The Meaning Of Netflix's Baby Reindeer Title Is Just The Start Of The Trauma

This article contains spoilers for "Baby Reindeer."

The Netflix series "Baby Reindeer" is based on the award-winning one-man show written and performed by comedian Richard Gadd, who wrote the piece based on his own experiences with having been stalked. Since the show's debut on April 11, 2024, "Baby Reindeer" has stayed on the Netflix most-watched charts, becoming the obsession of viewers across the globe. Gadd stars as Donny Dunn, a fictionalized version of himself, meaning he is re-enacting his trauma for the world to see in every episode. Donny is stalked by a woman named Martha Scott, brought to life in a phenomenal, star-making performance by Jessica Gunning. Gadd's story is very real, but in the interest of protecting Martha's identity, as well as the identities of everyone else featured in the series inspired by real people, names and events were altered with Gadd's creative licensing.

But that hasn't stopped folks from treating "Baby Reindeer" like a mystery to be solved, instead of an examination of the cycle of abuse, trauma, and assault. The series is honest and human in a way that shows handling such serious topics are rarely afforded, and Gadd's willingness to showcase himself as an imperfect victim (and an emotionally unregulated disaster) breathes an authenticity into the material that will surely earn some Best Limited Series nominations come awards season. But why "Baby Reindeer?" Of all of the themes throughout the series, why is this the title Gadd chose for his autobiographical retelling? To explain the title, it's important to understand his stalker on a more personal level.

Benjamin King, Netflix's Senior Director of Public Policy in the U.K. and Ireland, discussed the show in specifics during a hearing with the Parliament's Culture, Media and Sport Committee. "'Baby Reindeer' is an extraordinary story, and it is obviously a true story of the horrific abuse that the writer and protagonist, Richard Gadd, suffered at the hands of a convicted stalker," King said. "We did take every reasonable precaution in disguising the real-life identities of the people involved in that story in the making of the show while also striking a balance of veracity and authenticity of Richard's story because we didn't want to anonymize that or make it generic to the point where it was no longer his story because that would undermine the intent behind the show." Unfortunately, that didn't stop online sleuths from disrespecting the boundaries Gadd very explicitly laid out in the show by trying to uncover the identity of the woman who inspired "Martha." It appears that the internet did, in fact, find her, with Great Britain's resident feckless broadcasting ghoul, Piers Morgan, going so far as to interview the woman on live television.

Don't get it twisted: the decision to profile this woman instead of help her is nothing more than the exploitation of a deeply unwell person and a ghastly abuse of broadcast power. One of the major themes Gadd included in "Baby Reindeer" was that Martha was just as much of a victim of the system as he was and that a lack of support for her very clear mental illness was a contributing factor to the harm she committed against him. And yet the general public and mainstream media's response has been to put a spotlight on her for our sick entertainment. Media literacy is dead, and shame is buried right next to it.

Throughout the series, Martha calls Donny "baby reindeer," an affectionate pet name she gives him without seemingly any real motivation. The real Martha likely had a different name for him, but there is a sentimental motivation behind the name. In the show's final episode, Donny finds a voicemail filed away in his "Not Listened To" folder, where Martha finally lets Donny know why she's given him this nickname. He had been going through the thousands of messages, emails, and voicemails trying to better understand Martha, and this moment is where it finally clicked. Martha tells him that, as a child, she had a "wee cuddly toy" reindeer that she used to cope with her parents' constant fighting. The toy was given to her one Christmas, and she still has the toy even now as an adult.

"I'd hug it when they fought," Martha says in the voicemail. "And they fought a lot, you know? Well, you are the spit of that reindeer. The same nose. Same eyes. Same cute wee bum. It means so much to me. You, You mean so much to me." Donny listens to the voicemail while waiting for a drink at the pub, and it brings him to tears. Martha wasn't malicious, she was a woman dealing with a lot of pain who fixated on Donny's similar appearance to the toy to cope. She projected the comfort her toy brought her onto him, and her unhealthy fixation turned into a dangerous obsession. The name "baby reindeer" is the earliest disclosure of Martha's unchecked trauma that started a domino effect of harming others.

"Baby Reindeer" is available to stream on Netflix.