In the Spotlight: Mary

Silence is NOT consent: Mary McBain

Rape.   How do you define it?  If there isn’t a struggle does that mean it didn’t happen?  The short film Spaghetti has certainly opened up a new conversation on the whole #metoo movement. Made in a quirky and subtle way – they use being talked into eating Spaghetti as the guise for being talked into sex-  is shining the light on consensual sex. We caught up with lead actress and writer for the film, Mary McBain, whilst she was in LA. 

It was a chance meeting with her co-star, Dan Burman in England whilst she was back in England waiting for her US visa that she decided to keep herself busy and make the movie with him. That decision completely changed her life.  

Why did you want to make this movie?

I had this experience with this guy in New York a few years ago and he seemed like a really nice guy.  I’d met him a few times and he said he had a huge collection of Lonely Planet guides and I’m a HUGE fan of the guides so he asked me if I wanted to go back to his to take a look at them - which in hindsight he obviously was NOT inviting me back to look at Lonely Planet guides! I guess I was a bit naïve and he tried it on and I said no I don’t want to do anything and then things got a bit uncomfortable and then the next day he said he had so much fun with me and lets do it again. I remember thinking ‘What?’ I’m sitting in my room crying and how did you want to do that again. Massive miscommunication, I was scared and you thought that was fun.

Did you end up having sex?

Yes and it was horrible. I was saying no and then the next day he said I was saying no in a sexy way. We’d been out drinking and I was feeling a little scared so just went quiet and did it. I didn’t fight him off but I know I didn’t want to do it. 

It has happened to me too and what’s scary is how many women this has happened to. Have you noticed that a lot of women are coming forward and saying its happened to them too?

Yes, that’s the part when I started talking to a lot of women about it. I had to go to Planned Parenthood the next day and they said to me it was rape but I didn’t feel like it was because there wasn’t a struggle. There then was another incident with another guy and that was the one that led me to write Spaghetti. I just kept crying and I couldn’t get over this incident so I decided to meet up with the guy and tell him how I felt. After I told him, he stood up and said ‘this is where I leave, not once did you say the word NO so this is not an issue with consent so you can’t pull that card’. What the actual fuck, I guess you have to raise a red flag and how was me not freezing not enough of a signal that I didn’t want to do it.   

I didn’t know how to respond to this and I felt like an idiot, I was so mad, so much shame, embarrassed and I was all these things. It’s then that I decided that I wanted to write something about this. I didn’t want to write something that looked like rape as that’s not nice to watch so I felt like I was ok to write something funny like a parade or something like that and I was thinking about food. So I came up with the idea with a woman called Lizze Gordon and we felt If we shove this idea down peoples’ throats that this is rape, it’s not going to sit with them. I thought I’d rather do it so they walk away and go, ‘oh, is it?’. 

Consent is a grey area and maybe people could be more mindful of it the next time.   

And it was an all female crew?

Yes, Dan suggested we have an all-female crew.  There had been talk about this 50/50 movement of trying to get at least half the people employed to be women so we thought why not just get all women. Dan was producing it and we needed a male actor to play opposite me but we thought other than that why not just make everyone else female. Everyone was female until the end but one of our composers wasn’t working out so we ended up going for a male composer. 

What’s the reaction been like?

It’s been really exciting. One of the things was that I wanted to get as many people to watch this as possible so I had this idea to get it on Virgin Atlantic so I called them up and finally got through to the right person. They loved it so it was on there for August, September and October.   

Another cool thing I wanted to do was get this into schools. By chance I met this girl who’s dad is the head of seniors at the Harrodian School so she said she would speak to him and he wrote back immediately saying ‘we have been looking for you’. So I met with him and some really cool students. I went in and showed them the film and we’ve all been talking openly about things so my aim is to now try and change the way sex education is taught in schools.  

I know I want to make a difference but I want to do it through joy and it’s the same with the sex education I want to do it that way too.  

What would you like to do next?

One of my dreams would be to give a TED Talk. I love public speaking and I think that would be such an amazing thing to do. I worked with 23 women on Spaghetti and Dan is a good advocate for standing up for what you believe in no matter what the consequences. I genuinely believe that if I was ever to find myself in the same situations with a guy again I think I would have the confidence in myself to say no so it would be cool to talk about the journey I’ve been on. The other thing is I’ve got this screen play so I’m really hoping we can get this produced. Its about a woman in her 30s not knowing how to get the ‘one’ and self-sabotaging everything she does. I’m 35 and I haven’t had kids and I’m not married but there is so much more that I want to do but I think there are a lot of women at my age in the same position. We are always hearing about our eggs depleting and getting old etc so I think this movie is about that and the honesty in that and finding the one and finding the right one.  

#silenceinnotconsent 

Words by Kylie Olsson