Like millions
of people I have become fascinated with Baby Reindeer, the very dark dramedy
that tells the story of Richard Gadd’s horrifying experience with a female
stalker and his very complicated relationship with her. I’ll be writing more
about it when I complete the series but in this article I’d like to use as a
jumping off point.
In Episode 4
Donny goes to the police and when he asks about why he waited six months to
report Martha’s action we flashback five years to learn the root of so much of
his problems. When he first came to Edinburgh he made contact with a much older
comedy writer for a major British TV series. That writer spent a month helping
him build his act and then disappeared. Later on they reconnected in London,
and with the offer of a job Donny begins to indulge in what he thinks will
become a professional relationship but becomes clear to the viewer (though not
immediately to Donny) that of a sexual predator and prey. They spend months
ostensibly working together but Donny spends too much of that time increasingly
taking drugs and hanging out. Finally near the end of the episode he is
sexually assaulted and raped.
This ends up
destroying his relationship with his girlfriend Keeley and he spends the next
several years unable to talk about it or even explain it. He believes he has
been sexually broken by it and he is unable to connect with anyone until he
meets up with Teri, who is transgender. Even then, he’s ashamed to be seen with
her in public and after Martha assaults Terri, the clearest grounds for her arrest
he is too ashamed to tell the police about that. In his eyes it seems
impossible for him to explain why Martha’s relationship is monstrous without
admitting his rape and he walks away. His libido has been so badly broken that
eventually he begins to sexually fantasize about Martha – and actually seems
disappointed when the police tell him that she’s entered therapy.
Now I haven’t
finished the series yet and I know there is far more to it than that. But what
I see in Donnie’s character has led me to an example of a theme that comes up
often in Peak TV about the toxic male antihero. Usually this focus is on how misogynist
characters such as Tony Soprano and Don Draper. Not discussed as much in these
reviews of the era – or they may be and I’m just very late to the party – is how
much of this toxic masculinity is just as much homophobic as well.
As far as I
know the only lead character of a series whose behavior as an antihero of a
series is connected to repression of his sexuality is that of Frank Underwood
in House of Cards. I remember very vividly watching the first season of
the show and see how Frank returned to his South Carolina boarding school to
have a library named for him and he is his normal snide self – until he
reunites with the Highwaymen, a ground of young teenagers he hung out with when
he was there.
For the
first time in the entire series, the mask goes down. Part of it is the attitude
of just boys being boys as they drunkenly reminisce. But later that night they
break into the old library and Frank begins to do pushups with an old
classmate. The behavior, reminiscent, now takes on a different measure and its
implied that the two men were lovers. Now I stopped watching the show in Season
3 and I know that much of the series from that point forward acknowledges Frank’s
bisexuality. But remembering that he comes from the South and considering what
it takes be elected to office in South Carolina, we wonder how much of Frank’s
cynicism and behavior comes from a lifetime in Washington and how much from having
to from an early age hide who he truly is.
In the last
twenty years, you constantly see supporting characters among the greatest shows
ever made hiding their sexuality or facing more contempt from society because
of it. Anyone who is fan of The Wire knows that Omar Little was hating
by slingers as much for - if not more so
- being gay as for constantly robbing their stash-houses. In Season 4 of Breaking
Bad we learned the deep-seated loathing Gus Fring had not just for Hector Salamanca
but the entire cartel had its origins in the fact that as a young man his lover
was killed by Hector in sight of him and that the head of the cartel (Steven
Bauer) had only let him live because of ‘who he was’. We got a better look as
Gus’ devotion to Max in Better Call Saul and poignantly in the last
scene Giancarlo Esposito had in the entire series we saw him at a bar engaging in a quasi-flirtation with a
restaurant owner, trying to connect – and then walking away back to the path
that will lead to his death.
There are more
subtle storylines in this throughout the era as well. In the first season of The
Shield we see that Julian (Michael Jace) has homosexual leanings but
because of his religious upbringing he chooses to deny them. He will get
married and have a child but he never comes face to face with his sexual identity
in the course of the series. I also well remember the first season of Damages
and the tragic character of Ray Fiske, played by Zeljko Ivanek in an Emmy winning
performance. The lead counsel for Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson) he is a Texas
born attorney and a married mad but he has been hiding his sexuality for years.
