Here comes another weekly Lady Business segement, Video of the Week. This week, our video comes from the third season of French and Saunders, one of the few comedy shows helmed by women, in this case Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders.
In this video Jennifer Saunders parodies basically any movie with Doris Day in it, and sings about what women really want from life: a husband.
A cute video, but Doris Day rarely portrayed women who sought marriage and marriage alone. That’s a misconception by many. She loved to be loved, like most of us, but she was an independent, forward-looking career woman in many of her films, and many consider her portrayals to have led the way in film for the liberation of the “modern” day woman.
Yes, many of Doris Day’s roles were of career women, however, most of those films ended with a wedding or an implied wedding. That sends the message that even though she had her career,she did not truly succeed until she had a husband. Yes, the films of Doris Day lead the way to modern romantic comedies, but modern romantic comedies still present that theme that women aren’t complete without a romantic partner. The modern conception of Doris Day is as a stereotypical 1950s woman, which is what Jennifer Saunders is satirizing.
I completely agree with Howard. There is nothing more I could add to his comments except to say that Miss Day is doing extremely well at 87. She is healthy, in excellent shape and still works every day to make the plight of abandoned animals better.