Poignant UN Women UK campaign confronts male silence

Most men like to think they would step in if they witnessed a woman being harassed. But when that moment actually arrives, instinct often gives way to hesitation. That’s the uncomfortable truth explored in Bystander, a new film from UN Women UK.

Created by Media Trust through production company The Banquet, the poignant three-minute short depicts a series of familiar everyday scenarios, highlighting the fact that not only does harassment rarely occur in isolation, but that the difference between intervention and inaction can be measured in seconds.

▶ Vimeo

A bus stop late at night, a changing room after a football match, an online gaming session, an open-plan office – none of the settings shown in the film are especially dramatic in and of themselves. But in each case, subtle comments, behaviours and moments of boundary-crossing that many women routinely encounter are revealed.

What is most effective about Bystander is the perspective it adopts. The victims and perpetrators are only ever heard, never seen: instead, the camera stays firmly fixed on the male bystander in each situation, whose internal monologue lays bare the reasons why so many men default to seeming indifference.

We hear the excuses, anxieties and rationalisations that play out in the split seconds before deciding whether or not to act. The concern, the film suggests, is that intervening could lead to embarrassment or even aggression – speak up and you just might get a smack in the mouth. Yet the consequences for the woman are likely to be far greater.

The film arrives amid a growing body of work aimed at engaging the public to help prevent violence against women and girls. Earlier this year, Transport for London’s Act Like a Friend campaign encouraged people to safely interrupt by using non-confrontational techniques such as starting a random conversation or creating a distraction.

Bystander takes a markedly different approach. While it acknowledges the fear of stepping in, stating in no uncertain terms that staying silent is itself a conscious decision, it concludes with one male character approaching a woman to ask, “Is everything alright?” There’s no missing the point: men should try to intervene when they witness harassment.

As well as functioning as a conventional public awareness ad, Bystander is part of a broader effort by the charity, under its Safer Spaces Now initiative, to challenge the persistent social norms that allow misogyny, harassment and other forms of abuse to go unchecked.

According to UN Women UK, it has already become the most successful campaign in the organisation’s history. It is one of ten films commissioned through Media Trust across a range of charities, all focused on issues affecting women and girls.

Whether campaigns like this can ultimately succeed in changing male behaviour en masse is difficult to measure. But its early success indicates that there is an appetite for this kind of messaging. Bystander certainly makes a persuasive argument: such brazen harassment only thrives when those who observe it look the other way.

Credits:
Agency: Media Trust
Production Company: The Banquet
Producer: Adham Hunt
Writer: Eno Mfon
Director: Ian Roderick Gray
DoP: Beatriz Delgado Mena
Editor: Liz Deegan (Whitehouse Post)
Visual Effects: Tim Mellem (Bubble TV)
Composer: Yumi Mashiki
Sound Design: Edwin Matthews