Queermunity talks to Middle M Productions Co-Creator Mallie McCown about their upcoming independent film about asexuality and queer platonic relationships.
Let’s start with a brief summary of what the film is about.
Sure, um Oh Gosh. So, the film essentially follows a relationship between a man and a woman spanning over thirteen years. And it goes in and out of different eras of their relationship, from best friends, to romantic dating, to platonic best friends. And its about the importance of queer platonic bonds as Luke comes to terms with his own asexuality, and their struggle with maintaining that unconventional bond at the same time as they get societal pressures to find a normal. It really focuses on Luke’s paranoia about how the world views him and his need to be accepted and belong in this heteronormative world. Ultimately that doesn’t end well for either of them.
So, what motivated you to create this film?
My experience with my own relationship with this certain person that spanned over a decade, it was a relationship I found fascinating because no one around us ever understood what we were to each other. And they would always make assumptions, give advice. They would always want us to get together romantically but they didn’t understand our connection. It was that of a sort of soulmate kind of bond, it was otherworldly, it was beyond years and stars and… But at the same time we didn’t need romance or sex to make it the complete soulmate relationship that we had. And so when I spoke about this relationship to people, and the people in our inner friend circle observed us, nobody understood it. I felt like writing about that experience because I wanted to connect with other people who have similar kinds of experiences and similar kinds of relationships. Cause, I felt very isolated in that relationship, not in that relationship, but as a couple, as a pair, as a duo, I, and we, felt isolated from everything else. And so when I wrote this, I think my main motivation was to find people that can relate to this kind of bond. When my DP (Director of Photograpy) read it, sure enough that relatability was palpable, and she was very excited to see a piece of art that reflected her own experience as an ace individual, with her own queer platonic bonds in her own life. And that really kind of set a fire under my ass and motivated me further to develop the script, and to develop the asexuality and nuances that are found in the script.
"We didn’t need romance or sex to make it the complete soulmate relationship that we had."
I know that you also co-created Middle M Productions, what drove you to do this?
So, Middle M has been years in the making, at least on a subconscious level. When I was a kid I spent my days with my sister and my best friend Catie - Caitlin and Catie - and we would spend summers making movies with our own equipment. We would spend every day after school doing it and it just kind of consumed my childhood, looking back it represents a lot to me. It represents the unabashed lack of fear, I guess I’m gonna say the unabashed courage that it takes to create with no bounds; where it was completely freeing to do whatever we wanted without rules. And it was full of laughter, and fun, and teamwork, and it really was a great time in my life. So I spoke with my business partner Nick about this, this pipe dream of creating my own company that was inspired by this little kid company that I had. I really wanted to take that childhood dream and make it a reality. And at the same time, you know in Hollywood, I was at first really shocked and bothered by the statistics in Hollywood for women. I think there are only 33 percent female writers and the numbers are even worse for directors and cinematographers. And so the more I worked in the industry, the more I felt like a minority. I felt sexism. I experienced a lot of sexism on-set ‘cause, you know, sometimes I was the only female. And I feel that women have so much to offer to the film industry and I really wanted to have my mission statement for the film company focus on uplifting and empowering women and minorities. Giving a voice to unrepresented voices. When I mentioned this to Nick he was completely on board. He is somebody who loves to, you know, fight for equality, and justice for all, and representation for all, and he’s a really empathetic soul; he really aligned with the mission statement and we came up with some specific details that we are all happy with. And yeah, I guess that’s what Middle M is.
"I feel that women have so much to offer to the film industry and I really wanted to have my mission statement for the film company focus on uplifting and empowering women and minorities."
Is this your first film that you’ve shot and produced?
It’s my first feature, but I've produced many shorts in my day. Right after graduation from university, I was in a sketch comedy team called the ‘Crooked Rooks’ and we were represented by Parallel Entertainment in LA so we were responsible for our own content and making these very high quality sketches. After that, when I moved on independently, I wrote and produced a short called Fired which did very well on the festival circuit. I wrote, produced and directed a short film in Scotland when I was at RCS and that was called Dan Brings Home a Cat and it was very episodic but it was a horror short film, that was just silly, just really a spoof and that went on to do very well in the circuit and won some awards. It won the Audience Choice Award at the Women Film Festival in Atlanta which was great. But yes, this is my first feature that I’m producing.
