Television – Page 59 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

My Next WGA Foundation Panel Discussion: It’s a Funny Story: A Conversation with Women TV Comedy Writers, August 10, 2018

I am very excited to be moderating another panel at the Writers Guild Foundation on…

“It’s a Funny Story: A Conversation with Women TV Comedy Writers” on Friday, August 10, 2018

with these fascinating female writer-creator-artists:

Njeri Brown from black-ish and Dear White People
Natasha Leggero and Riki Lindhome from Another Period
Christine Zander from Loosely Exactly Nicole, Kevin From Work, 3rd Rock from the Sun,and Saturday Night Live
Gail Parent from The Golden Girls, and The Carol Burnett Show AND author of one of those books I was forbidden from reading when I was in middle school, but read anyway: Sheila Levine is Dead and Living in New York.
Moderated by Dr. Rosanne Welch (Touched By An Angel, Picket Fences, Beverly Hills, 90210)

This is going to be FUN! Hope you can join us!

From the Writers Guild Foundation

“We could all use a good laugh. Fortunately, we can all unwind with an abundance of outstanding television comedy shows that are available at the click of a button. But comedy isn’t just for the jokes anymore: an increasing number of shows tackle universal problems and surprisingly navigate us through our challenging world. And as writers rooms continue investing in diverse talent, the voices you hear from your television take on fresh perspectives.

Join The Writers Guild Foundation in partnership with Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting for a discussion surrounding how women television comedy writers got their start, how they use their experiences to inform their work, and the challenges they face in the writers room.”

21 Strong Female Companions In The Past from Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse [Video] (0:51)

Watch this entire presentation: Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse: Paving the Way for a Lady Doctor with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (36:58)

For her 5th Doctor Who lecture to the CPP community, Dr. Rosanne Welch discusses how society – and the show’s writing staff – prepared the audience for a major change in this 50-year franchise – the creation of the first Lady Doctor!

Transcript:

She really wants people, of course not, to be upset or worried about it. Which is important. Now, as far as I’m concerned when you think about gender, females have always been strong characters on Doctor Who. Going back to the early days and all these women have had really important jobs. From the very beginning, Susan, who was the first companion, his granddaughter, left because she wanted to rebuild the planet that she had seen destroyed. So she wanted to put her efforts into helping other people and using her talents for that. Right? She could have continued adventuring and having a party with her grandpa and all that meeting The Mayans, The Aztecs and what have you, but she wanted to do something more important and that’s a strength, right? I think that’s a woman who has active strength being shown. Then, as I mentioned, Agent Sara Kingdom. She switched sides. So she chose the good. So she’s a little bit like Darth Vader flipping at the end finally.

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter and Instagram
https://twitter.com/rosannewelch – http://instagram.com/drrosannewelch

Rosanne Welch, PhD

Rosanne Welch PhD 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.

Watch Dr. Welch’s talk “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room” at the 2016 TEDxCPP.

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More on the Monkees: Davy Jones Audition (GIF)

Via Little Horror Shop on Tumblr

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

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

From The Research Vault: Hey, hey we’re the Wrinklies (The Monkees are back 45 years on… with a £1m motive) via Daily Mail

Given their advancing years, you’d be forgiven for doubting whether there’ll be much monkeying around.

Yesterday The Monkees announced they would be reforming for a 45th anniversary tour of the UK.

The band, who broke up in 1971, were put together by music executives in 1966 to star in a TV comedy and to be the U.S. answer to The Beatles.

Receive on-going info about “Why The Monkees Matter” book and more!

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

Buy Your Copy Now!

* 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

09 Counterculture and The Monkees from How The Monkees Changed Television [Video] (0:58)

What this entire presentation — How The Monkees Changed Television with Rosanne Welch, PhD (Complete Presentation and Q&A) [Video] (45:06)

Rosanne Welch, PhD, Author of Why The Monkees Matter, presents “How The Monkees Changed Television” at a Cal State Fullerton Lunch Lecture on May 8, 2018.

In this talk, she shows how The Monkees, and specifically their presence on television, set the stage for large changes to come in the late 1960s.

Transcript

Back in the day — I just mentioned the war — they did have many moments where they referenced the war — the war on poverty — and President Lyndon Johnson and they mentioned particularly — there was a great episode where they were playing dominoes and they dropped all the dominoes and then Davy Jones said to Peter Tork “what do you call this game?” and Peter Tork said “Southeast Asia” and nobody cut that, right, because nobody who is a censor at the network understood what it meant which is pretty shocking if you ask me.

This is Dr. Timothy Leary who was famous back in the day for dropping LSD and whatnot and taking experiments with the psyche and he was watching the program and defining it and recognizing that it was far deeper than anyone else had given it the thought before. So already in the 60s people in the know knew that this was something different and worth paying attention to.

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

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

About Rosanne Welch, PhD

Rosanne Welch, PhD is a writer, producer and university professor with credits that include Beverly Hills 90210, Picket Fences, Touched by an Angel and ABC NEWS/Nightline. Other books include Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture (McFarland, 2017) and Women in American History: A Social, Political, and Cultural Encyclopedia and Document Collection (ABC-CLIO, 2017), named to the 2018 Outstanding References Sources List, by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association. Welch has also published chapters in Torchwood Declassified: Investigating Mainstream Cult Television (I.B.Tauris) and The American Civil War on Film and TV: Blue and Gray in Black and White and Color (Lexington Books, 2018) and essays in Doctor Who and Race: An Anthology and Outside In Makes it So, and Outside in Boldly Goes (both edited by Robert Smith). By day she teaches courses on the history of screenwriting and on television writing for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting programs. Her talk “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room” at the 2016 TEDxCPP is available on YouTube.

