Dr. Rosanne Welch – Page 22 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

12 The Classic I Couldn’t Teach Without from In Conversation with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]

Transcript:

I started a column called the classic I couldn’t teach without because there are a lot of older books that people don’t know about and I thought well let’s highlight those right? Even though they’re not brand new and you know maybe the publishing company isn’t that excited about it. If it can stay in the canon and be reused by class after class I think that’s really useful. So like I could put in Carrie’s book on Francis Marion and other people. So yeah that was kind of a fun thing to be able to invent and then I have my students read those books in class. So then I could pick out the best of those and maybe use that in the journal. So it gave them a stepping you know stepping stone into their academic publishing.

Host: Two birds with one stone there. That’s a really good tactic and I just think that’s something that I hope people are paying attention to – this idea of you know the forgotten classics again.

One of the benefits of attending conferences is that you can meet the editors from the companies that have published some of your books face to face. That happened at the recent SCMS conference where I met Intellect editor James Campbell and he invited me to be a guest on his InstagramLive show.

We chatted about my work with the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting, and then my work with co-editor Rose Ferrell on the Journal of Screenwriting’s special issue on Women in Screenwriting (Volume 11, Number 3) that came out recently and which featured articles about an international set of female screenwriters from Syria, Argentina, China and Canada (to name a few).

We even had time to nerd out on our own favorite classic films across the eras which brought up fun memories of Angels with Dirty Faces, Back to the Future, Bonnie and Clyde, and of course, all things Star Wars from the original 3 to The Mandalorian. It’s always so fun to talk to fellow cinephiles.

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With Intellect Books Editor James Campbell (@IntellectBooks)

Speaking with Dr. Rosanne Welch, Author, teacher, and television screenwriter. Today we cover everything from women in screenwriting to our favorite Jimmy Cagney movies and Friends.

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06 Female Writers Can Be Unreliable Narrators from When Men Forget Women: The Many Ways Male Screenwriters Fail to Mention their Female Colleagues [Video]

Nearly two years ago I had the pleasure of being invited to join a panel at the then upcoming SCMS (Society of Cinema and Media Studies) conference set for Seattle. As you know that was canceled due to Covid with the hopes of reconvening in Colorado in 2021. That became a virtual conference but our group decided to reapply our panel and we four were able to ‘meet’ on Zoom on Sunday and present: Writing Between the Lines: Feminist Strategies for Historical Absences, Cliché, and the Unreliable Narrator.

Here you can watch a clip from my part of the presentation,

“When Men Forget Women: The Many Ways Male Screenwriters Fail to Mention their Female Colleagues in Oral Histories”

Transcript:

Francis Marion. So female writers are their own unreliable narrators. She was throwing away all her papers at the end of her career. She felt nobody would care. Her secretary dragged them out of the trash and gave them to Carrie Beauchamp who ended up writing “Without Lying Down”, right? This is one of the most wonderful books about the history of Francis Marion which wouldn’t have existed because the female writer herself threw away her work. She did not think that it was worth keeping. She didn’t think anybody would care. Likewise, Carrie worked on “Anita Loos Rediscovered” I don’t think Anita Loos needed rediscovering because Anita was very good at taking care of herself. So I apologize to Mr. Stemple for having to say his book didn’t tell us what it should but I’m not going to apologize to Mark Norman because he knew better. His book came out after Carrie’s book did and he actually interviewed Carrie and he refused to use the information from her book in his. So there.

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New Book Coming This November – “American Women’s History on Film” by Rosanne Welch and Peg A. Lamphier

I’m proud to announce my latest book (co-written by my colleague Peg Lamphier) is set for publication this November 2022 by ABC-Clio/Bloomsbury. In it we take a look at 10 films that tell stories about famous moments or women from Women’s History in the United States.

Films covered in each chapter are:

Norma Rae (1979)
Silkwood (1983)
Joy Luck Club (1993)
GI Jane (1997)
Iron-Jawed Angels (2004)
Salt of the Earth (1954)
Monster (2003)
Hidden Figures (2016)
Confirmation (2016)
On the Basis of Sex (2018)

We’re particularly pleased with this cover. We learned from our Encyclopedia of Science and Technology that you have to ask for what you want upfront. For that one, the art department had chosen photos of 2 male inventors and the space shuttle to decorate the cover. We asked that it be 2 male inventors and one female inventor for balance. No one had thought about including a female until we asked. So for our Civil War on Film book, we asked for that upfront and sure enough, though the bulk of Civil War films are full of dudes in uniforms they found a photo of Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln sitting beside Mr. Lincoln.

For Women’s History in the United States, we asked to be sure to include women of color and you’ll see we succeeded at that request.

Similarly, a couple of years ago in my work as book reviews editor for the Journal of Screenwriting I asked to use a photo of Ruth Prawer Jhabvala on the cover since one major article was about her amazing career writing everything from Room with a View to Howard’s End to Jefferson in Paris. The editor agreed but then production hit a snag in that the only photo available in our price range was too small to blow up to fill the whole cover. But then someone in production had the great idea to use that small photo several times, strung along on a graphic that made it look like a strip of film with that same picture in every frame. Creative and brilliant and salvaged the idea of having a female face on the cover while simultaneously celebrating the work of a wonderful female writer.

I’m learning!

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From ABC-Clio…

By exploring a range of films about American women, this book offers readers an opportunity to engage in both history and film in a new way, embracing representation, diversity, and historical context.

Throughout film history, stories of women achieving in American history appear few and far between compared to the many epic tales of male achievement. This book focuses largely on films written by women and about women who tackled the humanist issues of their day and mostly won.

Films about women are important for all viewers of all genders because they remind us that the American Experience is not just male and white. This book examines 10 films, featuring diverse depictions of women and women’s history, and encourages readers to discern how and where these films deviate from historical accuracy. Covering films from the 1950s all the way to the 2010s, this text is invaluable for students and general readers who wish to interrogate the way women’s history appears on the big screen.

Features

Focuses on 10 films with an emphasis on racial and class diversity
Explores where storytelling and historical accuracy diverge and clarifies the historical record around the events of the films
Organized chronologically, emphasizing the progression of women’s history as portrayed on film
Accessible for general readers as well as students

16 Guest Characters…from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

It was great to be able to attend this year’s SD WhoCon in San Diego and present this lecture on “The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years” in which I discuss how successful I think showrunner Christopher Chibnall was in making that transition.

It gave me a chance to talk about the creative work of a showrunner/screenwriter while also reconnecting to some friends we had met at this same convention some 3 years ago – and to talk about one of my favorite subjects – Doctor Who!

Transcript:

…Then he had to think about the guest actors – the people who would come and go in different episodes and I think again look at what he gave us in terms of powerful female characters right? I love Yaz’s Nan, right? I adore that episode. We’ll talk about that in a couple minutes. Yes, I know Grace? Now and we’re going to talk about that tomorrow because that’s a little bit of how Torchwood changed television in a smart way because he’s using the same trick he used on Susie right? We all thought she was a regular and then she wasn’t and that’s how else you get the modern world who reads everything out of Deadline and Variety and all online – how do you get them and you gotta have that gut-punch moment but he did a good job of keeping the character alive both in the dialogue right and then Graham saw her a few times and Ryan was always talking about her. So that’s pretty cool and then of course the two women in Witchfinders are strong powerful women on different sides of the debate of what was going on in terms of witches. So all these again strong females that he’s bringing forward.

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07 More On Captain Jack Harkness from Why Torchwood Still Matters with Dr. Rosanne Welch, San Diego Who Con 2021 [Video]

I recently presented a talk on Torchwood (Why Torchwood Still Matters) where I highlighted a few ways in which the show (airing from 2006 to 2011) came up with progressive and innovative ideas that are being used by other franchises today.

