Baby Reindeer creator is provoking his stalker

[jengachampion]

SPOILERS AHEAD
I’ll preface this by saying I had a male stalker for 7 years. I moved, changed jobs, and deleted all social media in that time. I’m also a survivor of SA, as well as assault after being spiked, similar to RG in the show.

It completely baffles me that he would completely replicate his stalker down to physical likeness, occupation, accent, exact correspondences and references like hanging curtains.

He is clearly not too worried about people finding the real person, as well as her potentially contacting him again.

If it were me telling my story, I would change all identifying details of both of us, because I would NEVER want to go through it again. RG telling his story this way is hugely weird to me and really speaks to the theme of mutual obsession he hints at in the show.

You have literally said you would not believe a man as much as a woman. There is the privilege.

Those are chilling stats, but that doesn't excuse trusting another set of victims less so.

And last if listen to Gadd's story he does give instances where he was victim blamed. He did get accused of leading her on.

You clearly haven't ready comments on this post where I have pointed out victim blaming toward Gadd, understandable, I don't take take note of who I'm replying to. But I have advocated for his right to tell his story throughout this thread.

I do not the system make. And trust me, it is absolutely nothing to do with privilege that I wouldn't believe a man over a woman without compelling evident. This is not the place I want to go into personal trauma, but none of it points to privilege.

And again, my opinion doesn't point to female privilege. I don't speak for all women.

A women was recently prosecuted for murdering her partner. Because that man is the member of a sex/gender that is less likely to be killed 2x a week, is his story less believable???

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/apr/26/teacher-admits-murdering-burying-boyfriend-northampton

If the man mentioned in this story had told people he feared for his life would you have believed him as much as a woman??

Choosing who is most trustworthy based purely on their sex/gender is wrong.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/apr/26/teacher-admits-murdering-burying-boyfriend-northampton

Sadly I think your willingness to trust male victim less than a female one is more common than it should be. But to be fair you are honest about it.

I watched this last week and I'm still unsure how I really feel about this, I feel it leaves so many questions., mainly about what is fact and what is fiction.

We know he was sent 41,071 emails over 4 and a half years, 744 tweets, letters totalling 106 pages and 350 hours of voicemail messages. Has anyone calculated the daily ammount ? How much evidence is there of his communication with her still available, do we have those numbers.
Have his texts which were lewd that were supposidly sent by his male friends been corroborated.

Have we had anyones story such as his girlfriends side of things or his friends, people where he worked, anyone come forward to say they saw this woman harrass him during shows. We also don't know the story from his abuser, maybe this will lead to that.

What I'm saying is as another poster pointed out none of this apparently has been to court, we have the RG side of the story, his word and no other.
This feels dangerous to me, it's number one in so many countries now and the real cast are being stalked, I can't see this ending well.

It feels like utter chaos.

Totally depends on the context.

I think Baby Reindeer has become much bigger than Richard Gadd could ever have dreamed. It was a play he wrote and performed in 2019, one hour long. Previously in his comedy he had addressed being subject to sexual assault. I don't think any writer would turn down a Netflix series but he couldn't have expected this scrutiny when he started. So maybe he didn't fully think through what he was setting in motion.

If both contexts were the same. If you heard an abuse story where the victim was named Frank would you judge it differently if it were a victim named Lilly? (All other details the same)

Then no I woudn't judge the story differently, I would judge it the same.

However I don't judge situations based solely on the story given, I also take other things into account when making judgements on situations.

That doesn't mean that people have to behave like the 'perfect victim'. I know that I certainly wasn't a perfect victim! But the signs were there for anyone who had cared to look. And some people definitely knew that the situation wasn't right and I was being controlled long before I understood it properly. (I was 16 when I started)

Fair enough, thanks for agreeing that you would treat male and female victims equally.

I’m wondering why when female victims. Come out and tell their story on TV they have sympathy. Why when a man does the similar is he provoking hai stalker?
I think his story has just as much right to be told, maybe even more so, because too many men suffer in silence..

'Most of the stories I've read about male victims who did eventually come forward often say it took them longer because they felt they'd be more harshly treated.'

