Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture
Reading, Writing and Resources from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]
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A recording of my presentation at this year’s University Film and Video Association (UFVA) 2017 conference.
Transcript:
That’s NOT all folks. In my classes I make them read books — so they review books that are about writing and there are a ton of them, but I make these pretty little pictures because they’re fun. I love Doctor Who. I’ve done a lot of stuff on Doctor Who. This is a great book. Basically, a journalist (Benjamin Cook) connected with Russell T Davies who was producing the first five years of the remake — first seven years — and he said, “Can I email you anytime you have — and just say ‘What are you thinking about? and you just give me a quick answer'” So it’s a series of email, which makes it easy for kids to read even though it’s a very thick book and he will say things like “Well, today I had the idea, what if water was like acid and it killed people?”and about 5 pages later — ‘I wonder if it’s the water on another planet, like Mars?”and 2 chapters later he has written an entire script called ‘The Waters of Mars” and there’s a copy of the script and you can see the genesis from the idea all the way through and then he discusses production, because he was the executive producer. He’ll talk about “I got this guest star. Oh no, she pulled out. I need to rewrite the character to suit this person.” It gives you a real understanding of what the job is to be a writer in television. Obviously, John Gregory Dunne. All those guys, but I think they should always read one book and find many of them tell me they haven’t read a book in a long time and/or this is the longest book I’ve ever read, but they generally tend to like them if you force them to do it. I think that is a good assignment and I also make them write a paper on one famous screenwriter from any of the eras I talk about. I don’t just do silents. I start with them but of course, I move through the modern day so they pick someone and again I put up the encyclopedia because I think all university libraries should have a copy of it. It’s put out by a friend of mine. So I think that’s a really cool thing. It always brings me back to, it’s all about remembering the ladies. We need to teach as much of that as possible and get past all the stuff that hasn’t been settled years ago and that’s why Ido what I do.
Books Mentioned In This Presentation
- Without Lying Down
- Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only: The Life of America’s First Black Filmmaker
- The Real Nick and Nora
- Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale: The Final Chapter
- The Writers: A History of American Screenwriters and Their Guild
- Monster: Living Off the Big Screen
- “It’s the Pictures That Got Small”: Charles Brackett on Billy Wilder and Hollywood’s Golden Age
- Women Screenwriters: An International Guide
Follow Dr. Rosanne Welch
Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosannewelch
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drrosannewelch/
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Quotes from “Why The Monkees Matter” by Dr. Rosanne Welch – 90 in a series – Cultural Cachet
** Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today **
The Monkees cultural cachet refers to the influence they had over the music, other television programs, and even the politics of their day and beyond, though it took nearly 50 years for mainstream critics to finally recognize that cachet. The Monkees influenced the culture of their time, but manufactured controversy transformed them into a guilty pleasure for fans at best and worthy of ridicule at worst.
from Why The Monkees Matter by Dr. Rosanne Welch — Buy your Copy today!
Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture
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A Reading from America’s Forgotten Founding Father by Dr. Rosanne Welch – The Mentoris Project [Video] [10:39]
A Reading from America’s Forgotten Founding Father by Dr. Rosanne Welch – The Mentoris Project
I was deeply honored to be asked to read a section of my novel America’s Forgotten Founding Father (on the life of Filippo Mazzei) at the launch party for the entire Mentoris Book Project, which includes over 30 books about famous Italians and Italian Americans. At the Italian Cultural Institute in Westwood over a hundred family and friends gathered to celebrate this new publishing venture created by Robert Barbera under the umbrella of his Barbera Foundation. The evening also offered the chance to meet the director of the Italian Cultural Institute, Valeria Rumori and her cultural attache, Leonilde Callocchia.`
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Kate Fuglei and Dr. Rosanne Welch – The Mentoris Project Book Launch Party And Reading
Kate Fuglei and Dr. Rosanne Welch
and FollowThe Mentoris Project Book Launch Party And Reading With Dr. Rosanne Welch
I was deeply honored to be asked to read a section of my novel America’s Forgotten Founding Father (on the life of Filippo Mazzei) at the launch party for the entire Mentoris Book Project, which includes over 30 books about famous Italians and Italian Americans. At the Italian Cultural Institute in Westwood over a hundred family and friends gathered to celebrate this new publishing venture created by Robert Barbera under the umbrella of his Barbera Foundation. The evening also offered the chance to meet the director of the Italian Cultural Institute, Valeria Rumori and her cultural attache, Leonilde Callocchia.
