Baby reindeer anti woman pro trans slant

A bit of a big stretch OP.

I don't see that at all. There's nothing anti-woman about transwomen sometimes being cast in positive innocent roles.

Gosh, did you strain a muscle trying to stretch to that conclusion?

The show could have done with a mental health reader and a misogyny reader and a libel reader...

I actually thought it was interesting that the trans character is portrayed as male and trans - not as 'woman' (unlike Barbie, Queen's Gambit where we're just supposed to take their femaleness at face value).

Agree with a lot of other points about the misogyny. I also thought Gadd gave a poor performance and lacked charisma or character development.

Overall I thought it was quite a cheap and badly made piece of TV redeemed by some good acting (Martha, the TW, the guy who played the predator) and by the writer's honesty about what awful decisions he made. It also could have been half the length. I watched a lot speeded up and it lost nothing.

I felt it was verging on transphobic tbh. There is a strong implication throughout that he is a closeted gay man and acts up to the "lads" in the pub and humiliates Martha etc to create a smoke screen. I felt this was also apparent during Morgans interview. Gadd has been in trouble for his behaviour towards another trans woman as pp says. That person said Gadd has a 'feitsh'. The whole thing is very grim and there seems stunningly little focus on the fact Gadd has sold his 'rape' story for millions whilst not reporting the rapist and leaving other young men vulnerable to the same abuse.

It's a bit self perpetuating. Trans characters are often a discussion of topic on forums like this and by TRA type spaces. Companies notice the scrutiny so take pains to depict them appropriately. They feed into each other.

Having watched it, I thought it was odd that the central character is OTOH supposedly timid and unassuming, a gentle sort. Yet OTOH, he can't bring himself to be with a TW unless it's somewhere he won't be known (that's right, isn't it?). Obviously there are other threads in it than that. But I thought that was strange. Especially also as he seems to feel sorry for the Martha character quite a bit. And not in a distant, harsh and pitying "isn't she just a lost cause" kind of way.

I'm not sure what the aim was with Donny at all. I know the focus is on the others but he seemed the strangest one in it.

I know what you mean op, many people are using this show to have a pop at women, especially women of the middle aged, overweight variety. Facebook is flooded with comments about how Martha will get away with this because she is a woman and her victim a man, and how women are just as violent and nasty as men etc. Also lots of praise for the actor who played Teri, though I thought their performance was actually the weakest of any of the cast. And yes Teri was absolutely an innocent bystander irl and deserves no ire whatsoever, except those scenes seemingly never happened irl, so in effect she wasn't a bystander at all. Is Martha/Fiona a bit odd, yes it would appear so, is she a violent sex offender, we don't know but its becoming increasingly unlikely, has she been vilified desperately, absolutely yes. I actually enjoyed the show, but I was duped into thinking that
A. Its a true story, and
B. That Gadd and Netflix took pains to disguise Martha's character beyond recognition.

Apparently Netflix employed a trans sensitivity reader to make sure that the Teri character was portrayed in the best possible light.

I have no problem with trans characters being portrayed positively.

I do have a problem when so much time and energy was given to ensure that the transwoman is portrayed positively while simultaneously a real live woman is being thrown under the bus in a way that Gadd could have predicted would have led to her getting death threats.

I don't think it was at all. The fact she was trans made Gadds character afraid to be publicly with her, lie about his name and unable to have sex with her. Surely this is in fact highlighting that she is different rather than saying she's just the same as any other woman.

Zero time for Gadd here. At first I was on board with the idea of highlighting male victim stalking (which is quite common actually). But the whole thing seemed seedy, desperate and vain. I think he’s gagging for fame and to end up some kind of poundshop Olly Alexander tbh, and clearly women are seen as a dull, vindictive prudes in that narrative.

I read an interview with a woman who Gadd worked with at the time and she said he was very much a part of the misogynistic "banter" including that directed at Martha.

I agree with pp that he saw someone he could exploit in Martha.

I also struggle with why he kept going back to the rapist's house to be drugged and raped. I didn't understand the scene at the end where he went back for a cosy chat with the guy.

What I felt about the show was mostly that he could only tell the story this way because he's a man.

