On Screenwriting and Media with Dr. Rosanne Welch
Writing, Film, Television and More!
This new “A Woman Wrote That” post is an echo of the Writers Guild campaign of a few years ago (“A Writer Wrote That”) where they noted famous movie quotes and credited the screenwriter rather than the director. The difference here being that we will be posting lines from films written by female screenwriters. Feel free to share! — Rosanne
AGADOR
“My guatemalaness. My natural heat. You’re afraid I’m too primitive to perform with your little estrogen Rockettes.”
Doing some research for the Norma Rae chapter in my upcoming Women’s History of Film book (co-written with my colleague Peg Lamphier) I came upon this SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE article by David von Drehle the author of a comprehensive book about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire.
I like it because he talks about the real, painstaking research work he undertook to tell the whole full story some 8 decades after it happened. People don’t often realize the work writers do to find bits of history across several archives in order to tell one story.
So it’s a good article for that – and for reminding us that unions work to make workplaces more safe and income more equitable and I’m tired of reading things written by people who don’t seem to remember disasters like this one – is that because they largely involved the loss of female life?
On March 25, 1911, 146 workers perished when a fire broke out in a garment factory in New York City. For 90 years it stood as New York’s deadliest workplace disaster. (The Granger Collection, NYC)
The author behind the authoritative retelling of the 1911 fire describes how he researched the tragedy that killed 146 people
On March 25, 1911, a pleasant springtime afternoon, a fire broke out in a garment factory near Washington Square in New York City’s Greenwich Village. Within minutes, the entire eighth floor of the ten-story tower was full of flames. Onlookers, drawn by the column of smoke and the clamor of converging fire wagons, watched helplessly and in horror as dozens of workers screamed from the ninth-floor windows. They were trapped by flames, a collapsed fire escape and a locked door. Firefighters frantically cranked a rescue ladder, which rose slowly skyward—then stopped at the sixth floor, fully extended. Pressed by the advancing blaze, workers began leaping and tumbling to their deaths on the sidewalk. Other workers perished in the flames, still others plunged into an open elevator shaft, while behind the factory two dozen fell from the flimsy fire escape. In all, 146 workers, most of them immigrant young women and girls, perished in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. For 90 years it stood as New York’s deadliest workplace disaster.
Read the entire article — Uncovering the History of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire
“Where’s HER Movie” posts will highlight interesting and accomplished women from a variety of professional backgrounds who deserve to have movies written about them as much as all the male scientists, authors, performers, and geniuses have had written about them across the over 100 years of film. This is our attempt to help write these women back into mainstream history. — Rosanne
Rebecca Lee Crumpler, born Rebecca Davis, (February 8, 1831 – March 9, 1895), was an American physician and author. After studying at the New England Female Medical College, in 1864 she became the first African-American woman to become a doctor of medicine in the United States.[a] Crumpler was one of the first female physician authors in the nineteenth century.[4] In 1883, she published A Book of Medical Discourses. The book has two parts that cover the prevention and cure of infertile bowel complaints, and the life and growth of human beings. Dedicated to nurses and mothers, it focuses on maternal and pediatric medical care and was among the first publications written by an African American about medicine.
Crumpler graduated from medical college at a time when very few African Americans were allowed to attend medical college or publish books. Crumpler first practiced medicine in Boston, primarily serving poor women and children. After the American Civil War ended in 1865, she moved to Richmond, Virginia, believing treating women and children was an ideal way to perform missionary work. Crumpler worked for the Freedmen’s Bureau to provide medical care for freed slaves.
She was subject to “intense racism” and sexism while practicing medicine. During this time, many men believed that a man’s brain was 10 percent bigger than a woman’s brain on average, and that a woman’s job was to act submissively and be beautiful. Because of this, many male physicians did not respect Rebecca Lee Crumpler, and would not approve her prescriptions for patients or listen to her medical opinions. Still, Rebecca Lee Crumpler persevered and worked passionately.
She later moved back to Boston to continue to treat women and children. The Rebecca Lee Pre-Health Society at Syracuse University and the Rebecca Lee Society, one of the first medical societies for African-American women, were named after her. Her Joy Street house is a stop on the Boston Women’s Heritage Trail. — Wikipedia
Chi non va, non vede. Chi non vede, non sa.”
Aguyar had been picking up Italian but looked to Giuseppe for the proper translation.
“’If you don’t go, you don’t see. If you don’t see, you don’t know.’ It’s something my mother said to me a long time ago. Who knew how true it would prove to be?”
I’m pleased to have been invited to be the guest on the weekly Twitter show #Scriptchat, hosted by editor Jeanne Veillette Bowerman.
On Sunday Februrary 14th at 4pm PDT we’ll be talking about behavior in a writers room, and the benefits of having an MFA in TV and Screenwriting.
If you haven’t checked in with their shows you should know that #Scriptchat brings the guests to the party so you can learn in a free, unbiased and respectful platform. Their #1 goal is to thoroughly enjoy spending an hour together every Sunday with writers working hard to improve and succeed, and they’re proud to have accomplished that time and time again, since 2009! – Rosanne
ScriptChat with Dr. Rosanne Welch – Sunday, February 14, 2021
Wednesday, February 10, 2021
At 4 PM PDT – 5 PM PDT
TOPIC: Working in / behavior in a writers room, & benefits of having an MFA #WritingCommunity
@RosanneWelch – ##screenwriter, TV writer, novelist & Exec Dir, @stephenscollege MFA In TV & #Screenwriting
Supervision of the drudgery work done by enslaved women kept women of both positions in daily contact. Enslaved maids slept on pallets on the floors of their various mistresses’ rooms to be awoken whenever necessary through the night. Often these maids were related to their mistresses, as in the case of Sally Hemmings, maid and half-sister to Martha Jefferson on the Monticello plantation, which created complex relationships and widely reported whispers among women of both stations of life.
Movies profiled in this book:
Watch this entire presentation
![47 More On Screenplays As Literature from Why Researching Screenwriters Has Always Mattered [Video] (51 seconds)](https://rosannewelch.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/rmw-sao-paolo-47.png)
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Transcript:
In my family, we like A Christmas Carol — Dickens’ A Christmas Carol — and it’s been made into movies several times and for us, the best version is the one made by The Muppets because in that version Gonzo the muppet gives the action dialogue — the narration — that you would not see in any other version of the film but he narrates — he walks around town — as Dickens narrating. So you hear language that you miss in the other movies. So, to me, that’s what’s happening when people start reading actual screenplays. They’re seeing the craft as it exists on the page. Yes, of course, we’d like it made into a film and we want to see the beautiful vistas and we want to see actors who are wonderful but I just really need the story. That’s enough for me. That’s gonna make me feel something.
Watch this entire presentation
A Note About This Presentation
A clip from my keynote speech at the 10th Screenwriters´(hi)Stories Seminar for the interdisciplinary Graduation Program in “Education, Art, and History of Culture”, in Mackenzie Presbyterian University, at São Paulo, SP, Brazil, focused on the topic “Why Researching Screenwriters (has Always) Mattered.” I was especially pleased with the passion these young scholars have toward screenwriting and it’s importance in transmitting culture across the man-made borders of our world.
To understand the world we have to understand its stories and to understand the world’s stories we must understand the world’s storytellers. A century ago and longer those people would have been the novelists of any particular country but since the invention of film, the storytellers who reach the most people with their ideas and their lessons have been the screenwriters. My teaching philosophy is that: Words matter, Writers matter, and Women writers matte, r so women writers are my focus because they have been the far less researched and yet they are over half the population. We cannot tell the stories of the people until we know what stories the mothers have passed down to their children. Those are the stories that last. Now is the time to research screenwriters of all cultures and the stories they tell because people are finally recognizing the work of writers and appreciating how their favorite stories took shape on the page long before they were cast, or filmed, or edited. But also because streaming services make the stories of many cultures now available to a much wider world than ever before.
Many thanks to Glaucia Davino for the invitation.
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This new “A Woman Wrote That” post is an echo of the Writers Guild campaign of a few years ago (“A Writer Wrote That”) where they noted famous movie quotes and credited the screenwriter rather than the director. The difference here being that we will be posting lines from films written by female screenwriters. Feel free to share! — Rosanne
PRINCESS LEIA
Why, you stuck up, half-witted, scruffy-looking… nerf-herder.
1848 – Return to Italy
Political changes in the various kingdoms on the Italian peninsula helped convince Giuseppe and many of the members of his Italian legion that now was the time to return, that now was the time to use the skills they had obtained in their battles for South American freedom to support unity in their homeland.
As a producer interested in maximizing his profits, Selznick worked hard to head off any possible protest. The NAACP took issue with the use of the n-word in the book, so the script used the word “freedmen” instead. Selznick also conceded to veterans of the Union army. In the book, Scarlett shoots one of Sherman’s soldiers after he menaces her with rape. In the film the soldier becomes a deserter who was going against Sherman’s orders to not harm citizens on the March to the Sea.
Movies profiled in this book: