Baby Reindeer and Its Poor Portrayal of Transwomen
I like many of you out there finished up the relatively new Netflix series, Baby Reindeer which is based on a true story about a struggling comedian played by Richard Gadd who plays the character of Donny Dunn who is ultimately stalked for a period of time over a couple of years. Collectively thousands of calls / texts and voicemails were made to him by his stalker named Martha Scott played by Jessica Gunning until some of the voicemails become threatening enough deemed by the police to arrest Martha. You can easily find a more detailed description in some of the articles here on Medium or even Netflix itself.
Now I won’t lie to you, the limited series is well written and hits hard at a lot of core issues. That’s why it resonates with so many people as the acting is superb. It is absolutely fantastic and you can binge it in just over three (3) hours which I encourage you all to watch so you will be in the “social” know at your next BBQ or outing.
Now during the course of the series, Donny starts to date a transwoman early on. I do not want to give away too much by way of spoilers but at some point for some reason Donny randomly joins a trans dating app which is how he met the transwoman. In further scouring the web as to why he seemingly randomly joined the app, there is no definitive answer why he joins but I will dig into this later on below offering up some explanations.
NB: I can’t really go any further without giving out some sort of spoilers as generic as they are in nature so if you haven’t seen the series and want to, turn back now. If you don’t care and don’t plan on watching it, I’ve left a lot out to still make the series enjoyable but to make my point I have to divulge certain key pieces of information. Onwards and upwards!
So Donny sets up his profile with a fake name and fake occupation but uses his real picture on there. Eventually he is matched up with and goes on a date with a transwoman named Teri (who is also a transwoman in real life named Nava Mau who has starred in various other projects). He really hit the dating lottery with her as she is just like any other woman…gorgeous, smart, funny…has a good job (as a therapist) and is easy going.
Some people have argued that they love the trans representation in the series. Any trans representation is better than none right? I disagree in this instance. Everyone applauds Nava Mau’s performance (which she is phenomenal btw) in it and for portraying such a down to earth transwoman showing that they can live normal lives too and date and be successful. But to me, I see it as “Yeah she is just living her life like any other woman would, why praise her for her the normalcy…every woman is entitled to that…oh it’s because she’s trans, right?”
So Donny and Teri have this on again and off again relationship while navigating Martha in his life in the series. Which brings me back to my initial question above, why join a trans dating app seemingly out of the blue? Well Donny experiences some very serious sexual trauma by way of that he was raped with the date rape drug, GHB, by a man who befriends him and promises to advance his career which he deeply regrets and ultimately leaves him sexually confused (this was a separate incident and has nothing to do with the dating app). So one theory that has been floated is that he is just exploring who he is by way of the trans dating app. I don’t buy it.
I don’t buy it because people have labeled Donny as transphobic. While there is certainly more than enough evidence to support that conclusion including an incident involving Martha where she confronts Teri in a pub while Donny and her are there. Teri tells Donny to simply tell Martha that they are on a date and she needs to get lost. This triggers Martha and she attacks Teri and once the two are pulled apart Martha calls her a man. LITERALLY the worst thing a person can say to a transwoman or transman for that matter.
He then takes the time to berate Martha all the while not checking on Teri who was just attacked fairly violently. Martha leaves but then Donny rushed Teri out of there almost embarrassed by all the attention that was being brought to him (and Teri). Also you would think you are dating this amazing woman, the first thing out of your mouth should be “You are absolutely gorgeous! Nope, doesn’t happen.
As horrible as that entire incident was, it’s worse than that. Based on my initial impression while watching it, Donny basically uses Teri throughout the series. He gets kicked out of his living situation so he goes to Teri. He feels lonely so he just shows up randomly at her place to apologize. He even acknowledged in an episode later on that he can never love Teri, he could never be with her because he’s a damaged individual. It just feels so degrading that he has used her seemingly like an experiment to figure out who he is.
This is the part where all the social media ranting and raving about trans representation fail to shed any light on. Teri is living this seemingly perfect life but let’s just forget how much of a piece of shit Donny is for using her. I guess if you want real life, that happens unfortunately all the time where a transwoman will get used like that…unknowingly fetishized.
This is why I completely agree that there needs to be more trans visibility/representation in Hollywood, but we can’t forget to talk about the negative side of things. We cannot simply just jump to conclusions and focus on all the positives without also acknowledging the negatives. So what do you think about the series and overall how Teri is portrayed? Definitely open to any and all viewpoints!
All the Best!