Obviously the subject of Dear Luke, Love Me is quite different to most, if not all, mainstream films, but compared to your previous work has there been anything else markedly different about writing and producing this one?
Yes, a lot of differences. Being an ex-comedy writer, I feel like I almost have PTSD from comedy writing [chuckles], and so this was a definite departure from what I was used to. And I think in the best way possible, too. So first off, I’ve never written anything so personal which was very, very scary. Coming from comedy, yes, there are those kernels and nuggets of truth, but it’s so heightened and it’s so absurdist and there’s a lot of room to play. But with Dear Luke, Love Me it’s so grounded and raw and real, it took a lot of balls to write this, honestly. It took a lot of courage to put that on paper, because it really was unhashing some wounds and getting really honest with myself and I think in the end product it shows. I think that’s part of the reason why it has had so much positive feedback and support when people read the script. They see that rawness.
So, I know that you act in the film as well, did you ever plan on not doing so or did you always know that you were going to portray this character?
No, I always knew that I was going to portray this character - it was that or nothing because first and foremost I am an actor. And for so long I’ve struggled with this societal norm, this idea, that you have to be one thing. Especially in Hollywood you see so many people have multiple labels, and they give us a bad rap because when you see ‘oh this film was written by, directed by, starring in’, all these different labels, it usually means it’s a bunch of sh*te. A lot of people are ambitious and do their own work like that, but they don’t have the talent to back it up. So I was always fearful of labeling myself as writer/actor or a writer/actor/producer until I kind of came into my own, realised my own abilities. It was very empowering to understand what I have to offer, and what I have to offer is good. There is no point in retreating into the shadows when I know I have the capabilities of being a solid writer and a solid actor. It’s really kind of just going after what you really want in life with zero fear. And it took me a while to get there, it took me a while, but now I’m owning myself, I’m owning who I am. Hell yes I’m a writer, actor, producer!
"It was very empowering to understand what I have to offer, and what I have to offer is good."
Do you think that ties into realising that you’re ace as well?
I think so. I think that there has been a lot of self discovery, a lot of self-work, that I’ve been doing the past two years - which is the time span I wrote Dear Luke in. Gosh, I don’t know what spurned it... no I do know - it was leaving LA. It was leaving LA because in LA I was always surrounded by my boys, by my co-writers, and I always used them as a crutch. Being around them, I felt never good enough, I felt like I wasn’t really anything without them, which is total bulls***. And so getting out of LA, getting out of my comfort zone to situations that are totally scary, and totally new, really helped me with self-empowerment. And with those new experiences on my own, by myself, it gave me the courage to kind of believe in myself - I think it’s that simple. And so it gave me permission - yeah, I think that’s what it was - I gave myself permission to get to know myself more and challenge the ideas that I had grown up with or that I had these stories. You know, people make up the stories that they want to tell themselves in their head - and so part of my self-discovery was challenging those stories and figuring out ‘are those stories correct, or are they not correct?’
I’m sure that’s something a lot of people can relate to!
I know that going to University for the first time was a big moment in my self-discovery for the same reason.
So, why do you think it’s important we have more asexual representation in media?
I think it’s so vital, because representation really can affect somebody’s sense of self, growing up especially. I know friends who have lived the first 25 years of their life thinking that something was broken in them. That something was wrong with them. So much so that they went to doctors and psychologists thinking that they were mentally ill! Thinking ‘what’s wrong with me?’ That is, in part, because we don’t have representation to see the story we tell ourselves, but the stories as a culture we tell ourselves - in our media and our entertainment - you know art is a reflection of life, and when we’re seeing our art not reflect our experience we do feel broken and isolated. I think having more ace representation in entertainment is so important because it gives individuals an opportunity to see themselves in a light that is ‘normal’. It is also important because the ace community is the most invisible community in the LGBTQIA+ community and it’s so misunderstood. There’s so little education about what asexuality is that not even a lot of ace individuals know everything there is to know about asexuality. Education is important in getting that vocabulary down so that we can actually have a label, not that labels are important, but they actually are if you’re feeling isolated and abnormal because different labels open doors to community. And I think that’s important.
"Having more ace representation in entertainment is so important because it gives individuals an opportunity to see themselves in a light that is ‘normal’."
Do you think, inline with that, that you would make more ace films, more films centered around the asexual identity?
