Real comedy, real trauma: how Baby Reindeer and Feel Good are forging a new television genre

By Marina Deller, Kate Douglas, Flinders University

Comedy is opening up spaces for silences to be broken and trauma stories to be told.

In 2018, Hannah Gadsby started a revolution with Nanette, asking audiences to rethink what comedy was for. In the hour-long stand-up act, which touched on their life and experiences growing up in Tasmania, Gadsby offered a mandate to comedians to tell truths and, if needed, to seek reparation for trauma.

Other comedians have followed suit. Bo Burnham’s excellent TV special Inside (2021), filmed during the COVID pandemic, is a dark experimental comedy exploring mental health and isolation through songs, stand-up and social commentary.

Stand-up comedy has always been autobiographical, but now a new generation of comedians are adapting their lives (or versions of them) into scripted series. Mae Martin’s Feel Good (2020–21) and Richard Gadd’s Baby Reindeer (2024) offer us particularly potent examples of when trauma and comedy intersect – “traumedy” – and how comedians are using autofiction to explore these dark stories.

The autofictional self

Autofiction represents real events from the author’s life, but blends in fictional elements. The fiction might be useful for creative or narrative effect, or for protecting identities.

In Feel Good, Martin plays a version of themselves, also named Mae. They face and process addiction, realising their severe mental health issues and addiction are results of grooming and abuse they suffered as a queer teenager in the Toronto comedy scene. They build a romantic relationship with George (Charlotte Ritchie), a young woman who is not yet “out” to her loved ones.

https://youtu.be/IA6zm_kt5iM?si=vjz-WVbuGhanCRWE

Despite its often dark subject matter, Feel Good is awkwardly hilarious and effortlessly charming. Humour is found in Mae’s interactions with eccentric side characters: their sponsor who “teaches meditation to dogs”, a hat-wearing oddball housemate, and Mae’s well-meaning but unfiltered mother.

Episodes also frequently feature Mae’s unique brand of stand-up. In the first episode they joke, “I feel like I’m full of birds… like pelicans?

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