It never grows old… today the 2nd book in the Hollywood History series that I co-wrote with my dear friend and colleague, Peg Lamphier, arrived on my doorstep.American Women’s History on Film covers 10 films that focus on some area of women’s history, usually through the eyes of a bio-pic since that is mostly the way women’s history is told.
American Women’s History on Film is part of the Hollywood History series from ABC-Clio that included our earlier title The Civil War on Film. What’s been most fun about being part of this project has been the perfect way it split between my and Peg’s specialties. She is a Civil War historian, and my specialty is Screenwriting Studies — together we are both women’s history professors – so each book focused on an area in which one of us had perfect expertise.
As well, we learned from earlier books that we had to be very specific about the cover art we wanted on each of these books – that it should have a female presence on the Civil War book (since the assumption was they’d choose some photo of male soldiers on a battlefield) so for that book, they gave us a photo including Sally Field playing Mary Todd Lincoln beside Daniel Day Lewis in Lincoln. For the current book, we were even more specific and requested women of color – and they gave us this lovely photo from Hidden Figures.
It’s been 4 years since publication of ‘When Women Wrote Hollywood’, a collection of essays by the inaugural class of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting but reviews continue to arrive in our inbox including this one today:
“WHEN WOMEN WROTE HOLLYWOOD” is a collection of more than 20 essays focusing on the lives of female screenwriters of the Golden Age of Hollywood. Their writings helped create unforgettable stories and characters beloved by audiences to this 2022 year. Whoever heard of Ida May Park, Eve Unsell, Gene Gauntier, Lillian Hellman, Adela Rogers St. Johns, Anita Loos, let alone what they wrote. Absolutely a must read for the serious Hollywood buff, or student of cinema resolute in finding a career in the motion picture industry.”
Many congratulations to all the writers who contributed to this volume. It is a staple of the History of Screenwriting courses in our Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting – and at a few other schools as I’ve been told.
Host: What are the examples of the heroine’s journey? What are some of those the stories that are in the heroine’s journey format template? I’m curious.
Rosanne: Oh I would obviously “The Wizard of Oz” like I said. In a TV world, we claim that for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” right? Very much so about that. The joke becomes you could say “Scooby-Doo” does that. It’s anything that involves a team coming together and so in a fun way that can also be sometimes a male-focused team. If you think about war movies they’re all about a team of people coming together for the betterment of each other. Even though they’re like the most dude movies and you could say the same thing about westerns. If it’s a group of people an Oregon Trail kind of thing or group of men in a town or the sheriff and a couple of his buddies. The heroine in terms of pulling away from being female and then pulling back into it, that tends to happen more often in sort of romantic comedy or something like “The Intern” where she’s trying to figure out how to be a leader of these other men and then she has to realize it’s about the nurturing that I do. That is better than me being more loud and annoying and stuff but I can make a list for you that I can have.
Host: Okay great. Well, I’ll claim “The Wizard of Oz” and “Buffy” as westerns. I think Sunnyvale – Sunnyvale? Is that – I think that’s in California we can call it
Rosanne: it is. That’s true. It is about making the town safe for the new inhabitants.
Host: Right.
The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting is building a relationship with the Autry Museum of the American West since both organizations are devoted to bringing out more diverse and untold stories. Last year we were able to take our cohort of graduating MFA candidates to the museum’s theatre for a showing of Michael Wilson’s Salt of the Earth and we had plans to present a film of our choice this year – but of course the pandemic changed all that. Instead, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis asked me if I would sit for an interview about female screenwriters in the western genre and so “When Women Wrote Westerns” came to be a part of their “What Is a Western? Interview Series”.
I had a great time discussing so many wonderful women writers – from Jeanne MacPherson to D.C. Fontana to Edna Ferber to Emily Andras. If you love westerns I suggest you watch Josh’s other interviews covering everything from the work of Native Americans in Western movies to films in the western-horror hybrid. —
What this entire presentation
As part of a series exploring the significance of the Western genre and the ways in which the movies shape our understanding of the American West, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis interviews Professor Rosanne Welch about the women screenwriters of Hollywood and their contributions to the Western genre.
