Abstract
This case study of Vicki Madden’s role as showrunner of Australian cable television drama The Kettering Incident (2016) explores gendered considerations of script development in the context of broader industrial conditions, forces and trends in television authorship. This examination of Vicki Madden’s career trajectory and practice of showrunning uses interviews and production studies in order to develop a detailed understanding of the role and how it functions situationally and relationally within a localised industrial context of Australian television, where the role showrunner is rarely used. We argue that by adopting the new title of showrunner, Madden has been able to redefine the terms of creative leadership and success in Australian television script development and production processes. Such active creation and management of one’s professional identity is perhaps an extension of the work women are always expected to perform, in order to make themselves and their achievements visible and viable in the creative industries.
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O’Meara, R., Moore, C. (2021). Negotiating Television Authorship and Gendering Creative Identity: Vicki Madden as Australian Showrunner. In: Taylor, S., Batty, C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Script Development. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82234-7_9
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