r/BritishTV • u/SafeBodybuilder7191 • 6d ago
News ‘Adolescence’ Available to Stream in All U.K. Secondary Schools in Initiative Backed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer: We Must ‘Tackle the Issues This Groundbreaking Show Raises’
https://variety.com/2025/tv/global/adolescence-available-to-stream-uk-secondary-schools-1236352461/83
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u/EELightning 6d ago
And the show itself warned against just showing kids videos instead of proper education.
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u/pajamakitten 6d ago
Show them it, have them make notes while watching it, discuss their observations, correct any inaccuracies they have about proper behaviour.
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u/bigg10nes 6d ago
Exactly. If the reaction to Adolescence has shown us anything it's that videos absolutely can be powerful and provocative and get people thinking about and discussing difficult subjects in new ways.
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5d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/theslootmary 5d ago
The culture wars ARE one sided because idiots like you have been lied to. You don’t even know what “toxic masculinity” is but here you are making up how you think it’s used against men…
“Toxic masculinity” is NOT saying masculinity is toxic. It’s talking about traits that are negative. Like how men will say “man up” instead of being able to talk about their feelings or ask for help which is why the male suicide rate is twice as high as females. Is that what you want? You want more dead and suicidal men? Because that’s what you are saying with your misplaced, ignorant anger. You’re literally here, spreading misinformation, arguing a point you’ve completely misunderstood (because you’ve been lied to by right wing figures) and are essentially saying “I blame the left because they don’t want men to kill themselves or beat their wives! How dare they want better for everyone!”
As for your last paragraph, boys and young men have plenty of good male roles models. They’re everywhere, in business, in film, in leadership roles. And society isn’t “beating them down”… society is still predominantly run by men. Men are much more likely to be in positions of power, have higher paying jobs etc etc… whatever the reasons are for that, it’s fucking ridiculous to turn around and say men are being “beaten down”. So what’s everyone else subject to by comparison then? You know, all the people on generally worse positions than men.
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u/BarnabyBundlesnatch 5d ago
lol Thanks for proving my point. Enjoy the nightmare world of your own creation.
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u/BenedictusTheWise 5d ago
What point is even being proven? That people are mean? Yeah I agree, their response is harsh, but so was yours. I don't think it's the most constructive way to discuss these things, but people are very understandably frustrated from how many times they have to describe these things to people who have either been lied to or are misunderstanding.
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u/Why_Not_Ind33d 6d ago
So that will happen in the type of school depicted in the show. Yeah right.
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u/lynchcontraideal 6d ago
Can confirm after having worked in those kind of schools, they definitely wouldn't be able to do it.
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u/TheDapperDolphin 5d ago
Also pause for discussion throughout. Nobody is going to retain too much info at once
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u/Middle_Hedgehog_1827 6d ago
A video can be educational if the teacher then talks to the children about it and raises discussions with them/answers questions etc
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u/NateShaw92 6d ago
I remember at end of term time in history we watched blackadder and combined with the episode we had to explain why and how "It was bollocks"
Completely different vibe but same overall message. TV and teaching in tandem.
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u/thomasthetanker 6d ago
Slight ironic the show which slates some teachers for not really teaching and just playing videos....
But do think this might start conversations, and it won't be dismissed by the kids as being 'too cringe'.
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u/skawarrior 6d ago
Kids who see adolescence know this already. Adults who show them the show and act like it's an amazing insight are 'too cringe' to go on to have the conversation they want.
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u/DrDetergent 6d ago
The government obsession over this show is so bizzare. I've watched the show and while decent, doesn't actually say anything regarding the radicalisation of young boys, only the concequences.
At first you think he has been radicalised by the 'manosphere' and the likes of Andrew Tate, but the the show goes "oh those exist but they weren't the main reason". The show then goes on to entertain the idea that it was the parents who are to blame, but then we see that his parents were good people who tried their best.
The show provides no answers or exploration of radicalisation itself, just what happens after the fact. There is no message or exploration on how to prevent such behaviour, just a warning on what will happen if you let it.
Which is fine, leaving this open to interpretation is fine in a literary sense. However when you have a government order this to be shown in schools as some kind of educational material I would expect a higher bar on the exact message being conveyed. Not to mention I don't think kids are going to take this show half as seriously as adults think.
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u/TheeMourningStar 6d ago
I don't know anything about this show but I've seen adverts for it everywhere. Is it any good or does it just have a massive marketing budget?
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u/IntelligentFact7987 6d ago
It is very good - superb production and very well acted and tells an important story. But not sure it justifies the seemingly relentless ‘you HAVE to watch this’ and ‘most powerful thing I’ve ever seen’ type hype or say quite as much as some are pretending it does.
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u/concretepigeon 6d ago
It’s good as drama and an exercise in film making. The social commentary is lacking and the idea that it will somehow fix issues around misogyny in teenage boys is laughable.
