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.

It's worth reading some of the interviews Richard Gadd did when he first produced Baby Reindeer as a stage show. He repeatedly says that he sees his stalker as a victim too and he always admits how he did and said the wrong things. He admits that he encouraged her at the beginning. It doesn't mean he wasn't stalked or that he deserved what happened to him.

Yes his girlfriend's mother was lovely, as was his ex.
I couldn't quite believe he stayed on in her house after they broke up, and the MN label cocklodger definitely occurred to me.
My sympathy for him grew after episode four, before that I couldn't believe how anyone could be so wet. He may well be caught up in drama but there's a lot of research (admittedly I've done most of mine via the Holistic Psychologist on Instagram) that shows people do find it impossible to function normally after a traumatic experience and some of his freezing/fauning responses show that clearly - the rape scenes show how carefully he was groomed by the theatre director, it was a seriously disturbing relationship and makes me think that male on male abuse is our next #metoo.

Do you understand why that poster said that?

It’s because domestic abuse against women is so common and one of the most common tactics of abusers is to a. To convince the victim they are the abuser and b. To counter claim abuse if the victim dare report it to police - to disrupt the investigation.

So to answer your really stupid question from last night: would I believe a male and female victim equally - it depends entirely on the context. If someone confided in me personally - I would believe male and female equally. If it’s a bloke standing next to a bruised woman claiming he’s the victim then sorry, no.

'He had a huge array of options available to him that (for example) a person stuck living with their abuser does not have. At any time he could’ve given up that pub job (he didn’t like it anyway and since when is there a lack of hospitality jobs in London), moved house (seemed to do this pretty quickly when the landlady kicked him out), deleted his email address and blocked her on all social media.'

Exactly why didn't he help himself. No ties to a mortgage or a demanding job. Just rent somewhere else, work in any of the thousands of pubs and stop engaging with unhinged people.

I'll have to watch the last episode to see if he does ever develop some resilience and life skills or does it end with him staring forlornly into the camera, sobbing and blaming everyone else 🙄.

@Janiie
I'll have to watch the last episode to see if he does ever develop some resilience and life skills or does it end with him staring forlornly into the camera, sobbing and blaming everyone else

He literally does blame himself for a lot of his behaviour. He does on the show and he does in interviews. He says he doesn't like how he behaved.
That's why it's such an interesting show.

Oh yes sorry it is full of self pity but also subtly blaming others. A grown man completely unable to handle himself by at least changing pub jobs and yes it is great he finally found his balls and reported her but why not the assault on Teri? Why the sobfest at the God awful comedy show?

He seems to thrive on dysfunction and drama. I can only hope the last ep shows his awakening where he seeks professional help to develop some life skills. Mind, I saw him on lorraine and it all seemed a bit of a snigger fest about Martha tbh so I won't hold my breath.

the very phrase 'female privilege' is men's rights activist propaganda - it happens in such a minute proportion of instances of privilege, and those generarlly are of such superficial nature. This use of this expression is intended to disseminate the idea that there is equivalence between the male and female versions, and is misogynist.

We should treat it in the same way we'd treat 'black privilege'.

Agree @WinterDeWinter it's a ridiculous phrase. Think old matey has wandered off from his Andrew Tate videos to pester women on MN. Best to ignore the derailing and MRA drivel.

I think the show's function as art is in tension with its function as a politics of mental health.

The art requires there to be no happy ending and no perfect victims.

The politics - which this inevitably is, both because of him 'as a real person' talking about it in retrospect, and the real life impacts of the series on 'Martha', and because the series itself is 'talking about men not talking about abuse' - thinks it wants no happy endings and no perfect victims. But in fact politics can't really cope with nuance. Within current outwardly 'progressive' but actually simplistic and puritanical social values, it makes us actively uncomfortable. We can't parse it.

I don't think this is a failure on his part - I think it's a really interesting tension and one of the key reasons so many of us have found it compelling and troubling and keep coming back to the thread.

But I think it does allow him personally not to confront the most difficult aspects of his own personality and behaviour, because he can slip between the three modes - 'truth', art and politics/activism - whenever things get too troubling. He is never required to pin himself down.

@WinterDeWinter
You're right.
I'm annoyed that I even responded because that nonsense doesn't even deserve a response 🙈

@wi

@WinterDeWinter
He is never required to pin himself down.

Guess that's the advantage of writing and starring in your own show. Why and who would be responsible for 'requiring' him to do anything.

No one was required to watch!

you've taken that a bit literally - i meant 'make sense within the conventional logic of each form (true story or art, or politics)

So for example, it's a true story, until it's not, it's just 'emotionally true' (ie art). 'She's as much of a victim as I am' (politics) but inevitably and predictably, people are hunting down the baddie (true story).

I think it's useful for him to be able to switch registers, both when it comes to the moral risks to himself and others of making the thing in the first place, and when it comes to questions of his own complicity in the events themselves.

(Again, not victim-blaming - trauma can create a response which might look like complicity).

Absolutely.

Female privilege hard to ignore when some people literally here say they would not trust a male victim as much as a female. This entire conversation has been about whether an abuse victim is allowed to call out their abuser and some don't like it when the victim is a he.

Gadd has did a wonderful job of not only telling his own story but also forcing others to reflect on their own biases and prejudice.

He deserves all the acclaim he is getting.

So I will say it again, if you are more critical of Gadd than you would be a women, you are proving female privilege.

Yeah because saying male victims should be treated with the same sympathy as female ones is so problematic.............but your proving my point so thanks 😀

This is why Gadd deserves so much credit.

'He deserves all the acclaim he is getting'

I haven't seen much acclaim tbh. Yes the series is well made but it has thrown 'Martha' into the spotlight without her consent. A clearly unstable, volatile person and why would he do that?? Even quoting her actual tweets so she is highly indentifiable.

A massive act of self harm or a pity party. Who knows.

OK, Richard 👌🏻

We seem to have an MRA amongst us.

I mean he wrote a very popular Netflix show that's one of the most viewed at the moment. He's did well.

Critical of him because he wanked whilst fantasising about her. Critical of him because he followed her and spied on his 'stalker'. Not sure how many women with their 'privilege' would do either.

The inconsistencies in his story telling are massive.

One of the most viewed probably for all the wrong reasons.

Yes because thinking that we should listen to abuse victims is problematic.

It isn't quite that simple now is it?