@BiggerBoat1 I don't think there's anything wrong with a positive portrayal or a trans character. It's refreshing that Teri just happened to be trans without her character being all about her gender identity. However I think it was obviously pushing a somewhat harmful lie that trans women are just women, just the same as us, no one can tell the difference, of course they pass and women who object to their safe spaces being infiltrated by male bodies people are the problem.

I thought that both Gadd and Martha were shown as deeply flawed and also both very vulnerable. I thought the trans woman’s character was interesting because she had her act together in a way that none of the characters did. Why is it not ok to have a positive portrayal of a trans character?

@popebishop absolutely. One of the first things Gadd admitted was that he completely made up the stuff about Martha being charged and pleading guilty.

A woman who worked alongside Gadd in the pub said that he was far less innocent than he portrayed himself in his show. He was just as misogynistic as his mates and he was never scared of Martha at all.

I'm sure she sent him lots of texts and emails, but there's plenty of evidence that he led her to believe that he wanted her to do that, at least for the first few months. Obviously her behaviour is peculiar, but I think the scenes where the police questioned if what she did was actually harassment might be some of the only true bits of the whole show.

I never finished the show. I watched about three eps, and I thought is was a thoroughly dishonest and unpleasant tale. Gadd doesn't come out of it at all well, and probably neither does RL Martha. The transwoman aspect adds another trendy gloss.

Yeah I agree with many pp. The real “Martha” is indeed overweight and in fact a bit older than the actress Jessica Gunning who is playing her. Although she was obviously closer to Jessica’s real age when these events (allegedly) happened.

A discussion on Reddit actually mentioned it would have been more shocking had they actually depicted the age difference more clearly. Gadding isn’t much younger than Gunning and he looks older if anything since he has obviously did his fair bit of drugs etc so it’s easy to forget that there was meant to be something like 15 years difference between them

I liked the series but I do feel in the interests of accuracy it should have said something like “this show is INSPIRED by true events” rather than the bold claim of “this is a true story”

And inferred that the trans woman was more of a woman than the actual woman?

'Implied', FFS! 😃

I think he wanted people to be able to track her down. The show used her public social media comments.

I agree. Gadd is nothing if not media savvy. This show came out five years after 'Don't Mess With Cats' was such a massive success. I think Gadd knew that people would be fascinated with Martha and he predicted that viewers would track her down and that would make his show even more of a success.

My personal theory is that Gadd was never a victim of stalking as such. He was already writing TV scripts when Martha came into his pub. He was savvy enough to see she had potential to be a great character in one of his shows. This is why he didn't block her from texting him, or get bar work in one of the hundreds of other pubs on his doorstep.

He claims he kept giving her free drinks for months because he was flattered by her attention. I think he just saw someone he could exploit. And then Piers Morgan exploited her too.

Martha is also innocent. Gadd has admitted that she never even met Teri in real life, let alone assaulted anyone

So the "real" Martha is innocent of assaulting Gadd's RL girlfriend. She isn't innocent of stalking and harassing a number of people.

It's very clear what Teri's real crime is on here: existing, and to boot as a character that people find interesting and sympathetic.

@heathspeedwell Yes, and I'm fairly sure the Guilty court appearance portrayed at the end never happened otherwise it would have been easy for people to confirm Martha's identity from that.

I don’t see this at all. I saw Teri as a character, like any other, and their transness was circumstantial if anything.
As for Martha being overweight. He was surely trying to portray her as she was - in real life- at least to him.
I’m as GC as they come but I don’t get the issue here.
The only issue I do get is the fact that the predatory male rapist is not being outed.

OP, I didn't get that at all. The greatest demon in the series was a man - the rapist. Gadd's character himself was deeply flawed and questionable. Martha was mentally ill. The transwoman was stable and sane. His ex's mum was sane and kind. His ex was sane! There was a range of people behaving in a wide variety of ways. I didn't feel an agenda was being pushed at all.

@DreadPirateRobots Martha is also innocent. Gadd has admitted that she never even met Teri in real life, let alone assaulted anyone.

This is the trouble with Gadd claiming that the show was "100% emotionally true". Lots of people still haven't grasped that the real Martha basically just sent him a lot of texts and emails. She didn't assault anyone and now she's getting death threats.