For many years I had a love-hate relationship with the
movie Peter Pan. We grew up on the Mary
Martin film of the Broadway show (while the Disney version was familiar too, I
don’t think we owned it). The movie hews
fairly close to Barrie’s original text (which, like the dutiful homeschooler I
was, I had also read), including the ending—which I hated with the passion of a
thousand flaming suns. Peter Pan, come
back after many years’ absence, finds that Wendy’s daughter is ready for an
adventure and that Wendy, now “old, ever so much more than twenty,” has
forgotten how to fly. After some
back-and-forth, it is agreed that Wendy Jr. will gallivant off with Peter for a
limited period of time, just “to do his spring cleaning.” Wendy expresses a wistful wish that she could
go too. Peter (and it was Mary Martin’s
smirk that made the lines truly unbearable) replies: “No, Wendy. You’re too old now.”
I was still a kid, and it still stung.
Of course, James Barrie would probably say that it was
supposed to sting. His Peter Pan is a lovely adventure story,
but filled with winking irony intended for adult readers speaking to their
children. There is the occasional dash
of social criticism (the Darlings worry that their unconventional dog-nanny
Nana will lead to raised eyebrows), and plenty of wry commentary on the
differences between male and female perceptiveness, especially in affairs of the heart.
Thus we learn, for example, that Wendy’s mother
…
was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her
romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the
puzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and her
sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get, though there
it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner. (Ch.1)
It’s a kiss that Mr. Darling can’t get either (and he
is not aware of the innermost box, says Barrie); and Barrie adds that not even
Napoleon could have gotten that kiss.
Who does get the kiss in the end?
Why, Peter Pan of course.
That’s what is so frustrating about Peter. He’s not fair.
I am aware, of course, that I am speaking Hookishly
here. But Peter really is so much of a
brat that one is forced occasionally into feeling that even Hook
had a point.
To be fair to Peter, it must be admitted that the grownups
in Peter Pan have an inconvenient way of interfering in their children’s
lives. For example:
Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying
up her children’s minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after
her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for
next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have
wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can’t) you
would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to
watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees,
I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on
earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet,
pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly
stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness and
evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed
at the bottom of your mind and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out
your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on. (Ch.1)
Peter, if he is not exactly an evil passion, is certainly a naughty one. But so irresistible is he that, troublemaker though
he is, Mrs. Darling forgives him. Indeed,
even after he has stolen away her children, she cannot bring herself
to say a word against him.
“That fiend!” Mr. Darling would cry, and Nana’s bark
was the echo of it, but Mrs. Darling never upbraided Peter; there was something
in the right-hand corner of her mouth that wanted her not to call Peter names.
Something in the right hand corner of her mouth,
perhaps, that wasn’t quite grown up.
* * *
Not long ago I watched Hook for the first time, and recently I rewatched it. For those who haven’t seen the movie (which I
suppose is getting a little old now, as grownup things are wont to do): it is a
cheerful, scary (for children at least) flick with a lot of “heart” and the occasional
unfortunate moments of vulgarity and salaciousness that are for some reason obscure to me considered de rigor in comedy.
The conceit is that Peter Pan—now “Peter Banning,” played with
delightful goofiness by Robin Williams—has indeed grown up, and not only grown up
but forgotten his past, and not only forgotten his past but become a
small-souled lawyer who is so absorbed by his work that his relationship with
his wife and two children suffers. Worse
yet, he is afraid of heights (as his scornful and resentful son discovers on a
transatlantic jaunt). Worst of all, as
his aged “granny” Wendy discerns, he has become “a pirate.”
In the immediate context, Wendy is referring to Peter’s
activities with his firm: he is the tough negotiator who swoops in and defeats
the small companies struggling against absorption by their larger
competitors. But the judgment has further
implications. Peter is physically cowardly,
self-absorbed, and incapable of recognizing the reality of anything remotely
fanciful or imaginative. Little
children, one suspects, are not fond of him—certainly he has alienated his son
Jack, though his younger child Maggie remains loyal. He does not tolerate fooling or teasing or play. And he does not recognize the reality
of time. Though living in a world bound
and governed by time—unlike the world he inhabited for ages as a child—he acts
as if its rules do not apply to him. He
can delay attendance at a baseball game or while away the hours of a rare vacation on
his phone—indeed, can while away the years of his children’s childhood—without repercussions. He is master of his time. At least, he acts as if he thinks this
way. Probably, he doesn’t think about it
at all.
Interestingly, all these qualities—the anti-time
attitude, the intolerance of jokes, the antipathy of children, the lack of
imagination, the egotism, and the cowardice—are qualities of Capt. Jas. Hook.
Of which, and of what Barrie might think of all this,
more anon.
