bbc – Page 6 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

07 More On Captain Jack Harkness from Why Torchwood Still Matters with Dr. Rosanne Welch, San Diego Who Con 2021 [Video]

I recently presented a talk on Torchwood (Why Torchwood Still Matters) where I highlighted a few ways in which the show (airing from 2006 to 2011) came up with progressive and innovative ideas that are being used by other franchises today.

I always enjoy attending the SD (San Diego) WhoCon because the audiences are so well-informed on the Whoniverse and Whovians love Captain Jack and the crew that made this spinoff program so engaging.

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Transcript:

Imagine the idea that you could see two men kissing on television. That just was not done. In the mid-80s there was a show here called 30 Something and it was the first time two gay men kissed on American television and in something like eight states they refused to air it. They simply did not show that episode right? So here in you know England because of Queer As Folk and slowly. So I think Captain Jack is a fascinating character. It’s so interesting that he’s really – I mean he’s not any particular thing but he’s an American when we meet him right and that’s such an interesting – oh seed that into their culture. Maybe it made it easier to accept because he wasn’t an Englishman. I don’t know. It’s very interesting but he’s a fascinating character and of course, we’re going to talk about the fact that he starts out we all – look he’s bisexual because – look in Children of Earth we find out he’s got a daughter, and a grandson. So clearly there was a woman in his life at some point right? So that’s interesting. We don’t generally see that representation very much on tv either. People are either this or that and suddenly it’s like or both right? He’s a 21st-century guy which is a pretty cool thing right? He likes women. He likes men. He’s omnisexual, right? If you’re cute he’s all about it which is why not and this happened before. I teach college you know and now I have students who represent us pansexual, asexual. They all are much more comfortable about their sexuality right? They’re not defined by one thing. Nobody was having that conversation really and I’m not saying only Torchwood did this but as we start these conversations in the media they build into our society right and people feel comfortable then having a conversation about things. So I’ve been really impressed that they start with that and they tried to keep it up. It was hard because we want to see Jack with somebody we know and we like. So it usually is a human but that was laid into his character, right? This is what it’s like to be an alien.

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15 Strong, But Not Stronger… from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

It was great to be able to attend this year’s SD WhoCon in San Diego and present this lecture on “The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years” in which I discuss how successful I think showrunner Christopher Chibnall was in making that transition.

It gave me a chance to talk about the creative work of a showrunner/screenwriter while also reconnecting to some friends we had met at this same convention some 3 years ago – and to talk about one of my favorite subjects – Doctor Who!

Transcript:

These issues of finding men who can be strong but not stronger than have happened in television before. I’m a huge Buffy fan all right. I get to – I could do many a lecture on Buffy and think about it right? We had both David Boreanaz and James Marsters. Of course, Marsters will appear in Torchwood for us again later. They had to be strong but she always was the one who solved the problem. It was her skill but did it. Whether it was the strength of her emotion that she could avoid how much she loved Angel in order to have to kill him – spoiler alert if you’re not a Buffy fan – but that’s a really tricky thing and also of course even Xander, they dealt with a character who could be strong again emotionally but he was never physically stronger than Buffy, right? You could say the same obviously for the current day Wonder Woman, right? How do you balance that out and that was Alan Heinberg, who’s a wonderful writer. Came out of the Shondaland universe and then ended up doing Wonder Woman. He’s now doing Sandman in the UK with Neil Gaiman. So again the Doctor Who connection and that’s coming out later this year and of course, this goes back to the 70s and the Bionic Woman who was surrounded by men who had to be intelligent and helpful but not better than her. So this is something Chibnall had to have in mind as he put this together.

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06 Captain Jack Harkness from Why Torchwood Still Matters with Dr. Rosanne Welch, San Diego Who Con 2021 [Video]

I always enjoy attending the SD (San Diego) WhoCon because the audiences are so well-informed on the Whoniverse and Whovians love Captain Jack and the crew that made this spinoff program so engaging.

RMW Rosanne Signature for Web

Transcript:

Of course, he invents Captain Jack who, you know let’s face it, he’s admitted a million times it’s really like his dream boy and then – everybody’s dream boy. Hello. Exactly and how can he not be right but he said – Russell has said several times – which I think is very important what he wanted to show on television were things he wished he’d seen as a child and what he’d never seen was two men be romantic with each other. Not like pornographic sex, romantic right? The fact that they could dance together in public and that was acceptable. Such an amazing – it doesn’t seem like that much but it’s that much right and it was to him because he’s writing from the perspective of the little boy that he once was and what wasn’t he shown. So really impressive to me how much they moved the needle forward in terms of gay representations. Of course, we’re talking about men here not necessarily women yet but you know you open one door, you start opening it a little bit more.

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14 Even More On The Companions from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

Transcript:

…and of course, Graham is overcoming cancer, so likewise could be is a stronger man but he’s actually stronger emotionally which I think is really, again, an interesting role model for us. So this was a lot of thinking. As we know, with any of the showrunners every time they invent a companion they have to really think through what am I providing the show and I think that Chibnall did a good job with that.

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05 Russell T Davies from Why Torchwood Still Matters with Dr. Rosanne Welch, San Diego Who Con 2021 [Video]

I always enjoy attending the SD (San Diego) WhoCon because the audiences are so well-informed on the Whoniverse and Whovians love Captain Jack and the crew that made this spinoff program so engaging.

