Community Profile

Reel Grrls" is a special program of 911 Media Arts Center in partnership with Seattle's Metrocenter YMCA and KCTS - The Public Network. By teaching teenage girls how to be critical television watchers and then producers of their own media, we are giving them a voice in an arena where they are heavily targeted as consumers but where their artistic expression is seldom heard or seen.


Reel Grrls has screened at the following festivals:
The Hamptons International Film Festival (Oct 17-21, 2001)
The Tower of Youth Film Festival in CA, (Oct. 5, 2001)
The Sundance Film Festival-Gen-Y screening (Jan 13-17, 2002)
The Mediarights.org Online Film Festival (March, 2002)
The Fledgling Film Festval in Burlington, VT (April 12-13, 2002)
The Taos Talking Pictures Film Festival in NM, (April 13-15, 2002)

Did you know?
Most girls in the United States will have watched 5,000 hours of television before entering kindergarten (Kaplan)
As a result, girls are exposed to over 20, 000 TV commercials a year (Stoneman & Brody)
By the time a girl is 16 years old, she will have spent more time watching television than going to school (Basow) Television is, by far, the most influential force in the lives of children today. It plays a tremendous role in socializing both girls and boys and providing models for both genders to emulate. According to the National Organization for Women's report on television, "Watch Out Listen Up," overall, men still dominate television programs and news; people of color and women of different body types are extremely under-represented; and lesbians and people with disabilities are virtually non-existent. Where there were positive role models of women, they were frequently offset by sexist stereotypes.