Have you heard about this show on Netflix called “Adolescence?” I haven’t watched it but the show has been at the top of the Netflix streaming chart for several weeks, making it into the top 10 most streamed series ever.
The show takes place in the UK and the basic premise is that a 13-year-old boy is arrested for the murder of a female classmate. Here’s the description from Wikiipedia (mild spoilers from here on out if you care about those):
In an English town, armed police raid a family home and arrest Jamie Miller, a 13-year-old boy, on suspicion of murder of a classmate, Katie Leonard. Jamie is processed and held at a police station for questioning, and then remanded in custody at a secure training centre. Investigations at Jamie’s school and interviews by a forensic psychologist reveal that Jamie has been chronically bullied via social media. Other students, including Katie, had targeted him on Instagram, calling Jamie ugly and labelling him an incel. Jamie has come to internalise these things and lashes out when this worldview is questioned. At home, Jamie’s family deals with the community’s backlash against them as they work together to cope with Jamie’s arrest and subsequent detention.
The question of whether or not Jamie is guilty is resolved in the first episode. He is guilty and the murder is apparently caught on camera. The four-episode series is really about unraveling why he did it. The answers to that all revolve around the time he spent online picking up misogynistic messages. Some people are referring to adolescence as an “incel” drama.
The show has been immensely popular in the UK and seems to have struck some kind of nerve, so much so that the show’s creator recently met with Prime Minister Keir Starmer to discuss showing the program in secondary schools.
The makers of hit Netflix show “Adolescence ” have sparked a conversation in Britain and beyond on how to protect children from violent misogyny and other harmful content on social media.
Now they have the ear of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who welcomed the filmmakers to Downing Street on Monday for talks on child protection. Starmer’s office said he backed an initiative by Netflix to stream the drama series for free to secondary schools across the country, so that as many teens as possible can watch it…
“It seems like the whole nation is talking about ‘Adolescence’ and not just this nation,” Starmer said. “As a dad, I have not found it easy to watch this with children, because it connects with the fears and worries that you have as parents and adults.”
“There isn’t one single policy lever to pull. It’s actually a much bigger problem than that,” he added. “And that’s the devastating effect that the problem of misogyny has on our society.”
The show’s creator, Stephen Graham, said he was shocked after reading news stories about actual crimes like the one depicted in the show:
“I read an article in the newspaper, which was about a young boy who had stabbed a young girl to death. And … I was stunned by what I was reading,” Graham says. “And then, about three or four months later, there was a story on the news … about a young boy who had stabbed a young girl to death, and this incident was the opposite end to the country to the first incident that I’d read about.”…
Graham says his initial reaction was to blame the boys’ parents, but then he began to reconsider: “Adolescence is a very difficult age, as we all know. You go through a lot of different things, physically, mentally, and even spiritually in the greater scheme of things,” he says. “My main question was why: Why is this happening?”
As Adolescence shows, there’s no easy answer to that question. The series paints a portrait of young people adrift in chaotic schools where bullying is rampant. Jamie’s parents, though well meaning, are unaware of the degree to which social media, internet culture and toxic masculinity influence their son.
It’s not clear which actual crimes he was talking about but some have accused him and his co-creator Jack Thorne, of making a fictional tale based on the Southport murders in which a 17-year-old killed three young girls. The teen in that case was black, which has led to accusations that Graham race-swapped the teen offender.
Wow
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Thorne has denied it.
Thorne, who created the show with Stephen Graham, responded: “They’ve claimed that Stephen and I based it on a story, and another story, so we race-swapped because we were basing it on here, and it ended up there, and everything else. Nothing is further from the truth.
“I have told a lot of real-life stories in my time, and I know the harm that can come when you take elements of a real-life story and put it on screen and the people aren’t expecting it. There is no part of this that’s based on a true story, not one single part.”
Asked by Sopel how he reacted to the criticism, Thorne replied: “That it should have been a Black boy? It’s absurd to say that this is only committed by Black boys. It’s absurd. It’s not true. And history shows a lot of cases of kids from all races committing these crimes.
“We’re not making a point about race with this. We are making a point about masculinity. We’re trying to get inside a problem. We’re not saying this is one thing or another. We’re saying this is about boys.”
There’s also a bit of a backlash over the fact that, while the show may be well-made, it’s ultimately a fictional tale. So why is it being treated as if it were a solution to real crime? Here’s a recent argument over that point on Good Morning Britain.
Netflix’s hit show Adolescence is to be shown in secondary schools, the government has confirmed.
But will airing the hit series in schools go any way to tackling misogyny and violence in boys and young men? pic.twitter.com/mOR2nLGy8R
— Good Morning Britain (@GMB) April 1, 2025
As I said, I haven’t watched the show. It must be effective as a drama if it’s getting this much attention. But I sort of doubt showing this to kids is going to change things for the better. Children who murder other children probably aren’t going to be dissuaded by a 4-hour mini-series.
