Show – Page 90 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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

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:

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:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

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:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Danny Pink and Fatherhood from How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity [Video Clip] (0:49)

Watch the entire presentation here

Transcript:

Now we go back to Danny Pink. Danny we don’t get a chance to see do the whole Dad thing, but we see a few things. First of all, what’s his job when he’s not being a soldier? He’s a teacher. So, we define again teacher as a gendered kid of job. We generally see women int he education field. Especially when it’s in middle school, elementary school, a few more guys in high school, but largely we see that as a female job, because it’s about nurturing a younger generation of people. So, as a teacher we see him protective of the children in his care. He is their pseudo-father when they are at school with him and I think that’s really important. That’s how Danny is defined for us. We see him first as this and then we hear about the warrior — oh yeah, he was a soldier. So his first definition is this.

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:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Saved By Fatherhood from How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity [Video Clip] (1:35)

Watch the entire presentation here

Transcript:

One of my favorite episodes to do with family and fatherhood is the episode where James Corden guest starred as Craig Owens and his job was to take care of his baby and he was very bad at it. How many people have seen this episode? How cute it Stormageddon? I have a question for…of course, James Corden from “Into The Woods” right now and he’s also on his TV show, but what’s great about this episode is what saves his life? Does being a warrior save his life? Does being super-intelligent save his life? When the Cybermen show up and turn him into a Cyberman — which have never seen anyone undo. Once the Cybermen get you, you are done and the poor Doctor has to do that emotion inhibitor thing and suddenly you feel emotions and you blow up. it’s the only way to kill you once your a Cyberman. Except for him. He breaks the bond of “cyber” because he hears his baby cry and his need to save his child is stronger then the pull the Cybermen have on him in this metal casket that they’re creating around him. If that’s not a Dad, I don’t know what is. If that’s not a man who defines himself by his fatherhood, I do not know what is. So, I thinks a really interesting again, turn, in the modern Who. This is how Steven Moffat is defining masculinity as men who love their families. That’s the highest calling that a man can be brought to.

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:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Rory Williams – Family Man Part 3 from How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity [Video Clip] (1:14)

Watch the entire presentation here

Transcript:

So Rory is a reflection of modern day fathers and what women are looking for ina modern man, if they’re going to spend the rest of their life. You want somebody else who’s going to help you clean the toilet. Right? When you get married, it’s not just you cooking dinner every night. It’s a shared job. It didn’t use to be. I had a friend who would go to work, her husband got home an hour before she did. He would sit on the couch and wait for her to get home and start making dinner, ’cause dinner was her job. Yeah, yeah. So things have switched around and the show is reflective of that. I think that’s really beautiful. And, of course, we know who the baby grew up to be. River Song! Who allows us a family of “Ponds”, even though they were stripped of the chance to raise her. We now have a Pond family as part of The Doctor’s story and again Rory overlooking all of that. He had to deal with his feelings of losing his chance to raise his child. That was something that harmed him, more than all the danger. How many times did Rory die. Really now. All those deaths didn’t bother him nearly as much as being denied the chance to raise his own child. So, I think that defines him much more deeply as a family man above all other things.

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:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Rory Williams – Family Man Part 2 from How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity [Video Clip] (1:08)

Watch the entire presentation here

Transcript:

Of course, along the way, he gets to be a full family man because…he and Amy have a baby! I think it’s very important. There’s a photography of him holding his child. It’s not just her always holding the baby and taking care of it, this is a shared parenting which is part of the modern generation. You all are probably lucky. Your Dad’s were probably more involved, but if you get back to my generation’s Dad, there the folks that went to work, came home, had dinner, watched TV qnd never talked to their kids and that was what men did. Right? And over the course of a couple of generations, parenting has become a co-job and you can see a Dad just as easily taking his kid to the doctor or going to a school function and helping out. it’s become a definition of men in this new generation to be family caretakers — to be involved — to go to the soccer games even if their not coaching , right? And to go to the birthday parties at school when you have to hand out little cupcakes with candles in them. That’s become a new definition, right? You all are probably more used to that, but it’s not something that happened in the past.

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:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

The Vagina Monologues 2016 – Rosanne performs “The Flood”

The Vagina Monologues 2016 – Rosanne performs “The Flood”

On Tuesday February 16th the Women’s Resource Center of CalPoly Pomona presented their 15th annual performance of Eve Ensler’s “Vagina Monologues“.

My colleague Peg Lamphier and I joined a cadre of talented students in performing one monologue together. Then a student dropped out and the director asked me to cover for her so this is my rendition of a monologue entitled “The Flood”. It came from Ensler’s extensive interviews with women over the age of 65, many of whom were not able to say the word ‘vagina’ out loud.

The best thing about the evening (besides ‘acting’ on stage again!) was watching all the students create a bond over the material – and watching those who had sat shyly in the back of some of my classroom discussions suddenly shouting “Vagina!” or impersonate moaning… We had to stifle our laughter backstage during most of the show. But seeing all these female students become sisters through theatre was the best.

Link: Cal Poly Pomona Women’s Resource Center

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Rory Williams – Family Man from How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity [Video Clip] (1:13)

Watch the entire presentation here

Transcript:

How can we not talk about Rory when we talk about family men. Rory being, before Danny, the most recent male to travel with The Doctor. Think about Rory. We meet him and what’s his profession? He’s a nurse. He’s not a doctor. He’s a nurse. That is gender-traditionally a female job. So we have Rory who’s a nurse. That’s a definite choice. Right? Macho is not nurse, except maybe 20 years form now. And yet, when Amy keeps getting the chance to choose between men – ooo The Doctor or Rory — she continually chooses Rory. Who, to her, is the manliest man, because he’s dedicated to her and their family. In fact, as we know, he’s so dedicated to her, he spends 2000 years guarding the Pandorica to keep her safe. 2000 years waiting to make sure no one can harm her. You can’t get better than that and that makes him a Warrior, as well, but a Warrior for the purpose of protecting a member of his family. That’s how deeply a family man he is and I think that is so cool.

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:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Mickey’s Masculine Choices from How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity [Video Clip] (1:00)

Watch the entire presentation here

Transcript:

When he (Mickey) made the choice to stay in the alternative universe, he didn’t choose that just because it meant that he was going to continue to fight bad aliens, which is the Warrior part of him. He chose to stay there because, in the real world his grandmother, who he lived with was already dead. In the alternative universe she was still alive and so he chose to stay there so he could continue to kno his grandmother. THAT is a family man. That is a man making a choice about what’s useful and beneficial to his family above and beyond any of the other things that masculinity would require. I think that’s adorable. It’s not like he was staying with his grandfather to manhood from him. It’s staying with his grandmother who needed somebody to take care of her and who he still needed in his life for that influence that she had. And I think that’s a really, really, beautiful part of Mickey and where he grew.

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:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Mickey Smith and Martha Jones from How Doctor Who Redefined Masculinity [Video Clip] (0:38)

Watch the entire presentation here

Transcript:

When I think about Mickey Smith and I want to think about masculinity, he suits a lot of little places. A lot of these definitions. You would think we can talk about him as a warrior, because, in fact, he did become one. He’s probably the man who grew the most in his knowledge and his time with The Doctor. He went from a little puppy dog boyfriend of Rose who was dumb and she wasn’t liking him any more. Then he found his way to being a hero in his own life and so much so that, of course, as we know, he ended up marrying Martha (Jones) who is really a very, very powerful female character I believe.

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:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS