Doris Day Icon

After logging innumerable hours on the Internet doing research for a screenplay titled “A Modern Romance”, which is based on a young woman’s idealization and idolization of Doris Day, I realized what an iconic figure Doris Day really was and still is. If an icon is an image, a symbol, a representation, an idol, a star or a model, then Day is an icon in every sense of the word. There are literally millions of references to Doris Day on the Internet, ranging from film, music to sports, philosophy, politics, logic, feminism, sociology, gay icon, neurology, animal activism, fashion etc.

That Doris Day packs a cultural impact is obvious by the adulation and sincere affection she commands from legions of fans, both famous and not, as can be seen by various fan sites and tribute articles that abound on the Internet.
To justify all the hours spent on this project and to pay homage to a wonderful entertainer, person and humanitarian who gave me and many others a lifetime of joy and pleasure, I came up with an idea to share this knowledge with a wider audience and create an interactive research community on the subject of Doris Day.  In other words, the goal is to write an interactive virtual doctoral dissertation which is open to fans, academics, the intrigued and those who simply have too much time on their hands.

The hypothesis:

Doris Day is a cultural icon and as such is a relevant and influential figure of the 20th and beginning of 21st centuries.

Methodology:
The compilation of data is mainly through Internet sources such as fan clubs (Doris Day Forum, Pillow Talk, etc.), blogs (Dress a Day, Sir Cranky, etc), columnists (Liz Smith, etc), movie forums, music film and book review sites, scholarly articles and so on. Any pertinent books will be acquired in order to give direct quotes. Where possible I will contact the various sites and columnists for collaboration, clarification and to stimulate discussion. The compilation of data will take place from now till some undetermined time in the future when the subject matter will be exhausted.

The text will be continuously altered, corrected and added to. In other words, it will be a work in progress until the definitive version is written. As it stands now, the text is still in an outline format and divided into chapters. Some of the chapters are taking form and the rest have only raw data in them. This raw data will be sifted through and written down in a standard fashion.

If anybody comes up with a well formulated argument and provides their full name then they will be acknowledged.

Along the way I will write ‘author’s notes’, either clarifying text, checking the veracity of some statements or asking readers for their help.

The goal of this web site is to study and explore the cultural and social significance of Doris Day.

Rules of the game:

• Open forum but you still have to log in
• This site is not an analysis of Doris Day’s movies per se or her singing unless one can advance the hypothesis, as stated above, with a credible argument supported by references.
• Be kind and polite and don’t forget the hypothesis.
• Let’s keep it fun and not get too stuffy
• Author’s motto: Crude and rude and you’re out for good
• This site and its contents are fully owned by the author.