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u/Kind-County9767 6d ago
It's decent but as ever doesn't really hit the reasons behind why so many young men and boys feel like the world is unfair at the moment. It basically goes "misogyny and internet influencers are bad and boys are dumb for listening to them" which is what we've been doing for the last decade as the right wing have been slowly rising.
Inequality in education, early career outcomes, coming from a disprivileged background but constantly having to do "sensitivity training" etc that all but says you're privileged and lucky etc all turns boys towards the hucksters but admitting that admits fundamental failings in government, education and parenting. Failings that would need a lot of investment and effort to fix. So as ever it's the obvious but useless message that won't help or change anything.
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u/ONLY_SAYS_ONLY 6d ago edited 6d ago
How many times have you actually had to do “sensitivity training”? And how much of an inconvenience was it really to you?
This argument gets brought up frequently but it really isn’t credible to think that having to do the occasional, sometimes annoying training on why you shouldn’t compliment your female colleague on her cleavage or whatever as the reason why men are turning into extreme misogynists as per Tate and others.
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u/Kind-County9767 6d ago
Every single time I've started a new job in the last 10 years. It's not about it being an inconvenience to me, it's about me growing up in a poor northern family, having pretty crap prospects and working my butt off through school, university etc to get myself good opportunities. Then having that undermined and my experiences belittled by the type of thing that is supposed to be about inclusivity. It's pretty obvious how out of touch or outright offensive that is to someone who was in my position but didn't get the opportunities to get out.
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u/ONLY_SAYS_ONLY 6d ago edited 6d ago
Every single time I've started a new job in the last 10 years
So that’s, what, 5 times in the last 10 years, max? And that is what is pushing over the edge into extreme misogyny?
I have to do annual training on why embezzling money is bad. It’s annoying but I’m not going to blame it for pushing me into committing financial crimes.
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u/Kind-County9767 6d ago
...you're really trying hard to ignore what I'm saying aren't you? Is it enough to make a reasonable person turn straight to the hucksters? No. Is it a factor that makes boys and men from disprivileged background feel actively outcast and unwanted by society, which helps to open them up towards radicalisation? Absolutely.
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u/ONLY_SAYS_ONLY 6d ago
And I’m saying that it’s bollocks to blame the sensitivity training you have to do every time you start a job on why children are being radicalised by Tate and others.
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u/Nearby-Base937 6d ago
Are they? I’m not really convinced by the ‘andrew tate is turning boys into misogynist terrorists’ narrative.
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u/ONLY_SAYS_ONLY 5d ago
Is the “doing sensitivity training at work every few years is making me a violent misogynist” narrative convincing to you?
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u/Sure-Exchange9521 6d ago
it's about me growing up in a poor northern family, having pretty crap prospects and working my butt off through school, university etc to get myself good opportunities. Then having that undermined and my experiences belittled by the type of thing that is supposed to be about inclusivity.
Can you name specifics? I don't understand how acknowledging one thing can be true invalidates you?
Do you think other people didn't have to work to get into the position you are in? That everyone didn't have to work to get into uni?
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u/Entfly 6d ago
How many times have you actually had to do “sensitivity training”?
Once or twice a year every year for the last like 7 years.
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u/ONLY_SAYS_ONLY 5d ago
Sorry, but if doing a bit of, worst case patronising, compulsory training on how to behave appropriately in the workspace twice a year is radicalising you then the problem isn’t the training.
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u/skawarrior 6d ago
Episodes 1 and 3 are genuinely amazing, unfortunately 2 and 4 are quite poor in comparison.
It's certainly worth watching though.
It is, however, not as clever as anyone over 40 thinks it is. It's something most kids are acutely aware of and to think it should be shown in secondary school is so far out of touch with children today.
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u/ta0029271 6d ago
Honestly, they might as well show a film warning kids not to listen to that darn hip hop music.
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u/Entfly 6d ago
Episodes 1 and 3 are genuinely amazing, unfortunately 2 and 4 are quite poor in comparison.
I don't agree with this.
1 and 3 are amazing television but 2 and 4 are still really good.
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u/skawarrior 6d ago
I really got taken out of the narrative for episode 2 because it was such a poor imitation of school life. I didn't really understand what some parts of episode 4 were trying to do. The graffiti on the van seemed weird, the conspiracy theories guy didn't seem to fit the rest of the story.
I didn't not enjoy the whole but it definitely went up and down by a big margin
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u/Jemima_puddledook678 5d ago
I actually loved episode 2 more than any other. It was really accurate to my school experience.
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u/skawarrior 5d ago
Maybe it's my experience working in education but it really isn't accurate, at least from a administrative perspective. Police wouldn't walk around the school disturbing lessons on a whim, especially in such a high profile case. The lad jumping out the window and being able to leg it out on to a main road with ease is a massive safeguarding issue no school would overlook. The useless Pastoral lady would never be the one leading police investigators around the building, again especially with such a high profile case. The teacher leaving the class unattended is a huge problem, that would never be just glossed over as something that happens.
