Speaking – Page 46 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

03 The Writers of The Monkees from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (50 seconds)

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From Denver Pop Culture Con 2019.

Wherever you go, you find Monkees fans and the Denver Popular Culture Con was no different. Amid rooms full of caped crusaders and cosplay creations, I was initially not sure how many folks would attend a talk on a TV show from the 1960s – but happily I was met by a nice, engaged audience for my talk on Why the Monkees Matter – and afterward they bought books! What more could an author ask for?

Transcript

I got very involved on this one. I wrote an article for Written By about The Monkees — the writers of The Monkees. I wanted to find out who it is people who had stories to tell and who were telling their philosophy through these four characters right and so that really interested me and these are most of the folks that I got to meet. Obviously when I met them they were in their late 70s and had been around for a while and they have some marvelous stories to tell. Gerald Gardner, the gentleman just to the left of my book picture was actually a script writer and a speech writer for a Robert Kennedy’s Senate campaign in New York. He came to television through a show called That Was The Week That Was, which is kind of the SNL Weekend Update of its time and then he moved to Get Smart and when they started The Monkees the folks in charge were like “We need some cool funny, young men,” and he and his partner showed up. So that’s Gerald Gardner.

Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Acheivement in Comedy.

Capitalizing on the show’s success, the actual band formed by the actors, at their peak, sold more albums than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined, and set the stage for other musical TV characters from The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana. In the late 1980s, the Monkees began a series of reunion tours that continued into their 50th anniversary.

This book tells the story of The Monkees and how the show changed television, introducing a new generation to the fourth-wall-breaking slapstick created by Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers.

Its creators contributed to the innovative film and television of 1970s with projects like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laugh-In and Welcome Back, Kotter. Immense profits from the show, its music and its merchandising funded the producers’ move into films such as Head, Easy Riderand Five Easy Pieces.

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

Want to use “Why The Monkees Matter” in your classroom?

Order Examination Copies, Library and Campus Bookstore orders directly from McFarland

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15 More On Pat Murphy from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (25 seconds)

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The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

This one allowed me to riff on some of my favorite female science fiction writers across time, whether they be novelists or television writers. It also opened up a good conversation on what art we support and include in our lives – and what that art says to us and about us. — Rosanne

Transcript:

So and this is a really brilliant interesting book because basically, she’s talking about Indiana Jones — that character — what if someone who did that archaeological work could commune with the spirit of the people who own the things that you’re digging up and what would happen if you could connect to them and learn about their world? I think that’s it’s a really fascinating book and written by Pat Murphy, which is pretty cool.

†

Winner of the Nebula Award: “A lovely and literate exploration of the dark moment where myth and science meet” (Samuel R. Delany).

When night falls over the Yucatan, the archaeologists lay down their tools. But while her colleagues relax, Elizabeth Butler searches for shadows. A famous scientist with a reputation for eccentricity, she carries a strange secret. Where others see nothing but dirt and bones and fragments of pottery, Elizabeth sees shades of the men and women who walked this ground thousands of years before. She can speak to the past—and the past is beginning to speak back.

As Elizabeth communes with ghosts, the daughter she abandoned flies to Mexico hoping for a reunion. She finds a mother embroiled in the supernatural, on a quest for the true reason for the Mayans’ disappearance. To dig up the truth, the archaeologist who talks to the dead must learn a far more difficult skill: speaking to her daughter.

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!

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17 Tressie Souders from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (49 seconds)

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

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Transcript:

The hardest thing to do now — we’re having trouble reviving some of these female names but it is far more worse reviving African-American female names because these folks have had no paperwork left about them and even the men they worked with haven’t been cataloged in a way that we can look to them for information. Tressi Souders, we only have through newspaper accounts of films of hers that were opening in African-American neighborhoods. So we can see advertisements that she had product but the product doesn’t exist. You can’t find it even on — most of the women I’m gonna mention, the Caucasian women — the European women — and you could find some of their movies on YouTube because stuff has been kept in the Library of Congress. Sadly some has been saved because of men it’s connected to but at least it’s been saved. These women, none of their work exists anymore and that’s one of the most depressing things.

Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses the women in her new book “When Women Wrote Hollywood” which covers female screenwriters from the Silents through the early 1940s when women wrote over 50% of films and Frances Marion was the highest paid screenwriter (male or female) and the first to win 2 Oscars. Yet, she fails to appear in film history books, which continue to regurgitate the myth that male directors did it all – even though it’s been proven that the only profitable movies Cecil B. de Mille ever directed were all written by Jeannie Macpherson film ever won for Best Picture was written by Robert E. Sherwood (who people have heard of, mostly due to his connection to Dorothy Parker) and Joan Harrison.

Buy a signed copy of when Women Wrote Hollywood

Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

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02 Rosanne’s Writing History from “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute)

Enjoy This Clip? Watch this entire presentation!

From Denver Pop Culture Con 2019.

Transcript

First thing is a little bit of who I am. On television I wrote for Touched By An Angel, Beverly Hills 90210, and Picket Fences and ABC’s News Nightline. When I decided to get into academia and start writing first of all the Monkees book obviously but then I’ve written a lot of stuff about women in history, women in popular culture, very interested in that and you’ll be hopefully interested in finding out but there is some things to be said about feminism on The Monkees in the 60s which nobody would have expected until I studied it. I also do book reviews for the Journal of Screenwriting. I’m their book review editor and I work on Written By magazine on the editorial board. That’s a magazine for members of the Writers Guild. So my deep focus is generally — words matter — writers matter — and women writers matter and we’re gonna find out that on The Monkees, there was the first female television writer who didn’t need a male partner in order to be have job which is sounds a little crazy to us today but was true back in the day.

Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Acheivement in Comedy.

Capitalizing on the show’s success, the actual band formed by the actors, at their peak, sold more albums than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined, and set the stage for other musical TV characters from The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana. In the late 1980s, the Monkees began a series of reunion tours that continued into their 50th anniversary.

This book tells the story of The Monkees and how the show changed television, introducing a new generation to the fourth-wall-breaking slapstick created by Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers.

Its creators contributed to the innovative film and television of 1970s with projects like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laugh-In and Welcome Back, Kotter. Immense profits from the show, its music and its merchandising funded the producers’ move into films such as Head, Easy Riderand Five Easy Pieces.

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

Want to use “Why The Monkees Matter” in your classroom?

Order Examination Copies, Library and Campus Bookstore orders directly from McFarland

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

14 Pat Murphy from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (51 seconds)

Watch this entire presentation

The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

Transcript:

We get around to this point and Pat Murphy. She can have her name on the book because why? (Audience) Her name is unisex. (Welch) Pat is one of those great names. Is it a boy or girl? You don’t know looking at it. So then she has to decide, do you put your picture on the inside cover where it’s the author’s thing or you don’t and then you leave it up to people to assume that Pat must be a boy because you know. This is a pretty kind of interesting book. Must be written by a boy. I think that’s funny. It’s also one of my pet peeves when you’re watching movies or TV shows and there’s a really tough woman character. She’s always got a name that can be a boy’s. She’s always Samantha so she can be Sam right or she’s Patricia so she can see Pat. There’s always that name, seriously I want Tiffany to be really cool and I want her to do something amazing or Betsy. I don’t want it always to be a name that could be a boy’s name if you want, and that happens all the time.

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!

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16 Sarah Y. Mason from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute 15 seconds)

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

Sarah Mason had a similar thing happen to her. Sarah Mason worked together with her husband Victor Hermann, They got the first Oscar for adaptation. It was for Little Women which of course has been done and done and done over again. They also worked on Stella Dallas and many films in the early period. Again, Victor Herrmann left writing to become a director and he ended up directing the Marx Brothers so he’s a little he appears in a few more film histories. She disappears out of the film histories though she’s got an Oscar to her name and Victor, who outlived his wife, gave an oral history where he said he did most of the writing when they were a team. The problem is if you look at her IMDB list of movies she wrote before marrying him and after he left the team to become a director, she has about 64 films. He alone has written four. So who’s the writer in that team right? it’s not who he says it was unless that’s all you ever read. So Sarah disappears from history, right? I’ve actually met her grandson and interviewed him. He had no idea that that’s what his grandmother did. All he remembers is she really liked Shakespeare and she made him remember whole quotes from Shakespeare before he could go out and play. He had to recite sections of Shakespeare. So don’t tell me she doesn’t have the heart of a writer right? .

