“1960s TV Censorship and The Monkees” gives a brief overview of where censorship standards were in the era – and how The Monkees pushed the envelope with its mentions of the Vietnam War – and Sunset Strip riots – and even with the outrageous storytelling behind “Frodis Caper”, the episode that celebrated the saving of an alien plant that very closely resembled a marijuana plant…
Writer Treva Silverman said the staff got away with such jokes because the network executives were just old enough not to understand any of the references. Presented at Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting classes on Friday, August 5, 2016
Transcript:
I have Andrea Zuckerman from 90210 because when I worked on that show, I wrote the episode where — as a pregnant college student — she went to Planned Parenthood to think about it, but at the time, we knew she wasn’t going to be able to make that choice. We argued about it with the network, but then they said “No. That’s not going to happen.” And the real life actress (audience comment) No, she had the baby and lived with it — the baby. And it was because Gabrielle Carteris, the actress was actually pregnant and rather than write around the pregnancy they wanted to have it happen to her character So, this is the kind of stuff that changes with what’s allowed. Thirtysomething, which of course now I am moving into the 80’s, just to give us an overview and folks from last year recognize, the writer from thirtysometing? Winnie Holzman! She didn’t write this particular episode, but what’s interesting about it is this is the first time on television you saw two men in bed together, Post having sex. We didn’t see them have sex, but here they are. This episode was banned in several states in the South. They didn’t run it at all.
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona. In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University. She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.
Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”
The writers created independent female characters to interact with the young male leads of the show. Treva Silverman, one of the first female writers to work solo on a comedy staff partially accounts for the strong female voice on the show. Her presence on the writing staff is an example of the gains women made in the wake of the second wave of feminism, represented in the world of The Monkees via its female guest characters.
You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!
Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library
Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.
In the book, in the beginning of the movie you see Sonny on the day of his sister’s wedding and he’s banging the maid of honor up against the wall in the bathroom. That’s how we’re introduced to the character Sonny. They never really told us what was going on it went by pretty quick so little kids might not have noticed this, so they got away with that and all right, he’s married and he’s having sex with someone he’s not married with. Hmmph. And then it just drops. We never hear anything more about that story line. In truth, in the book, Lucy Mancini, who is the bridesmaid, is one of the hight level characters. She actually is still his mistress through the course of his life until he is blown up in the tool booth and then the family pays her a pension because she’s been their son’s companion, so it’s like his wife gets his legal inheritance and the family pays her money basically because she lost her second husband, if you will.
About this talk
Dr. Rosanne Welch (RTVF) speaks on the craft of history of film adaptations from the controversy of the silent film Birth of a Nation (protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1915) to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (to which author Truman Capote famously said, “The only thing left from the book is the title”) to The Godfather . Naturally, the behemoth in adaptation – Harry Potter (which depended on the relationship created by adapter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling) will be discussed, as will the subject of this month’s celebration: Dune.
Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm
About Dr. Rosanne Welch
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona. In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University. She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.
Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”
“1960s TV Censorship and The Monkees” gives a brief overview of where censorship standards were in the era – and how The Monkees pushed the envelope with its mentions of the Vietnam War – and Sunset Strip riots – and even with the outrageous storytelling behind “Frodis Caper”, the episode that celebrated the saving of an alien plant that very closely resembled a marijuana plant…
Writer Treva Silverman said the staff got away with such jokes because the network executives were just old enough not to understand any of the references. Presented at Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting classes on Friday, August 5, 2016
Transcript:
This is really scary. How much different things get censored and you don’t know why. Judgment at Nuremberg is a very famous play. It was on Playhouse 90. It was on television. It’s about the Nazi death camp trials. In the entire run of that play on television they never used the word gas, because the American Gas Association, which advertised on television, asked them not to or they would pull their advertising. So we never mentioned that that was the way that many thousands of people were killed. So that’s the kind of censorship you don’t even think is going on. Likewise, and now I’m moving a little into the 70’s with Maude, but just to think about it, Maude was the first character on television to ever have an abortion by choice. Because it had been legalized in New York. it was not yet federally legalized, but in New York at the time it was. And she was about 44 years old and they went though the whole “I feel like I’m too old to have a baby. It’s not going to safe, etc, etc.” No one had an abortion on television until Christina Yang on Grey’s Anatomy just a few years ago. No one was going to allow a female character to make that choice.
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona. In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University. She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.
Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”
The Monkeesmost often interact with and fall for young women with careers and always ‘nice girls’, never druggies or drop outs. The lesson became if girls wanted to marry a Monkee, a common dream for the huge female fan base, they should strive to be feminists, not floozies. ‘
For many, that lesson lasted most of their lives with former Monkees’ fans becoming everything from PhDs to fashion designers (Stella McCartney) to politial commentators (Rachel Maddow)
The majority of women on the program were in the age range of the lead characters so it is noticeable that the various young women the characters of Davy, Micky, Mike and Peter fall in love with are almost all feminists, defined by their interest in academia, their working for wages and the fact that they are active, not passive, in the various storylines in which they appear.
You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!
Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library
Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.
What was crazy was, he wasn’t smart enough to ask to read a copy of the script. He didn’t know they would let him do that. So he just demanded that they never use the word and it turned out they only used it twice in the whole original script. So, they were perfectly happy to say “Ok. We won’t use it. Can’t say La Cosa Nostra. You can’t say mafia.” So they just keep saying “this thing of ours.” IT didn’t hurt the movie, but but it was something that stressed — it might have had a financial bearing on it, because they figured the Italian audience — this was who was going to come see this movie. Now. What really changes in most adaptations is the books are too long to be turned into films and so The Godfather provides us a good example of something that had to change both for length and for sexual content.
About this talk
Dr. Rosanne Welch (RTVF) speaks on the craft of history of film adaptations from the controversy of the silent film Birth of a Nation (protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1915) to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (to which author Truman Capote famously said, “The only thing left from the book is the title”) to The Godfather . Naturally, the behemoth in adaptation – Harry Potter (which depended on the relationship created by adapter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling) will be discussed, as will the subject of this month’s celebration: Dune.
Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm
About Dr. Rosanne Welch
Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona. In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University. She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.
Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”
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