Video: Zoe Heriot from Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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:

The next companion though — so notice the how we’re growing — she, herself, Zoe, is a computer scientist. That’s cool. We’ve allowed the woman to have the skill that can be helpful. So we’re moving. I know, I’m very happy with that. This is kind of cool. Now, She was also considered someone who brought the 60’s coolness to the show, because you’ve got that sort of 60’s haircut and she wore little Mod boots and little miniskirts. So, clothing-wise, she wasn’t all that professional looking, but she had a cool job. So, we had this balance that we’re always doing. And she fought the Cybermen and won a couple of times. So she gets points for that. So, Zoe, is moving through the Patrick Troughton period. There’s a lot of Doctor’s to get through.

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

Video: Introduction to The Monkees from “Why Monkees Matter” with Dr. Rosanne Welch

A Clip from this longer presentation: Why Monkees Matter: How The Writing Staff of The Monkees Brought the 1960s Counter Culture to Mainstream Pre-Teen Viewers



Dr. Rosanne Welch presents Why Monkees Matter: How The Writing Staff of The Monkees Brought the 1960s Counter Culture to Mainstream Pre-Teen Viewers at the 2014 Cal Poly Pomona Provost’s Symposium on Faculty Scholarship (http://www.cpp.edu/~research/)

Transcript:

Welcome everybody! We’re talking today about “Why Monkees matter?” Please notice the spelling. I am not talking about this kind of monkey — that’s in a different class. I’m talking about these Monkees. In case you don’t know who they are, Davie Jones, Micky Dolenz, Peter Tork and Michael Nesmith who, in 1967, their albums outsold The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined. They had more albums sales due to their exposure on television. So, what I talk about — I’m doing a book right now on them — and so I am talking about what we learned from them. Particularly, I focus on the writers of television programs and authorship. That’s my thing, because we focus on directors as auteurs of film and we don’t realize — or we forget — that writers, are just like the writers of books. A director can’t direct 20 empty pages. Somebody put these thoughts down and what are these thoughts. So, “How the writing staff of The Monkees brought the 1960’s counter-culture to mainstream pre-teen viewers.” These are the children whose older brothers and sisters already love The Beatles and they’re learning about hippy culture from The Beatles, but these kids don’t have access to buying their own albums yet, but they have access to television, because it’s free and they can watch it all the time.

View photos from this presentation 

Dr. Rosanne Welch presents on "Why Monkees Matter" at Cal Poly Pomona - 21

Description:

Based on a chapter in my upcoming book The Metatextual Menagerie that was The Monkees, which includes a series of interviews conducted with surviving writers and performers of the 1960s television program, The Monkees I will discuss how the writers and actors used the show as a platform for their own emerging counter culture/anti-war messages.

Worth studying for its craft and place in television history (the show won an Emmy as Best Comedy Of 1967) the program’s true importance may come from its impact on the politics and culture of the era. Considered innocuous by the network, thepress and the parents of the era, the storylines and jokes created by the writers and the actor’s ad-libs brought the emerging counter-culture to the attention of young teens whose parents might not have appreciated the message. Cultural icons such as Timothy Leary recognized the subversive nature of the program, seen through the writing and in choices made about costuming, hair length, musical guests (Frank Zappa, Tim Buckley, Charlie Smalls) and songs performed by the band brought issues of Vietnam, voting and civil rights to the ‘young generation’ for whom the show clearly had ‘somethin’to say.

Dr. Rosanne Web Site and Bloghttps://rosannewelch.com

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitterhttp://twitter.com/rosannewelch

Follow Dr. Welch on Tumblrhttp://drrosannewelch.tumblr.com/

Subscribe to Dr. Welch’s YouTube Channel

About the Symposium:

The 2014 Provost’s Symposium is a forum to learn about each other’s scholarly work, make new friends, renew old acquaintances, and enhance our appreciation of the rich and diverse array of professional endeavors pursued by the faculty at Cal Poly Pomona.

Video: Victoria from Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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:

Then we move — again notice how we’re going to define women by the men in their life in this stage. Victoria — very cool character in many ways — she is the daughter of a Victorian scientist. She’s not the scientist. The daddy is. (Hems and Haws) So she knows some science because she’s heard it growing up. You know, if your Dad whatever he does, you learn how to fix a car, you learn how to do math, or whatever your Dad does. So, the knowledge has worn off on her, but she hasn’t obtained it for herself, because that is not really something they are thinking about. But she’s kind of fun..

