Baby Reindeer: We Can’t Believe This Is Real!
We’re late to the party, we know! The Q+ Magazine staffers finally got around to watching Netflix’s smash hit Baby Reindeer and we just can’t believe this is real! It’s the story of Donny Dunn (Richard Gadd), a young 20-something British guy who garners the attention of a 42-year-old woman in a very intense way! Martha (Jessica Gunning) becomes scarily obsessed with Donny and embarks on a stalkerish journey of fanaticism.
The thing is, the story of Donny and his experiences with Martha are based on Gadd’s real-life journey with his own actual stalker. There are many elements of Baby Reindeer that Gadd says are true events.
When audiences meet Donny, he’s a struggling comedian who works in a bar to support himself. A woman comes into the bar and begins talking to him. It’s obvious from her demeanor that she’s having a bad day and Donny takes pity on the woman, offering her a cup of tea. This seems to spark something within her, and so starts Martha’s dangerous obsession with the bartender.
According to Richard Gadd, this depiction accurately represents how the connection between himself and his real-life stalker began.
“At first everyone at the pub thought it was funny that I had an admirer. Then she started to invade my life, following me, turning up at my gigs, waiting outside my house, sending thousands of voicemails and emails,” Gadd told The Times.
Baby Reindeer is in no way an enjoyable watch, but the story is so compelling that pushing the pause button is completely out of the question! Here are our thoughts on Baby Reindeer.
Martha
While the story is clearly about Donny’s journey, it’s Jessica Gunning in the role of Martha who completely steals the show. Her performance grabs you by the throat and pulls you into a world of complex, uncomfortable emotions.
When Martha walks into the bar at the beginning of the show, she carries an air of melancholy with her. She’s incredibly confident and seems smitten with Donny right away, but there is definitely something Not Quite Right from the onset of their conversation.
As her fixation on Donny intensifies neither Donny nor any of the people around him deem her a threat to his safety. Despite the lack of urgency regarding her actions, Gunning’s performance is so predatory that it’s difficult to watch at times. There are so many points throughout her pursuit of Donny that he could have done something but didn’t. There are so many things that Martha does that, had she been a man, would be considered an outright danger to society. When Donny finally escalates the matter and seeks legal protection, the police don’t really take him seriously.
This is obviously because Martha is female and Donny is a man. Typically in these situations, women are not the predators and society has caged men so fiercely into toxic expectations of gender stereotypes that the idea of a man falling prey to a female like this is nearly unheard of. Why couldn’t he take charge? Why wouldn’t he do more to stave off her attention?
Well, men can be victims too. No man, regardless of his strength, is a match for the fractured and broken mental health issues Martha carries with her in Baby Reindeer. In the show, audiences see Martha meet justice as she is sentenced to a short stay in prison, but in real life, Gadd told Marie Claire Australia this didn’t occur, that he didn’t want to send a mentally unwell woman to jail.
The Queer Stuff
As Baby Reindeer barrels on, audiences learn about Donny and his past. Before Martha becomes a presence in his life, an older man takes a liking to Donny and uses his struggling career to get his attention. The man sets himself up in Donny’s life as someone who can help Donny grow as a comedian and land opportunities that he is struggling to get on his own. It’s all a rouse though, because of course it is, and the man is actually just grooming Donny for sexual gain.
He walks Donny into a world of hard drug use, and while intoxicated, the man ends up raping Donny. It’s Donny’s first sexual encounter with someone of the same sex, and instead of shying away from sexual experiences with men again, Donny begins intentionally seeking them out. He sleeps with everyone that he can as he tries to work out what’s going on inside himself. Is he gay? Is he bisexual? Is he just broken and traumatized?
Then, around the same-ish time that Martha walks into his life, Donny meets Teri (Nava Mau). Teri is trans and Donny is completely captivated with her. At the beginning of their relationship, Donny behaves poorly and anything between them dies before it even really gets off the ground. But the universe throws him a bone and Teri gives him another chance. They settle into the throws of a beautiful, domestic, and ordinary relationship that is lovely to watch.
In the end, Martha’s meddling is too much for Teri and she ends the relationship. The storyline is important, though. Teri is arguably the most interesting character in Baby Reindeer and the representation is much needed. Audiences need to see more trans characters enjoying love, living ordinary lives, and being happy. Although the relationship ended, Teri and Donny were all those things to each other while they were together. Through Teri, Donny is able to heal some of the trauma he carries around with him and put himself back together again.
Donny
Because this is a story based mostly on true events, it’s hard to critique Donny as just a character. It’s unclear how much of Donny’s personality resonates with the real-life Richard Gadd but his journey highlights several important societal issues. The vulnerability and the gentleness of his character are ultimately what gets him into trouble, both with Martha and with his rapist.
However, these nuances of his character are important representations that challenge toxic gender stereotypes. Everybody knows that the statistics around sexual assault are deflated. The number of victims who just never report their experiences is considered to be very high. This is true for women, but it’s even more so for men. The reality is men are victims of sexual assault too and those instances are reported at even lower rates than their female counterparts.
Despite the stereotypes around gender expectations, in actuality, men can be and are vulnerable, they can be soft, and they can become victims of predatory toxic masculinity too.
It’s no surprise that Donny is not more proactive in the protection of himself from Martha. At the time she comes into his life, he’s knee-deep in the throws of trauma caused by the last predator that zeroed in on him. It’s probably because he is so traumatized that he’s unable to recognize Martha’s initial actions for what they really are – dangerous, serious, urgent.
Baby Reindeer is a harrowing tale. This is not a feel-good show, but it is a provocative viewing experience. Honestly, as the credits rolled, we found ourselves asking how can this be real? But it is, fam. It is! It’s a devastating story of victimization, of just how desperately our society needs to overhaul our approach to mental health, and the importance of deconstructing damaging gender stereotypes and expectations.
Baby Reindeer is available to stream globally on Netflix now. Follow us on X and Instagram for all queer stuff!
Featured image: Image Courtesy of Netflix.
