We could use [force_bytes](https://github.com/django/django/blob/stable/1.6.x/django/utils/encoding.py#L138) on py3/django1.6 - what do you think about that ? If not importable then just fallback to the old [smart_str](https://github.com/django/django/blob/stable/1.4.x/django/utils/encoding.py#L104)