Warning: Spoilers ahead
If you’ve not watched it yet, it’s time to get to know BBC’s Half Man — created by Baby Reindeer’s Richard Gadd, it’s a harrowing tale of toxic masculinity and crucially, it doesn’t tackle this thorny topic in a predictable way. By introducing the obvious, terrifying toxic male in the form of Ruben (Gadd) before pivoting to the much softer Niall (Jamie Bell), it’s an uncomfortable but necessary reminder that we’re often guilty of being too distracted by the overt monsters to properly clock the damage the ‘nice guys’ can cause too.
Set in Glasgow, the fictional series — unlike Gadd’s acclaimed Baby Reindeer based on his real-life experiences — time jumps across 30 years, detailing the pair’s relationship from the 1980s (when they’re forced to move in together after their mothers strike up a bond) to the present day. Ruben is volatile. He is physically and emotionally abusive, the seeming opposite to Niall, a self-conscious aspiring writer, who is mercilessly bullied in school. When Ruben barrels into Niall’s life, he quickly becomes a loyal but sinister protector.
Sure, Half Man features the glaringly obvious kind of ‘bad guy’ — Ruben (Gadd), who beats not only Niall’s bullies to a pulp but also Niall himself. But Gadd’s series dissects Niall’s softer and quieter character too, asking the question: is he really that much better? From the get-go, Niall is presented as vulnerable, when in the first episode’s opening scene he is faced with an unexpected and terrifying appearance from Ruben on his wedding day.
As Ruben circles Niall, fists twitching in anticipation, we’re thrown back to their bleak shared schooldays, where Niall lacked any real agency. In the present day, the punches hit so hard you can almost taste the blood through the screen. We’re invited to see Niall as someone in need of ‘saving,’ but ultimately, the series proves the main person he really needs saving from is himself.
We all know a ‘nice guy’ like Niall. They’re the type you date, but realise months in that they don’t actually practice what they preach. The ‘ally’ male friend, who thoughtfully listens to your experiences of catcalling and condemns it, but if they witness it personally? Tumbleweed. Ditto, they’re not about to ruin their pub trip by calling out the mate who scornfully degrades women that he deems to have a ‘high body count’.
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This tension — of the complacent and quiet ‘nice guy’ set against the backdrop of an evidently dangerous, rage-filled toxic male — has been served up by Gadd in arguably the most brutal on-screen portrayal we’ve ever seen. No, it is ‘not all men’ but clearly enough men are either a Ruben or a Niall given data from the WHO indicates around 1 in 3 women worldwide has been subject to either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime.
The ‘nice guy’ plays a pivotal role in toxic masculinity because of the underlying belief that treating women marginally better than the ‘bad’ men exempts them from blame. And in Niall’s case, Ruben has certainly set the bar as low as humanely possible — see: Niall’s presumptuous continued support from Joanna (his longtime friend from university) despite all he’s put her through, plus his using and manipulation of Ava (who enters Niall’s life in his adult years), leading to emotional repression and anger that emerges in a quieter way. Niall’s brutal turning on Mona (who was in that sex scene with Ruben and Niall – and who reappears later in the series in a surprising way), knowingly it will subject her to the full force of Ruben’s rage. Niall and Ruben sing from the same hymn book, just at varying volumes — and Gadd forces us to start listening more closely.
Don’t get me wrong, we still feel for Niall. Of course we do. Viewers will even have empathy for Ruben as the series progresses; we all know how much present day violence can result from past traumas. Which is exactly what makes this whole dismantling-the-manosphere-and-patriarchy so nebulous. But Niall’s story emphasises that you can’t keep blaming your poor choices in adulthood on what others have done to you before; he also proves that lashing out on others doesn’t serve revenge on the person who hurt you in the first place.
Half Man also refuses to shy away from the heartbreaking truth of how hard it is to undo this trauma once it has grown immovable roots in adulthood. It’s a much-needed follow-up to Stephen Graham’s hit series Adolescence, which showed us how easily boys and young men can fall into a dangerous digital world when seeking connection. Louis Theroux addressed the same problem in his recent Netflix documentary, Inside the Manosphere, too, questioning what happens when the ‘alpha’ substitute takes over an algorithm.
Half Man is a teeth-grittingly effective warning that we urgently have to move beyond pointing at the manosphere’s most obvious characters and saying ‘this is bad’. Surrounded by Rubens and Nialls, women and girls are unsafe – and Gadd skilfully spotlights that men and boys are suffocating too, their vulnerabilities squashed underneath the fist of this exact same toxic masculinity.
So how do we stop — but also save — the nice guys, along with the overtly bad ones? In Half Man, the superheroes who step up to do the repair work are characters like Niall’s husband, Alby, his university flatmates Joanna and Celeste, sister-in-law of sorts Mona, mother Lori, and Ava – shocker, the majority of whom are women. And surprisingly, in both repelling and attracting one another, Niall and Ruben sometimes even level one another out too, calling out some (but nowhere near all) aspects of each other’s toxic behaviour.
It provides the small glimmer of hope that perhaps one day it won’t be women bearing the brunt of this emotional labour. Gadd’s ultimate message? We all need to act – and the focus can no longer be just on the Rubens, because it’s time the clock started ticking for the Nialls of this world too.
Poppy Bilderbeck is a London-based freelance writer, formerly a senior journalist at LADbible Group. She specialises in writing about topics many find taboo from death to sex parties. Alongside championing mental health awareness, she loves to natter about all things TV and film too. Since taking the plunge into freelancing in January she’s been lucky enough to write for The Times, Cosmopolitan UK, Daily Express, FOODbible and Tyla. When she’s not bashing her keyboard with a ferocity branded as ‘slightly alarming’ by a former co-worker or chatting with Viggo Mortensen or Sherwood Brown - a man who survived death row for 23 years - you can find her performing spoken word poetry, acting herself or working with some amazing charities such as Words Matter and the Raphael Rowe Foundation.