But we’re also looking for news stories and the newer, most interesting ones. They’re gonna break through because the audience is so diverse and so wide and now we’re International right with Netflix and streaming and all that stuff. We can think about people we haven’t covered before and we know around the world other people will be interested in it. In the same way, we’re watching Japanese anime and you know Korean telenovelas and all that stuff.
The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting is building a relationship with the Autry Museum of the American West since both organizations are devoted to bringing out more diverse and untold stories. Last year we were able to take our cohort of graduating MFA candidates to the museum’s theatre for a showing of Michael Wilson’s Salt of the Earth and we had plans to present a film of our choice this year – but of course the pandemic changed all that. Instead, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis asked me if I would sit for an interview about female screenwriters in the western genre and so “When Women Wrote Westerns” came to be a part of their “What Is a Western? Interview Series”.
I had a great time discussing so many wonderful women writers – from Jeanne MacPherson to D.C. Fontana to Edna Ferber to Emily Andras. If you love westerns I suggest you watch Josh’s other interviews covering everything from the work of Native Americans in Western movies to films in the western-horror hybrid. —
What this entire presentation
As part of a series exploring the significance of the Western genre and the ways in which the movies shape our understanding of the American West, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis interviews Professor Rosanne Welch about the women screenwriters of Hollywood and their contributions to the Western genre.
…and there’s a lot of dudes in town — really good guys — who are learning that wait a minute, we’re used to talking over women and all that sort of thing and we have to stop and let people finish their thoughts before we dive in with something else and then people forget things and then women also have to be good — you know the classic story is that you might pitch an idea and no one takes it up and 15 minutes later a guy pitches it in the writer’s room and then everyone’s like oh yeah let’s go with that. Then you have to say that’s exactly what I said 10 minutes ago and then they’ll all kind of oh yeah. You’re right. You have to claim your talent or other people will gladly walk over it. So I think those are behavioral things right but we don’t want to — we don’t have to be super dude-like to succeed. We just have to be strong and know that you’re good at what you do…and you’ll succeed.
The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting is building a relationship with the Autry Museum of the American West since both organizations are devoted to bringing out more diverse and untold stories. Last year we were able to take our cohort of graduating MFA candidates to the museum’s theatre for a showing of Michael Wilson’s Salt of the Earth and we had plans to present a film of our choice this year – but of course the pandemic changed all that. Instead, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis asked me if I would sit for an interview about female screenwriters in the western genre and so “When Women Wrote Westerns” came to be a part of their “What Is a Western? Interview Series”.
I had a great time discussing so many wonderful women writers – from Jeanne MacPherson to D.C. Fontana to Edna Ferber to Emily Andras. If you love westerns I suggest you watch Josh’s other interviews covering everything from the work of Native Americans in Western movies to films in the western-horror hybrid. —
What this entire presentation
As part of a series exploring the significance of the Western genre and the ways in which the movies shape our understanding of the American West, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis interviews Professor Rosanne Welch about the women screenwriters of Hollywood and their contributions to the Western genre.
For women particularly though, we know the world is still a boys club and so you have to be confident and you don’t want to be overly aggressive because then people say bad things about you and yet if you’re not, you don’t get through the sort of the clutter of everything. One of the cool things that we teach about is we all know “The Hero’s Journey” – which is what I talked about with Luke Skywalker – but “The Heroine’s Journey” is a thing that we teach right and Maureen Murdoch came up with that. “The Heroine’s Journey”, of course, is about a female character but it’s about what women learn from society which is generally if you want to succeed you have to act like a man. So you separate – your beginning of that movie – you separate from your girlishness and you start doing dude stuff and by the time you’re done with the movie you figure it out, no the only way to actually get forward is to use the talents that I have, perhaps inherently, because I’m a female and when I reconnect to how female I am then I succeed. So to me, that’s what women have to remember to do.
