Women – Page 41 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

From The “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Archives 15: Peace Begins At Home by Clara Beranger

Months of research went into the creation of the essays in “When Women Wrote Hollywood.” Here are some of the resources used to enlighten today’s film lovers to the female pioneers who helped create it.

From The “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Archives 15: Peace Begins At Home by Clara Beranger

THE GREAT DESIRE of individuals in every country of the world is for peace and security. We have discovered that the cessation of war does not automatically mean the establishment of peace.

Within a wide circle of acquaintances and friends, I have found that the only persons who have achieved true inner peace and serenity are those who believe in God and try to live according to the moral principles embodied in the Bible. They recognize the truth that peace begins at home. They know that in order to extend peace from the home to the world they must cultivate habits that create peace. At the same time they must free themselves from old habits that cause inharmony and dissension.

Because I believe that every one of us can and should be a link in the chain of world peace, I have attempted to set forth in these chapters certain common human faults and to present the spiritual means by which they can be changed to character traits conducive to individual and world well-being.

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40 Conclusion from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute 42 seconds)

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

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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:

We’ve moved to the world thankfully where now we’re gonna have female superheroes even and that’s the big deal. Likewise I love this meme. It’s been going around on Facebook but you probably saw it — makes a difference that little girls are now seeing women in charge and all these kinds of films makes a big difference. I like this one too. I’ve live long enough to see my child princesses become generals right? That’s Princess Buttercup — kicking some butt and what — exactly — in Wonder Woman. As you wish exactly. As I wish that someone take care. That’s pretty cool. and we’ve come to a place where there’s a new movie opening this weekend or next weekend that’s about an African-American girl who has superhero powers and so does her mother and her grandmother. It all comes through three generations of women who have to use those powers well and they have to deal with them and not cause violence and issues like that. So the fact that we’ve moved all the way here from Frankenstein is pretty amazing I think and I think we always have to go back to what Octavia Butler said, we have to think what we don’t see we assume we can’t be. So whatever that is, we need to see those depictions of all of our different selves because diversity isn’t about getting more money at the box office. Those make much richer, better stories because we are a hugely diverse world and it’s not just actually here in America. It’s all over the world. There’s all kinds of different people everywhere. We really need to think about all of them living on into the future. That makes the best science fiction, in my opinion. So there we have it. Thank you all for coming.

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Save The Date: Bad Ass Movie Motherhood: From Leia to Ripley and Back Again – March 22, 2020 — Cal Poly Pomona University Library

Bad Ass Movie Motherhood: From Leia to Ripley and Back Again
March 24, 2020 — Cal Poly Pomona University Library

with Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dr Peg Lamphier

From The “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Archives 14: My Secret Mother: Lorna Moon by Richard de Mille

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† Available at Los Angeles Public Library

The adopted son of Cecil B. de Mille traces the life of his biological mother, a screenwriter during the silent film era, and the privileged but uneasy youth he enjoyed in Hollywood while being kept in the dark about his origins.

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39 Buffy The Vampire Slayer from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (48 seconds)

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Transcript:

Moves us into the world of Buffy which is part horror/part sci-fi I would say blending and I think really finally a powerful woman though yes she does use weapons but it’s also about her inner strength and her buddy Willow who doesn’t have to be sexy she’s just a cool really smart girl. So we’re trying to get some more normal representations of women. However when they sell the box set, uhhh, that’s a pretty like it yeah, an overtly sexual pose that doesn’t really thrill me, but the series is pretty brilliant and she’s pretty powerful in it and there’s an ending to it — not gonna spoil it — but there’s a choice made in the last episode in terms of how men would take having to deal with their power issues and how a woman decides to save the day. — what she does and it’s a big interesting thing.

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From The “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Archives 13: Anita Loos Rediscovered: Film Treatments and Fiction by Anita Loos, Creator of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos, Cari Beauchamp, Mary Anita Loos

From The “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Archives 13: Anita Loos Rediscovered: Film Treatments and Fiction by Anita Loos, Creator of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos, Cari Beauchamp, Mary Anita Loos

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† Available at Los Angeles Public Library

Anita Loos (1888-1981) was one of Hollywood’s most respected and prolific screenwriters, as well as an acclaimed novelist and playwright. This unique collection of previously unpublished film treatments, short stories, and one-act plays spans fifty years of her creative writing and showcases the breadth and depth of her talent. Beginning in 1912 with the stories she submitted from her San Diego home (some made into films by D. W. Griffith), through her collaboration with Colette on the play Gigi, Anita Loos wrote almost every day for the screen, stage, books, or magazines. Film scripts include San Francisco, The Women, and Red-Headed Woman. The list of stars for whom she created unforgettable roles includes Mary Pickford, Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Audrey Hepburn, and Carol Channing.

