Quotes from “Why The Monkees Matter” by Dr. Rosanne Welch – 14 in a series

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Quotes from

“The second episode to attempt to lure the adult audience into trusting the Monkees and deciding they were good, clean kids, “Monkee Mother”, introduced Rose Marie as a new renter sharing the boys’ beach house when they failed to pay the rent. As scripted, her character is given a scene alone with each of the boys and sees them through a mother’s eyes, allowing the many mothers watching the show with their children to make the same connection.”

from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch — Coming Fall 2016 – Click for more info!

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

  

Amazon Pre-Orders Now Available!

How “The Clansman” Affected Racist Culture from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (2:02)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

How

 

Transcript:

What i wanted to mention about it is a couple of things. First of all, yeah it’s very incendiary right and the
scary thing is, this is a quote from President Woodrow Wilson in his own History of the United States.

So first of all — mmm — all right that’s a little scary, but because of the material, thank goodness the NAACP protested when this film opened. It didn’t stop people from seeing it sadly and in fact Wilson showed it at the White House and the power of movies — he actually said “it is like capturing lightning in a bottle” and he was very impressed with the power that movies had from watching that particular film which kind of sad.

Now what strikes me as interesting as the power of how you change a story and you change culture. We all know , sadly, that what Ku Klux Klan does is they burn crosses in people’s yards when they don’t like them. They didn’t do that before this movie came out. The actual Ku Klux Klan did not do that. Right?

In the novel what uh what they have happen is that when the men get together to go do a terrible you know lynching, they write the names of their families on little wooden crosses they’ve made and they toss them into a big bonfire and that shows the unity of all these men together and this is apparently based on a Scottish ritual that scottish clans will do when they come together for events, not for killing people but for regular
events. So we adapt a Scottish ritual into an idea in the book. DW Griffith gets a hold of it and he’s a
Steven Spielberg of his day, right? We cannot have little tiny crosses being thrown into a big fire on screen , no, we’re going to make a big cross on the mountainside. Isn’t that wonderful? That’s so visual oh that’s a great special effect. The actual Ku Klux Klansmen go to the movie, see the giant cross and begin burning
giant crosses in people’s neighborhoods.

They actually learn from the movie a ritual that wasn’t theirs to begin with. So I find that really fascinating, but I think it’s a sign of how powerful what we see in the movies can be.

About this talk

Dr. Rosanne Welch (RTVF) speaks on the craft of history of film adaptations from the controversy of the silent film Birth of a Nation (protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1915) to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (to which author Truman Capote famously said, “The only thing left from the book is the title”) to The Godfather . Naturally, the behemoth in adaptation – Harry Potter (which depended on the relationship created by adapter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling) will be discussed, as will the subject of this month’s celebration: Dune.

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona.  In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University.  She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.

Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016

Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space are two books she has written. Los Angeles Times and the Journal of Screenwriting hold some of her published articles.

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

From The Research Vault: Pre-Monkees Davy Jones sings “I’m Going to Buy Me A Dog” on Farmer’s Daughter TV Show

Farmers daughter jones

While working on the proofs for the book I’m reminded of all the fun research I’ve had the chance to do – and wanted to share this with you.

While reading this sentence…

“Certainly the studio cultivated that character [of teen idol] for Davy even before The Monkees, grooming him with guest starring roles as a singer on family- friendly programs such as Ben Casey and The Farmer’s Daughter (where he sang a straight version of “Gonna Buy Me a Dog” before the comic duet with Micky that appeared on The Monkees.”

And here’s the full episode as it stands on YouTube:

Here’s Davy performing the song:

In a further ‘Six Degrees of Separation” with The Monkees, fans will remember that several auditions for the Monkees were held on The Farmer’s Daughter set on their day off.

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

Amazon Pre-Orders Now Available!

Previously in Out of Research Vault:

My Book, “Why The Monkees Matter” on Monkees.NET

monkees-net-logo

Many thanks to Brad over at Monkees.net for all he has done to create a one-stop shop for info about The Monkees online. I’ve used it for years as a way to keep up with both individual and group/reunion concerts — but today I’m also thankful to him for adding a write up about my book to his site.
It truly is a great year to be a Monkees fan!

New Book: Why The Monkees Matter

 

Quotes from “Why The Monkees Matter” by Dr. Rosanne Welch – 13 in a series

** Buy “Why The Monkees Matter” Today **

Quotes from

“It wouldn’t be until after The Monkees won their Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series in 1967 that networks began planning and programming pilots for prime time that involved young performers singing, dancing and doing sketch comedy: Laugh-In (1967-1973), The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967-1970), and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour (1971-1974).”

from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch — Coming Fall 2016 – Click for more info!

