to mind when most of us think of Mary Poppins. Yet Disney’s 1964 children’s classic has long been an unlikely target of rabid social-justice warriors.

Back in 2019, New York Times writer Daniel Pollack-Pelzner took Mary Poppins to task for ‘shamefully flirting with blackface’. This was in reference to when Poppins gets covered in soot during the ‘Step in Time’ musical number. ‘Instead of wiping it off’, he complained, ‘she gamely powders her nose and cheeks and gets even blacker’. This entirely innocent scene was thus held up as ‘proof’ of the film’s supposed bigotry.

Now the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC), the UK’s government-approved film regulator, seems to agree that Mary Poppins is racist – although not for its alleged ‘blackface’. This week, the BBFC raised the film’s age rating from U to PG due to its ‘discriminatory language’.