I know I’m a little late to the conversation, but I want to talk a bit about Netflix’s latest hit series, Baby Reindeer. I have a feeling quite a few of you have seen it since Netflix is the most popular streaming service by far. The show is a dramatization of a stalking experience that the creator and star, Richard Gadd, went through. What I like about it is that first, that it’s not a stereotypical depiction of stalking: Donny (Gadd’s fictionalized self) makes some pretty terrible decisions along the way that enable Martha (his stalker) to continue pursuing him. Second, the show gradually reveals itself to be about much more than stalking. It’s really about how trauma fucks with us psychologically and leads us to make bad decisions. The show is a hard watch in a lot of ways (major trigger warning for sexual assault in ep 4), but I think it’s doing something novel by displaying Donny’s own complicity in the stalking. The story has been written about from many angles - including the way it takes on Gadd’s queerness and relationship with a trans woman - but it’s the casting of a fat actress (Jessica Gunning) as Martha that I want to talk about.
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