Sucking on a Ring Pop, Siân Melton walks up the side stairs of the Royal Cinema and stands stage left.
“Clueless is 20 years old!” she proclaims to the audience of about 90. Some in attendance are dressed snugly for the January evening some are clad in yellow and black plaid skirts and jackets. “Clueless is old enough to drink!” she says, inciting cheers from the aisles.
Melton is equal parts a lover of nostalgia, cinema and pageantry (see thematic Ring Pop above). And as the founder of Toronto’s newest film society, she’s able to bring all her passions together into one project. MUFF (Monthly Underground Female Films) took over the Royal to show Amy Heckerling’s 1995 cult hit Clueless last Thursday, the second in a screening series that’s aimed at “celebrating and championing all facets of women in film.”
While she has no formal background in film theory, Melton, 28, has worked in film for years, managing theatre operations for several festivals. This, combined with her passion for the silver screen, led to a conclusion many are quick to reiterate: there’s simply not enough attention paid to women in film.
“Even in 2015, the film industry is very much a white dude club,” she writes in an email. “And only loud voices and unending support will change that.” One need only look at the nominees for the Academy Awards – or the pay discrepancy in Hollywood highlighted by the Sony hacks, or the still relevant Bechdel test – to see that she’s not far off.
MUFF got its beginnings as Melton’s simple desire to see more ‘chick flicks’ on big screens in Toronto. And when word got out that she was screening Spice World as the inaugural film in the series, people flocked to show their support. Spurred by this public encouragement, she adapted MUFF’s mandate to include an online destination to discuss and honour all women in film: not just the Chers but the Ripleys, too.
The website has lofty ideals and an open-ended manifest. Melton reviews lesser-known films and aggregates relevant articles related to women in film. But Melton is open to both the website and screening series taking on their own momentum and evolving as the audience grows, incorporating everything from highlighting more independent female films to showcasing directors of colour to hosting a MUFF short film festival.
In fact, she says she has no real definition of what constitutes a ‘female film.’ Pressed to give one, she broadly says it’s one that either stars females, resonates with female audiences or has a female behind the camera in an important role (director, writer, executive producer).
But some may ask: are Spice World and Clueless – or traditional ‘chick flicks’ in general – positive portrayals of women in cinema?
“To show Clueless, to show Spice World, is not to show a film that is damning to feminism at all,” says University of Toronto’s Corinn Columpar. “These are films that potentially can be read in a feminist vein.”
Columpar, director of the Cinema Studies Institute at the university, says almost any film made by a woman is going to have some redeeming feminist qualities because the creator can’t separate her experiences and identity from her art.
“There is a lot of academic interest in Clueless,” Columpar says, referencing a recent dossier in Cinema Journal that gives feminist readings to the easily glossed-over film. In fact, instead of throwing up their hands and proclaiming whatever, there’s renewed academic interest in chick flicks in general.
“What is typically considered to be a chick flick – whether it be a melodrama in the classical era or a romcom in the contemporary era – is actually a more complicated genre than might have been assumed, especially by male critics for many years.”
Case in point: Obvious Child, starring Parks and Recreation’s Jenny Slate, is what Columpar calls “a romcom revised,” with its funny but ultimately fucked up protagonist getting pregnant after a one-night stand and incorporating a litany of Girls-inspired malapropisms on her journey to figure it all out.
Still, Columpar would like to see the envelope pushed a little further and the screenings catch up to the grand ambitions set out in MUFF’s website.
“I think Toronto has a really sophisticated movie-goer population,” she says. “And I wouldn’t limit them by saying that people are only going to respond to Spice World and Clueless.”
Melton seems to already be ahead of the curve on this one. Her Valentine’s screening is going to be Kathryn Bigelow’s Point Break. While it may seem somewhat unorthodox, she’s very precise and deliberate in her selection: by showing a male-dominated, high octane action film directed by a woman, she’s breaking down the expectations about what a woman behind the camera is capable of producing.
And she thinks Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves have the best on screen romance of any film.
