Do you like being told what to do, or are you more of the bossy type? In life, June is a people pleaser, and in the first few moments of Madison Hatfield’s deliriously fun and thoughtful short film, I Could Dom, a friend’s assumption about her charts June’s unexpected self-discovery. For Hatfield, I Could Dom was a personal experience, and her film explores self-love while friskily winking back at us.
**This interview contains slight spoilers for Hatfield’s film.**
I told Hatfield that I felt a kinship with her lead character because, I too, do not like it when a friend tells me that I can’t do something. June is at brunch with her friends, and she says the title almost like a throwaway line after her friends assume that she can’t assert herself in the bedroom like they can. It turns out that the idea of Hatfield’s film came from a very real conversation.
“I did say the sentence, ‘I could dom,’ to a friend, and I was laughed at,” Hatfield admits. “My friend also stated that it was a great sentence, especially coming out of my mouth. I immediately could see the kind of person who would say that and be laughed at, but I wasn’t sure what the shape of the film was at the time. I had another conversation with the same friend about soap dishes, and it all clicked into place for me and how it needed to unfold. Around Christmas of 2022, I wrote a version of the script in about a day, and it didn’t change much, honestly.”
In an effort to prove her friends wrong, June hurls herself onto the kinkiest apps she can find, and she matches with a kind submissive named Jeff. Saying something to the glow of a phone screen is entirely different than putting those words into action. When she arrives at Jeff’s house for their first playdate, she looks the part, but even sauntering to Jeff’s front door is a comedic, anxiety-ridden ordeal. She toys with the zipper that conceals her cleavage, and June would never leave the wrapper of her gum on the ground. June is self-conscious but eager to please, and playing with that inner battle is something that Hatfield found in the writing and when they got the scene up on its feet.
“A lot of the film was on the page, but the scene where she arrives wasn’t,” she says. “There’s only so much you can say in the text. So much of that fell into place once we figured out what her car was going to look like or what she would wear. There is a moment where she spits out the gum into Jeff’s hand, so I knew I wanted to see her put it in her mouth. But June wouldn’t litter–no way. So there’s a new added moment of her having to pick up the wrapper off the ground. Another moment like that was her playing with the zipper. That’s what I love about being both a writer and a director. You put what you can on the page, but the actual movie gets made and you truly discover things in the moment.
There is such a fake-it-till-you-make-it mindset happening when she walks to Jeff’s door, and that has to deal with my own personal people pleasing tendencies in real life. There is this notion that if I tell myself these stories and talk about myself in a certain way, eventually I will believe it. The sequence of her getting out of the car all sexy is the version she tells herself–it’s all in her head. When we get pulled out of it, the reality gets to set in for her, and she focuses all her anxiety to where a zipper should be in relation to our breasts. That’s fucking real to me. We are all panicking about who we are and what we are doing here, and here I am hyper-fixating on this one tiny thing that I can change. I think June is really making an effort to feel comfortable about the choices that she’s made. By the time that she begins to question everything, Jeff opens the door before it all falls apart.”
The idea of identifying the correct safe word for June is, at first, an amusing experience. She opts for ‘abort,’ and I just imagine a clear, large button with the word emblazoned across it. How does Hatfield pin down where June went to find what was right for her?
“I bet June had an extensive list that went into a pros and cons list,” she says, with a laugh. “Maybe a spreadsheet? It had to be a really strong word, and in the feature version, we see a bit more of her research process. She takes it very seriously. June wanted to pick something that she knew would be understood. I’d like to think that, by the end, June has turned over a new leaf personality-wise.”
Jeff stops their play after he sense June’s unease–Dan Savage would be proud of his honest communication. June expresses that she wants what she says and does to matter, and Jeff responds with, “With the right person, what we want is what we offer.” It’s a line that is written and performed with such clear awareness of who they are–it’s refreshing and bold. It’s honestly a piece of writing that we should all consider for our daily romantic lives.
“What Jeff says to her is what the people-pleaser in me needed to hear a long time ago,” Hatfield explains. “For me, the crux of people-pleasing is the idea that there is an ideal balance between what we take from people and what we give to people. That existence is trying to keep it all together and there is a way to offer more than we should. I was wired to think that the things that I want are a pathology that I can tamp down so I can focus on others. How can I serve others? I want to shout out to Derek Evans, who plays Jeff, because his performance shows how casual it is for Jeff. He points out to June that she is wrong in how she is generally looking at relationships. Seeing my wants and desires as an asset or a gift rather than a liability was a huge mindshift, and I wanted to show that on screen. She might be in a catsuit, but she is naked on that couch.”
Evans showcases something that we rarely see in films in the form of a man whose submissiveness is part of his sexual desires. We are often inundated with notion that men need to be domineering or masculine to be in line or in touch with their own masculinity, but I Could Dom introduces a man whose willingness and desire to be submissive is his superpower. I don’t think I have ever seen confidence in submissiveness until Hatfield’s film.
“Derek and I talked a lot about the kinds of people–in particular, straight men–who choose to be submissive,” she says. “We talked a lot about the things that might drive people to want to engage sexually in that way, and it was so important to me that it didn’t lean awkward or meek. It’s a proclivity and a kink that has no bearing on his personality or how he views himself as a person. We wanted to show a very confident person who knows what he wants, and I thought it was important for him to stop their scene and ask her to leave. That’s what should happen if you discover that someone has lied about their experience or comfort level. It’s about respect and the conversations that we have about sex. I’ve had a lot of people at festivals talk to me about Jeff and how they have never seen a submissive man on screen. It shocks people, I think.”
When we visit June at the end of I Could Dom, we find ourselves in the same location where we started, but there is a noticeable difference. June is sitting up straighter and more confidently. Hatfield ends her film with a loving tug that is cheeky, sweet, and, ultimately, very sexy. Confidence looks so good on her.
“I was the costumer for this film, and when I was thinking about June, I wanted that last outfit to feel a blend of who she was and who she is becoming. You do see it in the wardrobe, but I know that she is holding herself differently at that time. That’s reflective of my time too. I had dear friends who I’ve known for a long time who have seen me evolve into a person who likes to make people happy and make people laugh. I remember a friend and I were at a movie or something and they made a comment about how I walked differently. And I acknowledged it too. There is a physical change that occurs when your mind shifts from thinking that you are doing something wrong or that you need to fix yourself. It’s about being confident about what you offer and what you want, and I wanted that to come across. She will still be flustered at receiving a buttplug at brunch from a friend, but I wanted a clear demonstration that she and Jeff are happy with their current place.
The wink is written into the script, and I think the direction was: ‘She turns to the camera and winks, because why the fuck not?’ We’ve had these slightly surreal moments where we find ourselves in her head, so I find that wink alongside those. She’s looking at everyone who is perceiving her, and it’s like she’s saying, ‘I told you.'”
I Could Dom will play as part of Austin Film Festival’s Anatomy of Love shorts program on October 27.
