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Toxic masculinity, cyberbullying: 'Adolescence' explores the trials and tribulations of growing up
Netflix's series taken on modern times - and exposes the not just teen trouble but also society's fixation with the macabre
- PUBLISHED: Wed 2 Apr 2025, 11:05 AM
It’s always uncomfortable to see realisation dawn — that hitch of breath, the resignation in the eyes, that slump of a person’s shoulders — when they are faced with the absolute, undeniable – even if seemingly infeasible – truth.
Netflix’s mini-series Adolescence is just such a journey down the rabbit hole with a new generation known for short attention spans, exposure to dramatic stimuli (thanks social media), and isolation, brought on by digital nativity and teen angst.
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The series, which scored 99 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, begins with the incursion of police in a seemingly laid-back middle-class neighbourhood. They aren’t after a gang, but a sleeping child (Jamie) who is still in his pyjamas and now facing murder charges.
The next four episodes take the slow burn route to get to the root of the problem – yes, there is toxic masculinity and entitlement on display, a commentary on how intergenerational trauma can affect kids (Jamie’s temper flares up quite often, and it’s something he shares with his father), and what happens when you don’t communicate about real issues – such as bullying in school.
For the parents of 13-year-old Jamie (played by an excellent Owen Cooper), reality hits slowly, first like a gentle drizzle of rain when the father (Stephen Graham) sees the video evidence of his child’s crime and over the next couple of episodes like a torrent of emotion that no one can avoid.
The fear of online assertions isn’t new or rare – it’s been dominating airwaves for at least a decade, with real cases of cyber bullying (which have sometimes resulted in fatalities) dragging the issue into the limelight. In 2022, a study published in JAMA Network Open that used NIH-funded researchers led by Dr Ran Barzilay from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia found that of the 10,000 children with the average age of 12, almost 9 per cent reported being a target of cyberbullying.
When a child is subjected to this sort of attack, as Jamie was when he asked a fellow student out and was bullied by her online as a result, he/she may react in a difficult manner, because they are more prone to stress and raging hormones and may not have discovered healthy coping mechanisms yet. Each message chips away at your sense of self until finally you see no way out than to hurt yourself or your bully.
Then there is peer pressure, which as we know, can affect pubescents in unusual ways. “The heightened neuroplasticity of adolescence, combined with the saliency of peer influence, makes peer-induced social plasticity a powerful tool for guiding social learning and behaviour,” explains the paper How adolescent plasticity supports learning and development, published on Science Direct.
Among things that will make you shiver about the series is the fact that the idea was sparked by bloodshed. “It started with my friend (series co-creator) Stephen Graham. Stephen called me up and said we should write a show about boys hating girls and about knife crime, which in (the UK) is really problematic right now,” said series co-creator Jack Thorne in an interview with CNN.
“That was the start of us talking about male rage, our own anger, our own cruelty. We were trying to build a complicated portrait of masculinity: Of how we were made and how teenagers are being made in a lot of similar ways, but with a lot of differences, too,” he added.
And the series does a brilliant job of handling the narrative. Nuanced performances light up the screen; the horror when something new and unnerving is revealed are real.
It also highlights how one choice, made in an angry moment, can change not only the direction of your life but also that of your family. And that’s the other thing about the story, it draws you into the lives of those destroyed by someone just because they care for that person. Not only must Jamie’s family deal with the emotional fallout of the incident but also social stigma and oftentimes, physical abuse from society. In Adolescence, things come to a head when someone scribbles a hurtful word on the family van.
It’s also a painful reminder of incidents like the Sandy Hook massacre, which saw one perpetrator kill his mum and 26 people at an elementary school in the US. Years later, haunted family members were still drawn into the conversation of guns, murder, and what went wrong. Yet, these conversations are as hypnotic as they are macabre – and that bares more dissection of us as a society. Why do we want to hear the tales of death and destruction?
The Netflix drama references British manosphere influencer Andrew Tate, who has been allegedly accused of rape and other serious crimes. And while his spokesperson has slammed his association with radicalisation as touched upon in the series, conversations surrounding toxicity and misogyny have surfaced. Something the filmmakers have appreciated.
The series is filmed in a special way, in one-shot episodes that drag you into the narrative. There are no cuts and as a result, no breaks from the intensity of a frame or the emotions rushing at you because of a scene. Director Philip Barantini tells Screen Daily in an interview: “We had to plan way more in advance than you would do with a conventional show because the actors need to rehearse in the spaces and we need to know exactly where the camera can go…
“We shot each episode in three-week blocks. We’d have a week of rehearsal with me and the actors; a week of tech rehearsal with the whole cast and crew; and then we’d do two takes a day for the final week so 10 takes in total. Sometimes we’d have to stop and go again, and that was one take, so for some episodes we did up to 16 takes. It usually ended up being the last take that we’d use.”
Adolescence has become a massive hit on Netflix. According to Variety, the show gained 24.3 million views in its first four days – and this virality has only grown. It is also sparking change.
On Monday, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer met the creators of Adolescence, and he backed Netflix’s decision to make the “groundbreaking” series available to watch for free in schools across the country.
“As a father, watching this show with my teenage son and daughter, I can tell you — it hit home hard,” he said in a statement after meeting co-writer Jack Thorne, charities, and young people at his Downing Street office, reported Reuters.
“As I see from my own children, openly talking about changes in how they communicate, the content they’re seeing, and exploring the conversations they’re having with their peers is vital.”
Communication, caution, and a whole lot of patience is needed in the age of digitisation; as is a concerted effort to be self-aware and alert when it comes to the kids.
The question still lingers, however; are the kids gonna be alright?
