Doctor Who – Page 16 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Newspaper Interview with Dr. Rosanne Welch – Pomona Reads! community reading event set for this Saturday

I was interviewed for this article on Pomona Reads, which takes place tomorrow, Saturday October 14, 2016.

You can find complete information at Pomona Reads on Facebook.

From the article…

GOING DEEP ON ‘DR. WHO’

The community reading event will also include a talk about the television series “Dr. Who” by Rosanne Welch, who teaches humanities courses in the interdisciplinary general education department at Cal Poly Pomona. Welch has written about the show and “Torchwood,” a show spin-off.

“Dr. Who” is a British television science-fiction series that has a large following and which has been produced by the BBC since 1963.

Welch’s talk will appeal to both those who are longtime fans of the show and for those just learning about it. The series is a good example of the pairing of creativity and quality writing, Welch said.

The main character in the show is an alien who travels through space and time with different companions. The departure of actors playing the main character has not hurt the show. Instead, the changes have provided show writers a way to give the alien character and his companions new adventures, Welch said.

“They’ve really become a huge worldwide phenomenon,” she said.

One generation enjoyed “Dr. Who” in their youth, and they introduced it to their children and now their grandchildren are following it, Welch said.
“Dr. Who” offers “a positive look at the future,” Welch said, while most science fiction tends to be dystopian.

The alien finds goodness in earth and its people, “and he’s a champion for us,” Welch said.

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on Doctor Who at the 2016 Pomona Reads: A Celebration of Books – October 15, 2016

I’m going to be part of the great project in Pomona where I will be speaking on “How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity: A Study of the Doctors and their Male Companions.” If you’re in the area, please stop by, say “Hi!” and check out all the other great activities, panels and authors!

Pomona Reads: A Celebration of Books

Saturday, October 15, 2016 @ Noon

Pomona Civic Center

Don’t miss Dr. Rosanne Welch on Dr. Who!Dr. Rosanne Welch is a writer and university professor who teaches Humanities courses in the (IGE) Department at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; and screenwriting for two MFA in Screenwriting programs (Cal State, Fullerton and Stephens College).

Her current book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” is available from McFarland Publishing.

In the Who-vian world she has published a chapter in “Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television” (I.B.Tauris) an essay in “Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology.”

In January 2017 “Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection,” which she co-edited with her CalPoly Pomona colleague, Dr. Peg Lamphier, will be published by ABC-CLIO. In her previous life, Welch was a television writer/producer with credits that include “Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences and Touched by an Angel” and ABC NEWS/Nightline.

Who is the Manliest Companion on Doctor Who? from How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity [Video] (2:13)

Dr. Rosanne Welch presents “How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity: A Study of the Doctors and their Male Companions“ at the Cal Poly Pomona University Library. Dr. Welch teaches in the IGE (Interdisciplinary General Education) program.

Watch the entire presentation here

Transcript:

I didn’t pick, because I’m not going to pick for you. You’ve got to pick for yourself. These are the messages that we’re being sent by this piece o popular culture. So, how we’re relating to those messages is the question. What I did do was look into who the show named as the most manly man and they did in The Day of the Doctor. They made a choice. They mentioned the man that all men should live up to. Anyone remember who it was? It’s at the very end of The Day of the Doctor. And it’s John Hurt talking. He’s made that choice, right, in the end. Made the cool choice not to bow everybody up. I thought that was brilliant writing. Who knew you could do that? Literally, re-wrote the last 10 years of the series with that one choice. Who did he pick as the manliest man ever to appear on Doctor Who? A Woman! A modern women is the equal to any man. That’s a modern an talking. That’s a modern man thinking about people as complete and total equals and, to me, that was so cool when I stumbled on that. Didn’t even occur to me. Now, Clara’s not necessarily my favorite character, but in this particular episode she helped a decision be made that saved the world. She’s the one who told him he didn’t have to drop the bomb. That’s a huge, manly, choice. She influenced the lives of millions by standing up and saying that. So, I think that was hilarious and wonderful which brings us back to that first quote. “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” Right now! Today! Which means be a good family man. There you have it. Thank you so much for coming.

