Screenwriter Linda Woolverton will receive the Frances Award at Citizen Jane

When screenwriter Linda Woolverton was writing the script for the 1991 Disney classic Beauty and the Beast, she knew she wanted to give Belle a mind of her own. So, Woolverton decided to open the movie with Belle’s nose in a book while adventuring through town. But when Woolverton went to see the animators’ process, she saw that they had drawn Belle baking a cake in the kitchen instead.

Woolverton, who is a lot like Belle, pushed for her vision until it made it to the big screen.

The screenwriter’s determination to promote female protagonists is just one of the reasons she is being given the inaugural Frances Award on the opening night of the Citizen Jane Film Festival. Due to a recent personal event, Woolverton is unable to attend the ceremony. The award itself is named after Frances Marion, the first renowned female screenwriter who won the Academy Award for Writing in 1931.

“When we look at representation of women in media, all the statistics are pretty sad,” says Barbie Banks, director of the festival. “There’s not a lot of directors; there’s not a lot of screenwriters.” Although Citizen Jane typically honors directors, Banks says the festival wanted to broaden its scope to benefit Stephens College students as well, particularly the relatively new Masters of Fine Arts in TV and Screenwriting program whose first graduating class received their degrees this past May.

Choosing Woolverton for the Frances Award wasn’t a difficult decision. Professors from the MFA program and the digital film program at Stephens, along with Banks herself, chose to go with Woolverton. “She is the highest-grossing female screenwriter in the world,” Banks says. “She broke a lot of ground for women screenwriters, so it made sense to give it to the most successful woman first.” In addition to Beauty and the Beast, Woolverton took on the screenplays for the 2010 Alice in Wonderland remake and Maleficent. “She is known for changing the narrative for princesses,” Banks says.

Woolverton told the Los Angeles Times in 2016 about growing up with princess culture: “I remember feeling very incensed that the men would retire to the library and talk about interesting things and the women and girls were supposed to be over here baking and sewing. We weren’t supposed to be thinkers or philosophers.”

Woolverton has also lectured the MFA students during the first year of the program. Ken LaZebnik, the director of the program, invited her to speak to the students. “And this was partly why I thought, ‘What a wonderful chance for the MFA to honor this woman who has done so much to promote the growth of women’s voices on film,’” LaZebnik says.