Trigger Warning: mention of rape and stalking
Content Warning: Major spoilers ahead
In Baby Reindeer, in a strange turn of events, a man, who is tired of his stalker and harasser, becomes obsessed with her. This seven-part Netflix mini-series truly is as strange as it sounds. But it is cathartic, complex, and full of nuance.
In Baby Reindeer, in a strange turn of events, a man, who is tired of his stalker and harasser, becomes obsessed with her.
Richard Gadd, who plays Donny Dunn, meets Martha at the bar where he works. Donny feels pity for Martha, who is crying, and offers her a cup of tea. But despite becoming a victim to her endless stalking and harassment for the next three years — with Martha showing up at the bar everyday and staying till the end of his shift, digging up his email address and sending him countless emails, physically harming his ex for having a relationship with him — he is unable to cut her off. Baby Reindeer explores Donny’s psyche as he tries to understand his own inability to let a dangerous woman go.
The show is based on Gadd’s real experience with a stalker. Over four and a half years, his stalker sent him over 40,000 emails, voicemails worth 350 hours, and 106 pages of letters. She even sent him weird gifts, such as a reindeer toy (from which she gave him the nickname, ‘baby reindeer’), sleeping pills, and boxer shorts. But as Gadd has mentioned in previous interviews, he has modified the character in a way that it wouldn’t be easy to identify her in real life. ‘What’s been borrowed is an emotional truth, not a fact-by-fact profile of someone,’ he told GQ.
The twisted path to self-discovery In Baby Reindeer
In the beginning of Baby Reindeer, we see Donny living a mundane life that he didn’t particularly choose. He lives with his ex-girlfriend’s mother, works at a bar, and has an unpromising comedy career. But Martha’s arrival brings a change in him.
Martha’s obsession with Donny makes him feel seen and wanted. Her never-ending attention and compliments make him feel better about himself. Her laughing at his jokes gives him a boost of confidence. But that’s not all there is to the equation — with Donny’s every attempt to push her away, Martha comes back stronger, doing more harm to him. Her terrifying, unhinged behaviour forces him to confront his reactions, that were a result of a past that he had bottled up and ignored for years, having severely affected his relationships and self-worth.
Her terrifying, unhinged behaviour forces him to confront his reactions, that were a result of a past that he had bottled up and ignored for years, having severely affected his relationships and self-worth.
His stalker, in essence, is the personification of his sense of self. Martha gives him a reason to inculcate a healthy self-image — something he is lacking because of his traumatic past and his inability to deal with it. In Baby Reindeer, self-love comes in the most twisted of ways.
Baby Reindeer depicts the sexual victimisation of men
When Donny finds himself falling for Teri, a trans woman, he struggles to accept his attraction towards her. He pulls himself away as he is confronted by a fear instilled in men by the patriarchy: If I like a trans woman, am I gay? Baby Reindeer elucidates the myriad ways in which men are deprived of basic empathy and care, which forces them to keep mum about the violence they face.
Donny’s feeble attempts at reporting Martha are shot down by the police officer, who tells him to come back if there’s a ‘real’ threat to his safety, implying that sending hundreds of emails a day is not considered threatening. When Donny asks his bosses to bar Martha’s entry in the pub because she was stalking him, they made fun of him, saying it was ‘cute’ that she had a crush on him.
While women are subjugated under the patriarchy, men are conditioned to perform the act of subjugation — and there is no room for men who are subjugated. Donny is ridiculed by his male friends, who did not see Martha as a threat but as a conquest for him.
His fear of turning gay because he was raped by a man is a grim reminder of how little regard the patriarchy has for anything feminine.
In Baby Reindeer, Donny’s fear of falling for a trans woman stemmed from the same patriarchal conditioning that looks down upon femininity, and metes out violence to men who enjoy it. Donny was embarrased about his horrid past — where he was raped under the influence of drugs by a powerful man in the TV industry called Darrien — because society does not take into account the violence men face at the hands of other men. His fear of turning gay because he was raped by a man is a grim reminder of how little regard the patriarchy has for anything feminine. The attempt to uncover the complexity of powerful men abusing other men is well executed.
Empathy for the grey characters
Throughout Baby Reindeer, there is an ebb and flow of sympathy and hatred for the characters. Despite the heaviness of his past, Donny is not painted as a victim, but also sometimes as the perpetrator of his own misery. He fails to stand up for the women in his life, who were physically assaulted by Martha; he fails to mention to the police officer that Martha had attacked Teri; he does not open up about his experience with violence to his ex-girlfriend, and pulls away. Though Martha was the quintessential villain in Donny’s story, his connection to her gave her a layer of complexity, making the audience empathise with her. The crux of the matter was that Martha, a repeated offender, was indeed mentally ill, and was consistently failed by the system that should have rehabilitated her.
Baby Reindeer gives us grey characters that give us a more nuanced picture of ‘human’ness, where no person is entirely right or wrong. Donny’s story, in its twisted way, tells us that perhaps the only counter to self-doubt or self-loathing is unconditional love, no matter where it may come from.
Baby Reindeer has already garnered praise among pop culture enthusiasts — with a 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes — to the point where enthusiastic fans have been scouring the internet trying to unravel the real identities of both Martha and Darrien, to the point where some are accusing famous personalities in the British comedy scenes without proof. In an Instagram story, Gadd expressed his displeasure, saying, ‘Please don’t speculate on who any of the real life people could be. That’s not the point of our show.’
Baby Reindeer is jarring, fascinating, and told in a manner that makes you want to watch the entire thing over the course of a weekend. This is your sign to throw caution to the wind and go for it.
