A different kind of stalking story
Nuanced depiction of harrowing ordeal in Baby Reindeer resonates with rare emotional truths
“I had a convicted stalker stalking me. I had a convicted stalker stalking me. I had a convicted stalker stalking ... me.”
An admission that turns from fear to fascination sets the stage for Baby Reindeer, Netflix's darkly comedic psychological thriller based on the experiences of its writer, creator and star, Richard Gadd.
The seven-episode series follows Donny (Gadd), a struggling comedian who lives with his ex-girlfriend's mom and works a dead-end job at a London pub. His life takes a chilling turn when he befriends Martha (Jessica Gunning), a mentally ill woman whose dangerous obsession with him manifests through harassment, assault and a relentless stream of lewd, typo-ridden emails.
Baby Reindeer has triggered online buzz — Stephen King called it “one of the best things I've ever seen” — and hit the top of Netflix's Top 10 list shortly after its April 11 première, with 22 million views in its third week.
Many have praised Baby Reindeer for its nuanced portrayal of harassment and sexual abuse that asks viewers to pay attention to emotional truths, not the creator's biography.
Over three years, according to Gadd, a woman sent him more than 40,000 emails, 350 hours of voicemail, 744 tweets, 46 Facebook messages across four fake accounts and 106 pages of letters. She allegedly stalked him outside of his home, his workplace and during his shows at comedy clubs, and harassed his parents and a trans woman he was dating.
The experience gave way to Baby Reindeer, which began as a hit oneman theatre show in London. Both the stage and TV versions explore how sexual assault can perpetuate a cycle of abuse. While Martha is the aggressor, the show gradually peels back layers of Donny's personality, revealing his own mental health issues that arguably enable Martha's behaviour.
“Self-blame is a natural byproduct of getting harassed, stalked, abused,” Gadd said in a 2019 interview with the Independent. “Because what's happening to you is fundamentally irrational.”
Gadd's real-life comedy career dates back to 2013, when the Scottish writer began performing shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland. The festival embraced his weird and subversive brand of comedy, Gadd, 34, said in a recent interview with the Guardian.
His gripping standup show Monkey See Monkey Do set a new trajectory for his career. The performance recounted his experience of sexual assault by a successful TV writer who had preyed on Gadd's ambitions. The performance was a triumph, winning the Edinburgh Comedy Award — and emboldening Gadd's real-life stalker, he said, who began harassing him a year earlier.
“I really wanted to show the layers of stalking with a human quality I hadn't seen on television before,” Gadd said. The series “shows the messier side of stalking, the side that isn't necessarily black and white.”
Jeffrey Ingold, a freelance journalist who served as an LGBTQ+ consultant for the show, praised Baby Reindeer for not shying away from harrowing and complicated depictions of grooming and rape.
“Since it aired, I've been inundated with messages from gay and bi men telling me how hard they found it to watch,” Ingold wrote in a recent op-ed. “Rarely has a show portrayed a male victim of sexual assault with such grit and realism.”
Baby Reindeer takes some liberties. Gadd said his stalking experience is real, as is the sexual abuse he experienced from his mentor, as is his romantic relationship with a trans woman. But some details are fictionalized.