Hannah-Rae Meegan & Monique Terry Are Making TV So Good I’ll Watch It On My Phone

If you were also on the elite side of TikTok during the pandemic, then you definitely would have seen at least one episode of iconic queer digital series The Formal, created by and starring Hannah-Rae Meegan and Monique Terry, aka Mon & Han. Now, the talented duo are back with a new series, Touch; another highly relatable and distinctive story about being young, queer and Australian that’s as funny as it is moving. Someone tell the major TV networks, streaming platforms and big production companies – this is the type of entertainment young people want to see!

But these are not the kind of stories our TV networks typically want to fund, which is why Hannah and Mon have been forging their own path. While they now have their own production company, Slag Productions, it started when the pair entered the concept for The Formal into a competition run by Screen Producers Australia and TikTok. Although they didn’t win, it caught the attention of TikTok Australia who gave them a small grant to make the series anyway. As a queer girly myself, The Formal, was exactly what I needed to get through during the pandemic – something fun and silly and light. The mockumentary (think: The Office) followed two very different students planning the classic Australian high school formal and slowly but surely fall in love. It was fun, silly and sweet enough to capture the eyes of millions, with the initial series of 10 minute-long episodes expanding into a four-season story, with longer episodes published on YouTube.

“When you’re making something queer you are inherently making something that is, I guess, slightly political. But as queer creators, you’re not necessarily trying to do that – you’re just making what you know,” Hannah tells me. “Mon and I are just telling stories about people that we know in our real lives; the queer friends we have, the non-binary people we know. It’s important to just show these identities in stories that aren’t always trying to, like, fight a big fight. They’re just existing and being happy and being joyful.” If we don’t expect ‘heterosexual’ action movies or romantic comedies or murder mysteries to contain an all-important lesson to help the viewer become a better person… why are LGBTQI+ creators so often expected to make entertainment that is also enlightening? Slag Productions operates on the ethos that queer stories don’t need to be overburdened with ‘message’ to be entertaining and successful.

For example: the newest project, Touch, is a classic romantic comedy told in 10-minute long episodes on YouTube. It’s clever, funny, charming… and very queer. It follows Cameron (Diana Popovska), who decides to get revenge on her cheating girlfriend by beating her in the local touch footy competition. But things get complicated when Cameron starts falling for her new teammate. It was actually Mon’s girlfriend Abby Gallaway (also a co-writer and director on the series) who came up with the initial idea. “We were in lockdown watching Bend It Like Beckham and all of these sports movies like Stick It and Whip It that were so queer-coded without being overtly queer. And we just thought we need to do a sport series that actually is queer. It’s pretty crazy that doesn’t exist,” Mon says.

It’s clear that the girls get exactly what young audiences want from entertainment, and they’re hopeful that the transparency of publishing directly to digital platforms – where viewing numbers are publicly available – will convince the industry to start adapting. “We didn’t have to keep pitching the idea that this audience would like it because they could see that they did,” says Mon. “I think we’re in a really lucky, privileged position as queer creators in this day and age, because we’re met with people who are 99% of the time agree with us and want to be elevating the queer voices,” Hannah adds. And, thankfully, their shows have so far been able to stay on the right side of TikTok. “We’ve somehow really avoided any kind of homophobic audience. The algorithm does its job and is only showing the content to people that want to see it. It’s a very beautiful, supportive place in the comments. So we’ve been really lucky with our journey on it.”

Both are well aware that not everyone is so lucky, though – especially LGBTQI+ creatives and talent who don’t meet conventional beauty standards for whiteness, thinness and gender conformity. When I asked about the type of queer representation that exists currently in entertainment, they acknowledge it is far from intersectional. “What we see of queer people is white, cis-men,” Mon says. “It was a big focus for Touch, because we knew with The Formal we had, like, four characters that were white women. With Touch we had more opportunity and ability to have a diverse cast — the cast is much bigger.” The series features more queer characters of colour and trans characters, all played by fresh faces who the wider industry should absolutely be taking note of. “We were really lucky with casting, I think because our reach was so much further, when we posted [casting calls] on TikTok and Instagram we got a lot of amazing self-tapes.”

The switch from The Formal‘s one-minute episodes to Touch‘s 10-minute episodes is a sign Slag Productions is making strides towards a bigger goal. “Definitely long form is where we want to be. That’s where we’re heading,” Hannah says. Mon adds: “The hope is that it becomes easier and easier for queer people and people with diverse stories to be able to tell those stories. I really do think that it is starting – there’s such an audience online that can act as a stepping stone, and I just hope to see the stepping stones actually lead to these amazing stories getting a larger platform.”

Watch Touch on Youtube and TikTok, with new episodes dropping weekly. 

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