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

Amazon Pre-Orders Now Available!

Adapting “The Clansman” from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (1:05)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

Adapting

 

Transcript:

I think one of the most interesting adaptations is a book we really don’t teach in film classes anymore and we shouldn’t because the content is awful. We don’t need this story anymore, but it’s an interesting demonstration in the power of adaptation. Of course, I’m talking about “The Clansman” which was written just the Civil War and has to do with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and it makes the Ku Klux Klan the heros, which is frightening. I know eyebrow riffle there. How could that possibly be true. Well, obviously, a former Confederate, the children of Confederates would think of them as heros. So, this was a huge book and sadly one of the early, early directors who we all know, D. W. Griffith, was also in love with the Confederacy in the South. His grandfather has been in the Confederate Army, so he undertook to make the film, which was huge. It starts out being called, “The Clansman”, but we know it now more as “The Birth of a Nation.” Again, we used to teach it in film class because there’s a lot of new camera angeles and things that make it valuable, but we’ve come away from that because the content is just so controversial and so valueless that we don’t teach it in classes anymore. 

About this talk

Dr. Rosanne Welch (RTVF) speaks on the craft of history of film adaptations from the controversy of the silent film Birth of a Nation (protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1915) to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (to which author Truman Capote famously said, “The only thing left from the book is the title”) to The Godfather . Naturally, the behemoth in adaptation – Harry Potter (which depended on the relationship created by adapter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling) will be discussed, as will the subject of this month’s celebration: Dune.

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona.  In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University.  She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.

Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016

Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space are two books she has written. Los Angeles Times and the Journal of Screenwriting hold some of her published articles.

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Transmitting culture transnationally: the characterisation of parents in the police procedural. [Article]

New Review of Film and Television StudiesI’m happy to announce online access to an article I’ve published in the New Review of Film and Television Studies (Taylor & Francis). The piece is called: Transmitting culture transnationally: the characterisation of parents in the police procedural.

It was fun to research and write and I want to send big thanks to my editors Paolo Russo and Lindsay Steenberg, both Senior Lecturers in Film Studies at Oxford Brookes University, for inviting me to contribute and for all the assistance as I researched and wrote the article.

When Paolo (who I met at a Screenwriting Research Network conference at the University of Wisconsin, Madison a few years ago) told me they were collecting pieces about how police procedurals transmit culture, I teasingly said, “Advances in modern forensic science have rendered the procedures on television police procedurals repetitive across the globe”. Well, maybe not in those exact words at that first utterance – but I basically said all cop shows seem so similar, nothing sets them apart anymore — and then, in the wonderful way brainstorming works, I thought that the only characters who keep close to the culture of the country in which the show is created are the parents because they aren’t confined to scientific procedures/they are ruled by emotions. So the article deals discusses parents on cop shows such as Cagney and Lacey (from the U.S.), Inspector Montalbano (from Italy), and Murdoch Mysteries (from Canada) among others.

Abstract
Advances in modern forensic science have rendered the procedures on police procedurals repetitive across the globe, yet television writers continue to transmit their cultures transnationally via the way these popular television detectives interact with their on screen parents. Case studies will include Inspector Morse (UK, 1987–2000), Il Commissario Montalbano/Inspector Montalbano (Italy, 1999–2015), and Murdoch Mysteries (Canada, 2008–present) with some attention paid to female police officers in US dramas Cagney & Lacey (1981–1988) and Southland (2009–2013). A close reading of the relationship between parents and adult children in these programmes shows parent characters serve many purposes. They expand our knowledge of the main character by helping us understand their moulding, their mentality and their motivations; they provide universal themes; they also offer a chance for stunt casting – a combination that helps transmit the culture of the country of origin to international viewers.

Read the entire article
Download the article on PDF format

Quotes from “Why The Monkees Matter” by Dr. Rosanne Welch – 12 in a series

** Pre-Order “Why The Monkees Matter” Today **

Quotes from

“Each actor in his own right was an authentic, mostly American teenager from various parts of the country; Nesmith (25) the too-young-married Texan; Tork (25) the Connecticut gentleman turned Greenwich Village folksinger; Dolenz (22) the Valley boy Cruise-Nighting Californian (later glamorized in 1973 in American Graffiti), and Jones (22), whose English childhood offered a throwback to the 19th century teenage life of apprenticeship, first to a racing stable and then to an agent.”

from Why The Monkees Mattered by Dr. Rosanne Welch — Coming Fall 2016 – Click for more info!

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

  

Amazon Pre-Orders Now Available!