RMW Rosanne Signature for Web

Transcript:

Now we know it was invented by Russell and Russell comes to us from Queer As Folk which was a huge sort of new thing and this starts in the UK before it even comes to the States and the States kind of ruined it. I don’t know if you see the English version it’s much better than the American version. It is trippy. Isn’t it sad? This sadly – I mean please, please, please, I never want an American version of Doctor Who and they’ve talked about it, and then they kind of kibosh it. Yeah, they’ve talked about it. It’s like oh no no no no no but so so we know that his career was built – I mean he starts in soap operas as we know and soap operas get disrespected but in fact some of the most innovative stuff happens on tv first in soap operas and that’s true in the States as well right? There were gay characters for the first time. There were interracial marriages for the first time. These happened on soap operas because only women were watching and they were stay-at-home mommies or wives and so who cares what they’re watching right? Nobody gave it a thought except that’s how then stories seeded into prime time right and we finally grow and like that. So he starts in soaps and he moves into Queer As Folk and then he moves into Doctor Who.

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13 More On The Companions from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

Transcript:

What she had to do – what she – what Chibnall had to do is we’ve fallen into a pattern where all the companions fall in love with The Doctor and that was cool with Amy. That was like okay. Romantic storyline and I frankly love the fact that Martha had the guts to say dude you’re never gonna feel the way I feel and I’m not wasting my time. That to me was like the most grown-up thing I had seen a woman do. So very cool. That’s when I – yes. She really like then you’re like oh she’s like one of my favorite companions. So all right so we’re falling into that right? So how do you avoid that with the first female Doctor? Well pretty smart. We’re going to give you a young man who’s at least 15 years younger than the – of course, The Doctors years and years old – but the visual person so if you think about it Tosin is about 15 years younger than her and Graham is about 15 years older. So our brains aren’t going to immediately go hey are they going to fall in love. So he avoided that but he also had to think about the male characters. They can’t be stronger than her because that would ruin her ability to be the most important character. So we’ve got a very young man. Ryan should be as strong or stronger than as Jody Whitaker appears in life. So they gave him dyspraxia, right? They gave him a bit of a handicap that puts him a little bit behind right? So I had to think about that. It’s not a bad one. It’s not one that you know gets in the way too much but it keeps him from jumping in and saving the day, which you have to think about.

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04 Other Interests from Why Torchwood Still Matters with Dr. Rosanne Welch, San Diego Who Con 2021 [Video]

I always enjoy attending the SD (San Diego) WhoCon because the audiences are so well-informed on the Whoniverse and Whovians love Captain Jack and the crew that made this spinoff program so engaging.

RMW Rosanne Signature for Web

Transcript:

One of my other fandoms is The Monkees and I have a whole book on The Monkees and about the fact that when I was a kid watching them as a child I would assume, looking back at it as a grown-up, that like all the women on the show must have been bimbos and cheerleaders and all the boys would hang out with them and when I looked at as an adult I discovered that every single girl they ever dated had a job and she was a girl who took care of herself and I thought, Is that a message that seeped into my brain when I was a kid? That if I wanted to marry a Monkee I had to be a woman of some substance of something. All right, so really I think messages do come to us. So, I think Torchwood had a lot of really good messages.

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12 Her Companions from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

Transcript:

If we look here, obviously, we have, again, female leadership. The police person is Yasmin, right? It’s a woman police officer who’s gonna come and join. So now we’re gonna have two relatively powerful women running things and that’s different for us. I mean I like Tegan too. She was fun but you know a little screamy goofy right and Nyssa was a doctor. So Nyssa, I really enjoyed Nyssa. So finding two strong women in stories is very interesting.

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03 Representation in Torchwood from Why Torchwood Still Matters with Dr. Rosanne Welch, San Diego Who Con 2021 [Video]

I always enjoy attending the SD (San Diego) WhoCon because the audiences are so well-informed on the Whoniverse and Whovians love Captain Jack and the crew that made this spinoff program so engaging.

RMW Rosanne Signature for Web

Transcript:

So I think what was interesting is we got a chance to go to this academic conference which was Investigating Torchwood and I heard all kinds of interesting things – some of which helped me put this together – ideas about the show that I didn’t think of and so then we published the piece. So this is why I’m interested in thinking about Torchwood and why I think it should have gone longer than four seasons although miracle day killed it which is all another conversation – but it was a show that was a work in progress with a lot of new ideas and some of those ideas have slowly seeded into the regular tv that we’re watching now and so I think it’s really interesting to look at these original ideas. They were being very innovative and I like that and I want to see more of that and I just happen to like this meme because it’s true one of the things that of course Jack – Captain Jack – brought to us was looking at the world in a bigger way right and then all the ideas of who he could be and who could love and who the other characters could be with. They were relatively new if you think about it and it’s the thing that we teach in my program – representation matters. We have to pay attention to the things we’re seeing because TV is the thing that comes into your home for free or pay the cable bill if your parents pay it right – but we’re getting to see things that you wouldn’t see if you didn’t want to pay the money at a movie theater right? So the tv is really like so interesting because who knows what we’re learning from it.

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11 Casting Supporting Characters…from The Difficulties and Delicacies of Writing the First Female Doctor in 50+ years [Video] [Doctor Who]

Transcript:

The other important thing is casting who would be around her. So, as the showrunner, he is casting all of these new characters and he’s inventing them from scratch and so we looked at this group of people and thought OK, who does he surround the first female Doctor with and it was important to him, I also think he promised and mostly came through on diversity and diversity is one of those words that gets tossed around a lot. Some people are saying let’s get rid of that word. Let’s go with inclusion. It just means let’s tell more stories. Let’s tell a wider range of stories that we haven’t had a chance to see before. So he committed to that and by virtue of who he chose to follow her obviously, we are going to get some different stories that had not yet – I mean it’s 50+ years of a TV show. What new things can you possibly write? And, of course, for The Doctor that comes from the people who follow him. So I think that these were very good choices.

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