The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting is building a relationship with the Autry Museum of the American West since both organizations are devoted to bringing out more diverse and untold stories. Last year we were able to take our cohort of graduating MFA candidates to the museum’s theatre for a showing of Michael Wilson’s Salt of the Earth and we had plans to present a film of our choice this year – but of course the pandemic changed all that. Instead, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis asked me if I would sit for an interview about female screenwriters in the western genre and so “When Women Wrote Westerns” came to be a part of their “What Is a Western? Interview Series”.
I had a great time discussing so many wonderful women writers – from Jeanne MacPherson to D.C. Fontana to Edna Ferber to Emily Andras. If you love westerns I suggest you watch Josh’s other interviews covering everything from the work of Native Americans in Western movies to films in the western-horror hybrid. —
What this entire presentation
As part of a series exploring the significance of the Western genre and the ways in which the movies shape our understanding of the American West, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis interviews Professor Rosanne Welch about the women screenwriters of Hollywood and their contributions to the Western genre.
Host: You’ve mentioned being a professor of aspiring screenwriters. You know as they look to their future careers. What opportunities do you see or challenges that they, and maybe particularly your women students, will face but probably also your men students? What looks like it may be changing? What challenges are they facing what you know how are our Technologies changing that may affect this? What do you see looking forward?
Rosanne: So many things. I think what’s a good thing to look forward to is the studios are now recognizing thanks to “Wonder Woman” and “Black Panther” there are audiences for stories that are not from the main quote-unquote norm. So now they’re hungry for those because they want that money and it’s always about money. We always know that. It is a business about money. The art is secondary which is a bummer but people are beginning to look for them but they’re still hesitant. They’re still a little worried. So you’ve got to really be confident and you’ve got to be really well-researched on whatever the story is that you want to tell, also demographically. You really have to think about who is this audience. You want some proof about where they are and all that stuff and a lot of writers are learning to you have to do you know it’s show business. You have to do half business, half show and you know we like to avoid the business but if you want to get someone to do a new kind of story you have to do that.
The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting is building a relationship with the Autry Museum of the American West since both organizations are devoted to bringing out more diverse and untold stories. Last year we were able to take our cohort of graduating MFA candidates to the museum’s theatre for a showing of Michael Wilson’s Salt of the Earth and we had plans to present a film of our choice this year – but of course the pandemic changed all that. Instead, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis asked me if I would sit for an interview about female screenwriters in the western genre and so “When Women Wrote Westerns” came to be a part of their “What Is a Western? Interview Series”.
I had a great time discussing so many wonderful women writers – from Jeanne MacPherson to D.C. Fontana to Edna Ferber to Emily Andras. If you love westerns I suggest you watch Josh’s other interviews covering everything from the work of Native Americans in Western movies to films in the western-horror hybrid. —
What this entire presentation
As part of a series exploring the significance of the Western genre and the ways in which the movies shape our understanding of the American West, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis interviews Professor Rosanne Welch about the women screenwriters of Hollywood and their contributions to the Western genre.
Rosanne: So it’s, to me, something I’m still battling. Even teaching students, they’ll come to my classes and I ask them to name their top five movies and then who directed them and then who wrote them and they can always name the five directors and unless it’s a writer/director, they don’t remember who wrote the movie and I have to tease them because they’re coming to become writers and they haven’t focused on the work of other writers. We should know the body of work of screenwriters as well as we know the body of work of writers like Hemingway or Faulkner. We should be able to say – and we do that with like Nora Ephron right? We’re pretty good with that but very few. Nancy Myers, we can kind of kind of know that. Again if you study silent films you know what an Anita Loos film. You know a Francis Marion film. The more you see their work the more you recognize it. So for me, we have to start focusing. The other thing that makes me crazy – that I must change someday – is both IMDb and Wikipedia, when you get the little Google Quick version when you do a search. They give you the movie name and the director. The writer is not in the Google search. You have to go to the page to get it. I’m like oh come on. Add one more line.
Host: I’m glad we’re giving you this platform to put this slogan and maybe you can make a poster or something but no it’s an important part of the history and such a crucial part of every film.