A clip from this 5th talk on various aspects of Doctor Who presented by Dr. Welch. You can find Dr. Welch’s other Doctor Who talks using the links below.

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A New Companion For Doctor Who!

This will be all over the internet in a minute – but I wanted so share it here for the folks who have enjoyed so many of my Doctor Who lecture videos.

Who is the Manliest Man on Doctor Who? from How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity [Video] (1:30)

Watch the entire presentation here

Transcript:

That leaves me with wondering, of all The Doctors who is the manliest man? I think it’s an interesting thing to ponder. We’re critically thinking about our media and what messages is our media sending us. Who do we bond with? Who do we think’s the best? I’ll tell you. None of them. Why can’t any of them be the manliest man? They aren’t men. They’re aren’t human. They’re Timelords. None of them can be the manliest man. All right. They’re all Timelords. However, I’m very interested in the actual men who have appeared on the show. So from that group. who do we think defines masculinity in the modern world best?

Student: “Is it Rory?

Ooo, why?

Student: “Because he’s a family man”

He does it all! He’s a family man, but he’s also a warrior and a protector and he’s a good dad to both the baby and to the grownup River, who he didn’t get a chance to know. Imagine – that’s like an adoption story, where you meet your child when they’re a grownup and how do you make a relationship with someone who you didn’t share any time with. You’ve got to start from scratch and that’s exactly what he has to do with River Song. It’s a very modern story. In the days before, when you never opened adoption paperwork and you couldn’t know that. So, I think that Rory is a very modern guy. And a very manly man. He was good pirate, too. When he had to be.

A clip from this 5th talk on various aspects of Doctor Who presented by Dr. Welch. You can find Dr. Welch’s other Doctor Who talks using the links below.

Follow Dr. Rosanne Welch on the Web and via social media at:

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Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart as Father Figure 2 from How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity [Video] (1:35)

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Transcript:

We learn that he has a daughter. So in the modern Who, the military person is Kate Lethbridge-Stewart, his daughter. So. she’s inherited her father’s job, if you will. She’s a science officer more than a military officer with UNIT, which is the group that takes care of all of that. So, we meet Kate and when we get to Death in Heaven the problem is all the corpses have been turned into Cybermen and their all rising out of the cemetery and, at a certain point, we lose Kate — they toss her out of an airplane, so we know she’s dead, right? Because she hit the ground, splat, she’s dead. Except among all the corpses we’ve been reminded is her father who has been turned into a Cyberman and when we go to that point in the episode we find out that she’s still walking around the cemetery. She hasn’t been harmed, because she never went splat. He caught her and brought her to the ground safely. He protected his child all the way to the end and then he went up to heaven with Danny. Danny pulled all the Cybermen out and it’s The Doctor — never salutes because he doesn’t like the military — but for this act — the act of saving his child, he’s going to salute and I think that speaks to what The Doctor thinks about what makes a man a man. And again, it’s all tied into being part of a family.

A clip from this 5th talk on various aspects of Doctor Who presented by Dr. Welch. You can find Dr. Welch’s other Doctor Who talks using the links below.

Follow Dr. Rosanne Welch on the Web and via social media at:

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Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart as Father Figure from How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity [Video] (1:07)

Watch the entire presentation here

Transcript:

We’ll go back in history to one character I don’t think we give enough attention to, and that’s Lethbridge-Stewart, who arrives in the Jon Pertwee era as a military dude, so he’s a warrior from that period and that’s largely what we see him do for a long time. Again, we’re in the 70s now, so we’re not thinking about dads as an important role for men. But, as we go through time and the show stays on the air, guess what? He grows older, you know, because time flies and actors are actual humans and he appears on The Sarah Jane Adventures here as Lethbridge-Stewart so he still exists in her time period. He’s a grandfatherly type and he’s going to help her with some adventures. Now, because he’s a real human being, he passed away. By the time we got to Capaldi’s episodes — and now here I’m in Death in Heaven — he has passed away and so this is a portrait. We have to be reminded of his existence and his character in case you’ve never seen the show before, because we’re going to move to the ending place in this episode where he does the most fatherly, heroic thing.

