As I type this title I smile – a sad kind of smile – because there are so many things I could be talking about. But not to worry, this is not about melting icebergs or immigrant children in cages. You can relax.

On May 13, Doris Day died at 97.  The news was full of her radiant, blemish-free face, her tiny waist and twirling skirts, her perfect and perky figure. She was singing, she was dancing, she was acting. She flirted, she pouted, she laughed, she cried (but not for long). She stamped her size 5 ½ foot and got what she wanted. AP called her “the sunny blond actress and singer whose frothy comedic roles opposite the likes of Rock Hudson and Cary Grant made her one of Hollywoood’s biggest stars in the 1950s and ‘60s and a symbol of wholesome American womanhood.”

These images took me back to my teen years when she was everywhere. I didn’t particularly want to look or be like Doris Day, but the message was clear: this was what American girls and young women should strive for if they wanted to land some version of Cary Grant – which we were all expected to want to do.  Her contemporary, Marilyn Monroe, offered a different model, one with a naughty twist.  But still the basics were the same. It was about being amazingly, perfectly beautiful for starters. You could tweak your own style after that. (more…)