The critical revelation in the arc comes when we learn that Ray was having an
affair with a young man (Peter Facinelli) who he advised to sell his stock just
before Frobisher’s company went bankrupt. When Patty Hewes reveals this story
to Fiske, he kills himself in front of her, though we never know whether it is
because of his legal exposure or the possibility of his double life being
revealed.
But by far
the clearest example of just how deep toxic masculinity and sexual denial of
ones identity goes starts at the beginning of the revolution with OZ. Part
of me wonders even now whether a large part of the reason this show never gets
the credit for being the impetus of the Golden Age is not so because of the
graphic violence or nudity – but because it was the first show to openly deal
with homosexuality in a very complicated way. Because while we never really saw
much of the sex that was happening in OZ – and what we did was mostly
heterosexual – it was always laying beneath the surface of so many of the major
storylines and the characters on the show. And it went further than no show had
before – and frankly until Baby Reindeer I’ve almost never seen since –
about not only consent but how in the world of prison where by definition all
of the inmates have been robbed of their freedom, its basically understood that
freedom apparently applied to sexual assault as well.
This is
clear from the first episode where Tobias Beecher (Lee Tergesen) is raped by
his new cellmate Vern Schillinger (J.K. Simmons). We never see the assault (though
its implied how Schillinger is burning a tattoo of a swastika on his ass that
he has been claimed by him at the time) but he spends the next several days in
his cell trying to recover from it. Both Schillinger and Dino Ortolani (Jon
Seda) just shrug this off, calling him weak. Beecher stays in his cell to the
next episode where Em City guard Diane Whittlesey (Edie Falco) finally goes in.
We will
later learn that Diane was the wife of a biker, part of a very abusive marriage
which she managed to get out of alive and may have been sexually assaulted
herself. But when she goes to see Beecher, she is the opposite of sympathetic.
This isn’t tough love; the man has just been raped and she knows it – but she
doesn’t even urge him to report it or talk to Sister Pete. Basically she just
tells him to get over it and walk it off.
This is a
stunning reversal of the usual male-female dynamics in this situation (I didn’t
realize it even years after the fact) but its part of the fundamental nature of
OZ that, with few exceptions, everyone in authority basically doesn’t
care about the inmates well-being. Sometimes this is shown in very dark relief.
In the
second season Leo Glynn (Ernie Hudson) demands that Miguel Alvarez (Kirk Acevedo)
work in his office. His job is to just stand there for the next six hours, and
at one point he demands Alvarez clean the toilets. When Alvarez asks hostilely
Leo beats him to a pulp. We later learn that Glynn’s daughter has been raped by
a gang of Latinos and Glynn has decided to take it out on the first Latino who
crossed him.
However during
that same season Peter Shebetta (Eddie Malvaraca) who has spent the season in a
power struggle with Simon Adebisi is raped by him. (This we get a very clear
look at.) The assault essentially causes Peter to have a break with reality and
he spend much of the next three years in the psych ward. When he returns as a
regular in Season 6, he gets raped
again, this time by Schillinger. Peter spends the next several episodes trying
to recover from this.
When Sister
Pete (Rita Moreno) who has been counselling him tries to talk to Leo about
this, he shows no sympathy for Peter calling rape ‘a leveler’. Sister Pete is
justifiably shocked by this talk: “You want rape to do your job for you?” Leo
is unapologetic. “No, just survival of the fittest.”
Now to be fair
to Leo Peter went out of his way to blackmail him for a position of authority
when he was first sent here and he’s never forgiven him for that. But it speaks
to a larger context throughout the entire series that at the end of the day the
guards basically due view the sexual rape of inmates – which has been happening
at practically the rate of one an episode – as something that they don’t really
care about. To them, the most traumatic experience a human being can suffer is
something these prisoners either deserve or at the end of the day is such small
potatoes that punishes them is a waste of time.
