Making Room for Women's Voices in Hollywood with Melissa Silverstein

Erin: Welcome to Hotter Than Ever, where we uncover the unconscious rules we've been following. We break those rules and we find a new path to being freer, happier, sexier, and more satisfied in the second half of our lives. I'm your host, Erin Keating, and I am working on a new intro. So that's some new language, we'll see how it goes. I want to give a warm welcome to any new listeners. I am so happy you found us.

If you are looking for a place that celebrates what is possible and what is fun for us over 40, and when I say us, I mean the most accomplished, successful, gorgeous, multitasking generation of women who have ever lived on planet Earth. And that includes you, even if you don't feel that way every day. Welcome, welcome, welcome. We have some great ideas and conversations for you, stick around. And for the listeners who are returning, I am so glad you're back. It always makes me feel good to know you're tuning in for another episode and that what I have to offer means something to you, or at the very least, you find me mildly amusing.

Today I talked to Melissa Silverstein. Melissa's someone I have admired for a long time. She is the founder of Women and Hollywood, which was one of the first publications to educate and advocate and agitate for gender diversity and inclusion in Hollywood and the global film industry. She is a pioneer in this space and one of the reasons why we started to see press about how many women writers, directors and producers work was being made and celebrated in Hollywood and how much of our work was not getting made. And if it was getting made, not getting distributed, and if it was getting distributed, not getting marketed, and if it was getting marketed, not being celebrated alongside the lauded directors who often had gray hair and wore baseball caps and accepted Oscar after Oscar after Oscar. Anyway, that's a conversation we all take for granted today. But Melissa is part of the reason we are able to do that and why it's in the public conversation so much. She's also the host of In Her Voice, which is a podcast that takes you behind the scenes with women filmmakers, actors, producers and others for an intimate look at the creative process.

And in case that's not enough, you know what I love my multi hyphenates, women who take it all on and do all kinds of interesting things. Melissa is also the artistic director and co founder of the Athena Film Festival, which is coming up on its 15th year at Barnard College. That festival screens inspiring films that tell the extraordinary stories of fierce and fearless female leaders. Say that 10 times fast, fierce and fearless female leaders. She's also co-founder of the Girls Club, which is an online community for women creatives. And she's got some really exciting new projects up her sleeve in this next chapter of her life. You know, we had a great conversation about the legacy of her work with women in Hollywood.

And we talk about representation, you know, it's one of my favorite subjects and storytelling by and for women over 40. We bond over the fact that we never want to see another movie about World War II or Winston Churchill ever again. I think there have been plenty, thanks, plenty of other stories to be told out there. Melissa is embracing her next chapter, one in which she has moved out of Hollywood.

She's put down her press pass. She's still running the film festival, but she's also acting as a creative doula for other people's projects and making her own work, which I love to hear. All right, let's get hot.

Melissa Silverstein, welcome to Hotter Than Ever.

Melissa: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Erin: I'm so glad to have you here. I have been aware of your work and paid attention to the advocacy that you've been doing for women in the business that I grew up in. You founded Women in Hollywood in 2007. That was a long time ago, especially in the scheme of this conversation about women and inclusion and diversity and equity. Tell me about the inspiration to start that conversation and then, like, broad strokes, how you think things have changed and not changed.

Melissa: So I started, it was really a very personal thing where I was getting to a certain age where I was looking around for stories that inspired me that I saw myself in, and there was nothing out there. It was the beginning of the blogosphere, and I just kind of put something out to the world, which is like, you know, where are the women? And there was no answer because nobody was really online at that time in that way. And so I was kind of between things, and I was just like, you know, I'm going to start asking this question and I tried to find the women. So in my early days, people didn't understand what I was doing because nobody kind of, like, had the women's beat in entertainment.

And so I kind of just like, created it. And then I would do all these interviews with women directors, you know, like a Deborah Granick, like, people who are doing, like, these beautiful small movies, and I would talk to them about being a woman in the business. And everyone was always just so confused that people could talk about, like, being a woman and what it meant and women's stories. And I just kind of kept talking to people in the beginning couple of years was really about learning and talking and putting those voices out to the world. And I took a lot of those interviews in the beginning, and I made them into a book called In Her Voice. And, you know, I look back at those now, and they're just, they're really old, they're really dated.

Erin: In what way?

Melissa: I think that women in those days. And you can see Susan Seidelman just wrote a book about her experience of being a director in the 80s into the 90s. And she was, like, kind of the OG and, you know, people really didn't think about women's storytelling as a perspective. So there were great movies in the 80s that were stories about women, and most of them were iconic, Girl is in the Mist, there was, like, a trend of them at that time. Meryl Sheep did Out of Africa.

Erin: Oh, yeah.

Melissa: You know, these big, epic movies. Movies. And they were all male directors, so that is what we experienced as women is our stories being told by men and these are mostly all white women. So women of color were really left out a and by centering women's stories and women's storytellers, we get a really different perspective on the world. And so that's what I was really trying to tease out and learning at the same time as I was trying to tease it out, which is like, this matters, and we should have more women telling stories, and they shouldn't be fighting for $4 when the men are getting 10 or $2 and the men are getting 10. Like, why are women's stories so marginalized? And why are they so seen as so small?

Erin: Yeah, and Susan Seidelman directed Desperately Seeking Susan, which I remember so profoundly from being a young woman and thinking, this feels different. Not only was it Madonna, Rosanna Arette, but, like, this feels different, texturally, emotionally, tonally, something. There's something different here that I think a woman filmmaker brings to the conversation.

Melissa: Yeah.

Erin: It's ineffable almost, but. But I remember feeling something about that.

Melissa: Yeah. And I think that's real. But also, like, those feelings weren't validated in that in those days. Because nobody ever gave you the opportunity or the tools to process it in that way. And so she was just going along and, you know, Jane Campion was making movies. Jillian Armstrong was making movies, a lot of women outside the UK were making great movies.

And those are the ones that, when I was, like, in my early 20s and teens, like, those are the ones that I was drawn to was like, these amazing movies. The Piano was like, 93, an angel at my table. And the early Gillian Armstrong ones, they were able to put forward a woman's perspective and have it being valid, whereas women in the US Their perspective was always kind of othered.

Erin: It's so interesting to think about what has changed. How much of a sea change do you think there has been in terms of welcoming women filmmakers and women's stories into the canon, into the larger cultural conversation?

Melissa: I think there have been, like, profound moments where people couldn't ignore women stepping into this world in a much bigger way. There have always been women directors, they've always made great movies, but they haven't gotten the opportunities to make movies at a higher level. So I think when people really started to understand these things, there is the moment when Katherine Bigelow wins for the Hurt Locker, Best director, the first woman. People didn't understand that a woman had never won that before.

Erin: Right, right.

Melissa: It wasn't in our consciousness because we always thought of directors as male. And research that was done after that was like, what do you think of a male director? And it's literally Steven Spielberg, right? You know, a dude, a white dude with, you know, a beard and a baseball hat. And it's, like, hard because that in the 80s was the rise of the male auteur. So these guys, it wasn't always only the movie stars, but it was the directors, who were the storytellers, who were the front and center, who were the stars also, so you didn't really have a lot of women like that. I mean, I just give always back to, you know, Barbara Streisand, who made Yentl in the early 80s, wanted to make that forever and ever and ever. And she was, can I curse a little?

Erin: Yeah, you can curse a lot. Yeah.

Melissa: Okay. She was treated like shit.

Erin: She was vilified like she was--everyone sort of painted her personality as, like, problematic and she's so difficult.

Melissa: Yeah. And those words are like, now we know they're so coded in sexism. And you guys must listen to her book, her autobiography. Reading is great, but listening to her, her voice is like, you know, it's revelatory, and, you know, she really fought hard to do this. Like, harder than to be expected. The woman was like the number one box office star and there were dudes who were the number one box office stars.

They could make movies, but, you know, like, low but no budget. So difficult and so you, you think about it. Here's Barter Streisand, she can't make a movie like, right. And has such a hard time. And then you read her book, it's like she's wanting to get other things off the ground that she can't. So it's just like, why is it so impossible?

Erin: Well, it's so crazy to me because there's clearly a market. There's clearly a market.

Melissa: Think the market thing is something I want to, I want to talk about, but I want to go back to the Kathryn Bigelow moment for a second and being like, that was the moment when people were like, oh, this is a big deal. And then there was the Patty Jenkins getting Wonder Woman and that there's a woman who's going to direct a movie that has a hundred million dollar budget and it's a superhero. And we're in the age of superheroes and women. You know, we didn't really see any women leading the superhero movies. So this was going to be a woman centered movie. And then Patty Jenkins became like a spokesperson star talking about the movie.

So it was like, it was super cool. So that was another moment where people like, oh, women can do this. And then that builds into the marketing because Hollywood is divided stupidly. Like, everything to understand about Hollywood is everything is built on a lie. And so all, all the narratives that are given to you are false. And so they have this four quadrants: women under 25 over 25, men under 25 over 25. It's like, I don't understand why 25 is a breaking point, cut off point thing.

Erin: Right.

Melissa: For like old people. But that is kind of how they philosophize this industry.

Erin: And so you're saying that's a lie. That's like a made up, arbitrary sort.

Melissa: Of thing that's taken even advertising. They do 18 to 49. Right?

Erin: Right.

Melissa: So you become old when you BE.

Erin: All right, TV is 18 to 49. Yeah.

Melissa: So it's just like, why is 25 a point of delineation? And the reason why it's a point of delineation is because they want to make. Because they believed that teenage boys were the ones who drove box office. Now you look back at the data that the Motion Picture association puts out each year, and I haven't done that in a couple of years, but I did it like freaking diligently when I was trying to analyze it and understand it. And there's literally nothing that says that teenage males go to movies more than teenage females. Like one year, one year it's 52, one year it's 48. It's really pretty even between young men and young women.

And even some years it's more young women, high, high. Remember the twilight years, those years? There was more young women going to the movies. So there is this false narrative based on people who ran the studios, the types of movies they wanted to make, the types of stories they wanted to see, all a.k.a. all white men. And so they wanted to make the movies they wanted to make.

And let's make movies for teen boys, so I don't think they were the ones who came up with the over and under 25 thing, but that is just, it's stuck. And so they just talk about the young demographics now, young people go to the movies more.

Erin: Right.

Melissa: The world has changed. That's before time, you know, they're kids. They go out in groups, they have more time, they don't have work, they don't have kids. You know, it's just like they're not.

Erin: Allowed to do a lot of things. They go to the movies.

Melissa: Yeah, drop me off at the movie and pick me up later at the mall or whatever. I mean, malls don't exist so much.

Erin: Anymore, but they do in LA. Yeah.

Melissa: Okay. No, it's just like it's a safe place for kids to go. And of course they're gonna go to more movies, but the world was always defined by kind of the male gaze. And, you know, we have the male gaze and the female gaze, and it's like everybody has a different definition of this, but the men on screen, boys on screen, superhero boys, was kind of like what we were fed.

And if it's what you're fed, that's all you got. So over time, we're seeing more women, more women of color, more men of color really entering at the center of our story. We have more executives that are not white. The research shows that the Latino Latinx audience is unbelievably under.

Erin: Huge and voracious. Huge and voracious and wild love going to the movies.

Melissa: Yep, yep, and it's not like they only need to see Latinx characters, but you have to create things that people want to go see. And now in the after times, you know, everything has to be an event now. And they're really struggling to figure out how to get people to go back to the movies. And that's another whole story and I don't really, I can't, no one can figure that out.

That's why Hollywood's in a downward spiral now because of streaming and all that other stuff. But, you know, for all we talk about Netflix and its issues with changing the entire way that Hollywood works. Netflix hired women to direct things, you know, and I'm like, oh, I see a woman's here. And then I'm looking on Disney and a bunch of those like, Marvel series or Star wars series created by women, and you're just like, you know, okay, this is good, we're making some progress, but the numbers are still shit.

Erin: Yeah, the numbers are shit. And, you know, from my perspective and a hotter than ever perspective and what this podcast is here to do and what the hotter than ever conversation is, we are Gen X women. Like, woohoo, shout out Gen X women. We are the most successful generation of women of all time. We are the most empowered, we have the most earning power. We've had the most sort of quote unquote success.

And yet the representation of us that is out there both in front of and behind the camera, in all media making and really in every career, because this isn't a Hollywood podcast either. This is just about empowering women and helping us to feel free to be who we really want to be in our later life in the second half, really, since we're all Gonna Live to 100. That is the conversation that I am helping to drive because I just feel like there's so much missing and there's so much opportunity for women's stories, for, you know, women's work and the things that we care about and as we get older, care even more passionately about to be out there in the world. And we talk a lot about sexuality and relationships and stuff like that on this show and I just think, think about the movies like Stella Got Her Groove Back or Shirley Valentine, like these things that come like once a decade. Like, we get one like, hey, lady feels good about herself story every decade.

Melissa: Diane Keaton is starring in all of them now and they all have to do with like, RET communities.

Erin: Yeah, and that's the Nancy Myers view of

Melissa: The world, which is a very as retirement community.

Erin: Not the retirement communities, but all of the Diane Keaton stuff. It's like, yeah, she's not the only avatar of us. We are a wide range.

Melissa: Absolutely. And not all of us wear turtlenecks all the time.

Erin: Yeah, most of us don't, actually. They're not that flattering.

Melissa: Yeah, but it's I just still don't understand the turtleneck thing.

Erin: No, maybe they, maybe it's like, gives more like chin definition. I used to think that when I was really young. Oh, there's the whole, I'm nervous about my neck.

Melissa: Yeah, Nora Efron.

Erin: Yeah, the Nora. But we digress. So I wonder what you think about why our stories and the stories of women over 40, like Geena Davis's institute for, for, you know, women in media. She studies all of this stuff and all of the latest research says, like, women disappear from our screens at 40 and men continue to be portrayed as sexy and vital and you know, and even really have even more representation into their later years as we sort of re. Manifest and reinforce the patriarchy on screen.

Melissa: Yeah, exactly, it's patriarchy.

Erin: Yeah.

Melissa: People are so scared of women, like, it's unbelievable. Particularly older women because they give zero fucks.

Erin: Exactly.

Melissa: So, so powerful. Listeners see a woman.

Erin: Yeah, Listen.

Melissa: Aging.

Erin: I just want to say listeners to this podcast, like, know that the expert here sees how powerful we are and sees how scared Hollywood is of, of our agency.

Melissa: Yes. It's not Hollywood. See, it's the world. So Hollywood reflects the world and they're all holding on to the patriarchy with their fingers on the edge of a mountainside. And they keep slipping off and everything the world is doing now with the autocracy and the return of, you know, the authoritarian rule. Yeah.

Erin: And but trad wife trend, the tradwife.

Melissa: Kind of stuff is to put women back in their place.

Erin: It's not going to happen. You let the genie out of the bottle.

Melissa: It is not. Of course it's not. But they're going to do everything they can take away all of our, our rights over our bodies. Now they want to take away contraception, no fault divorce. I mean, these people are really want women back in the house and you know, they're afraid. You know, there was this article on Tim Alberta in The Atlantic wrote about the people running Trump's campaign and they've given up on suburban women. So they're focusing on young men, men of color, because they know none of the women who are always kind of like the swingiest of the swing votes.

Erin: Right.

Melissa: Are never going to vote for him.

Erin: Right.

Melissa: So they got to find other people. And again, it's just like. And all these women work, you know.

Erin: Like we all work well, the economy is such that we all work now.

Melissa: And so it's just like, what are you going to do? Like how are you going to pay your bills? How are you going to like, live? You need salaries, you need people to work. And what are you going to tell your daughters who are being educated? Like, no, you can't do this or you can't do that, it's unbelievable. So it's just like this huge disconnect in our culture between where we are and where some people believe that women should be, right?

Erin: And it's, it's the irrational voices that get the most, no, get the most attention, right? Because of the way our media culture set up. The louder, the more kind of outrageous to the normal person. I think most normal people think women should be able to have abortions. Birth control should be legal, there should be subsidized child care. Like we should make it easier for families. Like, you know, there should be a social safety net. There shouldn't be people living on the street. Like most people think these basic normal things, but these outlier voices and the gerontocracy, you know, the, the, the fact that, you know, our presidential candidates and all the people, quote unquote, representing us in the House and in the Senate are too old. You know, I just, you know, I don't talk about politics that much on this podcast, but now is a moment where we all need to be talking about it because shit be broken and we need to fix it, women need to come in and fix it.

Melissa: Everybody needs to be talking about it, like thinking about it all the time, because this is, you know, it's a five alarm fire. It's, it's everything down ballot. Like they, they, you only see the top, right? And then, but everything is happening underneath is the stuff that we're all missing, right? And that's the stuff that's literally going to take away all of your rights, right?

Erin: So why is representation important in the, in light of this sort of larger macro cultural dumpster fire that we're in?

Melissa: I mean, I think my best example on this is women's sports. And what's happening now with women's sports. When I grew up and when I watched the 90, 1999 World cup, which just celebrated its 25th anniversary, I don't think boys, even though they were into it, I don't think that they really understood about women's sports. And the way that boys look at Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese and the women's soccer players now, they see them as true icons, true sporting app, right? And Simone Biles and, and I think boys that are growing up seeing these women represent and being the Biggest stars on our sports field means they have a different perspective of women and what women can achieve, because sports is always about achievement.

So I think that representation in all areas of our culture and just having that be seen, we are a world of images and stories matter. So you have to create your own narrative now and kids, you know, they absorb everything in 10 second or one minute things. And that, I mean, just, that's just the world now. I tried, I have a really hard time doing that, but that's their lives and you can't not acknowledge it because it's real.

Erin: Oh, I live with it and everyone who's a mom.

Melissa: Yeah, you live with it.

Erin: Lives with it and we go, what is this doing to their attention span, their ability to focus, to process complex ideas? I don't know.

Melissa: Hey, I'm a person who, like, has problems focusing, has problems with attention to detail, complex ideas. And, you know, and I lived before the Internet was my whole life.

Erin: Right.

Melissa: And my brain is fully formed when that came in, that came into my existence, and it still fucks me up so hard.

Erin: Yeah.

Melissa: I mean, I, at the beginning of Women in Hollywood, it was kind of the rise of Twitter. And I kind of found my voice a lot on Twitter and used it for advocacy. And it really worked for a time. Like, I would put something out there and I'd get a press call and something would happen, or women being counted at a festival or something like that, people would call.

Erin: Yeah.

Melissa: And I would be like, oh, okay, this is working. And it lasted a while and it was good and then just the Internet changed and Twitter changed. Even before, a little before Elon, your impact is less and less, and you're just like, okay, why am I doing this? It makes no sense. And it was freeing, like, to be like, I don't have to, like, call out everything anymore.

Erin: And there were other people doing it well and there were other people.

Melissa: I think it's been so embedded into our culture now. Like, you don't have to call out, like, every festival is gonna count how many women directed movies are in a festival. It's gonna be in every story that's written about that did not happen before Women in Hollywood stuff.

Erin: Yeah.

Melissa: So it's like, you know, mission accomplished in that respect.

Erin: Sure, sure. It's in the conversation that representation matters. And that needs to be something we discuss in every context.

Melissa: Yeah. And when women are not include enough women are included in the can line or something. There's always gonna be somebody looking at, raising that issue.

Erin: That's right.

Melissa: Right. And so that, I feel is my legacy to this larger movement which is now evolving so beyond just women. It's a conversation about what is gender.

Erin: Right.

Melissa: And from, from where we started to where we're ending is gonna be, it's really different.

Erin: Yeah.

Melissa: And I am, you know, 50, gonna be 57 soon. And I think other people who think about gender differently than me need to be leading those kinds of conversations. I will be a part, and I have helped being be a part with most, with some colleagues who live outside the United States to really create a conversation about, like how we can be allies to the trans community and to the non binary community. Creating conversations at festivals and other things to really talk about it. Because I think people my age, older, it's a hard, it's a hard thing to talk about.

Erin: Well, and we didn't grow up.

Melissa: Nobody wants to make the mistake.

Erin: Right, right, right.

Melissa: Exactly.

Erin: Yeah.

Melissa: But everyone's afraid, like, if they'll make a mistake, then they'll get canceled and everything. And one woman at one meeting, she was like, that's only on social media. That's like, not in the real world, like, talk to a real person, ike, you know, like talk to a real person. They're not gonna, they're, they're gonna give you grace and I think that is the key now, which is like, grace, we're all learning.

And if you want to learn and you show that you're interested in learning, you're always going to get a really great response back. And stay, stay off social media for that stuff. Like, don't, don't have to put out a hot take on everything.

Erin: You really don't. You really don't.

Melissa: It's just like, who cares what you have to say?

Erin: My daughter was telling me that Taylor Swift is taking a lot of heat for not, not coming out with a position on Gaza. And I'm like, what the fuck? Like, why does Taylor Swift have to have a hot take on Gaza? Get out of here.

Melissa: Yeah, smart girl. It's a no win situation. Well, also, so I don't care what Taylor Swift thinks about Gaza. It's irrelevant. Write another great breakup song.

Erin: Write more beautiful songs.

Melissa: And she's happy now.

Erin: Yeah, I know. Well, I think you can still make art when you're happy. I think that's.

Melissa: Of course, it's an illusion. Of course.

Erin: Melissa, talk to me about Athena, about the film festival and why you started it and what it does, because I think you know, we need spaces like this that cultivate and celebrate our stories in order to normalize our stories and our voices and our points of view, being out there.

Melissa: Exactly, I think normalizing is the key word. So Athena started, it's going to be its 15th anniversary. We started in 2011, I co founded the festival with Kitty Colbert, who was coming into Barnard to create a center on leadership and we just decided to make a festival about women leaders on screen. It was tough at the beginning, particularly finding women storytellers telling women leaders story, leadership stories.

And over time, it's blossomed, exploded. And there's a lot of great young women storytellers out there telling stories that fit into leadership. And leadership is really broad, but one of the key definitions that I think of in my head and is, you know, are you doing something? Are you doing something? Like, are you doing something to help this person or to learn this or something? It's like you need to be active in yourself and in your culture. So we have created Athena, this ethos of what we want to share with the world and I would just like to read it because I think it is something that reflects our world. So we say women's leadership takes no singular form. Stories of women leaders in all their forms and all their complexity are rarely shown on the big screen.

Women whose leadership has been questioned, dismissed, or erased, women who have risen up, spoken truth to power, women who empower their communities, inspire and educate, or women who simply survive. These are the stories we want to see, these are Athena stories that's so profound, what we're saying to the world.

Erin: Yeah, it's so profound because I think we are de-centered. We're the central figure in our lives and in our family's lives and often in our professional lives. And then when it comes to the stories that are told, we are, you know, the wife, the girlfriend, the buddy, the adjunct. When in reality, we are fucking running everything, we just don't own anything.

Melissa: Right. I mean, someone used to count how many lines women had in movies. And then, you know, everyone talks about the Bechdel test.

Erin: Yes.

Melissa: I always say the Bechdel test is the lowest bar. It's the literally the lowest bar. Do not think that when you pass the Bechdel test, you're doing something revolutionary, you're not.

Erin: So for listeners to this podcast, Melissa, can you explain what the Bechdel test is?

Melissa: Absolutely. Bechtel test is for all of entertainment, is two women on a screen talking about something other than a man.

Erin: So if you're watching.

Melissa: So you have to have two women in a scene. So sometimes, like, the most amazing movie about women's leadership of women politician. She might not even have enough other woman in the scene, which also is dumb because women don't do anything like that on their own. So it's two women talk to me, talking to each other. They have to be named in the cast, like, they have to have names about something other than a man.

Erin: Yeah, and that is.

Melissa: That was film Stone Pass.

Erin: Right. Isn't that remarkable? Two women talking to each other with names about something that's not a dude.

Melissa: Yeah, and it was hard, you know, but I feel like, you know, the conversation is beyond the backdoor test and that the conversation is about fully formed, different kinds, different colors, different body shapes, different. Different religions, different jobs, those are the stories that I want to see. Like, I always say, if I have to see another goddamn World War II movie.

Erin: Oh, my God.

Melissa: About, like, men taking the shores, never say Churchill.

Erin: I'm like, ever again.

Melissa: And how many Churchill biopics. And I have a friend who's been writing something on Clementine Churchill, and she's, you know, it's a struggle to even to get that made. I mean, she was an amazing woman, so why don't we get to hear about Clementine Churchill or other women in history who've been kind of shunted to the side? I'm like, I've become kind of obsessed with the historical novels that, like, Kate Quinn writes, and they're centering these women, and I'm all. I'm like, these would all be amazing movies, right?

Erin: Or miniseries. Those limited series.

Melissa: Yeah, and I'm just like, what? Where is the movie of this? And you always go back to Hidden Figures. Hidden Figures, like seminal movie written by a woman, directed by a man. That's all cool, but these are women who facilitated men getting to space.

Erin: Yeah.

Melissa: Like, they wouldn't have gotten there, and their stories were completely missing. And I'm just like, Hidden Figures is, like, always in my head of, like, who else is missing? So we have labs at Athena. So Athena is much more than a film festival, it's also a creative development program where we are imbuing. Is that the right word? Imbuing The Athena ethos into the writers who come through our program. And whether the thing that they bring to Athena is something that gets made or not. We are just imparting this, like, thought process about women's leadership into them, and then they will go off and do all the different things that they do. And we also have fellowships and we have grants and things like that.

And we have a whole program with the Sloan Foundation, and they give a development grant to a film that comes through on our Athena List was inspired by the Blacklist. And it's scripts that are at a certain level and can be made and now I used to see tons of scripts about Marie Curie.

Erin: Right. She's the only one. Right.

Melissa: And I'm just like, I mean, great script, but we all know her, who else is out there?

Erin: Right?

Melissa: So, you know, like Einstein's wife. Like she was a freaking amazing scientist. Mileva. Does anyone know about Mileva? Right then, thank you. Thank you. The Gilded Age, who introduced us to Emily Roebling. And the Gilded Age had her as a character, but we have a script about Emily Roebling, who basically was the engineer behind the Brooklyn Bridge. And so these stories, you're just like, oh, my God, these women did amazing things.

Erin: And a time when women weren't supposed to do anything.

Melissa: Exactly, so there's so many stories out there about women, about women of color that need to come to the fore. And right now it's so difficult in Hollywood because everything is up in the air.

Erin: Yeah.

Melissa: People are scared. And also they don't know what's going to happen. And so that is a time of opportunity.

Erin: That's how I feel about it, Melissa. That's how I feel about it. I feel like, okay, if everything is fragmenting and everything is falling apart and the way things were done in the past, which is all Wall Street driven, quarterly results, blah, blah, blah, you know, and dependent on a certain kind of distribution on a certain size of screen, like, if that's all blowing up, then where is the opportunity for, you know, in the concept of Hotter Than Ever. These sort of niche, quote unquote, niche stories about women over 40 created by women over 40, that's literally 25% of the population.

That's hardly niche, that's an actual quadrant. That is a true quadrant, you know, where is the opportunity, where is the investment going to come from to make a slate of films in this space or to develop TV in this space? And then what is TV and where does it get distributed? Like, these are the things I'm puzzling through every day as a 20 year media veteran who is now really dedicated to storytelling in this space for this demographic where we just do not see ourselves. And when a movie like the idea of you comes on, you know with Anne Hathaway, playing a 40 year old, looking like a 28 year old, dating someone who's younger than her and having a sexual moment in her life. Like every single woman I know found that movie and watched that movie and it was not marketed.

Melissa: So yeah, that's the problem with the streaming is that, you know, but so

Erin: What it works with.

Melissa: It comes and it goes. It comes and it goes.

Erin: Sure, but word of mouth carries these movies.

Melissa: Same thing with word of mouth.

Erin: Anything Judy Dench is in, like my mom's at the theater to see that. Like no matter what hotel it's set up, you know, so I feel like.

Melissa: Helen Mirren, they just started a movie. Helen Mirren starring in another movie I think. So I'm also puzzling through this. I am working on a script that has come through Athena, it's called Awe American Women's Expedition. It's about the true story of Anne Bancroft, not the actress Anne Bancroft, but the explorer Ann Bancroft who took women on an expedition.

True story in the 90s and I'm, I'm working as a producer on that and really want to get it made and we want to get it made it differently. And we want to bring in women investors and Ann is lesbian, so we want to bring in lesbian investors and we want to create a whole new model of film funding.

Erin: Yeah.

Melissa: And so that because people want to see these stories, what women can endure just as much as the men and there are multiple stories out there. I've started a new kind of entity in my work called the Creative Doula where I'm gonna help people with their creativity, but I also, in this phase of my life, I'm embracing my own creativity instead of just only helping other people, which I'm very good at and will continue doing, but I also believe that I have stories to tell.

Erin: Yep.

Melissa: And so I'm gonna be working on telling some stories, I'm working on like a long form podcast. So I moved in the pandemic to this town called Adams, Massachusetts, which is the birthplace of Susan B. Anthony. Susan B. Anthony is literally the vessel and poster child for the anti abortion movement. And this is a woman who fought for all of us to get the right to vote and there is no real evidence that she was anti abortion.

And and so I'm going to tell this story about like how she became this vessel, why she became this vessel, how history gets cherry picked and also just the bigger picture of like the money and how the right wing co ops history. So that's something I'm working on now. And hope to have it done prior to the election because reproductive rights is on the ballot.

Erin: Yep. Yep.

Melissa: And we need every single person needs to do whatever they can to make sure that people understand the stakes.

Erin: Yeah. Melissa, I love that you're embracing your creative self, I really relate to that. You know, I've been a facilitator of other people's dreams for 20 years, and now I feel like, wait a minute, like, I have something to say. And I still want to help other people tell their stories, But I also think this is a symptom of kind of how empowered women our age are becoming because we are saying, you know what? Like, I put a bunch of stuff aside when I was younger in order to do a thing that felt like the thing, the big thing in the world that I was going to do and then we did that thing. And now we need to revise our dreams and revise our aspirations and allow for the things that we didn't allow for when we were younger.

Melissa: You know, we also didn't trust ourselves. The world didn't trust us, the world didn't trust our stories, the world didn't embrace our stories. So we were always just kind of like, where do I fit?

Erin: What do I do with that? Right.

Melissa: You know, like, what, what? And then you get to a point where, again, you give zero and you're just like, okay, actually, I could do that.

Erin: Yeah, you know, I take, I don't agree with the give zero, I think you care less what people think about you, but you care more about the things you care about.

Melissa: And isn't that what it means?

Erin: Maybe, maybe. I guess it's, I just want to put a finer point on it, which is to say that it's not that we don't care. It's that we care so much.

Melissa: We care more, I think we care more. See, when you care what other people say about you or tell you X, Y or Z, that changes you.

Erin: That's right.

Melissa: And you change yourself and so what I'm trying to say is, and this is not easy, you know, we all need to make a living.

Erin: Right.

Melissa: We all need to get along in a world, you know, with people who don't necessarily agree with what we have to say. But you're saying, like, I value my perspective.

Erin: Yep.

Melissa: And that if you don't agree with me, bye, bye.

Erin: Right, hat's fine.

Melissa: You're not gonna affect my change. Right?

Erin: Right.

Melissa: You're not going to affect what I believe I can do.

Erin: Right, right. I think I think a lot of listeners to this podcast relate to that.

Melissa: You know, that's what the world tells you on a constant basis, which is like, you're not valuable, particularly if you're an older woman or you don't look like everybody else.

Erin: Right.

Melissa: It's just like, you don't matter. And what I constantly say to storytellers out there is, your voice counts, you matter. Put it out to the world, whatever way you can get your story out to the world, do it right.

Erin: Amen, amen to that. Melissa, tell me about the Girls Club.

Melissa: Yeah, so the Girls Club has been an online community for female creatives to connect and support each other. Because one of the things I've learned through my work at Athena is that you can't bring people in for a couple of days in a writer's lab and just then say, bye, have a nice life. That's not how creativity works. People write in isolation. So the girl the idea with the Girls Club is to give people opportunity to keep connecting with each other. I'm not sure I did it well, business wise, because I made it, you, like, you needed a bar to get into the Girls Club, you couldn't just want to. People went in Creative world. It's also like, people want to get stuff out there, but you have to be able to give and take. I think that's also what I want to say, it's like, you can't just take, take, take.

Erin: Right.

Melissa: You have to be able to give to be part of a community. And so we want to make sure that everybody who is part of the community can give and take and I think that's really important.

Erin: Yeah, I agree. And I think these like, protected spaces for women to collaborate and to support one another. I think they're really important, I think they're really important. Just like, I think, you know, women funding other women's projects is really important. I worry a little bit, not on the community side so much, but on the business side. Like, if there is such a huge market for women's stories, why do we need to go to these women driven funds? Aren't there business men out there who see the opportunity that exists? I just am very confused about that.

Melissa: I mean, there are. I mean, look at what Alexis Ohanian did with Angel City Soccer Club. Like, he's the largest investor in that.

Erin: Yeah.

Melissa: Because he saw his wife, Serena Williams, who was like, I want to invest in women's sports. I think part of my decision making was about control, and I also didn't want things to get too big. So, like, it never made women in Hollywood into a note profit. I have a fiscal sponsor for that because I didn't want the encumbrances of that and I think I have never had, like, an investor call me up and being like, I want to help you expand women in Hollywood. And I stay kind of, you know, a little low to the ground, but I wouldn't necessarily turn that down, but that is not my skill set. So I could never figure out, like, I wrote a bunch of decks and things like that, but it's just like, sure, I was early and I was late, you know, it's just like.

Erin: That's right. Yeah.