Perhaps if, like Gadd, they'd actually followed their 'stalker' home and spied on them, fantasised about them like Gadd did whilst wanking and generally muddied the waters by seeming to if not encourage their 'stalker' then certainly not to discourage them, then they may wonder if their story would indeed be hard to believe?

I've just seen ep 6. His poor me speech at the comedy night. Honestly he was no self awareness and it is incredibly difficult to feel any sympathy for him whatsoever. All that snotty sobbing on stage, Jesus see your gp! get help stop with the public displays of self pity.

Poor reindeer he gets kicked out of his ex's Mum's house and a friend very kindly puts him up but that's no good enough either! Unsurprisingly men in their 20s have parties. Why is his misery everyone elses fault?!

@ExpertInNothing You need to do some reading. Maybe start with "See What You Made Me Do" by Jess Hill.

Yes you are right in that there is less support for male victims of stalking/intimate partner abuse. But that is because violent men take up so much of the resources, wreak so much havoc and end so many women's lives that men, who are statistically less likely to get killed by their partners, are not prioritised. It's not that those victims aren't equally deserving of care, it's that the problem of male violence towards women is so huge .

Women's refuges were set up by women in most cases. Men do need to moblilise and do this for themselves, just like women did.

If his intent was to raise awareness then it has backfired spectacularly. This series will sadly discourage male victims from coming forward. Gadd has weirdly made the situation entertaining and almost amusing. Apart from the violent assault on Teri, which certainly wasn't entertaining.

Why didn't he just block her has anyone asked him in any of the interviews he has done?

I too thought it was an odd choice to make her so identifiable. I agree with pp that he probably had no idea that it would become such a hit. He’s been performing the show about it in public for years anyway and maybe thought it would gain a small cult following of people who had already seen it on stage. Either that or he really believed she’s moved on from her obsession. I must admit I assumed she must have passed away for him to televise the story on such a big platform. Sadly he really seems to have poked the bear. For the male rapist, this is probably quite a good form of revenge as there was obviously no legal comeuppance, they must be absolutely squirming if they are still alive. I wonder if there are other victims out there that will eventually come out. I thought the series was absolutely brilliant and thought provoking. I wouldn’t want to watch it again though.

I’d love to know how much was artistic license to make it more layered and how much is actually how he felt. Her fixing his libido, I mean why would you want your stalker to ever know that !? The slight obsession he developed with her, very bizarre (if true). I can only assume that he became addicted to living in a high stress situation and couldn’t quite find a way back to normality. Which actually I can totally understand.

I think it was sweet, sweet revenge.

Why didn't he just block her

I think that’s very clearly answered in the show and if you can’t work it out then you didn’t understand it.

Well clearly I didn't understand it so do tell.

I mean we know he liked the attention as it boosted his ego and he felt sorry for her but when it got to the stage when she revealed how unstable she was then you block surely?

The police essentially advised him not to block as the emails were evidence.

She knew where he lived and worked and turned up at both regularly. She sat outside his house all night. Blocking wouldn’t have helped.

Exactly. That’s why it’s such a stupid question.

Where the discussion is on what is fact and what is fiction and how much of RG's account can be 'proved': maybe worth mentioning that when you make tv drama based on true stories, even where aspects of it are fictionalised there is a huge amount of scrutiny from the buyer's lawyers (in this case Netflix) and their compliance department. The writer isn't able to just write whatever they want, everything is sourced, backed up and legal decisions made about what can stay, what must be fictionalised etc.

@ExpertInNothing It's repugnant to use the phrase 'female privilege' when discussing violence that predominantly happens to women.

It used to be (not sure if still is) difficult to get quick and cheap HIV testing if you were a woman. All the services were geared to gay / bi men. Would you say that was 'homosexual privilege'? They are the ones that suffer most from something terrible, so have services and charities aimed at them - that is no privilege.

@Janiie

Why didn't he just block her has anyone asked him in any of the interviews he has done?

In the show the police advise him not to and he describes how he became fixated on the emails. He doesnt pretend it's rational. There are scenes where other people see how obsessed he has become and he shows their shock.

Who knows how true that is in really life. Maybe they all went to a hidden folder and he never looked at most of them.

In real life victims do all sorts of things that don't appear rational. It's hard to imagine that anyone wouldn't.
It's pretty much the whole basis of the show. 🤷🏻‍♀️