This is made
very clear at the start of the final season. Schillinger was sentenced to
solitary confinement at the end of the previous one for raping two young men,
one of whom killed himself later on. Solitary has become crowded and the staff
has to vote who stays in it and how is let out. Sister Pete doesn’t want
Schillinger to leave prison – among other things, Beecher is up for parole and
she’s justifiably terrified for his fate and she has spent the entire series
dealing with the fallout from these rapes. But when the time to vote comes, it
is six to one in favor of releasing Schillinger. When Glynn tells the man: “if
you commit another rape, you will be sent back here,” it’s so rote its clear
that its lip service. Schillinger simply grins at Sister Pete. “Let me guess.
You were the one.” And the moment Schillinger is released, one of the men he
raped is willing to kill Beecher’s father for him as long as he can be upgraded
from ‘prag’ to a member of the Brotherhood. Schillinger immediately agrees and
Beecher’s father pays the prize.
It's worth
noting that while Schillinger has committed multiple rapes throughout the
series, he doesn’t consider himself a homosexual. Indeed as leader of the Aryan
Brotherhood he considers homosexuality nearly as bad a sign as being anything
other than white. One is reminded of this very clear late in Season Three when
Schillinger has a talk with Jason Cramer, one of the openly gay men in Oz.
Cramer is
about to fight Hamid Khan, one of the leaders of the Black Muslims. (I’ll get
back to them in a minute.) Schillinger wants Cramer to beat Khan. Cramer
immediately calls out the hypocrisy. “It must be killing you who to root for…But
you know more about having your cock sucked than having an Afro.” Schillinger
doesn’t blink. “You better watch your mouth, Tinker Bell. Or Khan’s gonna win
by default.”
It's clear
from the moment Oz begins that for all Tim McManus’ ideas of ‘equality’
for Em City, the same bigotries apply on the inside as the outside. The irony
is that the one thing the Aryans and the Black Muslims are in lock step on is
that homosexuality is an abomination. This is basically a view that is held by every
other ‘clique’ in OZ, even the ones who are engaged in it.
I remember a
third season episode where Antonio Napa (Mark Margolis) is having a
conversation with Adebisi asking: “Why he left the cafeteria to work with a bunch
of f---s?” Adebisi, who is putting on a slightly crazy act asks if he doesn’t
like them. When Napa returns the question, Adebisi’s response is actually
honest: “Out there, I hate them. But in here, sometimes you need your dick
sucked.”
This is as
clear a delineation as to the denial of so many of the characters in OZ and
it speaks to the idea of their sexuality while they’re serving time. They’re
not gay, they just need to have sex and these are the only partners available.
Beecher comes the closest of any inmate to realizing that there is more to it
than that in the early stages of his relationship with Keller (Christopher
Meloni). He has a conversation with Sister Pete:
BEECHER: “Two
men can’t love each other the same way a man and a woman can.”
SISTER PETE:
“Well, some men come to Oz as homosexuals, and some become homosexuals.
BEECHER: “I’m
not talking about sex. I’m talking about love. I had sex with Schillinger. It was
brutal, unloving.”
Sister Pete
pauses. “Are you in love Tobias?”
Beecher
pauses: “Yeah, I think I might be.”
It’s worth
noting that Chris Keller is clearly bisexual. He has been married three times (“Four
if you count Bonnie, who I married twice) before he comes to Oz. The relationship
he and Beecher have is initially built on lies (Schillinger has been working
with him to get revenge on Beecher for destroying his chance at parole) but by
Season 3 it’s clear Keller is in love with him. He spends much of the third season
engaging in sexual gamesmanship with Sister Pete (causing her to consider
leaving the convent) but by the end of Season 3 Beecher and Keller are
together.
Then in
Season 4 an FBI agent tells Beecher that he suspects Keller in the murders of three
homosexual men. (He spends the rest of the series trying to put Keller in
prison for their killings.) In the middle of Season 4 Keller and Beecher have
ended their relationship on bad terms (to put it mildly) and Keller goes to
talk with Father Ray for confession. In it he confesses that he had sex with
three men and then he killed them. Ray is stunned and asked why. “I didn’t want
them to tell anybody,” he says simply. As we see the rest of the series the only
thing worse to having Keller as an enemy is having him be in love with you.
Beecher’s
friendship with Kareem Said (Eamonn Walker) is one of the deepest in all of OZ.
At a critical moment Beecher is struggling with guilt and he reaches out to
Said for spiritual guidance, the first (and only) white man to do so during the
entire series. Said’s decision to give it leads to him being ousted as leader
of the Black Muslims and yet despite that Beecher stands with him. Their friendship
lasts throughout the series until Beecher’s parole. (I won’t reveal what
happens afterwards for those who haven’t seen it.)
But throughout
their relationship Said’s religious doctrine make it difficult for him to
accept Beecher’s homosexuality. Part of it is based in the fact that Said can
sense what a dangerous person Keller is and that he is worried about his
friend, but the sexual part is always at the bottom of it. When Said tells him
that Allah will not accept this, Beecher’s reaction is simple: “I don’t want to
love Keller, but I do. And as for Allah, I’ll deal with him when I see him.”
Said comes to terms with this but it is difficult for him and it is ironic that
the both Schillinger and Said, opposites in everything else, agree completely
on the idea of homosexuality as an abomination.
And it’s telling
that outsiders can’t tell the difference between either of Beecher’s experiences.
We see this multiple times throughout the series but the clearest delineation
comes in a Season 6 storyline.
We are introduced
to Adam Gunzel and Franklin Winthrop, two college-age boys who have been
sentenced to Oswald for 28 years for raping and sexual assault of a girl. Both
men were drunk and Gunzel will use that as a crutch to say that they had no
awareness of what they were doing – or that the girl was disabled.
Because Gunzel
is the son of a family friend of Beecher’s, he is sent to Em City. Winthrop is
sent to the general population. There’s a clear parallel to Beecher when he
first came to Oz. Both are clearly young men of privilege (Gunzel grimly jokes walking into his pod: “This is
the first time I ever made my own bed0 and both are unaware of what you will
have to do to survive. Winthrop immediately gravitates to Schillinger and by
the end of the episode is his prag. The Aryans set their sights on Gunzel, but
because Beecher is aware of this he makes alliances to keep Gunzel safe.
However in
the next episode when Gunzel sees Winthrop decked out in women’s makeup and pig-tails
(marks of humiliation Beecher bore under Schillinger’s abuse) he expresses
astonishment. Then Winthrop (backed by Schillinger) tells Gunzel Beecher’s history
which inflames Beecher. It is a mark of Gunzel’s bigotry that he views Beecher’s
relationship with Schillinger and Keller – the former which had nothing to do
with consent – as essentially equivalent. Gunzel turns on Beecher, calling him
homophobic slurs and eventually rejects Beecher’s protection, essentially
demanding that he be sent to gen pop despite Beecher’s warnings. When Beecher
reluctantly does so Gunzel immediately goes to Schillinger who immediately rapes
him. Winthrop asks if he can watch. “If you don’t, how will you learn?”
Schillinger says jovially.
Eventually
Beecher reveals Schillinger’s role in Winthrop and Gunzel’s rapes but Winthrop
denies it and says the sex was consensual. (This leads to Schillinger being
released from solitary at the start of the final season.) Winthrop doesn’t
consider Beecher’s action help; if anything it turns him more towards Schillinger
and indeed, he agrees to kill Beecher’s father as long as he is given an
upgrade.
This might
be PTSD as much as anything else but we’ve seen countless people sexually
assaulted by Schillinger and none of them have decided to ally with him. I
think, like Schillinger, Winthrop has essentially decided to follow the advice
that Beecher was given by Whittlesey at the start of the series, only he has
taken it in an infinitely darker direction, himself becoming an abuser. It is a
pattern that we see far too often during the series to the point that it
becomes a drag over time.
That said
there is a storyline that takes place in the final season of OZ that was
more groundbreaking even then everything I’ve already discussed. What makes it
remarkable is that involved a character who we’ve watched for six seasons be
utterly and completely evil – and then in the final season Tom Fontana showed
his depth.
For five
years James Robson (R.E. Rodgers) has been Schillinger’s right-hand man in the
Brotherhood. He’s committed repeated violent acts, ordered multiple murders
over the years and we’ve seen him commit more than a few. It’s also understood
that he’s complicit in many sexual assaults including the rape of Cyril O’Reilly
within days of his arrival in OZ.
Then in
Season 6, he is exiled from the Brotherhood. One of the men who he tried to
kill earlier that season Chuck Pancamo (Chuck Zito) the head of the Sicilians
spent most of the year near death but recovered and now he understandably wants
vengeance. Robson is desperate for help and after being rejected by the Brotherhood,
goes to the head of the Bikers a man named Wolfgang Cutler, who makes it very
clear what he will have to do to survive.
Robson goes
to see Sister Pete. “I didn’t have anywhere else to go.” Sister Pete, who never
judges, lets him in. She shares an experience that her first year in Oswald an
inmate named Warren Styx nearly choked her death. She passed out and when she
regained consciousness, he had slit his wrists with her tape dispenser.
Robson asks
if she remembers that feeling. Sister Pete says yes and asks if he’s ever felt
that way.
“Much longer
than I want to admit. I was Gerald Robson’s only son…Even as a kid, you do what
you have to survive. Because when you’re six, running away is not an option.”
Sister Pete
probes. “Did he beat you?” Robson acknowledges. When she asks if he was
sexually assault, Robson who has spent five years as the tough guy begins to
cry.
“I’m
thirty-six years old and I’ve got nowhere to run!” He then asks Sister Pete: “Is
it okay to do whatever you have to survive?” Before she can answer, he asks: “Or
should I die?” When she responds no, he says: “That’s what I thought. Thanks
sister.” The episode ends with him basically agreeing to be Cutler’s sexual
slave.
Within a few episodes he manages to regain his place
in the prison hierarchy by getting Cutler to kill himself. But then he has a meeting
with his wife, who he hasn’t seen since becoming Cutler’s prag. He demands she
masturbate him right there and things go so horribly that he ends up being
pulled away.
It is the
pattern of OZ that far too many storylines would give hope for redemptive
behavior and end with everybody going back to the start. This storyline didn’t.
In the next episode Robson has a conversation with Sister Pete in which he
acknowledges how horribly he feels and that he never wanted to be this way. He
spends a lot of time trying to deny things but eventually Sister Pete gets him
to admit that he was raped.
Then
something I never saw in seven seasons happened. We got to a therapy session which
deals with prisoners who are survivors of sexual assault. All of them except
Robson share in increasing detail and profound sad all of the horrible experiences
that they underwent as victims of sexual predators while in Oswald. They serve
as a microcosm not only for every sexual assault that has been happening in Oz but
that we didn’t see but all the prisoners who have gone through it. And
eventually they all end their story with the same tragic four words:
“I had no
choice.”
I have mixed
feeling about the series finale of OZ (and indeed much of the final
season itself) but the one part that still resonates after more than two
decades comes the final time we see Robson. Sister Pete says he has something
to say. Robson gets up and tells him he’s going to say goodbye because he’s
being transferred to the AIDS ward. He tells his new friends that he knows he
going to live a long life but he also knows that this didn’t have to happen. He
has accepted responsibility for the man he was in prison and his last words on
the show are: “Thank you for helping me see through the mirror both ways.” In a
show where the only resolution to so many characters comes in death, there’s
something strangely life-affirming in Robson’s arc.
OZ was a groundbreaking
series and I believe it still holds up remarkable well after a quarter of a
century, yet it has gotten little credit. I think it deserves to be remember
for many reasons, not the least of which is how it looked at every conceivable
aspect of homosexuality and self-denial as well as the ability to give consent seemed
to have been a right that you surrender when you go behind bars. But it also showed
the possibility of redemption, perhaps not within society’s standard but at a
personal level. When so few series that followed have been willing to do that,
there’s something deeply profound and moving about that – particularly in a land called Oz.
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