(Mild spoilers)
In the early days after Adolescence’s release, it was touted as a powerful mystery thriller about a young boy accused of murder. There are many shows whose hooks sound quite similar, The Sinner, Elite, Dark, the list goes on and on. However, it quickly became clear as Adolescence took the U.S. by storm that there was nothing ordinary about this show. It is not a whodunnit, murder mystery—it is a social drama that explores the rightward radicalization of young men. By the end of the first episode you know who did it—the show explores why.
The extreme right continues to make gains in winning over young men to their ideas in recent years. Figures like Andrew Tate, and thousands of lesser known influencers, “lifestyle coaches,” and hook-up artists, have successfully exploited young boys’ sense of alienation by framing the world as one hostile to men. The four-part Netflix series Adolescence walks us through one such boy’s world.
Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne’s series may be the most profound piece of television since David’s Simon’s deep exploration of the US urban social crisis in The Wire.
Adolescence, a show about a young boy who brutally murders his female classmate, unfolds with each episode specializing in the specific aspects of the world of violence that contributed to the murder.
More Than A Murder Series
The opening scene begins with a seemingly over the top military-style police invasion of a suburban home of the family we are led to believe could not be connected to the crime. The dad assumes the cops are there for him, the 13-year old son is in bed and soon in tears, distraught and wets himself. The attention to detail in the responses of each family member is a reminder of the reality of the militarization of policing that has become normalized in recent years.
The filming of each episode in one continuous take allows both for the edge of your seat tension of the home raid and for the engrossing, 44-minute interview between the female child psychologist and the boy, Jamie, in the third episode.
The mini series’ first episode paints a picture of the legal system in relation to kids. We are led to feel empathy for Jamie’s sudden shocking arrest and his lone departure to the police precinct, as a teen child. This first episode stands out also, in part, for the brilliant and heartbreaking performances of the lead actors, but also because—in contrast to later episodes—it shows how keen we are to assume the innocence of young boys. It isn’t until the last five minutes of the episode that we’re meant to even consider that Jaime may be guilty. The darkest irony surrounding the social media fame of this show is that many TikTok reviews center around the question of Jamie’s potential innocence.
Episode two is primarily centered in Jamie’s high school, where conflicts are common and where the issue of the wider growth of misogyny among boys unfolds into the developing story. Overly big class sizes, demoralized teachers and all of society’s wider crises turn in the pot. School dysfunction and the social media bubbles that kids have to navigate on their own, further complicate the environment for young girls and boys.
Jamie & His Dad
The last two episodes put Jamie and his dad into focus. It literally asks what it is to be a man in this society. The psychologist, charged by the courts to assess if Jamie understands the seriousness of murder, asks all the questions a feminist might want to ask a misogynist were they on an equal footing. The interview is very, very disturbing. Layer after layer of questions begin to reveal the incredible anger that Jamie feels. His incredibly low self worth mutates into attempts to prey on those weaker than him, including Katie, the victim, whom he approached for a date when she was most vulnerable. This low confidence eventually rises into vicious violence.
Just as we feel the series has reached its high point with the incredibly well written and well acted Episode 3, then we go to a possibly darker place in the final episode. The dad.
Jamie’s father comes across as a decent working class guy, with a sense of humor and someone who has tried to live a life as a good person. Like many men of his generation he has broken the cycle of his own father, who beat him and possibly beat his mother. But a fiery anger still stirs just below the surface that the rest of his family are well aware of. Jamie’s dad is not written as a flat, simplistic caricature, but with the sensitivity that is critical to understanding him, allowing us to begin to understand how generational male violence evolves.
Incredible Danger Of The Manosphere
Adolescence does not crudely blame Jamie’s raging anger simply on his father. Police militarization and violence, the schools, and Jamie’s blameless immaturity are all unfurled before we get to the violence tremoring in Jamie’s dad.
We would be drawing the wrong conclusions if we did not squarely center Jamie’s fundamental radicalization by the manosphere. The extreme right have access to young boys through their phones all day long. They continuously spout hatred and encourage violence and control over women and girls. In past decades school shooters have often singled out girls to murder, however today’s danger is far greater as the organized right now give a political framework and justification for this violence.
The series attempts to paint a holistic picture of how young boys become capable of extreme anti-women acts. It does not name names: there are no big general references to capitalism. However, Adolescence is unequivocally a condemnation of this society. You can’t have capitalism without violence. It is a system based on inequality that cannot maintain itself without terrible violence.
Adolescence is both a great piece of drama, and at the same time also a very real and terrifying warning. The right-wing encroachment into the minds of young boys should alarm us all. The extreme right, who, if they had full power, would lock up, and possibly execute all those who argue for equality. The rise of far right misogyny is a real phenomena in our schools and in the internet bubbles inhabited by young boys.
As this show desperately tries to convey, there is nothing to be gained—for any ordinary person—by leaning into the violent ideology of the manosphere. As wrenching as it is to admit, in a greater sense, both Jaime and Katie are victims of this ferocious snake oil being sold to young boys. There are millions of school-aged boys in American schools who are daily being victimized alongside their female and gender nonconforming peers. Victimized by a crumbling public school system, victimized by the prospect of endless low wages and student debt, and victimized further by a reactionary right-wing regime hoping to justify it all by pointing the finger at anyone already marginalized under capitalism.
Barely anyone is happy with the mess the world has evolved into. Socialists need to step into the void and engage with young people and help them find a road towards unity, respect and understanding of all the oppressions in this world and where they come from. The far right must be driven out of the schools, but that cannot be done without a concrete alternative.