(Be careful, the article contains spoilers)
It is the series of the moment on Netflix: ‘My stuffed reindeer’, played by Richard Gadd, Jessica Gunning, Nava Mau and Tom Goodman-Hill and based on a true story of abuse experienced by Gadd himself and which he had previously converted into a monologue. Is as one of the popular ‘true crime’ documentaries of the platform, but with some fiction.
‘My stuffed reindeer’, a miniseries of seven episodes of about 35-40 minutes each, is very murky to watch. The protagonist is Donny (Gadd), a Scottish comedian and writer who wants to succeed. One day, Martha (Gunning) enters the pub where he works crying and offers him tea, which serves as the beginning of a disastrous relationship that will lead to harassment and obsession. Maybe it’s a creepier series knowing it’s a true story.
When Gadd met the real-life Martha (pseudonym), he was going through a difficult time professionally. But she values him, she laughs at his jokes, which sometimes Donny/Richard gives her great motivation and feels comfortable with her, in whom he seeks consolation for not being able to succeed as a comedian.
The one is trapped in the other: “It would be unfair to say she was a terrible person and I was a victim,” he told The Guardian, a statement that showed everything was more complicated. And in this, the gender narrative. The stalker was a woman so, although there were times when he felt helpless, he was physically stronger than her.
The figures of real harassment of ‘My stuffed reindeer’
Gadd soon realized Martha’s obsessive nature and tried to get out of it, but couldn’t. He stalked him for four and a half years, invading his life, following him everywhere, showing up at his performances and waiting outside his house. She sent him a total of 41,071 emails, 350 hours of voicemails, 744 tweets, 46 Facebook messages and 106 pages of letters. “The feeling you get most when you’re being harassed is relentless tedium and frustration,” Gadd said.
What happened when Gadd tried to go to the police? First of all, they didn’t understand that he, being a young and fit man, could be threatened by a woman. They trivialized it. But they said that, in any case, they couldn’t take action unless Martha physically attacked him. So Gadd had to meticulously record and filter all of Martha’s messages to point out direct threats: “They were scolding me for harassing the police for being harassed.”Gadd said. But Gadd does not hold the police responsible for these problems, nor for their lack of training or resources.
Clearly this is not a ‘normal’ case of harassment. Although what Gadd experienced was terrifying, he empathizes with Martha, explaining that she is a victim to him, not a villain. “I can’t emphasize enough how much of a victim she is in all of this,” Gadd told The Independent. He criticizes the media’s representation of bullying and stalkers, which has created unfounded images in people’s minds with films like ‘Fatal Attraction’. For Gadd, bullying is a symptom of mental problems and in this sense, she regrets that Martha was never treated for mental health, and instead, she ended up projecting her trauma and pain onto him for more than four years.
What happened to Donny/Richard’s stalker in real life?
In the series, the harassed woman is sentenced to nine months in prison and a five-year restraining order. In real life, Gadd did not want to imprison someone who was mentally ill and, although he cannot say much, he has explained that, two and a half years after the harassment, he obtained a restraining order. Although Martha remains free and, until recently, has continued to harass her family and friends. The good part is that ‘My stuffed reindeer’ seems to have contained it and has not continued with its escalation of actions.
As we have said, this entire story had been narrated by Gadd in his monologue ‘Monkey See Monkey Do, presented in a theater in Edinburgh, in which he walks non-stop on the treadmill to escape his trauma while he recounts these painful events and the consequences they have had for him. It was a show criticized for not being ‘funny’ (obviously), but other outlets such as The Guardian noted in their review that it was “ruthlessly explicit” and “undoubtedly compelling.” Richard Gadd has explained that writing this monologue was therapeutic for him.
‘My stuffed reindeer’ is not a 100% adaptation of the true story, but some aspects have been altered to fit the television format. For example, timelines were reorganized to improve narrative flow. For Gadd, the most important thing was to maintain the emotional truth of the story and the integrity of the characters’ essence. The specific details about the people that he changed were largely to protect them. Even Jessica Gunning, who plays Martha, deliberately refrained from delving too deeply into the real person’s background, as it wouldn’t serve her interpretation. Ultimately, Gadd hopes that ‘My Stuffed Reindeer’ will move people and be a source of comfort to those who have gone through the same experience.
WATCH ‘MY TEDDY REINDEER’ ON NETFLIX
