The most interesting thing about the Netflix series Adolescence isnât the great acting, the technological feats of filming, or the surreal perfection of 15-year-old actor Owen Cooper. What makes it stand out is the global conversation it has ignited. The series has achieved unexpected success as the No.1 most-watched show in almost 80 countries. You can ask anyone, of any age, in any country, what they thought about it, and youâll find they can share thoughts and reactions across cultures and continents.
Thatâs pretty good for a short, dark British TV drama in four, one-hour quartets filmed in the North of England. It combines a lot of obviously popular plot themes - murder mystery, courtroom drama, psychologists psychologising. But underneath it all, it touches on three deep fears that are killing us right now. And thatâs what takes your breath away. Like a punch to your solar plexus.
1. The Impossibility of Parenting
For all time, parents have never quite understood what their kids are up to. Across the ages, the grown ups have shaken their heads at what the young are up to. But never before in human history have parents been left so completely bereft of any capacity to understand what their kids are doing, saying or communicating. Like the parents in Adolescence, most of us just shrug our shoulders and accept thatâs just the way of things. But thatâs where Adolescence pushes its insistent finger down our fragile parental psyches.
What if they are doing really, really bad things in their bedrooms, behind an innocently closed door, just before they come down to dinner and and down your fish fingers? What if even if you did have access to their laptops or phones (I admit to having had spyware installed on my kidsâ computers back in the day), you couldnât even begin to understand the language, symbols and emoticons flying around the social media swarm.
When technology changes so quickly that even Millennials are shaking their heads at Gen Zâs incomprehensible habits, what chance do ageing parents have to stay a step ahead of their kids? Adolescence ignites a deep, primal fear in every parent. Of being overtaken by events, technology and the warp speed at which the world - and their children - are changing.
The final, heartbreaking scene of Adolescence has the father breakdown in tears in his sonâs room, apologising to his kidâs childhood teddy bear that âhe should have done better.â Every parent around the planet shivers in compassionate self-questioning.
2. The Anger of Men (Unleashed On Women)
After decades where the world focused on helping women and girls rise to a level of equality with men, there is an urgent need to pay more attention to the suffering and relative falling behind of men and boys. The startling trends of men across a range of metrics serves as the cultural context into which Adolescence lets off a gendered bomb: a young boy angrily murders a female classmate who has questioned his masculinity.
Male rage, particularly on display in parts of the manosphere, has been steadily rising. There are many reasons for it as Richard Reeves, Scott Galloway, Niobe Way and other researchers have documented:
Educational Underachievement: Boys are falling behind in school at every levelâfrom primary through university, are less likely to go to college, and those who do are more likely to drop out. The gender gap in education now favours girls significantly in most developed countries.
Declining Male Participation in the Workforce: Labor force participation among menâespecially working-class and less-educated menâis in decline. Many men are disconnected from work, which many tie to automation, offshoring, and shifts in the economy away from traditionally male-dominated sectors.
Mental Health and Loneliness: Men are struggling with higher rates of suicide, addiction, and mental health issues but are less likely to seek help, often due to cultural norms around masculinity. Many experience loneliness and a lack of close relationships, particularly in midlife and older age.
Cultural Confusion Around Masculinity: The conversation about gender has focused on empowering women, but this has left a vacuum for men and boys. Masculinity is often portrayed negatively, quickly labeled âtoxic,â with few constructive or aspirational models on offer.
Lack of Policy Focus: Most public policy and educational reform discussions still focus on helping girls and women but neglect the specific struggles, or often any mention or inclusion, of boys and men.
Too often, the frustration and anger that builds up is then expressed in violence, to womenâs great apprehension. What Adolescence potently profiles, especially in the third episode where the female psychologist interviews the accused, is that men can only be pushed so far, then they lose their tempers and lash out. Online, they are often being groomed to see themselves as victims of unfair policies and preferences for women.
In the UK, where the series takes place, this has been accompanied by a steady increase in sexual assault with the year ending March 2022 seeing âthe highest number of sexual offences recorded by police in England and Wales.â Violence levels against women started surging back in 2013, the vast majority, horrifically, by intimate partners.
Others have written of the gender divergence among younger generations, with young men becoming increasingly conservative in values and politics while young women are trending towards more liberal - around the world. These gender issues and the lonely gulf they create between young humans biologically programmed to mate doesnât bode well for social peace.
Adolescence escalates all these issues and fears to their most horrifying symbolic end. The elimination of women by angry, resentful men.
3. Generational Decline
Finally, Adolescence plays with a final, intolerable idea. That our kids will be worse off than us. That rather than the age-old dream of standing on the shoulders of the generations that preceded us, future generations will be metaphorically locked into the limited cells of their troubled physical and mental states.
The data backs this up. Our human young are less healthy than the generations before them, as documented by George Ploubidis from the University College Londonâs Centre for Longitudinal Studies, in a phenomenon he calls âgenerational health drift.â Each generation he has been tracking over decades, is steadily less healthy, both physically and mentally. They exhibit:
Increased Chronic Conditions: Individuals born post-1945 show higher incidences of chronic diseases such as cancer, lung disease, heart problems, diabetes, and high cholesterol than earlier generations did at the same age. The New York Times recently wrote about research showing that âeach successive generation is more likely to be diagnosed with cancer at a younger age than the one before it.â
Rising Disability Rates: The decline in disability rates observed in pre-war cohorts has slowed or reversed in those born after 1945, suggesting that younger generations may experience more functional limitations. â
Mental Health Concerns: Younger generations are experiencing higher rates of mental health issues, including psychological distress, compared to older cohorts.
Adolescence plays with this theme ruthlessly. The young Jamie desperately wants his fatherâs approval, but his dad is ashamed of him. First for his wimpish ways with a baseball, then of his violent ways with a knife. The father admits he canât even look at the son he has sired. The son rips havoc through his life, family and community. The girl who dies is almost incidental to the plot. Sheâs collateral damage in this tale of civilisational decline.
Adolescence could not have picked three themes more central to the zeitgeist - and more global in their reach. Hapless parenting, violent gender ructions and inter-generational angst are a mirror of our deepest human fears in increasingly turbulent times.
And, if you havenât read enough, hereâs a companion piece by my friend, colleague and fellow-Canadian, Carl HonorĂ©, on the issue of fathers and fathering. Itâs lovely
Great writing Avivah! Thank you