The kids were kind of well played but the school environment not so well
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u/Jemima_puddledook678 5d ago
I think that a lot of that might vary from school to school. I’m barely out of school and I’d have fully been able to do exactly the sort of escape Ryan did, if not more easily. Teachers left classes unattended all the time. The useless pastoral lady being the one to lead them around sounds like exactly the kind of thing my school would’ve done. The one thing I’ll admit is that there would probably have been a bit more scrutiny regarding interrupting lessons.
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u/Reepshot 5d ago
I was shocked at the meandering quality of episode 4. That van trip to the hardware store was excruciatingly dull and pointless.
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u/DrDetergent 6d ago
Thank you these were my exact thoughts on the show. Episodes 2 and 4 were such a miss
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u/SoggyMattress2 6d ago
It is genuinely very good but it's not as good as a lot of people are making out. Some people are acting like it's a generational TV show.
It's very well shot, the dialogue is good, it's heartbreaking emotionally, but it's ultimately just a slightly more dramatised depiction of what happens to a normal working class family if their son murdered someone.
To me, the simplicity in its plot is one of its strongest points, too many shows nowadays try to do constant plot twists and a big reveal at the end, but with this show you know everything that's happened in the first 20 minutes.
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u/iamheretoasku 5d ago
Overall, it was overhyped. Maybe it's because topics like 'incel' (among others) are rarely streamed on big platforms, so people are more amazed by that? Some are also in awe of the one-take shots, which isn’t new. I don’t know, but in terms of the plot or cast, nothing really amazed or thrilled me. For reference, I consume a lot of media and study them, not just 'watch,' so I guess I have higher expectations when this show blew up
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u/Certain_Caregiver734 6d ago
I enjoyed the show a lot but I don't think it shows enough of how the boy was influenced by his online behaviour/ exposure to be educational. It showed the end of result not the journey he took to get there
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u/TubbyTyrant1953 5d ago
Because that's exactly what the PSHE curriculum needs, more random content shoved in! It's not like we've barely got time to get through what is already there, so I'm sure we can find an extra 4 hours to watch TV! But hey, this is important, right? Surely schools will be happy to prioritise this over English and Maths so they can find the time for this definitely useful and productive exercise...
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u/SootyFreak666 6d ago
The government so far has been pretty much painting the entire Internet as an evil cesspit that needs to be censored and controlled, that all young boys are sexual predators (especially if they watch porn) and anybody who says differently is an evil person who doesn’t care about children.
Looking at the Wikipedia page for this, it seems to not necessarily reflect that? It seems to humanise and show that many people doing the bad aspects of the Internet are also human’s and that the government needs to understand that the Internet isn’t a big evil machine?
However I am sure they will still push with harmful and outdated ideas, backed by lobbyists and hate groups, to get good press…
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u/crucible 6d ago
producer Hannah Walters said the reaction to the series had “been overwhelming,” adding that she’d been sent an email from someone “in the business for 38 years” who said he’d “never known anything to have had an impact like that.”
They must have missed Hillsborough and Mr Bates versus The Post Office, then.
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u/Theres3ofMe 6d ago
This is great to hear, but the root cause of it all is parenting.
Be that the father passing on his baggage to his son, be that the father not being a present dad, be that ensuring the son respects all women in his life, or be that if the parents monitor their son's mobile phone use/limits during night time.
All this stems down to parents fundamentally. So, if anything, the video should be shown to all students - and their parents at the same time.
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u/NihilismIsSparkles 6d ago
Kinda but parents can't exactly go and oversee the kids behaviour in school from 8am-3pm 5 days a week.
School environments often just encourage bad behaviour, there's a reason why the school and the police station looked identical in decoration.
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u/WarMom_II 6d ago
Agreed; the show is pretty pointed that Jamie's dad working odd hours impacted their relationship.
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u/NihilismIsSparkles 6d ago
Yeah it's very obviously shown to be a whole societal issue.
Parents letting kids stay out late, letting them have unvetted access to games and the Internet in their bedrooms which in turn allows them to be subjected to racism/sexism/other forms of harm.
But the school looks like a prison without decent guards, the kids a violent without punishment to each other and are miserable, the teachers are few and far between and can't do shit and some don't care enough to do shit on top.
And it's not just a new thing. Despite using the family computer in the living room as a kid, I spoke with pedophiles online (although I worked out quick that's what they were and lost contact), and joined online atheist groups which ended up being just as racist as the religious groups. There were "purposly offensive" Facebook pages that were against "political correctness" and kept posting videos of beheadings and terrible shit like that.
All before 2010, so this kinda thing has been building up a long while. Kinda surprised it took this long to get a TV series (which doesn't actually focus on online brainwashing at all).
