Reel Grrls get behind the cameras

As soon as I saw the cheesecake, I knew this was a girl thing.

Anyone who's gone to a premiere party knows what I'm talking about. The most chichi spreads include canapés and crudités, the occasional tiny pastry and shrimp, haute-couture food that's fun and neat.

Not the case at the Reel Grrls 2.0 premiere two Fridays ago at the 911 Media Arts Center. Uh-uh. Not only did each audience member get a raffle ticket for between-film prize drawings but the instant gratification of hummus and cheesecake on the snack table. Better still: No forks or spoons! The Fizz dug in with her fingers and slurped away happily.

Let that be a lesson to any artistically inclined ladies out there. Sometimes if you want to dive into worthwhile endeavors, you have to get messy.

Words 18-year-old Reel Grrl Jamie Wheeler, whose cinematic aspirations have put her in the pages of a recent issue of Teen People, intends to live by. OK, so a fellow Reel Grrl teased her about Britney Spears being on the cover as we talk about it a week later. "But at the same time I got a very valid point across," she responded. "I'm going to be able to speak to thousands of millions of girls that I was not able to speak to otherwise and say stuff a lot of them never heard. You know, we kind of have to manipulate the system."

Subversion is a shared sideline among the 2002 Reel Grrls participants, who made a video examining the triumphs and trials of being a female media consumer today. Instead of engaging in that all-too-common teen ritual of psychologically tearing themselves apart in the mirror, they made positive flicks about the teenage-girl experience, usually laced with humor. And in the case of a public-service announcement about teen violence, they could be unflinchingly sober.

The product of a partnership among the Seattle Metrocenter YMCA, KCTS-TV and 911 Media Arts, Reel Grrls has taken flight since its 2001 beginnings, which yielded a 17-minute video. The MacArthur Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts are among the organizations that have funded them, and festivals around the country, including Sundance, included Reel Grrls' reel.

Malory Graham, 911's Youth Programs director, began the program for young women who participated in a youth program on teen violence after Columbine.

"Then I noticed that in the mixed-gender setting, the boys really gravitated to kind of taking over the technology," she said. "... And I thought one of the ways to not have that happen is to have it be a girl-only environment."

Now those spunky girls shine in their own lights. Between short music videos and a Reel Grrl-produced promotional piece on a firefighter camp for girls, the Grrls raffled off T-shirts, coupons for Vain (a Belltown beauty salon), and, to drive home the virtues of toughness, certificates for martial-arts classes.

The key here is awareness. American girls will have watched an average of 5,000 hours of television before entering kindergarten, and will be exposed to more than 20,000 TV commercials a year.

It's clear that this is a program beyond overdue, particularly on the image-conscious West Coast. Sadly, it came too late for a sometimes not-so-confident Fizz (yes, it's true). But it arrived just in time for Kat Bauman, 15. She came into the program as a recovering anorexic and left with newfound sense of worth. "I've got so much power I don't know where to put it!" she declared later.

You could feel it. The best aspect of the evening was how you felt as you left. Sweetly satisfied. If that's something you need a good dose of, head to the Reel Grrls fund-raiser Monday from 7 to 10 p.m. at 911 Media Arts, 117 Yale Ave. N. Tickets are $50, and all proceeds benefit the program. Have fun and skip the forks.

Thought bubbles: While we're talking about 911, check out its other programs and screenings all summer. They're less expensive than the multiplex, and you'll be supporting local filmmakers. Log on to www.911media.org. ...

A mention of the Rendezvous (2320 Second Ave.) two weeks ago neglected to tout its glories as an arts hub. Tomorrow night you can write "Letters to the Rendezvous" on typewriters and enjoy readings by local writers at 7 p.m., and if you stick around until midnight you can see a William Hooker film. All for a $5 donation! ...

Just as an aside, I've noticed a resurgence in the use of the over-with term "hella" around town. This must stop immediately.

Get real. E-mail Pop Fizz at mmcfarland@seattletimes.com.