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by docwheels » 20 Aug 2019, 19:08
I'm new to the forum and appreciate the webmaster allowing me to register. The webmaster suggested I give a quick reason for becoming a new registrant even after Ms. Day's death - and the most concise answer I can give is "hope."
Briefly, I'm a retired professor that honestly only saw 2 Doris Day films in the first 6+ decades of my life and hadn't a clue that she was anything but a "movie" singer. I became a pre-teen consumer of movies and music at the same time the Beatles stormed the American shores and when I was old enough to buy my own music it was Karen Carpenter I was listening to. So, it wasn't that I disliked Doris Day - I just didn't know her since my parents couldn't afford movies and listened only to classical or religious music.
So, how did I get from that past to becoming a forum member? As I looked at all the obituaries about Ms. Day back in May, I was blown away. How could I not know more about a woman who made 39 films in 20 years and recorded over 650 songs? So, as academics tend to do, I said, I'll do some research and watch some of the films. Being very organized, I decided to start at the beginning with "Romance on the High Seas."
Long story short, a month after I started my "research" - while I was still working my way through all the films and beginning to seek out Doris Day music recordings since I'd already learned that Ms. Day was a "real" singer - an old colleague and I had lunch. At the end of the meal, he said, "you're surprisingly happy for someone who's gone through a lot of bad things in the past several months." That comment shocked me. After thinking about what he said for a couple of minutes, I told him, "you know what, it's because I've been watching and listening to Doris Day. I don't what it is about her - not really the substance of the movies or music - just something about seeing and hearing her that makes me feel optimistic."
Well that moment has now turned into a course that I'll be teaching this coming winter at George Mason University's Osher Life-Long Learning Institute. It's entitled "Jung, Doris Day, and Hope." My premise - after reading both a lot of music/movie theory, watching all of Ms. Day's movies/listening to at least half of her music, and contemplating modern entertainment and culture - is that a factor in why so many in U.S. society seem so hopeless is that we don't have any MAJOR entertainment/cultural figure who embodies optimism (the Jungian archetypes of the "innocent" and the "orphan/guy-girl-next door") like Ms. Day did.
Reading your postings - along with comments on social media sites - has been a great help to me in pulling this course together. I may also be asking a few questions on some of the threads.
Again, thanks for letting me be part of the forum.