011: When art imitates life…
What are the ethics of telling a fictionalised version of a story — even if it's 'yours' to tell?
The truth is apparently stranger than fiction, so it’s natural that fiction takes the ultimate license with reality…
We started this newsletter so we wouldn’t get caught up in the trap of talking about what everyone else is talking about — but there’s something at the heart of the Baby Reindeer saga that’s made us think about something much bigger than the show itself. How do we navigate the ethics of a person’s right to tell their own story in the context of… a frankly rabid, sleuthing-obsessed internet?
If you haven’t seen the show (and you definitely don’t need to have seen it to follow this conversation) here’s your primer: Richard Gadd’s Netflix series about his complicated relationship with his real life stalker sparked a real-life scandal when the stalker was allegedly identified by internet sleuths. Fiona Harvey is now doing the media rounds, and suing Netflix for defamation. The series also portrayed Harvey as having gone to gaol for stalking — which Harvey denies, along with much of the rest of the way she was represented in the show.
We’ve both seen it (we respected, if not enjoyed… it’s pretty tough viewing) but we found it a great springboard to talk about so much else: the ubiquity of the “internet sleuth”; where you draw the line between amateur detective and stalker; our cultural obsession with “true” stories; the irony that we have qualms about fictionalising real people, but love nothing more than theorising online about other peoples’ private lives…
Let’s dive in.
What’s been on our minds this past fortnight…
Diana: My question is this: why did Richard Gadd have to say that his show was a true story? I checked the title cards — not even “based on”... he says “This is a true story.” To my mind, this whole thing would have been so much easier if he’d billed it as fiction. People write about real things that have happened to them all the time, and then call it fiction. I think I May Destroy you is a particularly relevant comparison title here. That show was also about its writer/star’s real-life experience of sexual abuse, but it was sold as fiction. And its creator, Michaela Coel, has since spoken publicly about the fact that it was based on personal experiences.
Divya: I agree, I think so much of the controversy could have been avoided. Netflix apparently pushed him to say it was a “true story”. I guess you get cache and profit from branding something ‘true’. People just… care more.
Diana: It’s like how memoirs sell really well at the moment.
Divya: Especially when the subject matter is traumatic. I guess we only want to hear about hardship from a place of authenticity, from people who have actually experienced something and know what they’re talking about… but then, as we’ve talked about on The Fuse before, that can become a trap because it’s like, just because you can talk about this horrible thing that’s happened to you, doesn’t mean you should — or that you should have to in this very exposing, trauma-mining way.
Diana: I also think, when it’s sold to us as “true”, it eases people’s ethical concerns about traumatic content being sensationalist or gratuitous. Like, it turns horrific narrative events from titillating plot devices that are just intended to keep the audience on the edge of their seat into, like, an act of… bearing witness.
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Divya: Yes. It takes something morally murky — like turning around to look at the wreckage of a car crash — and elevates it, or makes it almost good, because you’re not just reading about something horrible to be entertained. You’re toughing through it and raising your own awareness. You can tell yourself you’re doing something useful by actively not shying away from the harsh reality of actual life.
Diana: I guess it just gets complicated when this “true” story extends beyond your own experience. Like when it’s not just about this traumatic thing that happened to you, but also about the other people involved.
Divya: Which I guess is every time, really. Like whose story exists in a vacuum? You’ll always be making judgements or offering perspectives on someone else.
Diana: I thought this, actually, about Jennette McCurdy’s book I’m Glad My Mom Died. I read it and I was like, wow very brave, but also… I’m glad her mum is dead too, lol. Not because people shouldn’t speak out about difficult parents, or feel obliged to portray their parents positively but, like, wow, she was not portrayed positively! And that’s a lot for real, alive people to cope with, right? Having the “true” story of your own life told by someone else.
Divya: For sure. It’s interesting though because in this case, I don’t think the real-life stalker, allegedly Fiona Harvey, got caught up in it because Gadd made claims to the truth. I think, even if he — or Netflix — hadn’t said that, people would have tried to dig and uncover the ‘truth’ of the story. Even after Gadd specifically asked people to please not try and find out who she was. I think it’s genuinely because the internet is insane.
Diana: We do seem to be living in a moment where internet sleuthing is getting out of hand. Like that Kate Middleton nightmare-fuel, or even the way Taylor Swift actively encourages her fans to use her songs to theorise about her life.
Divya: I sort of blame true crime podcasts for making everyone think they’re a detective. It’s not that we shouldn’t be curious necessarily, it’s just that there seems to be such moral equivocation/ambivalence when it comes to the consequences of ‘investigating’ and outing people online.
Diana: I think that’s what bothers me. I find it so misguided and, almost, presumptuous to think that you can “get to the bottom” of… I guess, any story ever. Like, people have done it to me: come up to be and been like, “ I know who this character in your book is based on.” It’s different when it’s actual friends who say “oh this character reminded me of so-and-so, or like lol, look where our personal joke has ended up”. But it has happened with people I’ve literally never met, and the tone of those interactions is always confrontational, almost a ‘gotcha’ vibe. As if they’re saying: You thought you could hide but I found you! Like, as if there’s some compulsion to read everything as memoir…
Divya: Yes! This always bothers me about memoirs, too, actually. I understand there’s a little suspension of disbelief that the reader engages in… but come on, does it make sense to recount five pages of verbatim dialogue? I can’t remember what I said three hours ago!!
Diana: I wonder if it’s like, a response to the fact that everyone has a “real” life self and an online “performed” or avatar self. Like, the way we cope with having these multiple selves is almost to overcorrect and reinforce boundaries of “real”/fake. But you can never discover another complex human’s “real” self. You also see it in our cultural obsession with authenticity (something I’ve ranted about before).
Divya: And if that is where culture is at — if we accept that for every piece of fiction, there will be a corresponding compulsion to sleuth and mine the truth behind it — what do we do with that? Is there a responsibility on the person telling the story to mislead people / bury the lede… is it incumbent on authors in future situations to make sure their characters aren’t recognisable? Like, is the threshold higher for artists than it used to be? Or should people on the internet just like… calm down and stop trying to find out who everyone is?
Diana: I do think it’s Netflix’s responsibility to not say “this is a true story”. Like, they could have so easily just not said it and it would’ve still been an amazing show.
Divya: Yes. But I think people also need to learn how to regulate their emotions online. And maybe engage with the concept of civility? Like I guess, if you must, you can satisfy your intellectual curiosity and see who the real woman behind the story was… but you don’t need to message her and tell her that you hate her. Internet anonymity is the devil!
Diana: It’s ironic, really, that it was a show about a woman with a dangerously loose grasp on reality, and the public response to it, in some ways, revealed that we all suffer from a version of that problem.
Divya: Lol. All these people stalking a stalker and sending her inappropriate messages to tell her how inappropriate they found her messages. Talk about art holding up a mirror!
What we’ve loved this past fortnight…
Divya
Object: Sorry but my object this week is going to be books: I’ve finally eased back into reading after a little rut, and boy, it’s good to be back. Like slipping into a warm bath! After jumping in and out of some really freezing ones. If you’re in the same place, looking for something compelling and relatively unchallenging, consider these recommendations… like literary lubrication. Frictionless fun! The first is You Are Here by David Nicholls, which follows two unlikely, anti-hero lovers on a long walk through the English countryside. I did not like what is arguably Nicholls’ most popular book, One Day (maybe Dexter was less annoying in the 90s, when it’s set? In the present he is unbearable. I liked the TV show though) but You Are Here was sweet. Not groundbreaking, but gently atmospheric and quite touching.
What I’m trying to space out so I don’t greedily gobble it all and find myself back in rut state is The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley. It’s about the British government experimenting with time travel and bringing back people from different time periods to the present, on an unnamed mission. Chaos, predictably, ensues. Sharp, unexpected, funny! I also love that the author started writing the novel because she fell in love with a Victorian naval commander based off a Wikipedia bio and accompanying ‘dashing’ photo.
Experience: The Tropical Modernism exhibition at the V&A is my platonic ideal of a cultural encounter: detailed, visually stunning, stridently anti-colonial and heavy on pics of my childhood crush, Jawaharlal Nehru (the first PM of India, draw conclusions on this as you will). It talks about the way modernism as an architectural form adapted to hotter climates, e.g. in the Caribbean and in India, and the varying successes of that politically and practically. On display until September!!
Taste: There are many bakeries in east London and many which can be spotted from far away because of the lines which snake down the road outside them. Sometimes, yes, I join these lines (sue me) but oftentimes I think: suckers. Because the best east London bakery is in fact in Hoxton and it’s called Pomme. Perhaps I will regret sharing this when the lines migrate, but I’m hoping I don’t have the social cache for that. Just look at this chocolate/banana/pecan babka. Ludicrous.
Diana
Object: I am going to shamelessly copy Divya and hard-recommend The Ministry of Time. I was lucky enough to read a proof copy at the end of last year and it truly lives up to the hype. Time-travel is not my normal genre, but this book is just so original, smart, and fun and the characters have stayed with me for months. Honestly, couldn’t recommend it more highly.
Experience: I went to the Roman Army (“Legion”) exhibition at the British Museum and it was just such a lovely reminder that our image of history is derived from pop culture, rather than from hard historical facts. E.g. I learned that Roman centurions wore socks with their sandals! Somehow I doubt Paul Mescal will be sporting that look in the new Gladiator film.
Taste: The Baring in De Beauvoir combines my two favourite things every weekday lunch: (1) a delicious meal, and (2) a deal. I went one Friday a few weeks ago and had (1) one of the best curries I’ve ever had, plus a delicious glass of plonk, for (2) £12. Need I say more.
See you in two weeks!
Divya and Diana xx