So I think it’s really important to give voice to these women through teaching this. Representation matters. This is one of my favorite Facebook memes going around right now. For children of today, this is a huge deal, right? When I was a kid Luke was the Jedi. We didn’t know until a later movie that Leia could be and she never got to be. Like, wait a minute. Why isn’t she as good as him? Why didn’t Obi-Wan find her? So, it’s important for kids to see that and finally, I like to teach silent films because I always tell them, as academics. or as writers, we’re standing on the shoulders of the people came before us. We need to credit them with being in the world first and giving us the foundation to build upon. That’s important to me.
It really hurt me to watch these generations of women discuss the business of being a woman and their dismissing her skill entirely.
Audience: Which year is the film? In which year was that a film, sorry?
The film is 1959. Thank you, sorry. Yes, 1959. We’re going to move into the 1960s with the next 2 sequels and the show.
So this is typical when a guy writes it and also the difference between the book and the films. In the book, she has a friend who’s an aspiring playwright. Gidget herself is reading Rachel Carson because Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring was about how we were affecting the environment and the environment means everything to her because that’s where the surf is. In the movie, she doesn’t read because that’s a boring thing for a girl to do. Her father’s a professor, in the movie he’s kind of a sitcom goof-off. He’s actually played by Carl Reiner in one of the sequels. She wants to learn to surf. that’s her “character want.” If we scripting this story. In this she want’s a boyfriend. I mean entirely take away the thing that makes her special and different.
“How Gidget Got Into the Girl Ghetto by Accident (and How We Can Get Her Out of it): Demoting Gidget: The Little Girl with Big Ideas from Edgy Coming of Age Novel to Babe on the Beach Genre Film via Choices made in the Adaptation Process.”
It’ a long title, as I joke up front, but covers the process of adapting the true life story of Kathy Kohner (nicknamed ‘Gidget’ by the group of male surfers who she spent the summers with in Malibu in the 1950s) into the film and television series that are better remembered than the novel. The novel had been well-received upon publication, even compared to A Catcher in the Rye, but has mistakenly been relegated to the ‘girl ghetto’ of films. Some of the adaptations turned the focus away from the coming of age story of a young woman who gained respect for her talent at a male craft – surfing – and instead turned the focus far too much on Kathy being boy crazy.
Along the way I found interesting comparisons between how female writers treated the main character while adapting the novel and how male writers treated the character.
Dr. Rosanne Welch teaches the History of Screenwriting and One-Hour Drama for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting.
Writing/producing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. In 2016 she published the book Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop; co-edited Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia; and placed “Transmitting Culture Transnationally Via the Characterization of Parents in Police Procedurals” in the New Review of Film and Television Studies. Essays appear in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television and Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology. Welch serves as Book Reviews editor for Journal of Screenwriting and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Written By magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild.
The Screenwriting Research Network is a research group consisting of scholars, reflective practitioners and practice-based researchers interested in research on screenwriting. The aim is to rethink the screenplay in relation to its histories, theories, values and creative practices.
So why are we doing this? Why are we studying Screenwriting History? Because who tells your story is important. All the books about screenwriters have been written by men. They write about all the important men. They read each other’s books. They repeat what they learned in the last book. Cari came out of nowhere and said “Who’s this lady who’s paycheck is bigger? I want to find out about her life.” And as she delved into it, she found fourteen women around her who were all friends, part of the same sort of path and friends, who wrote movies. As I said, Anita Loos and all those other women. It matters that students understand any history book they read is not the entire history of what they are reading about. There’s no way to fit it all into one book so you have to your own research and move further, which is what have them do. So, again, as I said, they got into the story because their nephew put them in the story.
…and yet we don’t read books about a girl’s coming of age and Gidget turns out to be just such a thing. About a woman who goes to the beach to learn a skill. Yes, she meets some boys along the way and, of course, she finds one or two of them handsome, but she also makes choices about whether or not to have sex and that is a huge moment in the coming of age of a girl. Nobody takes advantage of her which tends to be the way the story goes. She makes the choices and the men respect her for it and thought that was fascinating when I read this book. So, Hollywood gets a hand of this book and they have to do something with it. They have to make it silly. So, in the real world, this is what she has to say. This book is all about how much she loves surfing and that’s a picture of the real Kathy Kohner back in the day with her surfboard. That is how she identified herself. We get to the movies and this is some typical dialogue. Yeah, the cringing can start at any time.
“How Gidget Got Into the Girl Ghetto by Accident (and How We Can Get Her Out of it): Demoting Gidget: The Little Girl with Big Ideas from Edgy Coming of Age Novel to Babe on the Beach Genre Film via Choices made in the Adaptation Process.”