The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting is building a relationship with the Autry Museum of the American West since both organizations are devoted to bringing out more diverse and untold stories. Last year we were able to take our cohort of graduating MFA candidates to the museum’s theatre for a showing of Michael Wilson’s Salt of the Earth and we had plans to present a film of our choice this year – but of course the pandemic changed all that. Instead, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis asked me if I would sit for an interview about female screenwriters in the western genre and so “When Women Wrote Westerns” came to be a part of their “What Is a Western? Interview Series”.
I had a great time discussing so many wonderful women writers – from Jeanne MacPherson to D.C. Fontana to Edna Ferber to Emily Andras. If you love westerns I suggest you watch Josh’s other interviews covering everything from the work of Native Americans in Western movies to films in the western-horror hybrid. —
What this entire presentation
As part of a series exploring the significance of the Western genre and the ways in which the movies shape our understanding of the American West, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis interviews Professor Rosanne Welch about the women screenwriters of Hollywood and their contributions to the Western genre.
I kind of pick on Hitchcock because it’s Joan Harrison who wrote several of his films and got an Oscar nomination for “Rebecca” right, but you don’t think about Joan Harrison movies. You think about Hitchcock movies right and so that to me is really unfair and there’s also this concept that in the world of Hollywood, directors are so masculine – since mostly men did that– and the writers are like the girls of the town right? They’re the female part of the team. The heart versus the brawn and that’s really stupid because artists – male or female – are more sensitive that’s why they’re artists. That doesn’t mean they should be considered any less in the hierarchy of the creation of this story. For me, they should always be considered more because when you quote movies you’re quoting dialogue. Those are your favorite lines and the writer is the one who did that.
The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting is building a relationship with the Autry Museum of the American West since both organizations are devoted to bringing out more diverse and untold stories. Last year we were able to take our cohort of graduating MFA candidates to the museum’s theatre for a showing of Michael Wilson’s Salt of the Earth and we had plans to present a film of our choice this year – but of course the pandemic changed all that. Instead, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis asked me if I would sit for an interview about female screenwriters in the western genre and so “When Women Wrote Westerns” came to be a part of their “What Is a Western? Interview Series”.
I had a great time discussing so many wonderful women writers – from Jeanne MacPherson to D.C. Fontana to Edna Ferber to Emily Andras. If you love westerns I suggest you watch Josh’s other interviews covering everything from the work of Native Americans in Western movies to films in the western-horror hybrid. —
What this entire presentation
As part of a series exploring the significance of the Western genre and the ways in which the movies shape our understanding of the American West, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis interviews Professor Rosanne Welch about the women screenwriters of Hollywood and their contributions to the Western genre.
![Rosanne at Shakespeare and Company Booksellers in Vienna, Austria [Photography]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Shakespeare-and-Co.-Bookstore.jpg)
![21 Examples of the Heroine's Journey from What Is a Western? Interview Series: When Women Wrote Westerns from the Autry Museum of the American West [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/what-is-a-western-21.jpg)
![20 Diversity in the Room from What Is a Western? Interview Series: When Women Wrote Westerns from the Autry Museum of the American West [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/what-is-a-western-20.jpg)
![19 Claim Your Space in the Room from What Is a Western? Interview Series: When Women Wrote Westerns from the Autry Museum of the American West [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/what-is-a-western-19.jpg)
![18 The Heroine's Journey from What Is a Western? Interview Series: When Women Wrote Westerns from the Autry Museum of the American West [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/what-is-a-western-18.jpg)
![17 Opportunities and Challenges from What Is a Western? Interview Series: When Women Wrote Westerns from the Autry Museum of the American West [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/what-is-a-western-17.jpg)
![16 The Forgotten Screenwriter from What Is a Western? Interview Series: When Women Wrote Westerns from the Autry Museum of the American West [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/what-is-a-western-16.jpg)
![15 We Quote Dialogue, Not Camera Moves from What Is a Western? Interview Series: When Women Wrote Westerns from the Autry Museum of the American West [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/rmw-western-15.jpg)