I always enjoy attending the SD (San Diego) WhoCon because the audiences are so well-informed on the Whoniverse and Whovians love Captain Jack and the crew that made this spinoff program so engaging.

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Transcript:

Imagine the idea that you could see two men kissing on television. That just was not done. In the mid-80s there was a show here called 30 Something and it was the first time two gay men kissed on American television and in something like eight states they refused to air it. They simply did not show that episode right? So here in you know England because of Queer As Folk and slowly. So I think Captain Jack is a fascinating character. It’s so interesting that he’s really – I mean he’s not any particular thing but he’s an American when we meet him right and that’s such an interesting – oh seed that into their culture. Maybe it made it easier to accept because he wasn’t an Englishman. I don’t know. It’s very interesting but he’s a fascinating character and of course, we’re going to talk about the fact that he starts out we all – look he’s bisexual because – look in Children of Earth we find out he’s got a daughter, and a grandson. So clearly there was a woman in his life at some point right? So that’s interesting. We don’t generally see that representation very much on tv either. People are either this or that and suddenly it’s like or both right? He’s a 21st-century guy which is a pretty cool thing right? He likes women. He likes men. He’s omnisexual, right? If you’re cute he’s all about it which is why not and this happened before. I teach college you know and now I have students who represent us pansexual, asexual. They all are much more comfortable about their sexuality right? They’re not defined by one thing. Nobody was having that conversation really and I’m not saying only Torchwood did this but as we start these conversations in the media they build into our society right and people feel comfortable then having a conversation about things. So I’ve been really impressed that they start with that and they tried to keep it up. It was hard because we want to see Jack with somebody we know and we like. So it usually is a human but that was laid into his character, right? This is what it’s like to be an alien.

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11 Writing Book Reviews as Intro To Journals from In Conversation with Dr. Rosanne Welch and Intellect Books [Video]

Transcript:

Host: When I’m trying to give people some tips on how they can maybe get their first article published and I often say to people that they should approach the book review editor and see if there’s anything that needs reviewing or of course go to the books review editor with like some really cool exhibition or something very recently seen and write book reviews because it’s a fast track way of getting yourself published and then, of course, people like you know that the person can be trusted to follow guidance and to submit to a deadline but do you have as a books review editor or just as an editor, in general, do you have any top tips for people looking to publish their first articles or…

Rosanne: Well you just gave the best one which is exactly how I got involved in the journal. I was invited to do a book review. A friend had written a book and she was like will you write a review of it. I was like oh, of course, that sounds fun. So yes then the editors got to know my name. I did a few more of those. I then published an article which was in fact about Dorothy Parker and then the book review editor was stepping down. He was changing universities and was going to get busy and so they invited me to do that and I was interested. So I started doing that and of course, then I’ve been able to help my MFA students by giving them assignments to write book reviews.

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With Intellect Books Editor James Campbell (@IntellectBooks)

Speaking with Dr. Rosanne Welch, Author, teacher, and television screenwriter. Today we cover everything from women in screenwriting to our favorite Jimmy Cagney movies and Friends.

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05 Unreliable Narrators In Textbooks from When Men Forget Women: The Many Ways Male Screenwriters Fail to Mention their Female Colleagues [Video]

Here you can watch a clip from my part of the presentation,

“When Men Forget Women: The Many Ways Male Screenwriters Fail to Mention their Female Colleagues in Oral Histories”

Transcript:

Screenwriters who write textbooks are unreliable narrators. When Mark Norman wrote What Happens Next he has about six women mentioned in the entire book and he declares that their work wasn’t very worth studying. So this is not a textbook that I use after two years of trying it and my students pretty much having a fit. Now I love Tom Stempel. Tom gave us the first book on screenwriting history but he didn’t know anything about Francis Marion at the time. He didn’t have much to say about her and I’ll tell you why in a second. For McPherson, he listened to what Cecil B DeMille had to say and that’s what ends up in his book. Now i’ve been lucky enough to have him come to speak to my students and he has apologized because he’s learned more in the days since he wrote that book and he asked the publishing company could he do a rewrite but they didn’t think that the ratio of new pages would make the higher price worth it and they didn’t give that to him but he has a column you can read in Script Magazine and he tries to cover for the things he missed originally.