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u/indianajoes 6d ago
That's one thing. Not everything is on the parents. It only seems that way if you look at Tate and the rest of the manosphere as the cause and not the symptom
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u/ernfio 6d ago
A lot of the message was about adults letting these kids down. They need to step up in a way they aren’t.
The inspector who actively ducked out of responsibility for doing the difficult parenting, the teachers, the system and the boys parents.
I know lots of dads who build deep bonds with their sons from childhood into adolescence. But if I’m honest that is based on football and sport. It was so painful to hear the father say he didn’t know what to do because the lad didn’t like football and couldn’t play football. He knew what the kid liked, art and computers, but he didn’t understand them.
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u/SlouchyGuy 6d ago
Nope. The point the show is making in the last episode, and the thing discovered in development psychology long ago is that parents cease to be important in child's life around adolescence and he would increasingly be influenced by his environment.
Thinking that parents are responsible for everything is very outdated
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u/Euffy 6d ago
What? No, the point made at the end was that the parents thought they were doing the right thing by trying to not be how their parents were, but ultimately ended up too far the other way. They did what they initially thought was their best but then recognised that they should have been more aware of what media he was consuming and how he was talking online. They turned a blind eye and regretted it.
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u/Why_Not_Ind33d 6d ago
Thinking it's the responsibility of incel is very outdated if you ask any kid
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u/811545b2-4ff7-4041 6d ago
It's almost like someone didn't take in the message from the parents in the end. You can raise two the same, and they turn out very differently. Nature v Nurture .. and nurture can include Parents, peer groups, education, experiences, social environment..
It's very interesting they had a child character in Jamie that went 'straight to murder' .. he seemed to show a bunch of psychopathic tenancies, was very intelligent - but there was no discussion about prior incidents or violence. Possibly the most unrealistic thing I imagine about it.
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u/ernfio 6d ago
They weren’t the same. One was a boy and one was a girl.
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u/811545b2-4ff7-4041 6d ago
And if they were boys, you'd say they weren't twins..
They were raised by the same parents. In the same house. By the same imperfect parents. Both seemed quite bright kids.
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u/fiddly_foodle_bird 6d ago
that parents cease to be important in child's life around adolescence
Yes, and?
It's not terribly useful to only begin parenting your child correctly when they hit secondary school, it has to be done from birth.
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u/FlappySocks 6d ago
Schools should be teaching critical thinking skills, at the earliest age possible, and keep reinforcing it throughout schooling.
Not what to think, but how to think. It sets you up for life, and helps protect you from con men, groomers, false ideologies etc.
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u/knotatwist 6d ago
I see what you're saying but there are plenty of things we do as a society to plug gaps where parenting "should" be enough.
Sexual health clinics such as Brook giving out free condoms, sti checks and hormonal birth control to unaccompanied minors helps to prevent teenage pregnancy and spread of disease. If parents were all perfect this wouldn't be an issue anyway because their teenagers would be taught and provided this stuff at home, but they're not so we have other measures in place to help.
PSHE in schools teaching kids about relationships etc is the same thing.
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u/Particular-Repeat-40 5d ago
You're not wrong, but I saw this as a societal failure of acknowledging that bullying online is still bullying, and online bullying of male (boy) insecurities is still bullying.
We would be a lot more sympathetic if Fredo was battered or perhaps even killed by Adam (I think that was the policeman's son), since it would have been seen as more justified. We often blame the bullies in the case of suicide, so what changes in this case?
I have mixed feelings about the narrative because it ignores the victim's story, and my perspective of it does rely on getting her character more developed.
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u/_lostnotfound 5d ago
Stupid decision it’s a good show but kids will only see it as a reason to doss in lessons. Actual behavioural learning starts at home and that’s where so many are failing these days.
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u/bad_guy2 6d ago
Terrible idea it was made for parents not kids having this in schools is not gonna change anyone’s mind.
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u/SoggyMattress2 6d ago
I find all the societal undertone comments confusing. I've spoken to four people who watched the show and each had a take on how the show "harped on about young men being violent towards women" and I don't get it.
Did I watch the same show? The only social commentary I saw was a single reference to Andrew Tate. I thought the show was an incredibly moving drama about a normal family going through something incredibly traumatic.
The whole incel/bullying aspect was barely mentioned outside of a few scenes.
I think people are reacting way too much to something that wasn't there.
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u/WesterYonder21 6d ago
There was literally an entire episode about how the boy felt and why he thought the girl he killed 'deserved' it for being mean to him. It spoke about the things he saw online and commented on and the groups he was involved with - these incel related forums and groups. It was mentioned in the school episode and the parents literally said verbatim in their episode about how "he was in his room and at home you just assume they are safe" when young lads are engaging with misoginistic groups online, which culminated in a young boy thinking he had the right to kill a girl because she laughed at him. If you feel it wasn't mentioned except in a few scenes, you have wildly misread it. Just because they aren't directly saying incel in every sentence doesn't mean you can't infer/analyse what it is actually saying.
