Unread post
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.
And Jill seems to have missed my question "My first thoughts are that it's three months today since Doris left us. How are people feeling?")
Sweet picture of her. 
