So This Happened - Bekah and Marama

I just had recently started getting really sick of men getting away with gross behaviour. Like, walking in the supermarket and having a guy muttering under his breath disgusting things while he looks at your boobs, that kind of stuff. I'm just like, why does this keep happening?

– So This Happened co-creator Maha Albadrawi in a Radio New Zealand interview, 8 March 2017

I had this moment where I was just like, "I've got several of these stories and everyone I know has ten of these stories".

– So This Happened co-creator Maha Albadrawi in a Radio New Zealand interview, 8 March 2017

...I know that she's always there for me when she says 'it's okay, just ignore them.' She always laughs with me to make me feel better when there’s another person who thought that I was a boy.

– Marama on her mother's Beka's support

The best part is, when we talk about the project, everyone wants to contribute. That’s the best part for me, that more people want to talk. I want more people to realise this stuff happens everywhere, and the more we talk about it the more that people – and I mean guys here – will stop doing it and start calling it out.

– So This Happened co-creator Lucy Zee in a Spinoff interview, 7 March 2017

I wanted to be able to tell these stories in a very palatable way, and there’s a fine line between making fun of it and also making it light enough for someone who isn’t as open-minded to accept it. We couldn’t think of a better way to do that than through animation.

– So This Happened co-creator Lucy Zee in The Spinoff, 7 March 2017

...we just wanted to get the stories and get it out there. Make it palatable, accessible and shareable.

– So This Happened co-creator Maha Albadrawi in The Spinoff, 7 March 2017

Throughout every episode there’s a distinct sense of place: from predators outside Lynnmall to racists next to Rangitoto. All of this helps again to drive home the fact that these things happen frequently, they happen to people you know, and they happen here.

– Spinoff writer Alex Casey on So What Happened, 9 August 2017

These stories will be familiar to many and shocking news to some, becoming all the more palpable when frankly, sometimes wryly recollected by the women who were directly involved. By choosing animation, the stories in So This Happened take scary subjects and make them more accessible to an audience that might otherwise run for the hills. These aren’t shadowy Crime Watch reenactments but brightly coloured, surreal imaginings. Sometimes, they are even pretty funny.

– Spinoff writer Alex Casey on So What Happened, 9 August 2017