This collection has been selected by Anita’s niece and close friend, the best-selling author Mary Anita Loos, together with the acclaimed film historian Cari Beauchamp. Their essays are laced throughout the volume, introducing each section and giving previously untold insights and behind-the-scenes stories about Anita―her life, her friendships, and her times.

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38 Russell T Davies and Doctor Who from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (57 seconds)

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Transcript:

I’m going to go back to my Russell Davies guy because he said something that is really interesting in one of his interviews about what’s wrong with television. He happens to be a gay man — an out, gay man — in England. So he made sure that most of his pieces involved gay men in partnerships because he wanted to see, again, as a child — he wanted to see that that was normal and acceptable, but he also recognized how badly women are represented on television and he wanted to something about that. So, in Doctor Who, when he took it over, he invented a lot of very interesting female companions who had all their different levels of strength. I could do a whole talk on that. I already have, but of course, the great thing about Doctor Who, post the Russell Davies period we’ve now come up with regenerating — so we’re going back to Virginia Woolfe and Orlando — we’re making the male character — who for 50 years has been represented by a male actor — he regenerated into a female character and so we’re moving forward in the Doctor Who universe as well as a female character.

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From The “When Women Wrote Hollywood” Archives 12: Lois Weber in Early Hollywood by Shelley Stamp

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† Available at Los Angeles Public Library

“Among early Hollywood’s most brilliant filmmakers, Lois Weber was considered one of the era’s ‘three great minds’ alongside D. W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille. Despite her accomplishments, Weber has been marginalized in relation to her contemporaries, who have long been recognized as fathers of American cinema. Drawing on a range of materials untapped by previous historians, Shelley Stamp offers the first comprehensive study of Weber’s remarkable career as director, screenwriter, and actress. Lois Weber in Early Hollywood provides compelling evidence of the extraordinary role that women played in shaping American movie culture. Weber made films on capital punishment, contraception, poverty, and addiction, establishing early cinema’s power to engage topical issues for popular audiences. Her work also grappled with the profound changes in women’s lives that unsettled Americans at the beginning of the twentieth century, and her later films include sharp critiques of heterosexual marriage and consumer capitalism. Mentor to many women in the industry, Weber demanded a place at the table in early professional guilds, decrying the limited roles available for women on screen and in the 1920s protesting the growing climate of hostility toward female directors. Through her examination of Weber’s career, Stamp demonstrates how female filmmakers who had played a part in early Hollywood’s bid for respectability were in the end written out of that industry’s history. Lois Weber in Early Hollywood is an essential addition to histories of silent cinema, early filmmaking in Los Angeles, and women’s contributions to American culture.”

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37 Sarah Connor and Dana Scully from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (52 seconds)

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Transcript:

Of course, then we move over to Sarah Connor and the Terminator. Again. it’s this thing that gives everybody power. Not what I’m providing inside and Sarah Connor is pretty boss and pretty tough but it’s that gun we always go back to. So I don’t think about it’s– (Audience) I always remember her and even when I’m exercising when she’s doing the pull-ups. (Rosanne) Yes. (Audience) I — when I exercise, I think about her. (Rosanne) See that’s good. That’s– that’s the inner strength. That’s very cool yeah. That is the cool bit of it. Yeah. So we’re getting around to it. Of course through those movies we then come up with the X-Files and now we have Dana Scully who is all-powerful because it’s her brain. Not big on using the gun, right, that’s his job. She’s using her brain and she’s the more intellectual — the stronger one — in many ways. He’s the one running by his heart and his emotions and she’s the one running through her mind. So we’re switching the male and female sort of identifiers in this piece, which is pretty strong.

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36 Star Wars, Alien, and Women Characters from The Sisterhood of Science Fiction – Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video] (1 minute)

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Transcript:

And of course, it brought us many other powerful engaging women right? We got Rei. We’re dealing with Padme from the earlier session. We had Jyn Erso. I really like Rogue One more than I even like the new Star Wars, but that’s just me. Then we have Rose Tiko which was a big move right and then there are people kind of Oh, what’s she doing in there. She doesn’t have any place in the movie. She does. She’s showing us that people of Asian descent show up in the future. That’s a huge message right and again she does it mostly peacefully you know there’s a gun in there someone but we get rid of that pretty quick and then it’s about your skill with it with lightsaber stuff. Moving forward we all know or we think we know Alien right and Sigourney Weaver. Sadly the rumor in Hollywood is that the reason that character is so strong and interesting is the it was written to be a man and when they couldn’t get a male to star in the movie they just threw it to Sigourney Weaver and they never rewrote it girl-ify it up. So she’s powerful because she’s doing all the things we expect men to do in movies without having to be a guy.

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