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20 More Preparations For A Lady Doctor for Lady Doctor from Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse [Video] (1:04)

Watch this entire presentation: Gender Diversity in the Who-niverse: Paving the Way for a Lady Doctor with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (36:58)

Transcript:

Then he wrote this lovely short piece called “Night of the Doctor” which blended the movie — that was not very good, back in the day — with the modern story and again gave us the concept that regeneration could change your gender. So they’ve been laying the groundwork. They had to warm us up to get us ready for this and it’s all the writers that did that work. Then, Chris Chibnall took over as I said as Moffat retired and I love what David Tennant said. He really thinks Chris is going to do a good job and I tend to agree because I love the work that Chris Chibnall has done in the past, soi am looking forward to what he might do with this character and he’s the guy who had the guts to say “I’m going to be the one who changes. I’m going to make the full change.” So that’s a big deal. When Jody was chosen, she knew there was some controversy — people back and forth on the idea — turns out it’s about 80 Pro/20% against it so the against people always get the bigger voices. So we have to be louder than them and make sure the show gets really good ratings to prove its a good idea to have switched it into a girl. So we have to have viewing parties on opening night, right. Write about it on your blogs and Twitter and all that.

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter and Instagram
https://twitter.com/rosannewelch – http://instagram.com/drrosannewelch

Rosanne Welch, PhD

Rosanne Welch PhD teaches the History of Screenwriting and One-Hour Drama for the Stephens College MFA in Screenwriting.

Watch Dr. Welch’s talk “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room” at the 2016 TEDxCPP.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

More on the Monkees: Behind the Scenes with The Monkees

Discovered via Someday Women on Tumblr

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

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

My thoughts on Mister Rogers and “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” Documentary in POP! A Pop Culture Podcast #31

Thanks for Ken Mills for asking me to record this fun piece of commentary about how important the Mr. Rogers documentary is to our understanding of the power of television and the importance of early childhood education in empathy.

My segment starts at the 15 minute mark in the show.

Ken Mills & Courtney Dold play Catch up, Play a song or 2 from Das Beatles, Taco Mouth & Matt Farley of Motern Media and Courtney goes to Germany & More!

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My segment starts at the 15 minute mark in the show.

Transcript

I can’t recommend the new Mr. Rogers documentary strongly enough.

“Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” is about so much more than the man behind one children’s program. It’s about the way you can dedicate your life to a cause. It’s about the obvious point that if we teach children they are loved and give them security in their early years, we can avoid so much of the issues in their later lives. It’s about standing up for what you believe in. It’s about how hard it is to fight our society’s glorification of toxic masculinity. And, to me, most importantly, it’s about the power of television – a topic we all need to consider.

The two quotes I can’t forget – from a set of interviews with Fred Rogers that contained many worthwhile quotes (which is why you need to see the film so I don’t have to replicate them all here) — are:

“What we see and hear on television molds our lives”

and

“Television has the capability of being a neighborhood for the whole country.”

People far too often ignore television but because it comes into our homes effortlessly and is ever present, it does have the ability to shape ideas and opinions and it has always had the ability to educate. I don’t mean it only has to teach us multiplication and fractions, but like any good genre of storytelling, it teaches us empathy and understanding of others. Mr. Rogers did that gently and quietly because he was addressing children as they formed their identities, and for that we ought to be grateful.

On top of all that, when he says “The greatest thing you can teach someone is that they are loved, and are capable of loving,“ he validates a frequent comment I make to writing students – that every story, in the end, is a love story. And this one is one you should not miss.

It almost makes me sad that children today on their iPads are watching the animated adventures of Daniel Tiger. While I’m happy they are being exposed to Mr. Rogers’ stories and lessons, I hope they don’t forget to show this new generation the actual episodes starring Mr. Rogers because seeing a gentle man in real life is probably more instructive than all the messages an animated tiger can give.

From The Research Vault: NME’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Years, 1992 by John Tobler

This is the “New Musical Express” chronicle of the rock ‘n’ roll generation. The book chronicles one of the major potent cultural forces of the 20th century. The lively, newsy text is drawn from “NME” archives and is illustrated with photographs from each era. Alongside these stories are reviews and chart information as well as other contemporary references to films, sex, TV, drugs, politics and many other items that have impinged on the culture. Such events as Live Aid and Woodstock are covered.

Receive on-going info about “Why The Monkees Matter” book and more!

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

Buy Your Copy Now!

* 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

Event: Monkeemania in Australia: Celebrating the 50th anniversary of The Monkees Australian Tour in 1968, August 1, 2018, Melbourne

If you’re in Melbourne – or have friends and family there – check out the invitation and GO to this exhibit centered solely on The Monkees in honor of the 50th anniversary of their Australian tour.

In another wonderful example of how The Monkees bring people together I’m happy to help announce an exhibit open to all our Australian Monkees fans. I met Derham Groves, professor architecture at the Melbourne School of Design, University of Melbourne because he wrote a review of Why The Monkees Matter for The Journal of American Culture and was kind enough to send me a link. Then he happened to be in Los Angeles for a conference so we met for a marvelous dinner of pasta and Monkees conversation in Hollywood.

Derham’s special interest is the influence of popular culture on architecture and design, but he’s written quite a lot about the history of television in Australia, including a book called TV Houses: Television’s Influence on the Australian Home (2004). Last year he curated an exhibition at the Baillieu Library to celebrate the 60th anniversary of television in Australia.

For fun – here are some great clips on Youtube – their arrival and conference:

And the newsreel (though the footage jumps a lot) about their arrival with the funny line “the only thing to rival man’s descent from the apes is their descent from an airplane”: