Television – Page 103 – On Screenwriting and Media 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

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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’

[…]

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

Video: Polly 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

Transcript:

Now, when Hartnell left the program, as we all know, through the lovely act of regeneration, we move over to Patrick Troughton and in his world his first, new, female, companion is Polly, who gee, has a Cockney accent, so we’re building in the later characters, but also they define her as “kooky”, even though — and here’s the funny thing. She can’t herself be a computer genius. She can be the assistant to one. So, a woman, you know, that’s as close as she gets to being in a cool job. You get the coffee for the guy who’s the computer genius.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Video: Companion Sara Kingdom 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

Transcript:

Sara Kingdom. So now we’re thinking, what are the jobs of the women he is going to meet? They’re not all housewives. They’re not girlfriends. They can’t all be his granddaughter. So, who are these women? In this case, Sara Kingdom is a double-agent. So, we have a spy. Remember, now we’re in the late 60’s. The Cold War is going on. We think spies are very cool. We have The Avengers on English television. So, ooo, spies. A lot of chicks are spies. Really, in the real world, not that many were, but TV and the movies are our place to fantasize what we would like to be. So, Sara is a cool character. if you notice here, this is Jean Marsh as an actress and a writer she is a very important person. She is going to invent a program called Upstairs, Downstairs. Which was the Downton Abbey of its day. It’s going to be a huge success. She’s going to star in it and write the entire set of segments. So, she’s a very important performer and writer as well as she is a pretty interesting character that we meet along the way. Now, we’ve got to get into the question, though, what makes chicks tougher is putting them into pictures with guns. I’m not a fan of that, but frankly our culture and at this point English culture to an extent, had the idea that that makes them cool. l.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

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!

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: Katerina 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

Transcript:

After her, we come up with Katerina, who is a really interesting woman. She’s only in a short segment with The Doctor — a short few episodes, but she risks her life — sacrifices her life — to save The Doctor, because he is more important to the world. She has made that decision. Now part of that is a little “Oooo, I don’t know” but then I went, she made the decision and that’s the important thing about being a feminist person — a humanist person. She decided that he had something to give the world that needed to be allowed to continue and she was going to sacrifice. So, it’s a very much like a nice military story where one guy has to throw himself on the grenade and that sort of thing. So Katerina is pretty cool.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Video: Vicki as 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

Transcript:

Once she leaves, and Susan leaves, we end up with Vicki — who is quite a lovely girl, but she does a lot of screaming and she doesn’t necessarily balance that out with much else. So, we do a little dip here, where we’re not being very empowered. And she left to marry a Trojan man — because she travelled to ancient Troy…. All right, so she left to marry a guy. She didn’t go an heal the world, fix anything, she just like fell in love with a cute guy wearing a little sword and short skirt thing and that’s it. So, I’m not too excited about Vicki, but you know, we have to pay attention to her.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Video: Barbara and The Doctor 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

Transcript:

The Aztec episode, exactly. I love the cover with Barbara in the lovely Aztec headdress. And here, she had to learn a lesson from The Doctor about the fact that she had to allow human sacrifice to continue because that was the culture in which he had travelled and it wasn’t his business to decide that their religious practices were wrong. Because that’s not his business. It’s their business to decide how they feel about it. so, that’s a good example of what she brought to him and to the debates on the show.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

Video: Barbara Wright 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

Transcript:

Now the other, early, first partner with the Doctor is Barbara. This is a backstage scene and she is also here with the actress playing Susan. Barbara was a history teacher. Isn’t that perfect? It’s a show about… (inaudible) They’re the coolest people I know.Heavens to Betsys. Just like Clara. So, we’re seeing exactly, there’s a circle we’re going to watch happen here which is very interesting. So, Barbara — and that was the idea, that you’d need a history teacher to interpret the things that The Doctor was seeing, for the audience, but that also meant that a mature woman was traveling with him. She is a little bit of a mother figure for Susan. So she can have conversations about things with her and likewise, Barbara has the intellect to challenge The Doctor. “You can’t behave like that! I won’t allow it. I have some power here. I know where this culture is going in history and you cannot doa thing that will mess them up.” So, she’s a very interesting balance for the Doctor. In the very beginning, we have some very — I would say — feminist females hanging out with The Doctor.

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

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

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/)

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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.

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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.

Category: Television

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

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

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

Video: Companion Sara Kingdom from Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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

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

Video: Vicki as Companion from Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

Video: Barbara and The Doctor from Doctor Who: Feminism in the Whoniverse with Dr. Rosanne Welch

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

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