It’ a long title, as I joke up front, but covers the process of adapting the true life story of Kathy Kohner (nicknamed ‘Gidget’ by the group of male surfers who she spent the summers with in Malibu in the 1950s) into the film and television series that are better remembered than the novel. The novel had been well-received upon publication, even compared to A Catcher in the Rye, but has mistakenly been relegated to the ‘girl ghetto’ of films. Some of the adaptations turned the focus away from the coming of age story of a young woman who gained respect for her talent at a male craft – surfing – and instead turned the focus far too much on Kathy being boy crazy.
Along the way I found interesting comparisons between how female writers treated the main character while adapting the novel and how male writers treated the character.
Dr. Rosanne Welch teaches the History of Screenwriting and One-Hour Drama for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting.
Writing/producing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. In 2016 she published the book Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop; co-edited Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia; and placed “Transmitting Culture Transnationally Via the Characterization of Parents in Police Procedurals” in the New Review of Film and Television Studies. Essays appear in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television and Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology. Welch serves as Book Reviews editor for Journal of Screenwriting and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Written By magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild.
The Screenwriting Research Network is a research group consisting of scholars, reflective practitioners and practice-based researchers interested in research on screenwriting. The aim is to rethink the screenplay in relation to its histories, theories, values and creative practices.
This is from the very beginning with D. W. Griffith. It’s not his movie. Right? He shouldn’t get the credit. Then again, it’s a terrible movie and I hope nobody ever teaches this movie. I always tell my students, we’ll never touch this movie. It’s all awful and everything that someone says you’re supposed to learn from about it close-ups and tracking shots are in all the movies by all these women that I’m telling you about. So watch one of their movies that show those things. Don’t watch his movies.
I love John Carpenter because he’s the one who said…Let’s be fair. It’s a collaboration. Be honest about it. I do this. They do that. We blend together and that is what makes a product really good.
So, we’ll start with the real woman. This is the real woman in the modern day. She’s still alive. She works in — she works as a Maitre D of a restaurant in Malibu and she’s still known as the “Real Gidget.” That’s kind of her — everyone in Hollywood is a bit of a celebrity so you can go that restaurant and meet the “Real Gidget” and have dinner. It is pretty funny. She also did a documentary a few years ago about her life that traveled the festival circuit. She’s trying to bring back the real story out of all the Hollywood glitz and glamour. So that’s Kathy Kohner and this was said about the book in the introduction and which I found very interesting. This is what connected me to it, that when it came out there was a thought that this was essentially a female Catcher in the Rye. Catcher in the Rye being the JD Salinger book that every high school student in America is still made to read and I don’t understand. It’s about a kid who decided whether or not to go to a hooker and I’m not really sure why that’s the most important book for teenagers to read.
“How Gidget Got Into the Girl Ghetto by Accident (and How We Can Get Her Out of it): Demoting Gidget: The Little Girl with Big Ideas from Edgy Coming of Age Novel to Babe on the Beach Genre Film via Choices made in the Adaptation Process.”
It’ a long title, as I joke up front, but covers the process of adapting the true life story of Kathy Kohner (nicknamed ‘Gidget’ by the group of male surfers who she spent the summers with in Malibu in the 1950s) into the film and television series that are better remembered than the novel. The novel had been well-received upon publication, even compared to A Catcher in the Rye, but has mistakenly been relegated to the ‘girl ghetto’ of films. Some of the adaptations turned the focus away from the coming of age story of a young woman who gained respect for her talent at a male craft – surfing – and instead turned the focus far too much on Kathy being boy crazy.
Along the way I found interesting comparisons between how female writers treated the main character while adapting the novel and how male writers treated the character.
Dr. Rosanne Welch teaches the History of Screenwriting and One-Hour Drama for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting.
Writing/producing credits include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, ABCNEWS: Nightline and Touched by an Angel. In 2016 she published the book Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop; co-edited Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia; and placed “Transmitting Culture Transnationally Via the Characterization of Parents in Police Procedurals” in the New Review of Film and Television Studies. Essays appear in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television and Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology. Welch serves as Book Reviews editor for Journal of Screenwriting and on the Editorial Advisory Board for Written By magazine, the magazine of the Writers Guild.
The Screenwriting Research Network is a research group consisting of scholars, reflective practitioners and practice-based researchers interested in research on screenwriting. The aim is to rethink the screenplay in relation to its histories, theories, values and creative practices.
Runs Thursday, January 18, 2018 to Sunday, July 15, 2018 Central Library, History and Genealogy Department, LL4
From Lucy to ALF, from game shows to talk shows, from local news to the made-for-TV movie, The Industry In Our Backyard: Television Production In Los Angeles 1940s-1980s showcases four decades in the life of the medium that dominated American culture, yet for Angelenos, was just another part of daily life. The images displayed in the exhibit were largely taken by photographers from the Herald Examiner and the Valley Times newspapers, who were granted exclusive access to back lots, sound stages and location shoots around town for their TV sections. These photos, which have not been seen in as many as sixty-five years when they first ran in the papers, provide rare glimpses of the earliest L.A. stations, the crews at work and the stars in action.