Melissa: People, they, they're like, yeah, well, everybody knows about women. Halloween now. Like, why do I have to invest in that? You know, it's just like, so I gave up on that.

Erin: Yeah, no.

Melissa: So much energy.

Erin: I'm really only stating it rhetorically because I understand the ins and outs and funding and all that stuff is really complicated. I just think, like, the opportunity is so huge and, you know, all of our stories deserve to be out there, and all of our stories are potentially commercial.

Melissa: I totally agree with you. And if there is somebody out there, that's just not my area of expertise. So if there's somebody out there listening to this who wants to, like, invest in women in Hollywood productions.

Erin: Yeah.

Melissa: Please call. Yeah, yeah, I'll take your call.

Erin: Likewise. Hotter Than Ever, right?

Melissa: Yeah, exactly. But I think that what women do is, like, we just do. And the dudes are like, I'm not going to do unless I have the investment. And women are like, no, I'm going to go ahead because that's what we do and I think a lot of younger women won't tread this path.

Erin: Like, they won't have to.

Melissa: They're not going to want it.

Erin: Yeah, yeah.

Melissa: Exactly, so some days I look back and I'm like, but I also look like, this is my thing. I have created my own way of life, the way I want to live, and I wouldn't change that for anything.

Erin: I love that, Melissa and I think you've made a huge difference. Starting a conversation, agitating, always being the voice in the room saying, hey, what about us? Hey, what? Hey. That doesn't seem right over, like, it's tough to be that person and you've been that for women in Hollywood.

Melissa: It is.

Erin: Yeah.

Melissa: Yeah. I'm kind of retired from that now.

Erin: Yeah, Fair enough.

Melissa: I honestly, I say. I say that now, like, I'm not oppressed person anymore. I don't give quotes on things. I'm just really focused on creativity, women's creativity, the festival, bringing out voices. I feel like I've done my bit.

Erin: Yeah.

Melissa: You know, like, I put in my time, and I needed to evolve.

Erin: Yes.

Melissa: And this stuff's hard, and evolving is hard, but, you know, like, I don't know how old you are, but, like, we have, like, one more. I have, like, one more big act in me, you know?

Erin: Yeah, yeah. I'm about to be 53. Yeah.

Melissa: Yeah, and I wanna, I want this. What's the next 10 years of my life? Because I don't want to be. I do want to not work all the time when I hit a certain age and feel like I've done great work and be proud of that.

Erin: Melissa, I have one question that I ask everyone on this podcast, which is, are there any deal terms in your life that you are ready to renegotiate? And that's what we've been talking about. You are renegotiating your role in the community and also the roles that you play for women and for creativity. You're just shifting gears a little bit, but are there other deal terms in your life, spoken or unspoken, that you are ready to change?

Melissa: Oh, deal terms is not a term I ever use.

Erin: Well, I know I sort of made it up because I feel like we all live with these unspoken agreements. You know, for me, it was like, stay married, like, that was one of my deal terms for a long time. Stay married. It sucks, it's terrible, it's not working. But, like, somehow I wanted to win over my parents the length of their marriages. I want to be like, I can do this and you can't. But eventually had to renegotiate that deal term because it wasn't working for me.

Melissa: I'm at this point where I have created a life that works for me. I don't have a partner, my dog died. I just kind of do my thing. I do what I want, and I feel good about that. I know Glynis McNichol just wrote a memoir about, like, just being free, and I think that's, like, a radical act.

Erin: Yes.

Melissa: For women in our culture is to be free from societal constraints. Of course, like, I want people to like me, and I don't want to rock the boat. But then there are, like, times where I'm just like, I don't care, and I am free. And it's scary, you know, because I have to make a living and so you have to make compromises for that and you have to make nice and, and get things done and raise money to do all the things that you want to do. But on the other, other hand, it's like you get to do what you want to do, so I have renegotiated my deal terms.

Erin: Yeah, it seems like you really.

Melissa: Over the last four or five years and so now I'm in a place of, I want to enjoy my deal terms and figure out if they work and be free and happy.

Erin: I wish that for you, Melissa. Thank you for all the great things you've done, I've really enjoyed this conversation.

Melissa: Thank you. I really appreciate you, you know, asking all the questions and I look forward to seeing how I sound.

Erin: You're gonna sound just great.

Thanks for listening to Hotter Than Ever. If you loved this conversation, please find us on substack, which is hotterthanever.substack.com or @hotterthaneverpod on Instagram and comment on our posts or drop us a note. I really want to hear from you and what you think about where we've been and where we're headed as women, as a generation, and of course, as a podcast. If there is a topic you want me to cover or an inspiring woman you're dying to have me talk to, let me know. I really would love your contribution.

Hotter Than Ever is produced by Erica Gerard and Potkit Productions. Our associate producer is Melody Carey. Music is by Chris Keith with vocals by Issa Fernandez.

It is not Labor Day yet, friends. Slow roll it for another couple of weeks before the madness of the fall season begins again. I'm excited to go boot shopping, though, I really am. I really need some new boots.