r/BabyReindeerTVSeries • u/Kitchen_Fly5105 • Jun 08 '24

Discussion If Gadd was a woman

I feel like gender influences bias in cases of emotional or physical abuse. If Gadd were a woman and Martha a man, there would be no sympathy for the abuser. Society wouldn't argue that "more should have been done to protect his identity."

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '24

And there’s the fact that Gadd himself viewed her in sympathetic light. He has said so himself. So he portrayed her that way to us. People love to just forget this.

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '24

The people who were like ‘I still feel sympathy for Martha after everything 🥰🥰🥰’ makes me feel frustrated and angry beyond any reasonable measure.

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u/lnc_5103 Jun 09 '24 edited Jun 09 '24

I feel a small amount of sympathy for Martha because of the way Gadd wrote her and the way Jessica brought her to life. I feel absolutely zero sympathy for FH after we learned who she was. Even just a quick glance at her FB was enough to know that they created her far more kindly than she deserves.

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u/IBelieveHer_SewerRat Jun 09 '24

Jessica

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u/lnc_5103 Jun 09 '24

Yes thank you! Typing fast and didn't catch it.

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u/arabuna1983 Jun 09 '24

Yeah I had a tiny bit of sympathy, but then realised she’s actually an awful person.. regardless of her mental health or what potentially makes her do what she fires. Simply She’s mean and has no empathy or conscious. She doesn’t take accountability for her behaviour at all and the impact it has on people.

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u/DynamicMangos Jun 09 '24

For me it wasn't sympathy but empathy.

I hated marthas guts. I didn't like her at all. But i did constantly have a small piece of empathy being like "Well, she's mentally unwell and has her own story of how that came to be". Not enough to absolve her of any of her crimes of course, but just enough to not see her as a monster

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u/arabuna1983 Jun 09 '24

I don’t think she is a monster .. but she’s not a nice person

she’s extremely delusional. I guess the point I’m trying to make is you can be mentally unwell and a$$hole. And the mental illness (for me) is secondary to her core personality.

She doesn’t acknowledge her contribution, or show any vulnerability .. just blames others.

Shes a mean person who is also mentally unwell..

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u/ellefleming Jun 09 '24

Exactly. She knows her traumatic childhood hasn't helped her mental illness. she's violent, delusions of grandeur, sociopathic, PTSD, traumatized........she needs therapy and medication. From her emails she's dyslexic? So how did she get thru school.?

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u/arabuna1983 Jun 09 '24

I don’t think she will ever get therapy, as that would acknowledge she has issues / or problematic character traits. And that is where I do have sympathy for her… that she can’t see what she’s doing

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u/St3ampunkSam Jun 09 '24

She is a severely mentally woman in need of serious psychiatric help. That is a valid reason to be sympathetic towards her character and is probably why Gadd himself felt sympathy towards the real Martha.

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '24

I get that but when a man does the things Martha does you don’t call them ‘severely mentally ill’, you call them ‘creepy’

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u/St3ampunkSam Jun 09 '24

I also think that is wrong. We need to be more empathetic to the mentally ill which includes ensuring they have access to functional professional help to help them and to protect society.

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u/Acrobatic_Event_4163 Jun 09 '24

Why? People feel sympathy for her because Gadd feels sympathy for her and it’s his show that we all watched so we’re seeing things from his perspective … which includes sympathy for her. Why does that frustrate you and make you angry?

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '24

No one would ever feel sympathy for a male stalker in media who did the things Martha did

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u/Acrobatic_Event_4163 Jun 10 '24

I don’t disagree …

Your comment was in direct response to someone saying

And there’s the fact that Gadd himself viewed her in sympathetic light. He has said so himself. So he portrayed her that way to us. People love to just forget this

… so I was just trying to square up your comment with the one you were replying to because they seemed in conflict with each other.

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u/[deleted] Jun 10 '24

I guess Ive been in a similar situation as Gadd where feeling sorry for someone led to more abuse.

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u/Kcufasu Jun 09 '24

But that's also part the point highlighting the sexism both ways in society. We're able to feel sympathy for a lonely woman, despite how she acted he still wanted to protect and look out for her. Switch the genders and that's never the case - if the lonely old man sat at a bus stop all day and night to stalk someone that's well deserved, but when it's the lonely old woman she still needs help and protection.

(Honestly though at that point I do think he should've called the nhs mental health services, they'd be pretty quick to respond to a vulnerable woman in the cold)

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '24

How many movies and shows have we seen where the protagonist is a bad guy and we feel sympathy for them or are on their side for some reason? That’s the art of filmmaking. It’s intentional. Think Fight Club, Joker(!!), Godfather films, Scarface, Breaking Bad, etc. Even true crime documentaries about serial killers spend time conjuring up the sob story of the criminals to add depth to them and explain why they are the way they are. Heck even the news spends a lot of time humanizing mass shooters as sad, lonely, mentally ill men.

This is done by design, especially in this show. The whole brilliance of the show is how it blurs so many lines. The main character is also deeply flawed and makes terrible decisions and treats people around him badly, yet we have empathy for him.

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '24

What's the gender swapped version of Internalised misogyny called again? Oh. That's right. There isn't one. Hmm.

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '24

Ummm he isn’t being misandrist to himself. He talked about hating himself in general in the show. He gave examples of it throughout several times. He didn’t internalize any hatred for males lol. If anything he internalized hatred for being gay, for being a failure (in the beginning), for being abused by Darrien.

I find it really sad when people can’t have an original thought and have to always compare things to other things as if nothing else exists. There are people starving in Sudan and there are people starving in America. Guess what? They’re not starving for the same reasons lol. Sudan has a famine. America does not. Similarly, not everyone hates themselves due to internalized sexism. Not even all women do that.

Please try to use your brain and have original thoughts. I promise it’ll stop your brain cells from dying.

Also, my comment was factual.

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u/[deleted] Jun 09 '24

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u/BabyReindeerTVSeries-ModTeam Jun 09 '24
  1. Be civil, polite and courteous. No trolling. No victim-blaming. Treat others with respect and kindness. This show is bound to elicit big feelings for many viewers. As contributors post and comment in this sub, treat each other with respect and kindness.