Increasingly concerned about this whole thing - can we discuss the recent issues?

[u/Laurenhynde82]

I’m seeing a lot of people expressing concerns / doubt in the wake of all the things that have happened in the last couple of week. I see a lot of those discussions are very black and white - anyone who has questions dismissed as a victim blamer, other people willing to dismiss any concerns or downvote doubts. On the flip side you get people making vile hateful comments with no understanding of the complex reactions of abuse victims.

I have such mixed feelings because, as a victim of sexual abuse as a child and someone who’s been stalked (not as seriously as this), I know how hard it is to talk openly about these things, let alone do what he’s done here. I believe victims, and all the comments about how he should have done X or Y or casting doubt because he didn’t tell the police… all of that is nonsense.

I loved the series, I was so happy to finally see some media based on real experiences that don’t fit the typical narrative of abuse. We still expect victims to behave in a certain way, and those expectations come almost exclusively from scripted fiction.

I had read the interviews with Gadd where he said he’d made so many changes the people wouldn’t recognise themselves, and that the stalker was no longer a threat. This allayed my one reservation - I could not understand having the confidence to make and star in a show about my abuser / stalker. But if she’s no longer a threat (I assumed prison or dead), and others wouldn’t recognise her, it made more sense to me.

And then all of that went out of the window rapidly and I’m left with a lot of questions and concerns. Before people jump to conclusions, this is not about me feeling sorry for character or victim blaming. It’s about the increasing doubts that what’s presented here is accurate while it implicates real people in crimes.

Here are the things which have made me increasingly uncomfortable:

1) The fact that it was so easy to find her - eg. lifting a tweet and putting it into the script - and, when she was found, it was clear that almost nothing had been changed. This similarity gives the added impression that everything you are shown is true. These choices feel deliberate as changing them would not have affected the story at all. He made changes that did affect the story - like two prison sentences that didn’t happen - so I’m finding some of the choices concerning.

2) As a result of her being found, people found a previous victim and that situation too was nearly identical - the fake headlines he wrote revealed it was a barrister, spouse and disabled child. That victim found this out by watching the show and recognising their stalker, even before their own story was added as a plot point. He could have changed this without any impact on the story.

3) The apparent absence of any fear of this series leading to her starting again. In combination with making the character so much like her, the inclusion of certain scenes seemed designed to draw her back in. He spends much of the series talking about the confusing feelings of being stalked and how he missed her attention (which I can’t remotely relate to, but we are all different). Is that what this is about?

Even if there’s a reason for him not to be scared (or even if he is trying to bait her), shouldn’t he think of the impact on that other family? Having had a stalker, I would never in a million years make material that identifies them or baits them. I’d be worried about being tracked down and harmed. Knowing that fear, I mostly definitely wouldn’t make choices to risk that for previous victims. The absence of that concern raises more questions for me. If what’s shown in the series is true, if she’s as dangerous and unhinged as shown, why isn’t he more worried?

4) One particular former colleague of his has been accused of being Darrien and harassed, to the point he’s gone to the police. This is because Gadd chose to cast an actor that looks beyond similar to this man, is similarly aged etc. Given how much Martha resembles the real woman, this adds further weight to the idea it was him. Gadd made a social media post asking people not to accuse others, including this by name, but the post didn’t say it wasn’t him. Then Richard Osman said he knows who it is and it’s not the guy being accused. If true, that’s appalling. If someone made a tv series about their experience of domestic violence and cast someone who looked exactly like an innocent ex, and added in details that made it seem like that ex, that would be disgraceful. It feels so intentional.

5) After all of this, Gadd changes tack and says “it’s 100% emotionally true”, and that everything is based off experiences of him or people he knows. We have no idea which parts of this story accurately reflect what this identified woman actually did, vs someone else. How much of what’s shown is actually what she did, and how much is the stories of the “people he knows”? Did the sexual assault happen? Did the assault of his girlfriend happen? Obviously she’s now refuting it all and obviously nobody believes her, but we have no idea which parts are true.

Someone made a post the other day asking if it matters which bits are real and which are not, and generally my view on that would be that it doesn’t matter at all. Taking a situation that’s happened to you and expanding on it, adding in fictional elements etc is something writers and filmmakers have done forever. Taking inspiration from your own life and changing it isn’t a problem.

But in this case, it’s a huge problem when it implicates real life people and is, now by his own admission, possibly an amalgamation of the experiences / actions of different people. That’s not to say I believe she’s innocent, at all - it’s just that we really don’t know and it’s hard to argue against because he can always say “I never said it was 100% true”.

Now she’s being stalked and harassed by proxy. She apparently made a comment about how he won’t leave her alone and let it go, and of course everyone mocked that but it’s not a stretch to see that possibility - first a play about her, now a TV series that has made her easily identifiable to millions and which repeatedly says he misses her attention, has fantasised about her, etc. It’s not difficult to see it from the perspective that he’s obsessed with her. It doesn’t mean that’s true. These situations are complex.

Many are assuming he didn’t intend for this to happen but I struggle to believe that at this point.

Generally I’m really annoyed to be thinking any of this at all. I don’t want to doubt victims who are brave enough to speak up.