A clip from this 5th talk on various aspects of Doctor Who presented by Dr. Welch. You can find Dr. Welch’s other Doctor Who talks using the links below.

Follow Dr. Rosanne Welch on the Web and via social media at:

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Danny Pink and Fatherhood Part 2 from How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity [Video Clip] (1:10)

Watch the entire presentation here

Transcript:

…and then what happens, God Forbid. You did realize there would be spoilers. Right? I assume people have seen these episodes. God Forbid, he is turned into a Cyberman, too and this so awful, so awful. But. He is a warrior and he’s able to do a thing that will save the family around him — the people of Earth, right?…by beating the Cybermen by getting all the other Cybermen to follow him up. he loses Clara, which is terrible, but, being the show, he gets that second chance to come back from the afterlife and he doesn’t take it, because there’s only one chance to come back and instead he gives it to little Afghan boy that he killed by accident, when he was at war. So, he gives up his happiness and his chance essentially at a resurrection to give it to the child whose chance he took away and he sends that child back into the world so he can start again. Again, if that isn’t the pseudo-father to that child than I don’t know who is.

A clip from this 5th talk on various aspects of Doctor Who presented by Dr. Welch. You can find Dr. Welch’s other Doctor Who talks using the links below.

Follow Dr. Rosanne Welch on the Web and via social media at:

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More Warrior Doctors from How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity

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Transcript:

Before we knew that John Hurt existed, we knew Eccelston the Warrior Doctor. He was really someone who was left with the trauma of having made that decision. We didn’t know that a different version of him had made it. So, he defined himself as well as a Warrior and then we have our beloved David — at least, my beloved David — who is, I would say, is a representation of both the Warrior and the Lone Wolf, but I’m going to add, he’s got Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, much more than Eccelston revels it. He’s really talking about how bad he feels about what happened and I think that’s what endeared him to so many people — his ability to share his emotions. Which, I think, is one of the definitions, if we go back to Empathy, that defines a modern “Man” and I think that’s why he captured so many people as quite a favorite Doctor in this period.

A clip from this 5th talk on various aspects of Doctor Who presented by Dr. Welch. You can find Dr. Welch’s other Doctor Who talks using the links below.

Follow Dr. Rosanne Welch on the Web and via social media at:

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Why not Famous Female SF&F Writers for Doctor Who? from Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse [Video Clip] (0:45)

A clip from this longer presentation – Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Watch this entire presentation – Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch (https://rosannewelch.com) speaks on “Feminism in the Whoniverse” of Doctor Who, the BBC television program now in its 50th year. She reviews each of the Doctor’s female companions and speaks on how they are represented in the program and how they represented the women of their respective periods.

Transcript:

…And that speaks to a lot of what is going on, because in this time period, think about all the famous women science fiction writers — and it’s a big deal that Moffat went and got Neil Gaiman to do the show and everyone was “Ooo, Neil Gaiman wrote and episode.” In the time the show’s been on the air Octavia Butler was alive — not anymore but she was, right? Ursula Le Guin was alive. There are lots of female science fiction writers out there that they could have picked, but they never did. They picked 5 women out of about 807 episodes. So, I don’t think it takes women to write cool women, but, then again, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I wasn’t thinking about that. But to me that’s the story of feminism on Doctor Who.

Feminism in the Whoniverse was presented at the Cal Poly Pomona University Library where Dr. Welch teaches in the IGE (Interdisciplinary General Education) program.

This is the 4th talk on various aspects of Doctor Who that Dr. Welch has presented. You can find these talks using the links below.

Subscribe to Dr. Welch’s YouTube Channel

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