Buy a signed copy of when Women Wrote Hollywood

Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

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“When Women Wrote Hollywood” Book Signing, Skylark Bookshop, Columbia, Missouri

Credit: Chase Thompson (shot on real, black and white film)

How Women Wrote Hollywood Book Reading and Signing, Skylark Bookshop @skylarkbookshop , Columbia, Missouri during the Citizen Jane Film Festival

When Women Wrote Hollywood Book Reading and Signing, Skylark Bookshop, Columbia, Missouri

On Saturday, November 3rd, 2018 several of the contributors to When Women Wrote Hollywood gathered at the Skylark Bookshop in Columbia, Missouri for a signing and launch party that functioned like a mini-reunion of the Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting Class of 2017.

Many thanks to all who came to hear them each speak with passion about the research subjects who became whole chapters in this book of essays on female screenwriters from the Silent Era into the 1940s.

Check it out!

Buy a signed copy of when Women Wrote Hollywood

Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library.
Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library

13 Alice Sheldon and Alice Mary Norton from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute)

Watch this entire presentation

The Sisterhood of Science Fiction: A Walk Through Some Writers and Characters You (Should) Know And Love

Transcript:

So she’s James, right? There there’s your buddy James. This is a marvelous new book about her life. So really gets into the story of what she was doing and why. I really like autobiographies or biographies because it’s fun. You learn so much about a historical period when you read someone’s individual story and how they worked in the world and society as it was allowing them at the time. So this is actually a book about Alice Sheldon. This lady, Alice Mary Norton, had to be Andre because the boy’s name right? Andre is writing all of these books and look at her again, not the face you imagine when you think of a science fiction writer. She looks like somebody’s great aunt. But why shouldn’t your great-aunt write a really good book, right? Why did we not allow those two things to live in our brain at the same time? So I think it’s really interesting and her stuff is really fascinating. You know we’re all into swords and all that sort of thing. She’s doing the whole Game Of Thrones thing long before we get involved in that right? So we need to give her a little more credit.

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!

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15 Who Tells Your Story? from “When Women Wrote Hollywood” with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (44 seconds)

Part of the California State University, Fullerton Faculty Noon Time Talks at the Pollak Library.

Watch this entire presentation

Transcript:

Sadly she died early in 1948. He lived another 15 years and when he did an oral history and did interviews about his work, when they brought her up, because the good a good historian would look at the names on the things and ask him — he would say “Oh Jeanne. She wasn’t such a good writer but you know I kept her around because she needed that money. — immediately writing her out of the history of the business she had helped to found right? So this is what happens. This is how women fall out of history so easily. We interview the guys and the guys want you to remember how brilliant they are right and that’s really sad. “Who lives? Who dies?” It matters who tells your story. You have to be in charge of your own story.

Buy a signed copy of when Women Wrote Hollywood

Paperback Edition | Kindle Edition | Google Play Edition

* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs
** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out!
† Available from the LA Public Library

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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01 Introduction From “Why The Monkees Matter: Even 50 Years Later” with Dr. Rosanne Welch – Denver Pop Culture Con 2019 [Video] (1 Minute)

Enjoy This Clip? Watch this entire presentation!

From Denver Pop Culture Con 2019.

Buy Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture

A hit television show about a fictitious rock band, The Monkees (1966-1968) earned two Emmys–Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Directorial Acheivement in Comedy.

Capitalizing on the show’s success, the actual band formed by the actors, at their peak, sold more albums than The Beatles and The Rolling Stones combined, and set the stage for other musical TV characters from The Partridge Family to Hannah Montana. In the late 1980s, the Monkees began a series of reunion tours that continued into their 50th anniversary.

This book tells the story of The Monkees and how the show changed television, introducing a new generation to the fourth-wall-breaking slapstick created by Laurel and Hardy and the Marx Brothers.

Its creators contributed to the innovative film and television of 1970s with projects like Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laugh-In and Welcome Back, Kotter. Immense profits from the show, its music and its merchandising funded the producers’ move into films such as Head, Easy Riderand Five Easy Pieces.

McFarland (Direct from Publisher) | Amazon | Kindle Edition | Nook Edition

Want to use “Why The Monkees Matter” in your classroom?

Order Examination Copies, Library and Campus Bookstore orders directly from McFarland

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS