by Mariana Figueredo
The essential is no longer invisible to the eyes. Run to your nearest mirror and check. Or run to the nearest Blockbuster, get Nanny McPhee and check. Second option will take a little longer, but you can do it with popcorns at hand.
Based on the books Nurse Matilda (no, not Mary Poppins) by Christianna Brand, Nanny McPhee is a British fantasy movie about seven mischievous motherless siblings with surprising skills in driving nannies mad. But their unruly world is about to end when a new nanny, Ms McPhee, appears with her magical secrets…and her hideous face. Played by British actress Emma Thompson, McPhee gradually loses her unibrow, hairy warts and scary traits, as the kids start to behave and love her. Likewise, Evangeline, the poor good and unnoticed young maid of the house is subtly turning into a lady in order to gain Cedric’s love, the children’s father. But that would only happen if he could run away from the grotesque and evil Mrs. Quickly, who can’t wait to marry him and send the kids away.
McPhee’s transformation from an ugly witch into an angel-like lady is what director Kirk Jones and producers claim as the movie’s most fascinating element. This magic change is supposed to teach children that one shouldn’t judge other people by their appearance. However, such a message falls short when the physical transformation is correlated by a change in her behaviour. McPhee, as other characters, have a fixed role according to their physical appearance. In this sense, Nanny McPhee supports standards of beauty as markers of people’s morality.
By the beginning of the movie, McPhee’s physical appearance and actions resemble those of a “traditional witch” from Disney movies. Her snaggletooth, warts, unibrow and twisted nose are the perfect companions for her severe treats. When she arrives to The Brown’s lives, they feel intimidated by her facial features. Still, it takes more than an unusual face to discipline the kids. The five lessons Nanny McPhee wants them to learn (to go to bed, get up, get dressed, do and listen when they are told) are not accomplished by the kids own will, but by the nanny’s scary magic tricks. For example, the first morning she spends in the house, the children refuse to get up and pretend to be ill. McPhee uses her powers to bind them to the beds and makes them feel actually sick, forcing into their mouths a horrible medicine. When the siblings don’t stop playing in the kitchen, she uses her magic cane and makes them lose control of their own bodies, nearly provoking that the littlest of the Browns jumps out the window. The
kids have to apologize before a tragedy takes place. In this way, her ungracious physical appearance corresponds with the stereotypical concept of ugliness as synonym of evilness.
But McPhee’s aspect is not the only thing to be afraid of. Characters such as Lady Adelaide Stitch, the children’s rich aunt, and Mrs. Quickly, Cedric’s future wife, represent the antagonists every fairy tale needs. Since the moment both women are presented, the feeling they are up to no good appears. This is made by portraying their lack of fashion sense and grotesque facial expressions, like twitching the nose too much or atrocious smiles escorted by yellow teeth. The children’s aunt dresses in grey and kind of resembles a raven. Mrs. Quickly wears eccentric dresses of bright unpleasant colours, and a wig that matches her dirty teeth. Such impression I mentioned before is later confirmed, for Lady Adelaide forces penniless Cedric to marry soon, or she will stop economically supporting the family. She doesn’t care about the kids’ safety or happiness, but about what people would think if their father doesn’t get marry soon. The same happens with Mrs. Quickly. She is a vile, children-hater, thrice widow. Adelaide’s wealth is the only thing that motivates her to tolerate the Brown family. Hence, the movie foreshadows the characters’ morality by the use of clothes and manners conventionally considered unattractive or unpleasant.
Let’s now go to the other side of the coin. When the kids reluctantly start to behave and McPhee loses her awful appearance, curiously, she also loses her harsh traits and violent methods. Now the nanny is a beautiful slender fairy godmother who sweetly advices children and rescues fathers in distress. One of the final scenes of the movie shows how she helps the kids to get rid of their aunt and their father’s fiancée, to fulfil their wish of getting their father married to the maid. Likewise, Evangeline has also been transformed. She abandons the ragged clothes and poor manners for uptight dresses and refined gestures. And she is finally noticed by Cedric. Evangeline is pretty and in fashion, she would be a good mother, right? Or at least that’s what Cedric believes, for he immediately changes his mind and marries her. It is true that she has always cared for the seven children, but her good actions were overshadowed by her clothes and manners. It is only when she is seen dressed and acting as a sophisticated high-class lady, that everyone, including the kids, qualifies her as “beautiful”. In this sense, the movie backs up the idea that conventional beauty equals goodness.
My main concern about this movie is the way its moral is exemplified, as if there is no other way of portraying goodness and evilness than through beauty and ugliness. My concern goes beyond, for the world is not divided into good people and bad people, pretty people and ugly people. But coming back to my previous point, what do those simplifications of people’s morality say about our society? My answer is that the so currently “repudiated” superficiality of human beings strongly remains in our society. What we see is what we get. Then there is little doubt why McPhee couldn’t remain ugly till the end, because she becomes a good person and such a combination would confuse anyone…
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