Friday 20 January 2012

Where No Woman Has Gone Before

To Boldly Go Where No Woman Has Gone Before

Today I would like to pay tribute to one of the unsung heroes of Scriptwriting and a true pioneer in Science Fiction writing. Dorothy Catherine 'D. C.' Fontana.


















Before we look back at Fontana’s triumphs in the 1960's and 70's let's quickly analyse the situation of female scriptwriters today to put her achievements into context. In 2011 only 13.6% of all film screenwriters in Hollywood were female (8% of directors and 19.1% of producers). In TV the situation isn't much better. In 2007, 35 percent of scriptwriters were women but in 2011 this number did drop to only 15 percent. Experts blame the recession, broadcasters taking fewer risks (one has to wonder why employing a woman is still viewed as a risk in 2012) and to put it plain and simple - old-fashioned sexism - for this troubling development.

You will probably be not surprised by those numbers. But if you would argue that Hollywood has always been sexist and unfair towards women regarding employment behind the camera you would be wrong.

In the ‘Classic Hollywood’ era it was common practice to employ female writers to cope with the ever-growing demand for great screenplays. The term Classic Hollywood - the Silent Era (1910-1927) and the Golden Age of Hollywood (ca. 1927-1950)  stands for the heyday of the great Hollywood studios like Paramount Pictures, Fox Film Coperation, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Warner Bros. Brandie Ashe explains one of the main reasons for the dominance of female scriptwriters at that time in her blog Women in Early Hollywood:

“It's no coincidence that the golden era of the female screenwriter occurred at the same time as the golden age of the actress. In the 1920s and early '30s, when female screenwriters dominated, actresses ruled the box office to a degree that hasn't been seen since.”

In the excellent book Script Girls:Women Screenwriters in Hollywood, Lizzy Francke depicts how, as the industry grew, screenwriting became the only area of film production in which a woman could play a significant role. Back then about 50% of all screenwriters were female. Impressive, ey? Compared to the situation today, it’s quite depressing to see that Hollywood’s employment practices have actually developed backwards in that respect.

However, when it came to TV scriptwriting in general, and the male domain of Science Fiction writing in particular, during the 1960's women did not exist on television networks’ radar as potential writers for their shows. 

But just like it did in so many other respects, the visionary programme Star Trek challenged this blatant injustice by employing a young female story-editor and scriptwriter - Dorothy Fontana. Aged 27 she was the youngest story editor in Hollywood at the time. During the next few years, Fontana would play an important role in the development and shaping of this innovative and groundbreaking TV series.

Developed by 2nd World War veteran Gene Roddenberry who envisaged a peaceful, multi-cultural and altruistic future, Star Trek was initially broadcast on NBC between 1966-69. In a time that was defined by racial tensions and the Cold War, the programme dared to feature a black, female communications officer, Lieutenant Uhura (portrayed by Nichelle Nichols) and a Russian navigator, Mr. Chekov (Walter Koenig). The line-up of main characters was completed by the American Midwesterner Captain Kirk (William Shatner), the Scottish chief engineer Mr. Scott (James Doohan), the Japanese helmsman Mr. Sulu (George Takei), the Southerner Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) and the Vulcan First Officer Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy). Starfleet definitely knew a thing or two about Equal Opportunities.


D.C. Fontana in the 1960's


Although the show was set in 2266, the episodes were dealing with many of the important themes and issues that would define the1960's as one of the most influential decades in history: racism, gender equality, drug use, false Gods, the damaging exploitation of natural resources, freedom, pacifism, war and the corruption of power, to name just a few topics.

Dorothy Fontana wrote some of Star Treks most remarkable episodes, such as The Way To Eden, The Enterprise Incident, Tomorrow is Yesterday, Journey to Babel and This Side of Paradise. To make her acceptable to the predominantly male science fiction audience who might not have trusted a woman to write a good Science Fiction story, Dorothy Fontana was credited as D.C. Fontana or used male pseudonyms such as Michael Richards or J.Michael Bingham.














Spock jamming with Space Hippies in 
The Way To Eden



Many of the episodes she penned focused on the development of the Vulcan First Officer Mr. Spock, one of the most popular and memorable characters in TV history. In his autobiography I'm Spock Leonard Nimoy praises the writer and recalls how she left her mark not only on Spock's character but the series on a whole. He points out that it was Fontana’s achievement to counterbalance one of Trek’s few shortcomings-it often treated women as stereotypical love interests or ignored them altogether. Nimoy writes:

“Dorothy is a very talented, solid individual for whom I have the utmost respect....She gave us, by far, the best stories where we interact with women who were fully developed characters in their own right. That's not to say that that was her primary intent as a writer, or that that was her only contribution to the show. Dorothy's scenes not only avoided such stereotypes, but were dramatically intriguing.”

The Enterprise Incident, an episode in which Spock meets his match in a strong and clever Romulan female Commander, has impressed Nimoy in particular: 

“Episodes like The Enterprise Incident made it exciting to go to work. Like all of Dorothy's scripts, it had an edge to it, an adult level of complications, and social commentary. The characters's lives were being affected, their ethics violated, even their spirituality touched. Scripts like these added to the moral structure of the Star Trek universe. The durability of such fine work is endless.”

Joanne Inville as the Romulan Commander in 
The Enterprise Incident














D.C. Fontana understood that Star Trek owed a great deal of its appeal to the believable characters. Consequently, she championed collaboration with the actors and they were heavily involved in developing the characters they portrayed. This approach was not only evident in regard to Nimoy and Mr. Spock but also to DeForest Kelley and Doctor McCoy. The actor from Georgia, known for his dry humour and wit, developed the Enterprise’s emotional and sarcastic chief medical officer as a direct counterpart to the logical and unemotional Spock, which resulted in many unforgettable and often hilarious on-screen arguments between the two. In Kelley’s biography Fontana remembers: “Everything to do with McCoy we did with Kelley’s input. We created McCoy with Kelley right there.”

D.C Fontana’s understanding for character and her ability to develop potential ideas into well-structured and dramatic scripts, soon cemented her place among the chief production personnel of the series. Kelley biographer Terry Lee Rioux describes how Fontana earned the respect of the show’s producer Robert Justman when she reinvigorated the idea behind the episode Charlie X which evolved around a troubled teenager with superpowers.

“It had been a ‘junked’ story Roddenberry had been fooling with. Justman knew Fontana was a writer, that she was good, and that she would work on speculation. ‘Give it to Dorothy, and see what she can do with it’ he advised Roddenberry. Fontana resuscitated the good that was in it.”

Fontana’s emancipated writing is often subtle and funny at the same time, but always intelligent and even visionary. A great example of this is when Air Force pilot Captain Christopher is beamed on the Enterprise after the ship’s unintentional time travel to 1967 in Tomorrow Is Yesterday. Kirk greets him in the transporter room and they walk into the corridor where a female crew-member walks past. Christopher can’t believe his eyes and looks after the woman.

CREWWOMAN: Good morning, Captain.
KIRK: Morning. (drags Christopher along) Captain.
CHRISTOPHER: A woman?
KIRK: Crewman.
In 1967 the roles of women in the military were restricted to medical and administrative tasks and the long-standing combat exclusion law for women pilots in the Navy and Air Force was only repealed in 1992. So one can forgive Captain Christopher’s astonishment to meet fully trained women aboard a far-travelled Starship.
After Star Trek, Dorothy Fontana went on to produce the Emmy-winning animated series of the programme in the 1970’s. She also wrote many scripts for other TV programmes such as The Six Million Dollor Man, The Waltons and Dallas. Furthermore, she wrote several novels that were set within the StarTrek Universe. Today she is lecturing Screenwriting at the American Film Institute.

A little while ago I had the pleasure to encounter D.C. Fontana personally. But not the real one, but an excellent British Mod/Soul band of the same name. The band has an impeccable taste when it comes to their 60’s influences and has named themselves in tribute of the great writer. The combo is truly fantastic-live and on record- but one has to salut them as well for their original and brilliant name. 

DC Fontana- The band

















Sources

Books
Leonard Nimoy- I’m Spock
Terry Lee Rioux - From Sawdust to Stardust- The Biography of DeForest Kelley, Star Trek’s Dr. McCoy
Lizzie Franke- Script Girls: Woman Scriptwriters in Hollywood

Blogs

Maureen Ryan- Why Is Television Losing Women Writers?
http://www.aoltv.com/2011/09/08/women-television-producers-decline/

Brandie Ashe- Women In Early Hollywood
http://www.moviefanfare.com/fanfare-guests/women-in-early-hollywood/

1 comment:

  1. Well researched, a pleasure to read, even though I am a zero with regards to my knowledge of Star Trek.

    ReplyDelete