Behind the scenes of ‘Smile!’
Melissa Winterbottom
It’s 9am as I rock up to a secondary school, feeling far too old and yet somehow like I’ve been transported back in time to my own days walking through the halls with friends, desperately waiting for the bell to tell me it’s time for break. But today, I’m here for something super exciting and a bit different to my day job at Our Streets Now. I’m here to make a film!
Many months before, we’d applied to get a film made through Media Trust, who selected us amongst 11 other charities working in the violence against women and girls space and matched us up with the amazing production company Brother Films. Our brief was simple: we need people to understand the impact of public sexual harassment, and to know that they’re not alone in managing it and all it’s complexities - we’re right by your side.
Emily Freda Sharp was our amazing director who turned this brief into the film you see today. Her creativity, understanding of the task at hand, and bundles of youthful energy made for the perfect match with Our Streets Now. And with the plans in place, we arrived at the school on a sunny, wintery day earlier this year to turn our vision into reality.
We got to work with some amazingly talented young people who were part of the drama course and picked our ‘actors’ on the spot. They all had an important role to play in shaping the end result as we bounded through scene after scene. The young people took on their roles with impressive ease, retaking shots, taking direction and nailing their parts in between the hustle and bustle of students moving between lessons. It was a dance to fit in amongst the day-to-day business of a school. But this was the energy we were after!
Although it was a fun day full of action, showing a school on photo day with all the emotions and nervous excitement that that holds, the message behind our film is much less joyful. As the prompt to ‘Smile!’ sends our protagonist back into a memory of public sexual harassment she experienced whilst walking home one day, the tone shifts. It’s like her youth is stripped away as she takes out her phone to record what is happening to her, only to receive a barrage of messages of ‘I bet she loves it’, or ‘it’s just a compliment’ popping up on the screen. Messages we’ve all heard far too often. Messages it’s hard to escape from in today’s world.
But a message that can’t be ignored. 1 in 3 girls will have experienced public sexual harassment before the age of 13. This shapes their lives from then on, making them fearful of the world, taking steps to change routes, not be alone, monitoring their every move to stay ‘safe’. But that shouldn’t be the case. Women and girls have the right to experience the world, both offline and online without the threat of harassment. Those online threats seamlessly slip into real world attacks - ones that are now finally classified as crimes in their own right, thanks to the change in law that Our Streets Now fought for.
But changing the law is not enough. It’s the culture that must change. The culture that accepts and normalises public sexual harassment of predominantly women and girls by male perpetrators. One that is only being re-solidified in the online space that has become a replica of the patriarchal and misogynistic society we live out on the streets.
‘Smile!’ is our message that enough is enough. We believe that prevention through education is the way forward. And as the film slides into its final scene, we see a classroom of all genders taking part in an Our Streets Now workshop that highlights what public sexual harassment is, why it exists and how we can work together to stop it.
Because we will stop it. Together, with hard work and relentless drive, we will see an end to public sexual harassment. Whether you’re a teacher, student, parent, male or female identifying, you can help make a difference.
Find out more about our campaign, and how you can play a part in changing the culture at www.ourstreetsnow/culturemustchange or follow us on Instagram or LinkedIn @ourstreetsnow
