baby reindeer : Most liked Posts

I have not read the entire first thread on BR. So I’m not 100% sure what’s happened after the show was aired.
But this the most realistic series depicting the behaviours around SA I’ve ever seen in my life.
The fear and shame around having a bond with your abuser(s), not being able to not stop yourself going back for more and more abuse, the constant confusion that makes you act out in ways you could not imagine.
Also hearing and seeing people’s reactions on how fucked up it is, how he could have stopped it at anytime, how he has a part to play, etc really has reminded me how far we still have to go in order to understand victims of SA.
I was 8 years old when I started getting abused, I wasn’t a scared little victim petrified of my own shadow, I was infatuated with him (aged 45). Even after he received a 13 year prison sentence, I didn’t believe it was rape. Until I saw a therapist as an adult and learned abuse and trauma rewires the brain, rewires our reward system - which affect all other future relationships forever.
Needed to be shown. This is real life. Victims aren’t angels, we don’t need to be, to be heard.

I’m more interested in who Darrien is. Martha is clearly unwell and has faced consequences for her actions. I wonder how many young guys that bastard groomed and raped.

While I understand why people are side-eyeing Richard for what’s going on now, I think people forget that the show is based on his other work, so he has talked about „Martha“ for years which I’m pretty sure the real Martha is aware of. Now things are on a bigger scale because it’s Netflix but I’m not sure he could have anticipated the hype and craziness that followed the release. He doesn’t seem like that much of a mastermind tbh.

And maybe this is just me but I’m not sure it’s his job to protect his stalker? And well, I know this is not the times we live in, but there was always the option for people to NOT go and dig around to find the woman.

hehehe said:

Okay, finished this and agree with you all that the content is very dark and extreme. I skipped forward several scenes due to low tolerance including most of episode 4. If I had known what it was about I wouldn't have chosen to watch, because it's not to my taste at all.

This is the type of show that in the olden days would air at 11pm on Channel 4, so you know what's up. Now it's next to Kung Fu Panda on Netflix. Not very responsible that this type of stuff is just out there for anyone to happen across, but it's Netflix we're talking about and they're now releasing True Crime content where they bring in convicted murderers to "tell their side".

It's good, but I would not recommend it or ever watch it again.


The closest show I can think of to this is

Spoiler

I May Destroy You by Michaela Coel.

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This is a really odd take. There are loads of things on streaming with difficult subject matters. Child locks exist, and there are ratings and trigger warnings. Don't see the issue.

flippinpancakes said:

Just finished watching this and feel as though I still have questions… why did he go back and have tea with his rapist? I just didn’t get it!

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I guess something that he really showed was that people who are victims of SA do questionable things that don’t seem to make sense. Often as a way to try and control the narrative and take control of a situation where their control was taken away from them. I think Baby Reindeer really demonstrated well how self loathing after SA can lead you into lots of strange risky behaviour. It was really tough viewing but I commend Richard Gadd for putting all his complex vulnerabilities into this and showing warts and all what trauma can do to a person.

The victim blaming of Gadd here is outrageous. No one gets to tell anyone else how they should be dealing with what he went through, “it’s too soon,” or “it was so long ago,” “shouldn’t have played himself,” etc. this man should do whatever he feels is best. This show may have been the most therapeutic thing for him.
At no point has he claimed to be this innocent victim. That is literally what the show is about. People should go back and rewatch if they don’t understand the message.

Also to add, if I was him I wouldn’t give a fuck about the after math of this. Why should he protect Martha or Damien?

Hi all. I'm mainly a lurker, but I wanted to post because I saw Baby Reindeer when it was a stage play. I don't know how truthful the stage play is, but it was certainly presented as "everything in the stage play actually happened." The stage play isn't a fictionalised drama, with characters and dialogue, it's literally just RG sitting on stage telling the audience "then this happened to me, and then this happened to me." He's the only person on stage and all his 'dialogue' is directed to the audience. So it feels like everything he says in the play, actually happened, then they've changed it for the TV show. Also, in the stage play they actually play some of Martha's hundreds of voicemails, her actual voicemails, to the audience.

In the play, it's clear that Terri is a real, specific person, not a combination of people. I don't remember either of the two physical assaults occurring in the play so I assume they were made up for the TV show. A huge plot point in the play is that Martha never did anything illegal and when he goes to the police, they tell him they can only act if he has evidence of a threat, so he has no choice but to listen to hundreds of voicemails, and the mental toll having to listen to all those voicemails has on him. In the play she has his phone number from early on, not his email address. I think they changed it to email because email is more visual.