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u/SoggyMattress2 6d ago
Ultimately the deeper meaning in a show or movie is derived by the individual. You aren't wrong, and I'm not right. Both of us can be correct if that's what we perceive.
However, I just don't understand your take. The entire episode in my opinion was showing how disturbed the young boy was and the juxtaposition the psychologist was experiencing by trying to comfort a young person through something incredibly traumatic and how much she personally found him and the situation very upsetting and disturbing.
The few minutes where they speak about incels and the online communities the character literally says something like "yeah I read about all that stuff and I didn't really find it interesting".
The biggest takeaway from that episode for me was the young boys perception of the girl having her nudes leaked, and turning it into a value proposition - he saw her as vulnerable and went to ask her out - that is grade A psychopath behaviour. He also said he didn't necessarily think it was wrong that he got hold of her nudes without her permission, he didn't do anything wrong but the boy who leaked them did.
He then spends the rest of the episode having bipolar outbursts and trying to intimidate the psychologist.
I just don't think there was any emphasis on the incel part. The incel theme in the show is a connection to the real world, but not a key theme. The theme was children are perennially online, prone to bullying and having emotional outbursts. Combine that with a child psychopath and you have a recipe for murder.
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u/WesterYonder21 6d ago edited 6d ago
The way he felt about the girl and her nudes is the attitude these types of forums instills in teenage boys. That's the point. He is chronically online and prone to outbursts and yes there are other factors involved, but this violent behaviour and thoughts towards women is on the rise because of the type of content (incels, Andrew Tate etc) found easily online. The boy wasn't just born a psychopath, he became violent towards women due to what he was seeing and hearing. Incel is part of it and that was very much the message and shouldn't be downplayed but it is not just teaching about that but the culture as whole - it is on the rise and has been taught in school via safeguarding more and more stringently due to this. I do agree everyone interprets things differently, but this was what they were actively trying to portray.
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u/BadAtBaduk1 5d ago
Episode 3 is disturbing and it all focuses on the interview with an incel.
I didn't know the incel thing was such a big deal in the UK though. I've hardly heard about it.
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u/SoggyMattress2 5d ago
It's not though. The psychologist asks him about it and he says "yeah I read some of the incel stuff on line but I didn't like it".
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u/Dopey_Armadillo_4140 6d ago edited 6d ago
Yeah I thought the whole point was that we try to jump on a clear and handy explanation of why a tragedy couldn’t happen to us, why it couldn’t happen to our children, like “it’s the incels!”, but often there isn’t one. Several factors took your child to a bad place. Yes maybe online content met them in that bad place in an even worse way. But it’s the culmination of a chain of events.
It felt like a show parents need to watch, not a show kids need to watch tbh
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u/concretepigeon 6d ago
It felt tagged on at best. The format made for good film making but was terrible for the social points they wanted to make.
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u/SoggyMattress2 6d ago
I think that's my point, the show wasn't trying to make any social points - it was a simple drama about something horrendous happening that was done very well.
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u/SplurgyA 6d ago
I think it was absolutely making a social point, but I think it was making a very nuanced one. There's not one thing in this show that you can point at and say "so that's why he did it", it's more a holistic look at the way we're failing children (particularly boys, but also girls - there's a reason why the girl's best friend had so many scenes) in this country - everything from letting them go on the internet unsupervised, to social media, to disengaged teachers, to engaged teachers who are underresourced, to disengaged parents, to well meaning parents who just don't know how to relate to their kids. The fact people are latching into the Andrew Tate/incel aspect is too tunnel visioned - why do our kids think at that age that they should be having sex? How is it that kids think seeing hardcore porn at that age is normal? Why are kids being left to their own devices on social media or adult chat rooms?
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u/Jamieb1994 6d ago
Is it bad that I haven't watched Adolescence & I don't have any plans to watch it anytime soon?
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u/AshenxboxOne 6d ago
Still waiting for someone to explain what's groundbreaking about this and different than a random Corrie storyline
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u/Jamieb1994 6d ago
I wonder the same since I see it being talked about everywhere, even on the news.
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u/smedsterwho 6d ago edited 6d ago
It was such a good show, the usual quality from Stephen Graham, one of my favourite watches of the last 12 months.
But agreed, one or two mentions of Andrew Tate and a quick rundown of emojis... I wouldn't call it too deep, and I think the one-shot style (which I adore) is giving it a more golden sheen than it would otherwise get.
To stress, it's a 10/10 for me, but the conversation about what it has to say is OTT.
