history – Page 14 – On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch

15 They Keep Killing Suzie…and Grace 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.

RMW Rosanne Signature for Web

Transcript:

What they did in Torchwood they, of course, repeat when we come along to the Jodie Whittaker Doctor because they made you think we had a regular we didn’t have in the pilot. Right? That’s a trick that’s hard to get away with, but they made sure and wrote in a person who looked like they were part of the team and everything was happening and then they die in the pilot. And you’re like, whoa what happened?

They knew what they were doing. They knew they were killing the woman of color in that pilot, but they made sure she came back in Graham’s visions – right – he saw the visions of her and Ryan talks about her all the time. They even show The Doctor going to a funeral. How many people have died in the course of Doctor Who – I never once saw any of the Doctors go to a funeral. They respected her enough she stayed to go to her funeral. That’s how important that character is. So I think, I wouldn’t claim it as that but perhaps that is something they learned and they tried very hard not to do. Which I think is really interesting.

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Screenwriter Ruth Goodman: Her Instincts Made ‘The Heiress’ an Enduring Classic – Dr. Rosanne Welch, Script Magazine, July 2022

Ruth Goodman’s family had been involved in theatre even before her birth in 1908. Her father produced shows involving W. C. Fields and Jerome Kern. Those connections, and her education in New York and Paris, brought her jobs as a costume designer and story editor before marrying Augustus (Gus) Goetz on October 11, 1932, after having met onboard ship. Her mother disliked him, but Ruth described Augustus as enchantingly witty. Though a stockbroker when they met, he gave up finances and they began writing plays together, collaborating nearly exclusively throughout their career. Their most famous play, The Heiress, brought them to Hollywood.

Read Screenwriter Ruth Goodman: Her Instincts Made ‘The Heiress’ an Enduring Classic

Read about more women from early Hollywood

Screenwriting Research Network Conversation #2 – Memories of Our Previous International Conferences [Video]

In my role as the Secretary for the Executive Council of the SRN (Screenwriting Research Network) I was happy to be asked to act as host for the second SRN Conversation – a chance to talk with folks who have planned a couple of our earlier conferences around the world.

I spoke with organizers JJ Murphy of the Madison, Wisconsin 2013 conference and Kathryn Millard and Alex Munt of the Sydney 2012. The SRN Conversations allow us to create an archive of the history of the group and inform new members about all the opportunities gained from attending our conferences.

All their info will help me in planning SRN 2023 on my home campus at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri.

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05 Women and Westerns from What Is a Western? Interview Series: When Women Wrote Westerns from the Autry Museum of the American West [Video]

Transcript:

Host: So when we think about westerns in particular which seems like such a male-oriented genre – The cowboy is such a looming figure in that genre – how do we see them differently when we focus on the stories that women wrote or that are less often told?

Rosanne: Certainly the difference is that when we think of a female-focused story versus a male-focused story – and this is unfair to young boys and to men – we teach men in our literature – in our drama, in our movies – we teach them that the only way for them to succeed is to master a particular weapon – which, of course, in the west is a rifle, it’s the pistol, it’s the gun – and take on the bad guy all alone. We’re doing “High Noon” and it’s me and you, that’s it. If I die the whole world falls apart and that’s a lot of pressure to put on one character. Whereas female stories are generally centered in I have come to this new place with a bunch of other people. We are a community and we must all rise together. We must all help each other.

The Stephens College MFA in TV and Screenwriting is building a relationship with the Autry Museum of the American West since both organizations are devoted to bringing out more diverse and untold stories. Last year we were able to take our cohort of graduating MFA candidates to the museum’s theatre for a showing of Michael Wilson’s Salt of the Earth and we had plans to present a film of our choice this year – but of course the pandemic changed all that. Instead, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis asked me if I would sit for an interview about female screenwriters in the western genre and so “When Women Wrote Westerns” came to be a part of their “What Is a Western? Interview Series”.

I had a great time discussing so many wonderful women writers – from Jeanne MacPherson to D.C. Fontana to Edna Ferber to Emily Andras. If you love westerns I suggest you watch Josh’s other interviews covering everything from the work of Native Americans in Western movies to films in the western-horror hybrid. —

What this entire presentation

As part of a series exploring the significance of the Western genre and the ways in which the movies shape our understanding of the American West, Autry Curator Josh Garrett-Davis interviews Professor Rosanne Welch about the women screenwriters of Hollywood and their contributions to the Western genre.

Find more information at the Autry Museum of the American West

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“The Iron Mask” Costume, Hollywood Heritage Museum (Lasky-DeMille Barn) via Instagram [Photography]

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Creature from the Black Lagoon Costume, Hollywood Heritage Museum (Lasky-DeMille Barn) via Instagram [Photography]

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14 Obituaries Are Unreliable Narrators from When Men Forget Women: The Many Ways Male Screenwriters Fail to Mention their Female Colleagues [Video]

Nearly two years ago I had the pleasure of being invited to join a panel at the then upcoming SCMS (Society of Cinema and Media Studies) conference set for Seattle. As you know that was canceled due to Covid with the hopes of reconvening in Colorado in 2021. That became a virtual conference but our group decided to reapply our panel and we four were able to ‘meet’ on Zoom on Sunday and present: Writing Between the Lines: Feminist Strategies for Historical Absences, Cliché, and the Unreliable Narrator.

Here you can watch a clip from my part of the presentation,

“When Men Forget Women: The Many Ways Male Screenwriters Fail to Mention their Female Colleagues in Oral Histories”

Transcript:

To be fair, it does happen to male screenwriters sometimes. Nunally Johnson is the one who adapted ‘The Grapes of Wrath” and John Ford, who directed actually wrote in a book that he said, “You know people are credit this particular shot with my genius but you wrote it down in the scripts.” Right? And Nunally was like, ‘I don’t know who’s going get the attribution but I know I wrote it and that’s all that matters.” So, he didn’t particularly care but his name disappears so badly that obituary writers are terribly unreliable narrators. When Nunally Johnson’s wife died – she was the actress Dorris Bowden who played Rose O’Sharon in The Grapes of Wrath – they called it John Ford’s Grapes of Wrath and they said that she left acting after she married that film’s screenwriter. They took his name out of his wife’s obituary. Who’s more important in her death? Her husband or the guy who directed a movie she did fifty years ago? Clearly think about that and she herself was very proud of how John Steinbeck had talked about Nunally Johnson’s writing because he was so brilliant. So to erase him out of her obituary is ridiculous.

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23 The Voice of the Character 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:

So it was a real like getting to know the voice of a character and a character that has had similar but slightly different voices across all 50 years. They all have had their own way of doing things and their own sort of idioms. I think that’s really delicate but that line really stuck out to me and you just can’t imagine thinking your way through it so long and then I think this is really important because it keeps us with the theme – the overarching theme – of the series which is really about pacifism and about really attempting to bring peace to the universe, not war. Even though of course David comes back from the time war and all that stuff but I think keeping that in mind and allowing a female character to bring forward that idea. In a funny way I’m a huge fan of Robert Redford and all that sort of thing and “The Way We Were” is one of my favorite romances and the idea that there was the Barbra Streisand character – ban the bomb, pushing for pacifism. It’s a woman is always trying to say let’s not go to war first let’s get to the solution because I don’t want to see all the people I know get hurt. So I think that’s very true not just that she’s a female character but it’s Doctor Who. That’s the job right? So we try to do it without a gun. Sometimes they show up but they really don’t belong there. They really don’t belong there.

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14 Owen Harper 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:

…and then Owen was an interesting character. I mean he could be your bland white guy except he wasn’t a nice guy necessarily and they had to put up with him because of his talent and he had to learn and grow. So I think he was an interesting character. He’s not the most interesting of all of them. The fact that he had a relationship with Tosh says a little bit about him right? So it’s not the best character but he was you know i mean if he had to have a second white guy he was okay but here’s where i start thinking about the writing makes the show stand out.

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New History Book: Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life in American History by Keri F. Dearborn, Edited by Dr. Rosanne Welch and Dr. Peg Lamphier.

Buy at Your Local Bookstore | Bookshop.org | Amazon | ABC-CLIO

It’s time to celebrate the latest book in our series to be published – Keri Dearborn’s Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life in American History landed on my doorstep yesterday and I couldn’t be more excited to read it (even though I’ve already read it to edit it). It comes on the tail of my having watched The First Lady series on Showtime which we hope has interested a new generation in the life and times of this amazing woman.

As with all of our authors in the series, Keri’s research was fascinating to follow – my favorite new fact was learning (thanks to the release of new primary documents) that the scientists who talked to FDR about the Manhattan Project weren’t able to make an appointment with the president – but one of them was in a social club with Mrs. Roosevelt and used that connection to talk to her first. She’s the one who told FDR he had to meet with them.

Those are the great details all of our authors have found (or are still finding in the books that are being completed in the next year or so). We thank the authors whose books have been published (covering Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Gloria Steinem, Hilary Clinton, and Helen Keller) – and look forward to the ones yet to come which cover the lives of Wilma Mankiller, Ida B. Wells, Sally Ride, and Delores Huerta.

Women Making History Series Description

Women Making History is a series of single-volume books that examine the lives and historical impact of the most iconic figures in American Women’s history.

Books in the Women Making History series explore the lives and contributions of important women in American history. Each volume goes beyond biographical details to consider historical context and explicitly discuss the world in which the individual lived and worked, the challenges she faced, and her lasting contributions. This approach allows readers to explore not just the life of a particular woman but also her various political, social, cultural, and historical contexts. In addition to chronological chapters, sidebars, a timeline, document excerpts, and a bibliography, an introductory chapter explores the cultural and historical significance of the individual and places her in the overall historical context, as well as how her actions, beliefs, or positions influenced not only women’s history but history as a whole.

See the entire series on the ABC-CLIO Web Site