The exhibit runs from January 18 through July 15, 2018, along with a series of presentations given by television industry professionals and archivists.
Exhibit sponsored by Photo Friends, a nonprofit organization that supports the Los Angeles Public Library’s Photo Collection/History & Genealogy Department at Central Library.
The other thing we argue about at the Writers Guild all the time is that we have this business where we have a credit that’s always “A Film By” the director. If he is a writer/director, fine. Ok, but if there’s nothing of that than why does he get this credit and why don’t the writers get that credit and we can’t get rid of that because the Director Guild will not get rid of it. Makes me nuts. Makes me nuts. Makes me nuts. But it’s true.
So this perpetually puts it in the audience’s and the student’s mind that this is the person to credit for that movie and it is not true. Same thing, obviously we know all these wonderful movies by Spike Lee. In the beginning, yes, he did write and direct “She’s Gotta Have It” but he did Malcolm X with Arnold Pearl. We don’t remember Arnold Pearl and he did Chi-Raq with Kevin Willmott and of course, he adapted that from Aristophanes and Lysistrata. So, let’s remember that there were other writers involve but they’re still only A Spike Lee Joint. That’s the only credit that’s given above the title and that’s something that we’re fighting against in our classes.
Runs Thursday, January 18, 2018 to Sunday, July 15, 2018 Central Library, History and Genealogy Department, LL4
From Lucy to ALF, from game shows to talk shows, from local news to the made-for-TV movie, The Industry In Our Backyard: Television Production In Los Angeles 1940s-1980s showcases four decades in the life of the medium that dominated American culture, yet for Angelenos, was just another part of daily life. The images displayed in the exhibit were largely taken by photographers from the Herald Examiner and the Valley Times newspapers, who were granted exclusive access to back lots, sound stages and location shoots around town for their TV sections. These photos, which have not been seen in as many as sixty-five years when they first ran in the papers, provide rare glimpses of the earliest L.A. stations, the crews at work and the stars in action.
The exhibit runs from January 18 through July 15, 2018, along with a series of presentations given by television industry professionals and archivists.
Exhibit sponsored by Photo Friends, a nonprofit organization that supports the Los Angeles Public Library’s Photo Collection/History & Genealogy Department at Central Library.
With all the hoopla surrounding Alexander Hamilton (thanks to Lin Manuel Miranda’s seminal musical), I was just as surprised to learn about this Italian-American patriot who owned the plantation next door to Thomas Jefferson – but chose not to own slaves. Rather he worked at establishing a vineyard with the help of other Italian immigrants (whose children and grandchildren helped populate Virginia according to records kept at Monticello).
Alongside Jefferson, Mazzei wrote articles in support of the Revolution and is now credited with coining the phrase “All Men are Created Equal”, which Jefferson found so inspiring he added it to his Declaration. As the Revolutionary War waged on, Jefferson and other Founding Fathers asked Mazzei to return to Europe and solicit funds, weapons and other support from the leading countries of Europe, which he gladly did, though it separated him from the beloved country he had adopted.
Launch Party
If you’re in Los Angeles I invite you to join us as we toast the launch of this wonderful series of books. We’ll hear from publisher Robert Barbera, editor Ken Lazebnik and then I and Kate Fuglei (Fermi’s Gifts) will read short passages from our work.
Thursday February 15th at 6pm Italian Cultural Institute in Westwood 1023 Hilgard Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90024. (Map)
Parking on the street or in local lots.
This event is by Invite Only. Please RSVP by February 10, 2018 to rosanne@welchwrite.com
Surgeon, merchant, vintner, and writer Filippo Mazzei influenced American business, politics, and philosophy. Befriending Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, Mazzei was a strong liaison for others in Europe. Mazzei was Jefferson’s inspiration for the most famous line in the Declaration of Independence: “All men are created equal.”
Clearly, Mazzei had a gift of language and often used his words to share his ideas about religious freedom. Mazzei encouraged other Italians still living overseas to join him in a country rich with opportunity and promise. Often, when returning from Italy, he booked passages on ships for people who desired to travel to America and employed them on his estate—just to ensure a better, more fruitful life for everyone. During those travels, Mazzei found himself at the center of many fights for freedom.
He was truly a friend to freedom around the world.
![Who Tells Your Story? from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ufva-18-who-tells.jpeg)
![Film Is A Collaborative Effort from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/ufva-17-collaborative-effort.jpeg)
![Dr. Rosanne Welch presents Opening Remarks at The Industry in Our Backyard: Television Production in Los Angeles 1940s-1980s [Photo]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/rmw-lapl-1.jpeg)
![The “A Film By” Credit and Writers from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/ufva-16-film-by.jpeg)
![Dr. Rosanne Welch presents Opening Remarks at The Industry in Our Backyard: Television Production in Los Angeles 1940s-1980s [Video]](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/la-industry-backyard.jpeg)