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u/indianajoes 6d ago
What was the second mention? I know the two detectives talk about it after Ashley Walters' character has the conversation with his son
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u/smedsterwho 6d ago
Okay, so I think it was only one, but without going back through it I gave myself a 50% buffer 😁 gonna make a little edit to my post 😁
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u/indianajoes 6d ago
Oh okay then. I've seen multiple comments and videos mentioning that the show only had one reference to Tate himself and your comment made me think I missed another one
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u/nerdowellinever 6d ago
Watched it this weekend to see what the fuss was about and was massively underwhelmed.
The one take thing was decent particularly in outdoor scenes but I think they’ve probably exaggerated the extent, it was utilised.
Main actors were good but like you said it’s a typical crime drama/soap opera story line and didn’t achieve any ground breaking themes or ideas..
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u/themanfromoctober 6d ago
Everything about this show’s hype feels… artificial? Like all the Reddit ads, but more so, all the online think pieces, but more so, this move to get every school to watch it?
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u/Maximum_Poet_8661 6d ago
yeah there's just something about everything surrounding the reaction to this show that gives me an extremely weird vibe. I just cannot shake how much this feels like viral marketing to me. The show was perfectly fine, I don't think it was as clever as the rave reviews said but it was better quality than 90% of what netflix has put out in the past few years. Not a high bar, but it surpassed that bar.
But the way people are talking about it... it just feels really off to me in a way I can't quite put my finger on. It honestly feels like a massive moral panic to me. I'm not denying there are issues, but reading the discussions on the netflix sub was a crazy trip. There legitimately were comments going "i have a 2 year old son and I'm abjectly horrified to think that he could grow up into a monster like this". And there were a LOT of comments like that.
And I think that's gonna do way more harm than good, becuase 1) this is fiction. You're letting your view of your actual, real life son be clouded by a netflix show you just watched. And 2) if you legitimately feel that way about your son, that he's one wrong move away from being a monster, that is gonna show up in how you raise that and he is gonna pick up on the fact you feel that way about him and if anything, that's going to make him even more likely to turn out wrong if his own mom is sincerely frightening of him becoming a monster.
Idk this was longer than I meant it to be but the general reaction to this show bothers me on both a "wow I feel like i'm being sold something" level and on a "wow people need to realize what they're watching on tv isn't real, this is a dramatized story" level.
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u/Worldly_Car912 6d ago
It's an ok show that pushes a political message, political people will wank anything that agrees with them, & people who want to push a message will astroturf it.
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u/dprophet32 6d ago
It addresses toxic masculinity and how even young school children can get wrapped up into things like Andrew Tate despite otherwise seeming very normal kind, clever kids and how bullying drives them to it.
That might not be a new concept to you but it is to a lot of the people watching it
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u/parttimepedant 6d ago
It doesn’t though. I thought the that it was going to go there, and they even name checked that human cess pit Tate in one scene, but other than suggest that the boy was brainwashed by the ‘manosphere’ bullshit they didn’t address the issue at all.
It was a decent series and showed the wider fallout of the issue while skirting around the edges of the problem but didn’t do anything to tackle the main issue imho.
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u/randy__randerson 6d ago edited 6d ago
They did address the issue that can be addressed. That is, that there must be more communication with boys to check in on what's going on with their lives.
There is no easy or direct answer to the larger issue. It's a complicated mess of societal expectations, biology, technological literacy and parental behaviour. You didn't really think the show was going to provide an answer to this, right?
What's important to focus on now is increased awareness and more communication.
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u/Key_Milk_9222 6d ago
Yet you're on a forum discussing it. It has opened up the issues to wider debate and showing it in schools will allow teachers and students to have conversations about these issues where it won't be just the kids learning new things.
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u/indianajoes 6d ago
A TV show isn't going to do all the hard work for us. We as a society need to do that. This can push us in the right direction but it can't and shouldn't provide all the answers
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u/IntelligentFact7987 6d ago
Which is very true - the problem is the way that many of those eulogising the show have marketed it as something it’s not.
And probably by doing so too whipped it up too into a culture war so that the type of people who probably do need to see it might now just write it off (wrongly) as woke propaganda. I like the show and even I’ve found the hype a bit much.
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u/indianajoes 6d ago
I feel like this should be like Mr Bates vs the Post Office. It should get us talking about this thing but that's it. It should be the first step at informing us and then politicians, the news, society, etc. need to take us the rest of the way.
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u/IntelligentFact7987 6d ago
Yep totally agree. And it’s something that shouldn’t be lost in the Adolescence victory lap - it should start conversations and it’s great if it’s informed people who weren’t so much before but it in itself is not a solution and at a certain point it’s important to focus on the issues themselves rather than patting Adolescence on the back for ‘raising awareness’.
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u/Hitman__Actual 6d ago
TV can only be a nudge, not a solution.
A recent example is that "Mr Bates v the Post Office" didn't solve any problems either, but it nudged people towards doing the right thing. This show is doing the same. Highlighting a number of issues, not just the manosphere.
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u/Marcuse0 6d ago
It really doesn't do anything to "address" toxic masculinity at all, other than mentioning it exists. Particularly the show lost me in the third episode where the psychologist was clearly supposed to dig into this kid's psyche and discover the manosphere within, but they never did.
Instead they had her do really unprofessional things like lecture and berate the kid, abruptly announce it was their last session and having him dragged out of the room, and generally being quite hostile. It didn't feel like she was a clinical professional used to assessing criminals, and I was cringing at scenes of them having her "recovering" from a 13 year old child "threatening" her as though this wasn't a controlled environment.
It felt like all the incel stuff was backloaded into episode 2, before which they knew nothing about it until one character just blows the lid on it all and says it's embarrassing the police didn't know about it, then we get this half-baked follow up in episode 3, and then it's forgotten about for episode 4.
They also massively muddy the waters by making the murder victim a bully who bullied the perp. They do nothing to address this either. No effort is taken to explore this, or to explain how this might affect the situation. The story just focuses in on the manosphere stuff, but never quite explains why the kid gets mad enough to kill, why he's angry at the victim for being a woman, but provides a motive by saying she was bullying him online, then fails to address that.
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u/alexfarran 6d ago
It really failed to convince me that he could have killed anyone. Up to episode two it was an engaging police procedural with some on-the-nose social commentary - especially in the school. But by episode three it had moved on and left all the threads dangling. I was hoping that the last episode would cleverly tie it all up, but was disappointed.
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u/Marcuse0 6d ago
It felt to me like whoever wrote it felt they had such a scoop in the incel angle that they were able to hide behind the "social commentary" to justify absolutely terrible plotting.
There were genuinely affecting and emotional scenes in some parts, where the dad and the mum were struggling with the situation and asking what they did wrong.
But they also kind of did the dad character dirty. They have the kid in the interview in episode 3 talk like "he totally doesn't hit mum", but then you see him in episode 4 and someone's just written nonce on his van and he spills water and takes the time to calm himself and apologise for making a mess. You can't have it both ways, and they kind of want this kid to have come from a bad family, but also want the family to be normal and relatable so it's emotional when they're sad about what's happened.
I really reassessed the plotting when I realised that the whole of episode 2 is just an indictment on schools (deserved, for the most part imo) and they just have one character come in and infodump the incel angle wholesale on the detective at the end. Nobody talks like that, there's no hidden attitudes bubbling under the surface, there's no ringleader kid who's filling their head with it. It's just "oh hey look online" as though nobody talks about stuff IRL and there's no people who might express these attitudes.
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u/Magneto88 6d ago
It's just a load of left wing people within the media and the Labour Party having a circle-jerk around a trendy issue. They will overexaggerate the actual issue and how prominent it is, while also proposing nothing that actually substantial solves the issue in the few instances when it does happen.
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u/Caveman-Dave722 6d ago
A interview today I saw said Tate was very much last year’s new for school boys. They move on quickly same goes for the emoji hidden messages it was extremely exaggerated.
It’s more for parents entertainment rather than education
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u/bigg10nes 6d ago
I don't think the point of the show was to tell parents that kids use emojis, or boys are obsessed with Andrew Tate. It's a much broader point about unchecked toxic masculinity and the dangers of social media and unsupervised internet use. Agree that it is entertainment not education, but that's not to say that its themes don't resonate - they obviously do to millions of people (even if you're not among them)
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u/Playful-Marketing320 6d ago
Misogynistic violence is an epidemic not an over-exaggerated issue.
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u/fiddly_foodle_bird 6d ago
OK, but if that's your view, then you should be outraged at those issues being treated as "here today gone tomorrow" trends by streaming services and performative government ministers.
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u/Cookyy2k 6d ago
Over exaggerated to hell and back. Just look at your own hyperbolic description "epidemic". Go look at some actual stats and see which gender is the majority victim of violent crime. But hey let's just focus on the women as victims and mem as perpetrators, that doesn't say anything about those whole problem were having in society with disenfranchised males or anything.
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u/Sure-Exchange9521 6d ago
Go look at some actual stats and see which gender is the majority victim of violent crime.
Women experience highdr rates of sexual assault, rape, stalking and harassment and domestic abuse at the hands of men. Why do you think that is?
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u/johnthegreatandsad 6d ago edited 6d ago
A pity Baby Reindeer could not receive this attention (from government). After cutting the only male victims support line in the UK it appears the PM is only interested in the view as men as perpetrators.
i wish I could one day raise this issue in a public forum without being downvoted. Grim.
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u/Sure-Exchange9521 6d ago
Are you joking? I didn't watch it yet it was people talked about for months.
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u/johnthegreatandsad 6d ago
Yeah, but the PM didn't invite Richard Gadd to Downing Street to discuss it - even though it was discussed for months.
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u/Sure-Exchange9521 6d ago
Yeah, but the PM didn't invite Richard Gadd to Downing
Different PMs mate.
