Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.
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Transcript:
So let’s talk about some women you know and some women you don’t know and hopefully, you will — as I said. These are ladies, hopefully, you’ll recognize. Anybody? (Audience: Shonda Rhimes) Shonda Rhimes! Thank goodness. We must all know Shonda Rhimes. (Audience: Is that Diablo Cody?) That’s Diablo Cody. Exactly, from Juno. This lady — you have probably seen more movies than any of theirs combined. (Audience: Is that Jane Fonda?) No, looks a lot like her though. doesn’t she? Nora Ephron. Nora Ephron, right? Incredible. So these are people that I think you recognize. There’s Nora Ephron. Nora Ephron is probably the queen of screenwriting. She passed away a few years ago, but you’ve seen probably all these films or you’ve heard about them mentioned in popular culture places. You’ve seen parodied on The Simpsons. That’s how embedded in popular culture they are, right? I mean, “When Harry Met Sally” is a classic. it is something that everyone references when they think of rom-coms.
Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses the women in her new book “When Women Wrote Hollywood” which covers female screenwriters from the Silents through the early 1940s when women wrote over 50% of films and Frances Marion was the highest paid screenwriter (male or female) and the first to win 2 Oscars. Yet, she fails to appear in film history books, which continue to regurgitate the myth that male directors did it all – even though it’s been proven that the only profitable movies Cecil B. de Mille ever directed were all written by Jeannie Macpherson film ever won for Best Picture was written by Robert E. Sherwood (who people have heard of, mostly due to his connection to Dorothy Parker) and Joan Harrison.
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