Also, the part where he tries to entrap her into writing a dodgy email and gets caught, I don't remember that, so I don't think that happened in real life, I think it's a narrative device to explain why the police didn't act - in the play, the police didn't act because she hadn't actually done anything illegal.

In terms of 'Darrien', SF's decision to leave the Rep was common knowledge over a year ago, it has nothing to do with Baby Reindeer at all. Just bad timing. People in the theatre world joke about "artistic director snakes and ladders" because ADs are constantly. constantly moving positions. It's not weird that he's leaving because he's stayed a pretty average amount of time that ADs tend to stay in post. And SF has a great rep in the industry, and it's a tiny industry with an active whisper network. If he had a rep for being predatory, people would know, but there's never been a whisper about him. I don't know about the other guy because I don't work in the comedy scene (though searching his name on Twitter shows that he was publicly accused of being an abuser in 2022).

stalking is horrific, i was stalked for two years by a guy , i had started a job and befriended a regular customer , as he told me sob stories , helped him with adopting a cat . i helped measure curtains etc . he seemed to think we were in some sort of relationship. which it wasn’t . i was married with children . i had to tell him enough , as he was telling people stuff that wasn’t true . he managed to get my phone number from my work , from the back of the office door for contact numbers as i was a manager . he would ring all hours leaving messages on the answer phone pretending to be all difffent guys who i had apparently given my number and was arranging to meet . he turned up at my children’s school just watching us .
questioning other male customers asking them if they had been with me , then making horrible stuff up where everyone was talking about me . like id been having sex in a back of a van with 6 guys etc .
he came to my work every day and sat in the bar just staring at me .
he had lied about having a disabled brother , he didn’t even have a brother . he said he had a high powered job and carried a brief case everywhere, all that was in there was a mobile phone and his lunch . the cat suddenly disappeared and his neighbour was sure he had done something to the cat .
Anyone i was having a conversation with in the bar , he would then target them to tell them things . which were awful and not true .
i was still having to serve him , and he would say under his breath , i bet you hate every bone in my body i am not going away . he got barred in the end .
then he pissed all over my car and let my tyres down.
i left my job stopped going out . this was in the 90’s police wasn’t interested.
his car was always driving by when i was doing school run . if i was in a supermarket he would appear there . i moved in the end . my husband had warned him and warned him but the guy just didn’t care .
2 years of pure hell

We gained nothing except confirmation that:
- Richard Gadd wrote Martha very well
- Jessica Gunning is a fantastic actress
- Fiona Harvey is not okay
- Piers Morgan is still an arsehole

Having been stalked by somebody eerily similar to her in every way from looks to behaviour, I feel no sympathy whatsoever for her being identified.

Those fuckers ruin lives. I haven't seen 'my' mad cow for almost 10 years and I live 200 miles away now but still get adrenaline surges and panic whenever I see a car like the one she drove.

I also don't have much time for the 'pity her, shes ill' mindset either. I have somebody in my family who is diagnosed with a severe MH condition which manifests as psychosis and she has scared the crap out of me and my small children many times.

Innocent people shouldn't be collateral in the pursuit of someone 'getting the help they need'

Apologies in advance if this offends anybody, I've lived through and seen too much of this type of behaviour I have complete compassion fatigue.

Lock her up and throw away the key if she can't refrain from stalking people and the constant outpouring of racism and homophobia.

I had a really open conversation with a young man this week who disclosed to me CSA. He then asked if I’d seen Baby Reindeer and said it was the best thing he had ever seen. With this current situation and the fallout its easy to forget that this show shined a spotlight on some really difficult and important issues which will have helped lots of people. Trauma fucks people up and can lead them to act in unfathomable ways. I’m not sure anything else has showed this as clearly as this show and the outcome.

I thought the point in the show was to highlight the aftermath of abuse? Like how the trauma-bond is so unstable and illogical to those who haven't lived it. The hypersexual and risky behaviour you can expose yourself to afterwards because you're so disconnected from yourself, your just an object and how could it get any worse? The fact it impacted his sexuality and how he never be sure if he was always this way and not aware or if it was entangled in the abuse he was a victim of.

I thought it highlighted how victims don't have to be these pure angels to be victims or to be believed, they can too have their own history and flaws.

You could tell it was translated onto TV from a theatre kind of set up so it's not like people couldn't have figured it out before but obviously this has blew up.

Finding her online is a weird situation, I guess it might add to why people don't always speak up about their abuse until sometimes they feel they can when someone has passed (obviously a lot of people don't have a TV series made about them but I'm certain there will be many people out there who have been abused by people in the media, who they have to see on screens all the time).

When I first watched this I did think ooh it’s dodgy and he shouldn’t be exposing a vulnerable woman like that. But the more I think about it, I feel like why shouldn’t he tell his story? And why shouldn’t he play himself - it sends a really strong message, that you don’t have to be ashamed or hide your face, have someone else portray your trauma. I think on the balance Gadd has done much more good than harm with BR.

frillylilly said:

The show was wasted on you

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It wasn’t I don’t particularly care about knowing who she is and it was never an itch I needed to scratch tbh. But I’m not going to pretend I’m outraged about it. The woman is abusive, violent and should be avoided at all costs and if her name being “out there” means even one person avoids crossing her path then job well done. If “she” was a “he” everyone would want him named and shamed. She’s dangerous. Mentally unwell or not. I don’t get the faux concern for her well-being when I’d wager we all watched her actions played out in sheer disgust

I might be in the minority here but had I been raped and also had a stalker who hounded me relentlessly as well as my family members...I genuinely don't think I would give a fuck about either of them getting exposed or found out in the process of furthering my career. Netflix and Gadd have most likely covered the legalities of Baby Reindeer so..it's all tough luck really.

iieee said:

They havent even said how it ended though?! Maybe don't read the thread if you're so touchy about spoilers.

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It’s certainly odd to read twenty pages of posts about a programme that aired a fortnight ago, has been watched by masses of people and is being discussed extensively all over the internet, yet to assume that everyone is adhering to a code of secrecy pertaining to anything that happens after episode 4.

I binge watched this last week and while I did think it was well made and gripping, something about Richard Gadd left me feeling really unsettled.
i live in north London and about ten years ago used to spend a lot of time at comedy shows/live music stuff in and around Camden and got to know a few of the people on that circuit (although not very well, I didn’t stalk any of them, lol!). Based on that experience, he wrote the struggling ‘satirical’ comedian really well! That’s what they’re all like!

I do think Gadd is slightly disingenuous throughout - he sort of touched on his poor choices but still made himself out to have been the victim - the other people around him like his ex-gf and her mother who didn’t make poor choices but were still dragged into his chaos and abused. Poor Teri was treated appallingly but it was all about poor old Richard, even when she was literally assaulted. Teri being beaten up was literally a side note in how it affected him. Again with his dad making the confession about being a victim of SA, he is flabbergasted because clearly there is only room for one victim in the Richard show. I am not sure that was his intent in those scenes but that is certainly what came across to me.

He is also HUGELY disingenuous about his own privilege. He portrays his life as ‘struggling bar man in a more or less empty old man pub with meathead colleagues’ - not sure that is an accurate portrayal of the Hawley arms? Living in a huge house in London subsidised by your ex partners family???? What the fuck? Most of us would have had to just go home and get a 9-5. He slagged everyone off for having ‘more’ (success, money, fun) but everyone was so nice to him and honestly I couldn’t really see what he brought to the table he was so unlikeable. It was weird how he was such a moaning bastard but everyone made sure he landed on his feet everytime- the party friends who gave him a room at reduced rent, the gf for not being dead happy that she was doused in Diet Coke for having the audacity to walk down the street, Teri for letting him stay. He didn’t even have to buy his own bloody coat! I wanted to shake him for being such an entitled cunt!

SadieHQ said:

Personally I think Jessica Gunning is rather beautiful - such an expressive face (especially her eyes) and a cracking actress!

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champagnepinkk said:

This pissed me off too! How rude is she? I hated that she called Jessica ugly.

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ShopTilYouSlop said:

Not the important thing, I know, but I thought it was nasty in that FB post to describe Jessica Gunning as "ugly"; she's been made dowdy for the role and she can do that frowny downturned mouth thing because she's an excellent actress but she isn't ugly at all.

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Such an unfair comment to make...

I think the people who are trying to find 'the real Martha' have completely misunderstood the point of the show tbh

Martha, confirmed Tattler