Adolescence : An Unflinching Exploration of Modern Masculinity

By Aidan Szabo Hall

Poisonous influencers, pornography, a radicalising manosphere, incel culture, online bullying, social media algorithms which perpetuate and exploit unrealistic beauty ideals: Adolescence examines the impact of pernicious forces faced by children in an online world. 

The opening frames of Adolescence sees a squad of armed police enter a quiet suburban home and arrest 13 year-old Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) on suspicion of murder. Shot in one continuous take, the audience are placed intimately alongside Jamie as he is driven to the police station, processed upon arrival and interviewed, alongside his father (Stephen Graham), by DI Bascombe (Ashley Walters) and DS Frank (Faye Marsay). Presented with irrefutable CCTV footage by DI Bascombe, it transpires that Jamie has brutally stabbed his female schoolmate, Katie, in a carpark. 

The succeeding three episodes — each filmed in the same one-shot format — are located in Jamie’s chaotic secondary school, a teenage mental facility, where Jamie is held before his trial, and the Miller household. 

Cinematographer Matthew Lewis notes how the show’s unique format was an apt medium to tackle a subject matter that some may be hesitant to confront:

“I think if there’s anything that forces us to look at a subject matter we don’t want to look at, it’s a one shot”. 

Inspired to write the series following a succession of brutal incidents where young girls were fatally stabbed by teenage boys, co-creator Stephen Graham says the objective of the show was not to “point the figure at one particular person” but rather to “start a conversation” about social media, misogynistic influencers, gender-based violence and knife crime. 

Topping Netflix’s global streaming charts and the UK’s weekly TV ratings — the first streaming show to do so — few dramas in recent memory have sparked such impassioned national debate. Its release has accelerated calls for smartphones to be banned for under-16 year olds and prompted new anti-misogyny lessons to be introduced as part of the RHSE curriculum. Keir Starmer has also backed a campaign for Adolescence to be aired in UK schools. 

The show has struck a cultural chord as an epidemic of violence continues against women and girls in the UK. 

Adolescence debuted as headlines broke that triple murderer Kyle Clifford watched a succession of Andrew Tate videos the night before murdering his ex-girlfriend Louise Hunt, along with her mother and sister, with a crossbow last July. Clifford was reportedly enraged that Hunt had ended their 18-month relationship and had repeatedly rejected his attempts to get back together. 

Tate, who has been framed by some prominent right-wing figures — including Nigel Farage — as an “important voice for men”, is under investigation by Romanian and British authorities for rape and human trafficking. Both Tate and his brother, Tristan, face a criminal investigation in Florida. 

Tate denies these allegations and rejects the accusation that his rhetoric has a harmful impact. 

Yet teachers in UK schools have long warned of how Tate’s unashamed misogyny warps the minds of impressionable schoolboys and toxifies playground politics. They report increasing instances of sexist behaviour directed at both female students and teachers, ranging from the repetition of Tate’s catchphrases (“make me a sandwich”), to sexual assaults. 

Leaked chat logs from Tate’s “War Room” — A network ostensibly dedicated to the “physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and financial development” of its male members — reveals how participants are encouraged to emotionally manipulate women for the purposes of sexual and financial exploitation. Tate and his brother, Tristan, are accused of using the “Loverboy method” — whereby traffickers falsify romantic interest to groom and exploit victims — to recruit women into the webcam industry. 

Adolescence partly examines how manosphere influencers like Tate prey on the vulnerabilities of disillusioned young men and boys — who may not feel sufficiently confident, attractive, strong or wealthy — and distort their perception of women by propagating the idea that females need to be manipulated to be seduced. Manosphere rhetoric often overlaps with theories promoted within incel communities, where men — who believe they are innately entitled to female attention — often express their self-loathing in acts of spite and rage against women and girls. 

These themes are explored in episode three, where Cooper balances a breathtaking display of aggression and vulnerability alongside Erin Doherty, who delivers an equally compelling performance as his adolescent psychologist, Briony Ariston. 

Probed by Briony on his relationships with girls and views on women, a line of inquiry that makes him deeply uncomfortable, Jamie reveals himself to be highly manipulative. He admits to emotionally exploiting Katie, assuming her dejection after having her nudes shared on snapchat would make her more likely to accept his offer of a date: “I thought she might be weak…It’s clever, don’t you think?” 

Probed by Briony on his relationships with girls and views on women, a line of inquiry that makes him deeply uncomfortable, Jamie reveals himself to be highly manipulative. He admits to emotionally exploiting Katie, assuming her dejection after having her nudes shared on snapchat would make her more likely to accept his offer of a date: “I thought she might be weak…It’s clever, don’t you think?” 

Jamie parrots tropes associated with incel subcultures — such as the baseless 80/20 rule, that 80 percent of women are attracted to the top 20 percent of men — while revealing that the motive behind Katie’s murder likely owed to the rejection of his advances. Echoing incel rhetoric, he blames this rejection on her cruelty and his unattractiveness: “She did it to me because I’m ugly.” Exhibiting flashes of uncontrollable rage, he screams, shouts, ridicules Briony (“Look at you, all hopeful that I’m going to say something important”) and threateningly looms over her. 

Yet, amid Jamie’s anger and misogyny, we are reminded that this is still a child, one who is desperate for validation, has been bullied at school, is self-conscious about his physical appearance and doesn’t feel as if he is good at anything. Tellingly, his fits of rage occur when Briony fails to refute his anxieties, such as when Jamie describes himself as “ugly”, or claims that his father was ashamed of him because of his ineptitude at sports. 

These moments of anger and self-pity illustrate how a boy might be allured by misogynistic content or incel subcultures that promote the idea that a male’s inability to attract female attention owes to a woman’s cruelty or ignorance — rather than his own flaws and failings. 

The most chilling takeaway of the series, however, is the normality of Jamie’s circumstances: this is not a boy who comes from an abusive, deprived or unhappy home. His bedroom contains books, cartoons, pictures of cars and a computer. His mother, sister and father are loving and hardworking. 

“I didn’t want Jamie to come from a background where his mum was a drinker, or where his Dad was violent or aggressive”, says Graham, explaining this rationale, “I wanted to try and get the audience to ask the question why…and in the same respect think “That could be my child”. 

Months removed from Jamie’s arrest, the show’s final episode tracks the Miller family as they adjust to their new lives as the celebritised father, mother and sister of a teenage murderer. They are subject to vandalisation, perpetual gossip from prying neighbours and encounter strangers who conspiratorially debate Katie’s murder. 

Its closing moments are crushing, as Eddie enters Jamie’s empty room for the first time since his arrest. Sobbing into his son’s pillow, in words that will speak to every parent who may now think twice about what goes on behind their child’s bedroom door, he admits his failings as a father: “I’m sorry son, I should’ve done better”.