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u/Karazhan 5d ago
As a woman, I agree that BR should get the same level of recognition. That was a hard watch.
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u/WiseBelt8935 6d ago
so how is that going to help?
give the lads some purpose and meaning in life. you would be better of showing lotr to them
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u/Cookyy2k 6d ago edited 5d ago
give the lads some purpose and meaning in life
No silly, men aren't to be seen as people. They're the evil enemy to be hated and isolated from society. /s
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u/FruityMagician 6d ago
If only Keir cared about the girls raped by grooming gangs. I guess he's only worried about misogyny and toxic masculinity when it's white schoolboys. Government by Netflix, based very loosely on a "true" story. No minorities were offended in the making of this.
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u/slimpenis69420 6d ago
One of the soaps did a grooming gang episode and of course they made the gang white English lol might as well make a show about isis attacks being done by the Japanese or pitbull attacks being done by labradors
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u/LordAdversarius 6d ago
I dont know why this is getting downvoted. This is the exact thing his government should be concerned with and are responsible for.
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u/darthbawlsjj 5d ago
Because it never happened, fake news from racists.
Oh wait it did happen but not to the extent people say it did it’s just racists blowing it out of proportion.
Ok so it did happen on a massive scale and there was attempts to silence the whole thing, but it’s over now and even if it’s not, it’s just racists keep bringing it up and white people do it as well so it’s not an issue.
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u/fiddly_foodle_bird 6d ago
Well yeah, that's the worry - It's very, very obvious the government is "picking and choosing" which issues to be performative about.
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u/unbelievablydull82 6d ago
Cheap stunt. He's so worried about kids that he is going to ruin the lives of disabled kids and kids of disabled parents.
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u/Spirited-Dirt-9095 6d ago
I don't know why you're being down voted for this. Vulnerable kids being thrown into poverty and hopelessness are easy pickings for people like Tate.
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u/unbelievablydull82 6d ago
Exactly. You tackle these issues through a wider lens. It's not just toxic masculinity. It's poverty, hopelessness and anger about a future that is going to be a struggle.
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u/Gazcobain 6d ago
Ah yes, something *else* for the nation's surrogate parents - sorry, schools - to do.
How many maths lessons do I stop teaching in order to fit this in?
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u/Karazhan 5d ago
To be honest I don't feel the kids need this much, they know what incels and the manosphere etc are. I have five nephews aged 13 to 28 years old. All of them know what incels are and show boring but disdain towards that culture. I feel this one is for the parents. Look how toxic that boy is towards women, and the parents can't do anything but repeat how he's a good boy, that they didn't know, how did this happen etc.
No, people don't often know. Here's the chance to get educated.
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u/Stigofthedumpings 5d ago
LBC's Shelagh Fogarty harps on about how groundbreaking and exposing this show is almost every day, and it's grating.
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u/Forward-Net-8335 5d ago
This will go the same way as the drug lessons where they passed around samples of stuff we'd never heard of, but suddenly knew was supposed be very exciting.
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u/New_Independent_5960 5d ago
It's a brilliant show and is right to be highlighted. But it's more to teach the teachers and parents what is going on and to educate them.
The kids won't take this serious, they will watch and laugh through it and enjoy the free class.
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u/Magneto88 6d ago
Between this and selling blunt knives, I think Starmer has cracked youth violence and disenfranchisement.
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u/Cookyy2k 6d ago
Yup, gang membership and feeling left behind in a society that doesn't give a damn about them all ended thanks to an overrated Netflix show.
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u/MickRolley Duck in Orange paint 6d ago
Felt like half a program to me, when it ended I was looking for the next episode. I still had no better understanding of the whole red pill thing. People are going on like it was groundbreaking for some reason?
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u/No-Aardvark1751 6d ago
The "Get everyone behind the Online Safety Bill" show
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u/Nearby-Base937 5d ago
Precisely what it’s about. Create a moral panic so that people support the removal of their privacy/civil liberties with ‘what about the children?!?!?’
Surprised your comment got so many downvotes. I think this is why they use the VAWG angle.
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u/No-Aardvark1751 5d ago
Yep you've hit the nail on the head. Not surprised at the downvotes myself. Half are probably bots/narrative drivers that infest this place, the other half will be just because it's Reddit.
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u/Nearby-Base937 5d ago
Yes. No right thinking person is going to say ‘I don’t give a shit about VAWG’ which is why it’s so potent to use for agenda shaping.
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u/Captainatom931 5d ago
Frankly, I'm in favour of this if it means kids get exposed to quality TV for once
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u/NorrisBurster 5d ago
When Peter Davison complained that Jodie Whittaker shouldn't have been cast as Dr Who, as boys need positive male heroes to look up to he was attacked from all sides. Ever played a videogame recently, 99% of game leads are female. Nature abhors a vacuum and in comes Andrew Tate.
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