AFI ON STREEP HIT LIST; ACTRESS DERIDES SMALL ROLE WOMEN PLAYED IN VOTE.

Byline: Beth Barrett and Barbara DeWitt Daily News Staff Writers

Superstar Meryl Streep stirred a tempest in Tinseltown on Friday by attacking balloting for the 100 best American films - already a touchstone for just about everything right and wrong with Hollywood - as discriminatory against women.

Streep used the Crystal Awards, which celebrate women's contributions to film, as her forum to suggest that the American Film Institute's selection process was, like the industry itself, men-heavy.

``How many women in the audience got to vote? Just put your head down and raise your arm if you voted,'' she told the Who's Who of women film luminaries who filled a banquet hall at the Century Plaza Hotel.

Streep noted no raised hands.

Just maybe, she continued as the audience warmed with chuckles and whispered comments of assent, that's why only four of the top centennial picks featured women protagonists - and one of those, ``Snow White,'' was a cartoon, no less.

OK, maybe it was ``whining,'' she said, glaring over her shoulder at Jack Nicholson seated behind her, a star who's symbolic of a Hollywood that still casts its aging lions with young female leads.

``But somebody has to.''

Streep, who has given the gap between Hollywood's treatment of male and female workers much of the high profile that has lead to gains for women in many key areas of film production, brought the 1,000-person crowd to its feet with a rousing conclusion worthy of the theater itself.

``Maybe next century women will get to vote!'' she said.

It struck a deep vein among many gathered to celebrate Women In Film's 25th anniversary and to honor the likes of producer Gale Anne Hurd, Columbia Tri-Star Motion Picture Group Vice Chairwoman Lucy Fisher, Women In Film founder Tichi Wilkerson Kassel - and Streep herself.

Rushing to her side, actress Geena Davis, the mistress of ceremonies gushed, ``You are my hero.''

Only trouble was, a chagrined American Film Institute claimed that this time Streep got her lines wrong.

Jean Picker Firstenberg, AFI's director and CEO, said the organization ``hand-delivered'' a ballot to Streep's agent, Kevin Huvane. Why Streep didn't get the ballot is a mystery, she said. Huvane did not return phone calls Friday.

While AFI agrees there should be more women at all levels of film production, the group did not forget nor neglect them when the 1,500 ballots were sent to prominent Americans in the industry, she said. President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore got the ballots as non-industry exceptions under the reasoning that a leading export is Hollywood movies.

``Women were well-represented in the community of people asked to participate,'' Firstenberg said. ``Hundreds of women in that room received ballots. I know because I know them.''

So maybe the women directors, producers, stars and others were reluctant to put their heads down in their salad plates for the straw vote?

Or as Firstenberg, who attended the awards, suggested, maybe they understood Streep to be asking a rhetorical question intended to underscore the seriousness of women's underrepresentation in the industry - and didn't really intend for hands to go up.

``I think she used the list as a way to say women need to get stronger roles, where the women are the protagonists, the creative spine of the film,'' Firstenberg said.

The simplest way to settle whether the composition of the list included far more men, and consequently may have played a role in the list's tilt toward male roles, would be for the AFI either to release the entire voting result or to characterize it in terms of the number of men vs. women queried.

But that, said Firstenberg, will remain strictly L.A. confidential.

Firstenberg said Streep failed to count as many as 14 films on the list in which a female star carried the drama.

``And you could count `Tootsie,' too,'' Firstenberg said. That's ``Tootsie'' starring Dustin Hoffman.

Well, he does dress up and act as a woman, Firstenberg said. Indeed, Hoffman plays a New York actor who can only land roles by cross-dressing as an actress.

OK, make that 19 films with women protagonists.

Many of those attending the ceremony agree that women still are overshadowed in the industry.

Martha Lauzen, a communications professor at San Diego State University, said her team ``counted'' credit on the 100 top films of 1987, 1992 and 1997, finding that men outnumber women 8-1 behind the scenes, even as women-produced films earn the same as those made by men.

No women cinematographers worked on any of the top 100 films, while women directed only 5 percent of the top 100 films of 1997. Twenty-two percent of the associate producers on the top films in 1997 were female.

``The bottom line, and the paradox, is that women remain underrepresented behind the scenes, even though their films earn as much as men's. And I find this interesting because it just doesn't make good business sense,'' she said.

In the end, Firstenberg said the 100 best American films list did exactly what was hoped, by getting people to talk about the contest, the list and, ultimately, the films themselves. Streep just punctuates that.

``What this demonstrates is that people love movies. They love them because they reach them. In their finest form, they're art, an art that has a passionate hold on us,'' she said.

And that is Hollywood.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

PHOTO (Color) ``Maybe next century women will get to vote!''

--- Meryl Streep

Referring to vote for 100 Best American Films