Media Literacy Minor Portfolio

We Are Simply, All, The Birds

The song that immediately came to mind for me as a protest song isn’t one I think is generally seen as one. The song, “Feed the Birds” from Mary Poppins, sang by one of the most incredible, beautiful, talented women in the world, Julie Andrews. At the surface level, “Feed the Birds” is a song about an old beggar woman who sits on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London who feeds the birds and sells bags of birdseed so others will as well. Mary Poppins is a children’s movie, so I watched it for the first time as a child. I always liked the “bird song.” About a year ago, one of the people who wrote the song passed away and I saw it on my Instagram feed. I remembered liking the “bird song” so I decided to listen to it again. I was genuinely surprised about how it was making me feel as I was listening to it. Maybe it’s just because I’m older now and actually understand what a metaphor is. Very quickly, I realized that the birds in question were not just actual birds, they were the poor, the oppressed, the unwanted, the foreigners, and all the people in the world experiencing hardship or injustice. I also understood that feeding them, while sometimes it could be literal, was more than that. It’s giving space to people in those situations, temporary or systemic, to be authentic, feel safe, be sheltered, and be cared for by those of us who have the means to care for them. That kind of tenderness is its own protest in a world that experiences such concentrated and widespread hatred, hardship, and injustice.

The tenderness doesn’t just end with the meaning of the words of the song. The song itself isn’t loud, angry, or, dare I say, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. It’s slow, and sweet, it’s a lullaby, quite literally. Mary sings the song to the Banks children in their nursery to send them to sleep. Additionally, the song exists in the Anglican context of the Banks household, there are times where the song is deeply hymnal. In its words it draws direct images of the saint’s statues on St. Paul’s Cathedral smiling on the bird woman (portrayed by Jane Darwell), as well as anyone who takes up her call to feed the birds. In the music itself, Julie Andrews is accompanied by a choir who contributes very beautiful soprano and baritone hymnal background. In other words, the song itself is telling the listener that feeding the birds is calling for every individual on a spiritual level. You’re supposed to feel it in your soul and in your most vulnerable moments.

That quiet spirituality connects “Feed the Birds” to the kind of protest that Tammy Kernodle describes in Will Robin’s interview about the 1963 March on Washington. Kernodle explains how Black women musicians like Mahalia Jackson, Odetta, and Camilla Williams used spirituals to protest in a way that was “radical, but deeply emotional.” These women were often denied the microphone as political speakers, yet their songs carried messages of freedom, grief, and persistence that transcended words. Their performances feel like a spiritual experience for both the woman performing it and the people listening to it. It also reminds us that protest doesn’t always have to be loud or confrontational, it can also be rooted in care, and community, while not allowing the issue to slip under the rug. Which unfortunately, some lonely and incredibly sad, angry people take as confrontational.

In that same sense, “Feed the Birds” represents protest through gentleness. It invites empathy and moral awakening through beauty instead of anger. But it also doesn't let you hide from the issues at hand. The Bird Woman’s plea, “Feed the birds, tuppence a bag,” is simple, but it challenges listeners to see humanity in those society overlooks. Like Mahalia Jackson urging Dr. King to “tell them about the dream,” the song becomes a call to act out of love and conscience, and to leave hatred and bias behind. We are simply, all, the birds.