Absolutely! I feel that there is so much nuance in asexuality that in one movie, in two characters, you can only have so much. In one character you can’t have them be Aceflux [someone whose capacity for sexual or romantic attraction changes over time], Aro [Aromantic people experience little to no romantic attraction], Demi [someone who only experiences sexual attraction to people that they have close emotional connections with], you know. All of these very specific sexualities you can’t just have in one character. I think there’s a whole world of asexuality to represent in film, so I’m excited for my next project to represent more of that nuance. That really excites me. For example, I had a conversation with an aro guy about aromantic representation. You know in my film, Dear Luke, aromantic is not represented, but my god I would love to tell a story about an aromantic and get their perspective, and share their perspective because that’s also important.
With that, do you spend a lot of time talking to other people within the community, in terms of how you see and build your storyline?
Yes, I’ve only recently understood my own nuance under the asexual umbrella so I’ve been doing a lot of community outreach. Having conversations with other ace individuals because I think their own individual experiences fuel my writing and give my writing more realism, more nuance because my job as a writer is to capture the experience of a certain faction of humanity. And I can’t do that with just my experience. So talking with other ace individuals really helped me develop these characters in a very well rounded way. I feel because of my conversations I’ve had with my other ace friends and ace people in the community it’s going to represent a lot of what everybody is collectively feeling. Which I’m very excited for.
"Talking with other ace individuals really helped me develop these characters in a very well rounded way."
Obviously a big part of your film is the queer platonic relationship, can you explain a little bit what you mean by that term, how you understand it?
Right, so the first time I heard the term queer platonic relationship was from my DP, Rinny Wilson. She’s ace and she read the script and came back to me with this feedback and mentioned this term queer platonic bond. And I was like ‘queer platonic bond? … That sounds awesome, what is this!?’ And I decided to look into it and I came to realise that finally after so many years this relationship that I had had, which the film is loosely based off, was a queer platonic bond. Queer because it was an ace bond, platonic because it was non sexual and it doesn’t mean that the love is any less. We were, for all intents and purposes, each other's significant others for an entire decade. And yes, we dated other people in that time frame, but the queer platonic bond is so important. I don’t want to call it a friendship, because it is more than a friendship. It’s hard to explain to people because it’s not ‘normal’. We are so limited to say ‘oh we’re either in a romantic relationship or we’re friends’ and that’s not quite true when it comes to the nuance of relationships in human form. And this queer platonic bond that I had with this person was very special, very otherworldly, yet we didn’t sleep together [laughs]. So yeah that, to me, is what a queer platonic bond is. It’s something that is more than just a normal friendship but it doesn’t involve sex and romance.
"Queer because it was an ace bond, platonic because it was non sexual and it doesn’t mean that the love is any less."
Do you have anything that is the biggest goal for your film, the biggest impact that you are hoping your film will have?
I think there are two predominant goals that I have with my film as far as impact goes.
First, I want ace individuals to see this film, ace individuals who probably haven’t grappled fully with their identity. People who are struggling to find a community, struggling to label themselves, struggling to figure out if they are broken or not, because a lot of people don’t know, still, about being asexual. So, there’s a lot of people ‘lost at sea’ so to speak. I would love for this film to be that beacon of hope, that lighthouse. To call them in, adrift on the open ocean, to say ‘no, you’re good, you’re not alone, come ashore and we can grow together’. So that’s my main goal with this film, because I do believe it can be life changing, especially in the younger generation.
"I would love for this film to be that beacon of hope, that lighthouse."
My second goal is education for the populace. Getting this story out there. I think one of the important things about this film is that it caters to the ace community but its heteronormative enough that that demographic will see the movie and relate in their own way. I think people will watch this and say ‘this is a straight film’, I think ace people will watch this and think ‘holy sh*t this is an ace film’. It’s all dependent on their own experience, because it is such a relatable subject matter and the relationship is so real that I think a lot of people can relate in their own way. It also specifically labels asexuality. There is a scene in the film where Luke specifically uses that term, and they talk about it and they talk about their feelings towards sex. And that scene is so significant and vital in the movie because that’s the moment when the spotlight is turned on. And that moment is when the ace community and the heteronormative community can be like ‘oh this’.
Have you received any negative feedback during your creation of the film? In terms of acephobia etc. with people you have been working with and interacting with?
