By In my freshman year of college I was asked out by a fellow student about five years older than me. He was strange in a way that set off alarm bells immediately, but I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. I don’t believe in being cruel, and I felt that to avoid him because of his strange demeanor would be showing a lack of compassion to someone who has poor social skills.
Unfortunately, this was a mistake. Even after I told him I was not interested in dating him, he continued to send me long and deranged messages about how I would want to date him after I realized “who he truly is” and when I become philosophically educated. He would follow me to club meetings and talk to me whenever he saw me, even after I told him not to contact me again. My friends even spoke to him, asking him firmly to leave me alone because he made me uncomfortable, but he continued to attempt to start conversations with me. I later found out that he had a history of harassing women and had been banned from events because of it. He did this to just about every woman he came across, even women who were already in monogamous relationships or who were openly lesbian.
Even a year later, he would attempt to come up to me whenever he saw me on campus, still trying to get me to understand him and his bizarre pseudo-Freudian existentialist philosophies. Fortunately, he finally stopped after the third time I yelled at him in front of a crowd of people, but I still walk a bit faster whenever I see him on campus.
He was scary because he seemed to lack understanding of any and all boundaries and I could never tell what was going on inside his head or what possessed him to act so bizarrely. It was beyond awkward, beyond even predatory– just strange and alarming.
Baby Reindeer is kind of like that, except if the person who asked me out had been even crazier, and also a previously convicted stalker.
It is rather rare for me to actually watch a show while it is still riding the wave of popularity and acclaim. But Baby Reindeer, its release coinciding with the end of my most grueling semester of school yet, has become an exception to that general rule– I watched the entire season, all seven episodes released thus far, over the span of 24 hours.
The show is based on the real experiences of its writer and lead, Richard Gadd. It follows Donny Dunn, a young, aspiring comedian, and his entanglement with a stalker, Martha Scott. As Martha’s obsession with him grows and begins to envelop his life, he is forced to confront his demons and repressed trauma.
The first season comprises seven episodes, each around 30 minutes in length with the exception of the slightly-longer episode 4.
The first few episodes reminded me of Fleabag, another show of which I am a huge fan. The show is told in an irreverent, darkly comedic manner, with a first-person narration that creates the feeling of being told the story by the character themselves. This really helps with immersion and verisimilitude.
The first two episodes are on the whole funny, the show treading the usual paths of a dark comedy with slight dramatic elements. The audience is beholden to Donny’s struggling comedy career, his cringe-worthy interactions with Martha and the ill-advised manner in which he deals with her initial advances. Situational comedy is strong and the acting for both Martha’s and Donny’s roles are on point.
However, the tone of the show gradually becomes darker as the series progresses. Serious topics emerge from the background, as the narrative unearths Donny’s past trauma.
The way in which Donny’s interactions with Martha spur on his realizations and coping mechanisms with his own experience of abuse is written extremely well, and the themes of the project as a whole are incredibly integrated.
Empathy and Boundaries
One of the strong points of Baby Reindeer is the relatable nature of its characters. The way Donny responds to situations is relatable, and the audience can understand his actions even as we clasp our hands in frustration, asking, “why did you do that? Why did you respond to her text?”
Donny meets Martha in the pub where he works, and his first feeling towards her is pity. She looks lonely, and the small act of kindness he shows her– offering a free drink– ends up the catalyst for her unhealthy obsession with him.
Simply, we can understand the basic desire to help someone. Martha, despite her odious behaviors and her alarming obsessional demeanor, appears on the surface to be a lonely, if a little crazy, middle-aged woman. Harmless, surely. Is it really so bad to humor her a little, if it brightens her day? We are used to dealing with weird people. Maybe we once were the one who was just a little awkward, mercilessly cast aside.
But Baby Reindeer’s most obvious lesson is that empathy cannot come before personal safety. Boundaries cannot be lost; there must be a line in the sand. Donny, in an endearing and sympathetic way, puts his empathy for Martha above the more logical part of his brain that flagged her as unstable and potentially dangerous. But the little he gives eventually ends up ruining his life, as Martha has no boundaries at all. Sometimes, the show seems to say– you need to be a little bit selfish.
Sexuality and Trauma
Episode 4 is definitely the most devastating and dark episode of the drama. This is where the show really goes from a comedic retelling of a stressful encounter with a stalker to a serious examination of trauma and sexual violence. As the events of the show are true to Richard Gadd’s own life, the events of episode four really did happen, though (unfortunately, in my opinion) the identity of the predator in this episode hasn’t been publicly released.
Episode 4 is told predominantly through a flashback that the character of Donny has to some years before Martha, when he was in Edinborough for a festival and met a charismatic older writer, Darrien, who takes him under his wing and becomes a sort of mentor. Unfortunately, Darrien’s intentions are not as pure as they initially seemed. Darrien begins inviting Donny over every weekend and pressuring him to take various drugs. During these benders Donny was often pressured to take more than Darrien and would pass out, awaking to Darrien sexually abusing him.
Because this experience really happened to Richard Gadd, I was floored by the fact that he was willing to share it in such a vulnerable and at times graphic way. I believe that awareness of sexual abuse of men is lower in our society because men are often told that they should be strong, that this makes them less manly, and like victims of all genders, “Donny” in the show and Richard in real life feel like they did something wrong, that they “should have known” the situation was bad and they shouldn’t have let themselves be in such a situation, when in reality the perpetrator is the only one in the wrong in the situation. I think that because of this aspect of the show, Baby Reindeer is going to do a great thing for changing the culture around male victims of sexual assault.
Baby Reindeer also does a brilliant job of showing not just the event itself, but how the assault changes Donny, impacting his sexuality, his self-perception, and even his relationships with others. He becomes confused about his sexuality, wants to experiment with men, but doesn’t know if this is really him or just an effect of what Darrien did to him, which further complicates his feelings. He begins to use his sexuality as a defense mechanism, sleeping with many people to try and negate or neutralize the feelings of violation that Darrien caused– but at the same time, he finds himself unable to open up in intimate situations with his partners later because the emotional vulnerability of being with someone he loves was incompatible with the feelings of damage that he still felt after his attack by Darrien. I am very fortunate not to have experienced an event like this, but survivors of sexual assault have said that several of these things were true to their experiences, and I think that for someone watching who can relate, having their feeling shown so honestly and vulnerably onscreen would be incredibly validating.
A Note on the Controversy
Baby Reindeer has been garnering a lot of attention in the media, but not all of it is because of the show itself. The “real life Martha”, a woman named Fiona Harvey, has come out and said she wants to sue Netflix for the depiction of her in the show. The situation with her is odd in many ways, which I won’t comment on, but it has sparked a discussion about the ethics of depicting real-life people in media.
In my opinion, however, Richard Gadd has the right to tell his own story. I believe strongly in art as a means of catharsis, and that the most powerful works of art are those that draw on real emotions and real experiences. In fact, I think Gadd has been, if anything, overly protective of the identities of the real people from the series, as he has not shared information himself on who the real Martha or Darrien are.
Overall, I was extremely impressed with Baby Reindeer, and will be following Richard Gadd in any of his future endeavors.
Have you watched Baby Reindeer? If so, what did you think of it? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Sources: photo from Netflix
Frappes and Fiction 