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15 Strong, But Not Stronger… from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

Transcript:

These issues of finding men who can be strong but not stronger than have happened in television before. I’m a huge Buffy fan all right. I get to – I could do many a lecture on Buffy and think about it right? We had both David Boreanaz and James Marsters. Of course, Marsters will appear in Torchwood for us again later. They had to be strong but she always was the one who solved the problem. It was her skill but did it. Whether it was the strength of her emotion that she could avoid how much she loved Angel in order to have to kill him – spoiler alert if you’re not a Buffy fan – but that’s a really tricky thing and also of course even Xander, they dealt with a character who could be strong again emotionally but he was never physically stronger than Buffy, right? You could say the same obviously for the current day Wonder Woman, right? How do you balance that out and that was Alan Heinberg, who’s a wonderful writer. Came out of the Shondaland universe and then ended up doing Wonder Woman. He’s now doing Sandman in the UK with Neil Gaiman. So again the Doctor Who connection and that’s coming out later this year and of course, this goes back to the 70s and the Bionic Woman who was surrounded by men who had to be intelligent and helpful but not better than her. So this is something Chibnall had to have in mind as he put this together.

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06 Captain Jack Harkness from Why Torchwood Still Matters with Dr. Rosanne Welch, San Diego Who Con 2021 [Video]

I always enjoy attending the SD (San Diego) WhoCon because the audiences are so well-informed on the Whoniverse and Whovians love Captain Jack and the crew that made this spinoff program so engaging.

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Transcript:

Of course, he invents Captain Jack who, you know let’s face it, he’s admitted a million times it’s really like his dream boy and then – everybody’s dream boy. Hello. Exactly and how can he not be right but he said – Russell has said several times – which I think is very important what he wanted to show on television were things he wished he’d seen as a child and what he’d never seen was two men be romantic with each other. Not like pornographic sex, romantic right? The fact that they could dance together in public and that was acceptable. Such an amazing – it doesn’t seem like that much but it’s that much right and it was to him because he’s writing from the perspective of the little boy that he once was and what wasn’t he shown. So really impressive to me how much they moved the needle forward in terms of gay representations. Of course, we’re talking about men here not necessarily women yet but you know you open one door, you start opening it a little bit more.

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10 More On A Special Issue on Women Screenwriters from In Conversation with Dr. Rosanne Welch and Intellect Books [Video]

Transcript:

Because I’m in the States I made sure we had an article on a show in Canada because in the States everyone kind of erases Canada just like you know northern states but obviously not right? They have beautiful tv productions and the shows they put out are very multicultural in fact and that’s part of their mandate from the government. Basically, you need to make sure that we’re seeing the whole of Canada. So it was really interesting. It was like okay we got all this – we got probably 120 abstracts – people were very anxious to be in this issue and we could only use eight or nine of them. So I’m really proud of that fact and I think that that’s something that you know if I was well I do teach classes but other people who do I would hope that they would find articles in there that they could use in their class to highlight these female screenwriters from all over. So that’s the goal and then on a regular basis, I edit the book reviews. So I’m always like someone wants to write a book review or they have a new book they want to tell me about I would gladly – I need more information. So that’s our process.

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With Intellect Books Editor James Campbell (@IntellectBooks)

Speaking with Dr. Rosanne Welch, Author, teacher, and television screenwriter. Today we cover everything from women in screenwriting to our favorite Jimmy Cagney movies and Friends.

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