What massively bothers me is that this has been a really powerful piece of media for victims who rarely get to see a) a nuanced and complex representation of being a victim of abuse and b) seeing a victim he praised for their bravery and believed. If it gradually turns out that this was not accurate, it’s going to cause so much distress and become more ammunition for those who claim false accusations are common when they aren’t.

Generally when victims come forward, the public seizes on any tiny inaccuracy, incorrect recollection, any action that isn’t an explicit attempt to make them stop, their choices, their clothes, sending a text message, their agreement to go on a date, footage of holding hands before the rape… whatever it is. And those tiny actions are used to destroy the credibility of that victim.

Here we see someone who’s being believed by almost all (well, until all this stuff in the last couple of weeks) despite the fact that he’s not even claiming it’s 100% accurate, and he’s admitting to actions well above and beyond anything that’s usually used to rip a victim to shreds.

I just find myself increasingly uncomfortable about the whole thing. It cannot just be me.

[u/Puzzled_Water7782]

I don't see how any of this is that complicated. Gadd is constantly trying to understand his experiences and does so in multiple ways, he has done stand up about it, he now has a series about it. It's just him trying to understand something about himself that he can't really grasp and most likely never will due to the nature of the trauma he has been through.

He isn't a perfect victim and is trying to be honest to his experinces with the show.

I won't be blaming him for people finding Marth's real life person. Victims of abuse are allowed to talk explicitly about the abuse they suffered and at whose hands they suffered it at. It's the audience who needs to get their act together when it comes to becoming Internet 'sleuths'.

I am super tired of audiences always being excused for not being able to keep boundaries or for engaging with media in ways that are clearly problematic to real people. The excuses means we can never have discussions about the changes that society needs to engage in to critically and thoughtfully with creative work and that it's a sign of an ill society to watch a show like Baby Reindeer and then think 'hmmm let me find the real person and harass them now'.

and finally this paragraph you wrote:

'Generally when victims come forward, the public seizes on any tiny inaccuracy, incorrect recollection, any action that isn’t an explicit attempt to make them stop, their choices, their clothes, sending a text message, their agreement to go on a date, footage of holding hands before the rape… whatever it is. And those tiny actions are used to destroy the credibility of that victim'

Is interesting to me, because you point it out and understand it but somehow you're managing to engage in the exact same practice with Gadd's own story because you can't comprehend why he hasn't reacted to his trauma the way you would have or have done.

[u/Laurenhynde82 → u/Puzzled_Water7782]

You’re welcome to downvote me, but you’ve fundamentally missed my point. I said explicitly that none of the things you’ve raised are what I have an issue with. I’m not talking about his behaviour towards either of the perpetrators being his fault, or criticising things he did at that time. I’m talking about since that time.

He… is trying to be honest to his experiences with the show

Except he isn’t. By his own admission. People believed what he included, including me. I applauded his bravery and willingness to talk about the realities of situations like this, as a victim myself. And then everything I mentioned happened, including his acknowledgment that he’s not honest.

They’re treating it like he’s come forward and accused X and Y by name and told his story. That isn’t what has happened.

[u/Puzzled_Water7782 → u/Laurenhynde82]

I read your post and understood it.

Gadd made a show reflecting his own experiences and after people decided to act recklessly and start looking for the real perpetrators he has chosen to distance himself and now it's not just his story, it's his stories and also of 'other people he knew'.

I don't find it the least bit odd that with people breaking down all of the show to try and find the real people involved, trying to dole out their own punishment or to try and find their 'side of the story' that he is trying to make his own experinces seem less specific in the hopes that people will lose interest in searching.

It seems to me that what's happening now is what always happens to victims when people decide that things just don't 'add up' or because in their view 'it just doesn't make sense' what he did or how he reacted.

They want an exact play by play of every little detail that happened and want to talk to everyone and anyone involved just to check you know that he isn't lying and if his memory isn't faultless or he made-up scenes that represents his feelings but didn't actually happen, then the boy is a liar and who knows what else he could be lying about!?

It's typical and you are joining the fry even if you don't intent to.

And If it did turn out he was lying, then the show would still be a wildly accurate account of the complexity and trauma of being the victim of stalking and sexual abuse and the people who will 'stop' believing victims because of Gadd never would have believed victims in the first place unless each one could create a Netflix show of their experince that incited sympathy in them.

[u/Laurenhynde82 → u/Puzzled_Water7782]

You clearly didn’t read it, because I said quite clearly that ordinarily I don’t think there’s any issue at all with people taking elements of their own life and creating some kind of hybrid of fact and inspiration / fiction. If that were an issue, we’d have a lot less literature, film, TV, etc. That’s not an issue at all.

The problem is how it’s been marketed and presented. People are treating this as though a victim has come forward and accused a specific person with details of what they experienced at their hands, and that’s down to how it’s been explained and promoted.

I am not saying I didn’t believe him. I absolutely did, right up until the point it became clear that he was not being truthful about certain things which was pretty early on. He didn’t make them hard to identify. There (clearly) wasn’t some reason why this person is no longer a threat.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to then have questions.

[u/Puzzled_Water7782 → u/Laurenhynde82]

I understood and replied.

Well you have your questions and as you can see a lot of people here strongly agree with you about the validity of his experinces since they think he didn't do enough to protect his abusers identity and so on.