There have been managers and producers giving feedback, but honestly it’s not necessarily negative it’s just opinion. Like for example, one producer read it and said ‘oh I don’t like the ending because it’s too ambiguous, I really wanted them to get together at the end’ and I’m like no you’re missing the whole point. But being a producer, this guy, knowing what sells, he wants to cater to the people, and people love happy endings - and I agree, people do love happy endings but that’s not this movie. This movie is supposed to shed light on the negative effects that the heteronormative society puts on ace individuals and the psychological repercussions it has on ace individuals. So, no I’m not going to write your Hollywood happy ending. The next producer loved the ambiguous ending. Other than that, the feedback we’ve gotten has been entirely positive, entirely encouraging. Even the PHD researcher we’ve got at Georgia University said that it represented asexuality in such a beautiful and perfect way, that it wasn’t isolating for anybody in the normal populace but it also spoke to the nuance of being asexual in a very accurate way.
The wonderful thing with this film is you can walk away thinking ‘you know what, that is a happy ending - Penny seems like she got what she wanted, and Luke seems like he got what he wanted’. And then there are those people who will interpret it differently and say ‘ah man that sucks, cause they should be together, not in a romantic way but because they are soulmates.’ It’s like looking at a piece of abstract art on the wall, you can relate however you have to relate to it.
In your production team, out of curiosity, how many other asexual people do you work with?
Well I’m trying to populate my crew with a lot of ace individuals. Number one my DP is asexual and I’ve been reaching out to ace Facebook groups as well, there are filmmakers and crew members in those ace groups that I’ve already been collecting crew resumes for to get them on board. I think populating the crew with asexual individuals is important because - just like representation for female crew members - I want to give asexual individuals an opportunity to be a part of this. It’s more than just a film, it is a passion project, it’s important, not only to me but to the community. So, I want to invite as many asexual filmmakers to hop on board as I can. I think that just makes it more special.
Like you say this is a passion project for you, so I was wondering if you have any advice for anyone who is queer or a woman who is thinking about going into this sort of world?
Boy, yeah! I think it comes down to knowing who you are, knowing yourself. And not only knowing yourself but it also takes a lot of courage to walk through this business with your head held high with your identity. It takes courage to unapologetically be yourself, and sometimes that’s really difficult. Especially when you feel different, you feel less than, or when you feel like there aren’t a lot of people like you. I think being a female, number one, we are always going to face our challenges, even today, with sexism, but my advice is just to empower yourself. I don’t care if that’s talking to yourself every morning with affirmations or surrounding yourself with a supportive group of ace friends or girl friends, people who share similar experiences to you that can lift you up. That’s important. Getting people in your corner, friends, family members, that’s important. But none of that matters unless you have that ability to own your identity and to be unapologetic about it. That would be my advice.
So, I know that you are setting up a Crowdfund, what can Queermunity and our readers do to support this and your film?
Oh my, well, something I have been learning about a Crowdfund is that the outreach is so important and it’s just about sharing and gaining followers and getting on our email list, and talking about the film and getting it seen. Because once the Crowdfunder is up we have to raise the first 30 percent of the funds within the first week. So, it’s intimidating but the more people spread the word the better. It really is about sharing, donating too of course - I would love for this to be a film funded by the ace community, I would love that. But, I think when asking about readers of Queermunity just spread it round the internet, share the link, join the email list. When the crowdfund is up we would just love for you all to participate.
Do you have an idea of when the film itself will be finished and where it will be released?
We will be wrapping up production in the Fall of 2021, and we intend to release it into the festival circuit from November 2021 and throughout next year. It’s going to be premiering in festivals worldwide, including [but not limited to!] Rotterdam Film Festival, BFI Flare: London LGBT Film Festival, Queer Screen’s Mardi Gras Film Festival (Sydney, Australia), OUTshine LGBT Film Festival (Miami, USA), GAZE International LGBT Film Festival (Dublin, Ireland). Once the festival circuit is done that's when we are going to, hopefully, distribute it to Netflix or another streaming platform. We will most likely be having it on our website to download or purchase, but that will probably happen next year. Whatever happens with getting it to a big online streaming platform though we will have the film available somewhere online to view.
Keep an eye out for Dear Luke, Love Me's Crowdfunder, launching in Spring 2021!
Article Written By Mallie McCown (Interviewee) (She/Her)
and Harriet Steele (Interviewer) (She/Her)
All Photos Provided By Middle M Productions and Mallie McCown.