Healing? Harmful? Or Something In-Between?
The Complex Nature of True Crime
Since I started FRAMED after watching Baby Reindeer, before moving on to other topics, I wanted to use the series as an example of the complexity of true crime as a form of entertainment.
Either/Or
We like things that can be easily categorized. People are good or bad; innocent or blameworthy; a victim or an offender. These types of classifications make the world easy to navigate.
Crime stories give us that satisfaction. There are “bad guys” and “good guys,” with the latter repeatedly triumphing. On occasion, there is a deviation in which an antihero or a morally ambiguous story is presented. The audience might cheer for a “bad guy” or be left with an uneasy feeling from not knowing how to distinguish the good from the bad. To me, these are some of the most interesting crime stories; they are thought-provoking and reflect the complexity of the world.
When discussing crime as entertainment, there is also a call to classify it as “either/or.” Is it good/harmless or bad/damaging? Do crime stories teach us about acceptable behavior? Or do they encourage us to commit crime, even going as far as giving us the recipe to carry out the perfect act? Or, is it possible for crime stories to be both simultaneously?
When I immersed myself into true crime and its community to write Fear, Justice, and Modern True Crime, a confluence of opposing influences immediately surfaced. On one hand, true crime has the ability to help find answers in unsolved cases and to teach people how to protect themselves should their lives be in danger. On the other hand, it requires those who are part of the story to relive painful events and, for some, it creates such extreme fear and paranoia that they will never feel safe.
One of the contributions of modern true crime is that it has provided a venue for the underrepresented to have a voice. Someone who has been harmed by crime can control the narrative, giving them the power to tell their own story. In and of itself, however, this does not automatically warrant a classification as it being something good. A narrative meant to heal can also be harming.
Richard Gadd’s Baby Reindeer is the epitome of controlling the narrative. In his case, he chose to write about the entire “messy, complicated situation.” In doing so, he brought to light the actions of those who harmed him, while grappling with his own choices. Reflecting on the original stage production, Gadd shared:
All I ever wanted to do was capture something complicated about the human condition. That we all make mistakes. That no person is ever good or bad. That we are all lost souls looking for love in our own weird way.
By setting these parameters and rejecting the “either/or,” he was able to weave a complex story in which many of the primary characters are not easily classifiable. And, in the end, neither is the impact of the narrative.
The Duality of Victim Narratives
There are many different approaches Gadd could have taken when sharing his story. What he was not interested in was “writing a victim narrative.” Therein lies the power of controlling the narrative—Gadd could make it into whatever he wanted it to be.
True crime often focuses on the person who has committed the crime. The audience wants to know why someone would harm others. Victims are represented but are secondary to the story of the offender; unless the tale focuses on an unsolved murder or missing person. When this shift takes place, there are two commonly employed narratives—the victim is either shown in an ideal light or painted as blameworthy.
“Ideal victim” is a term coined by Nils Christie in the 1980s. It represents a person that everyone unequivocally agrees is a victim. They are innocent, so we think “something bad happened to a good person,” making it easy to be sympathetic. This narrative, however, is not available to everyone. It is often reserved for pretty, white women and girls, as exemplified by the media’s fixation when they go missing.
When a victim does not fit this classification, they are glossed over or a victim-blaming narrative is employed. In the latter, their life is put under a microscope with the intent of identifying what they did to cause their misfortune. For us to feel safe, we need to be reassured that they did something to cause it. Was their clothing too risqué? Did they have sex with too many people? Use drugs? Drink too much? Etc…
With these two options, it is easy to understand why Gadd did not want to write a victim narrative. If he painted his character as an ideal victim, we would call him an unreliable narrator. On the other hand, if he told a story in which his character takes full responsibility for being harmed, we would not have a sympathetic response. In either instance, the audience would likely disengage and find something else to watch.
Blurring the Lines
By choosing not to write a victim narrative, Gadd was able to embrace the complexity of the situation and blur the line between the harmed and those inflicting harm.
Gadd uses his narrative to question his character’s behavior, which in this case is not victim blaming. Instead, it is representative of the inner-dialogue many people who have been victimized experience. Gadd shows viewers what drove his character back to Darrien’s flat night-after-night. The quest to understand Martha’s stalking required deeper excavation. As viewers listen to the inner dialogue of Gadd’s character, we hear him question whether he made a mistake being nice to a stranger. He acknowledges that at times the unwanted attention gave him something he needed. Simultaneously, he recognizes Martha’s mental health issues and overall brokenness, the latter of which he sees in himself.
In the end, Gadd told his story in his way as part of his healing process. In doing so he risked a further blurring of the lines—that the narrative he wrote to deal with the harm that was done to him would in turn damage others. He states that he recognized this possibility. Referring to his one-man stage production, Gadd admitted to being nervous about how people would receive it, commenting:
I imagined picket lines outside the venue forcing me to shut down. Telling me that what I was doing was wrong. That she didn’t have a voice. That I was the real perpetrator of harm and she the victim.
In an effort to mitigate the negative impact of the Netflix version of his narrative, Gadd stated that he set out to capture the energy of the situation and to develop the characters in such a way as they should not be able to recognize themselves (of course, only those involved know how far from reality he stepped in the creation of this “true” story). When it quickly became a hit, Gadd reminded viewers that to be concerned with the real identity of those involved meant that they missed the point of the story, pleading for them to leave the matter alone.
Ripple Effects
With any narrative, the creator cannot control how people who engage with it will respond. Ultimately, despite Gadd’s wish that the audience not pry into the real identities of those involved, cloaking parts of the truth set the quest for answers in motion.
Modern media culture, and the phase of true crime that has developed within it, has resulted in a level of engagement and entitlement that has never before been experienced. Many expect that a “true” story will not leave any unanswered questions (e.g., was the real Martha punished?). If left hanging, they have learned that they can use their web-sleuthing skills to try to find the answers. Writing about Baby Reindeer, Kirsten Fleming called this a “modern dilemma,” asking “what happens when a show about a stalker unleashes a whole army of online stalkers?”
In the end, like a lot of crime-related entertainment, the impact of Baby Reindeer defies an “either/or” label. It might be healing for Gadd, as well as for some of the audience. For others, who have their own unresolved trauma or are a part of the real story, it can be harmful. For many, however, it is probably a small nugget in their most recent crime-show binge, slipping into their subconscious as they find another program to watch.