Adapting “An American Tragedy” from A History of the Art of Adaptation [Video] (1:37)

You Can Please Some of the People Some of the Time… None of the People All of the Time: A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More!

Dr. Rosanne Welch speaks on A History of the Art of Adaptation in Movies like Dune, The Godfather, Harry Potter and More! at the California State University, Fullerton Library

Part of the program series for Dune by Frank Herbert: A 50th Anniversary Celebration.

Watch this entire presentation

Adapting

 

Transcript:

Now in his career, his book “An American Tragedy” was made into a film twice. In 1931, Sternberg actually directed it and this is the book, but in 1951 it became, this “A Place in the Sun”, which was hugely famous both as an adaptation and as an Elizabeth Taylor movie with Montgomery Clift and Shelley Winters — long before she was a little old woman that everybody laughed at. And this was a marvelous story based in a true life event, then fictionalized for the novel and the novel further adapted into the film, because it dealt with some issues that we couldn’t talk about in film, even in the early 1950’s. Basically, Montgomery Clift’s character is a very poor young man who moves to the big city, gets a job with his distant cousin’s factory and he’s told you can’t date the factory workers. So he actually has a under—shhhhhh—nobody knows relationship with a woman who works with him and that’s Shelley Winters. Meanwhile, he’s getting to know his cousin’s very rich family that includes their neighbor, Elizabeth Taylor. And, of course, he falls in love with here, but no one’s ever going to get married because he’s the poor boy and she’s the rich girl. He starts getting promoted and making more money and they’re like – Aaaaah. Meanwhile, Shelley Winters, the girlfriend – gulp — you know what happens to her? She gets pregnant. And when she tells him it’s “Oh no, it’s going to ruin his life.” So he has to figure out what to do and the really scary sad thing, which comes from the true life story, is that he took her out on a row boat for a date and he killed her and dumped her in the river, because he wants to marry the rich girl, right? This was very, very controversial for back in the day, but they were able to get away it with. So Dreiser shouldn’t have worried about his work, because it transferred pretty well to the screen. 

About this talk

Dr. Rosanne Welch (RTVF) speaks on the craft of history of film adaptations from the controversy of the silent film Birth of a Nation (protested by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1915) to Breakfast at Tiffany’s (to which author Truman Capote famously said, “The only thing left from the book is the title”) to The Godfather . Naturally, the behemoth in adaptation – Harry Potter (which depended on the relationship created by adapter Steve Kloves and author J.K. Rowling) will be discussed, as will the subject of this month’s celebration: Dune.

Date: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm

About Dr. Rosanne Welch

Dr. Rosanne Welch is a professor in the Low Residency MFA in Screenwriting Program from Stephens College, California State University, Fullerton, Mount San Antonio Community College and Cal Poly Pomona.  In 2007, she graduated with her Ph.D. in 20th Century U.S./Film History from Claremont Graduate University.  She graduated with her M.A. in 20th Century United States History from California State University, Northridge in 2004.

Welch is also a television writer/producer with credits for Beverly Hills 90210 , CBS’s Emmy winning Picket Fences and Touched By An Angel . She also writes and hosts her own podcasts on 3rdPass.media, her first one titled “Mindful(I) Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch.”

Her upcoming book, “Why The Monkees Matter: Teenagers, Television and American Pop Culture” will be published in Fall 2016

Three Ring Circus: How Real Couples Balance Marriage, Work and Kids and The Encyclopedia of Women in Aviation and Space are two books she has written. Los Angeles Times and the Journal of Screenwriting hold some of her published articles.

Dr. Rosanne Welch Web Site and Blog

Follow Dr. Welch on Twitter

Dr. Rosanne Welch on YouTube

Out of the Research Vault: Previously on CBS Sunday Morning: Davy Jones in 1993

In honor of the segment CBS Sunday Morning aired today with Micky, Peter and Mike, here’s an interview the show did with Davy in 1993.

Out of the Research Vault: Previously on CBS Sunday Morning: Davy Jones in 1993

Charming is the way he discusses each member’s personality, his pride to still be part of The Monkees and his memories of sitting on the beach during filming and eating their boxed sandwiches. Today on television and film shoots the craft services people dish out lobster and shrimp and all manner of luxury foods to actors and PAs alike.

This segment was part of a look back at what they called “TV Goodies” so not connected with any particular tour. Just a focus on the show – as I do in the book – since that is what started it all. it was fun to watch both segments as I spend my Memorial Day weekend copy-editing the proofs of the book which the publisher sent me this week. They want it to go to print by late June so I’d better get back to work!

Previously in Out of Research Vault: