Emphasizing diverse perspectives and underrepresented voices, this textbook guides readers through the craft of screenwriting. It offers a comprehensive approach to writing feature-length screenplays, integrating themes of diversity, equity, and inclusion. The focus on these crucial elements aims to enrich storytelling and ensure a broader representation in the screenwriting landscape.
Focusing on the representation of Asian identities in Hollywood from the 1930s to the 1960s, the book examines how non-Asian actors portrayed iconic roles, often using specific gestures and narrative conventions. Karla Rae Fuller highlights the archetypal standards set by these performances, revealing the artificial nature of Hollywood's racial depictions. The analysis not only critiques the portrayal of ethnicity in film but also addresses broader themes of identity and performance in American cinema during this era.
"Do The Right Thing offers screenwriting strategies that focus on diversity, equity and inclusion The goal is to teach an already challenging writing mode that requires screenwriters to create complex human experiences through visual storytelling. We are in a critical historical moment where the importance of screenwriting can be of the utmost usefulness in the observation of racism, inequity and inclusion in all media. The screen representations of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality or class are not often explicitly addressed at the "front end" of the film production process, specifically, during the creation of the screenplay (whether original or adapted from outside source material). The idea is to introduce and reinforce the importance of accountability for what you write for the screen. This is not to limit the screenwriter's creative impulses, but rather to create and engage them in consistent ways that reveal unconscious biases and instances of systemic racism. We will use five case studies of commercially successful and award-winning screenplays that resist stereotypes to present multidimensional depictions of historically underrepresented groups, such as LGBTQ, African American, Latino and Asian American. In the discussions of each individual screenplay issues such as the adaptation process, plot structure and devices, characterization, setting, symbolism, and genre conventions are introduced and analyzed in depth"-- Provided by publisher