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

News: Dr. Welch Advises New “Doctor Who” Club on Cal Poly Pomona campus

A bit of news from the Cal Poly Post today — Rosanne

New club to ‘save the world in the name of the Doctor’

News: Dr. Welch Advises New

[…]

Professors Peg Lamphier and Rosanne Welch are the advisors for the Whovian Society. Saeed was easily able to get both of them to back the club.
“I had Dr. Welch in IGE 120, and she does ‘Doctor Who’ lectures on campus,” said Saeed. “We did an introductory activity in IGE where it really helped us to who we understand who we are. Since I already made a Whovian Society back in high school, that’s also what I talked about.

“Dr. Lamphier is a really good friend to Dr. Welch, and they both work really well together. It was a given that Dr. Lamphier should be our second advisor.”

Welch has been a fan of the show since high school.

“I watched it in the 70s with my college [and] high school friends,” said Welch. “When it was rebooted in 2005, I naturally came back to it. I found it was an interesting, well-written show.”

Welch believes that the show is beneficial for anyone to watch.

“I think it’s a positive show,” said Welch. “A lot of science fiction [television shows] focus on apocalyptic, end-of-the-world zombies eating us stuff, and [the Doctor] focuses on providing the change that will makes the worlds that he visits better.”

[…]

Read the entire article in The Poly Post

News: WGA Presentation to students of FAMU Film and Television School of the Academy of Performing Arts of Prague

On Wednesday January 7th I had the great pleasure of attending a special lecture given by writer-producer Jeff Melvoin to the students of Pavel Jech, Dean of the world renowned FAMU Film and Television School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. What fun to spend a morning discuss the differences in how our two countries prepare writers to work in these areas!

News: WGA Presentation to students of FAMU Film and Television School of the Academy of Performing Arts of Prague

Jeff gave a great presentation on A Day in the Life of an American Showrunner, based on lectures he gives for the Showrunner program he helped found at the Writers Guild of America, West. Then we all walked over to the 3rd Street Farmers Market for lunch and casual conversation.

I was particularly interested because my father was Czechoslovakian but since he left when I was so young, I’ve never learned much about the country or its history (in fact most of what I learned I learned from reading the memoir former Secretary of State Madeline Albright wrote – Prague Winter: A Personal Story of Remembrance and War, 1937-1948). So it was interesting to meet with students who could have been me had my father’s parents never emigrated to the U.S.

The whole day was arranged by Ken Lazebnik, Director of the new MFA in TV and Screenwriting for Stephens College, with whom I am proud to be working to get this new program up and on its feet.

Video: Why Monkees Matter: How The Writing Staff of The Monkees Brought the 1960s Counter Culture to Mainstream Pre-Teen Viewers

Why Monkees Matter: How The Writing Staff of The Monkees Brought the 1960s Counter Culture to Mainstream Pre-Teen Viewers



Dr. Rosanne Welch presents Why Monkees Matter: How The Writing Staff of The Monkees Brought the 1960s Counter Culture to Mainstream Pre-Teen Viewers at the 2014 Cal Poly Pomona Provost’s Symposium on Faculty Scholarship (http://www.cpp.edu/~research/)

View photos from this presentation
Dr. Rosanne Welch presents on "Why Monkees Matter" at Cal Poly Pomona - 21

View a slide show of al the photos from this presentation

Description:

Based on a chapter in my upcoming book The Metatextual Menagerie that was The Monkees, which includes aseries of interviews conducted with surviving writers and performers of the 1960s television program, The Monkees I willdiscuss how the writers and actors used the show as a platform for their own emerging counter culture/anti-war messages.

Worth studying for its craft and place in television history (the show won an Emmy as Best Comedy Of 1967) the program’strue importance may come from its impact on the politics and culture of the era. Considered innocuous by the network, thepress and the parents of the era, the storylines and jokes created by the writers and the actor’s ad-libs brought theemerging counter-culture to the attention of young teens whose parents might not have appreciated the message. Culturalicons such as Timothy Leary recognized the subversive nature of the program, seen through the writing and in choicesmade about costuming, hair length, musical guests (Frank Zappa, Tim Buckley, Charlie Smalls) and songs performed by theband brought issues of Vietnam, voting and civil rights to the ‘young generation’ for whom the show clearly had ‘somethin’to say.

Dr. Rosanne Web Site and Bloghttps://rosannewelch.com

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitterhttp://twitter.com/rosannewelch

Follow Dr. Welch on Tumblrhttp://drrosannewelch.tumblr.com/

Subscribe to Dr. Welch’s YouTube Channel

About the Symposium:

The 2014 Provost’s Symposium is a forum to learn about each other’s scholarly work, make new friends, renew old acquaintances, and enhance our appreciation of the rich and diverse array of professional endeavors pursued by the faculty at Cal Poly Pomona.

Video More than screaming from Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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:

Now, the complaint about some of the early female characters is that they were hired — the artreses would say — hired for their ability to (Screams) scream. (Laughter) Because their job was going to stand there and go (Screams) “It’s a big scary monsters!” Right? That’s not very empowering. Not a very empowering stance to take. However, while they were busy screaming, they were also often challenging The Doctor as to what her was going and how he should behave when he crosses into new cultures. Which, of course, is something we chat about in lots of history courses and in the IGE stuff that I do, it’s all about cultures coming together. And that’s what The Doctor is doing. So usan is a really interesting character. I liked her. I was interested by her. I like what she did. She left the show to go rebuild Earth. She traveled to the Earth many times. Seen it nearly destroyed. In this last episode she was in, Dalek Invasion, she saw, of course, the Grand Daleks ruin the world and so she chose — which is a staple of feminism — choosing the thing you will do with your life. She chooses to leave her grandfather behind — go travel without me — I’ve been there, done that — I don’t need to see any more dinosaurs. I want to stay here on this place that has been ruined and I want to use my female power to heal. That’s what I want to do with the rest of my time. And I think that makes her a really very powerful character, despite the fact that in many early episodes she scream a lot.

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

Video: Susan, The First Companion from Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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:

While she’s here starting Doctor Who we come to the very first companion, who is the original Doctor’s grand-daughter, Susan. Susan’s a very cool character. When they invented The Doctor and this traveling guy, they knew he would travel with people and, you know, you want balance — you want a guy and a girl — that’s just kind of, we like that look. It’s TV, they wanted a young, pretty-looking girl. So, now we’re going to have an old guy traveling though time and space with a pretty, young girl. We need to make sure that’s not some weird thing. So, she became his grand-daughter. This is part of the conversation. First, she was just going to be a partner and they went “Oh no, that won’t work. Right?” So she became his grand-daughter. Now, that’s nice because it humanizes the character. He has a grand-daughter.

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

Video: Verity Lambert from Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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 this is a lady that we need to pay some attention to in charge of the beginning of Doctor Who. ere name is Verity Lambert and she was a producer with the BBC and she was brought the idea of doing this historical program that would teach children about history. Isn’t that fun? It was educational. No one knew there was going to be plastic monsters and all that sort of thing. And this was a huge job for a woman in 1963. We don’t have a lot of female producers. Matter of fact, in today we don’t have a lot of female producers. So this was a huge step and she has a bit of a mark on the program. She Worked on it for several years. She helps give birth to it.

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

Video: Waves of Feminism from Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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:

Now feminism had waves kind of like a very good surf. The first wave was when everybody learned how to vote — how to let women vote. That was a big deal — 1920 — we’re tap dancing. We’re voting. We’re all good now. And then they went, “Ok, everything’s perfect, right? Once you can vote it’s all perfect?” And every other group learned that is not really true. It takes a little more time. You have to ask for a few more things. So, by the time we get to when Doctor Who first showed up in the early 1960’s, we’re taking about the second wave and women are now thinking, “Wait a minute. I need some equality of culture. I need to be able to do the things I would like to do and not have someone tell me I can’t have that job because only boys have that job.” No, what’s going on is the whole Women’s Liberation movement is happening right now. In a lot of countries, I’m thinking England, but also America, right, but also, Ah Hah, the biggest invention for women in a long time. Oh my god, a person could decide if they were going to get pregnant. That was a very huge step in the whole female world. It didn’t mean you had to quit having sex, because sec is s good thing. We like that. We juts didn’t always want to have a baby every 2 years. Which, if you were married or 20 years, you probably had 15 kids.

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