A selection of Mentoris Project Books Now Available
See a complete collection of Mentoris Project Books
The Mentoris Project Book Launch Party and Reading with Dr. Rosanne Welch
Dr. Rosanne Welch reads from America’s Forgotten Founding Father
I was deeply honored to be asked to read a section of my novel America’s Forgotten Founding Father (on the life of Filippo Mazzei) at the launch party for the entire Mentoris Book Project, which includes over 30 books about famous Italians and Italian Americans. At the Italian Cultural Institute in Westwood over a hundred family and friends gathered to celebrate this new publishing venture created by Robert Barbera under the umbrella of his Barbera Foundation. The evening also offered the chance to meet the director of the Italian Cultural Institute, Valeria Rumori and her cultural attache, Leonilde Callocchia.
Dr. Rosanne Welch and Robert Barbera, Founder of The Barbera Foundation and The Mentoris Project
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It was especially nice that my mother Mary was on hand as she is the youngest child of the immigrants who brought our family to America, and my son Joseph, who is their great grandchild — and of course my wonderful husband Douglas, who recorded the event and took all the photos, which means, of course, that he does not appear in any of them.
Dr. Rosanne Welch and Mary Danko
Mary Danko, Joseph “Guiseppe” Welch and Dr. Rosanne Welch
Many thanks to Robert and to Ken LaZebnik, editor of the series who invited me along for the ride and to all the local Stephens MFA students who came out to support their professors in this new venture.
Fellow Mentoris Author, Pamela Winfrey, signs her book, “Marconi and His Muses”
Fellow Mentoris Author (Soldier, Diplomat, Archaeologist: A Novel Based On The Bold Life Of Louis Palma Di Cesnola), Dr. Peg Lamphier and Dr. Rosanne Welch
08 More on comparing The Book To The Movies from How Gidget Got Into the Girl Ghetto – Dr. Rosanne Welch – SRN Conference
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Transcript:
In the book, she makes all the decisions about her own life as I said, including whether or not to have sex with a really cute surfer. In the movie, her boyfriend makes all the decisions about whether or not they’ll be together and I didn’t even think about that until I watched all the sequels and I kept waiting and it was always him breaking up with her and her waiting for him to come back to her. I thought Oh this is just a disaster and sad and scary in many ways. This really struck me, too. In the book, this is her conclusion. Her definition of who she is. “The summer with Jeff could have been just a dream, but with the board and the sun and the waves it was for real. Maybe I was just a woman in love with a surfboard. It’s a simple as that.” That’s literally the thesis of her own book. In the movie, it was getting pinned by her boyfriend which was the absolute ultimate moment in her life. I mean you can’t water it down any more than that. It fascinates me and yet this is mythology that is known about Gidget and it’s not her true story at all — which really makes me sad.
At this year’s 10th Annual Screenwriting Research Network Conference at Otago University in Dunedin, New Zealand I presented…
“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
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.
Watch Dr. Welch’s talk “The Importance of Having a Female Voice in the Room” at the 2016 TEDxCPP.
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.
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Encyclopedia of Women in American History named to the 2018 Outstanding References Sources List by Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association
More great news for our ABC-CLIO Encyclopedia on Women in American History — Rosanne
Encyclopedia of Women in American History, edited by Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dr. Peg Lamphier, has been named to the 2018 Outstanding References Sources List, an annual list selected by experts of the Collection Development and Evaluation Section (CODES) of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA), a division of the American Library Association.
The Outstanding Reference Sources Committee was established in 1958 to recommend the most outstanding reference publications published the previous year for small and medium-sized public and academic libraries. The selected titles are valuable reference resources and are highly recommended for inclusion in any library’s reference collections.
Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dr. Peg Lamphier
From The Research Vault: Teenagers: An American History. Palladino, Grace. T, New York: Basic Books, 1996.
Representation Matters from Giving Voice to Silent Films and the Far From Silent Women Who Wrote Them with Dr. Rosanne Welch [Video]
Watch this entire presentation
A recording of my presentation at this year’s University Film and Video Association (UFVA) 2017 conference.
Transcript:
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.
Books Mentioned In This Presentation
- Without Lying Down
- Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only: The Life of America’s First Black Filmmaker
- The Real Nick and Nora
- Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale: The Final Chapter
- The Writers: A History of American Screenwriters and Their Guild
- Monster: Living Off the Big Screen
- “It’s the Pictures That Got Small”: Charles Brackett on Billy Wilder and Hollywood’s Golden Age
- Women Screenwriters: An International Guide
Follow Dr. Rosanne Welch
Twitter: https://twitter.com/rosannewelch
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drrosannewelch/
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
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