Nearly a month after its release, Adolescence has finally been booted out of Netflix’s no. 1 most-popular spot—but it remains firmly in the top 10, and continues to generate commentary, controversy, and, in schools across the U.K., some potential (if minor) paths to solving some of the problems it confronts. Since the the heart-rending, record-setting, four-part limited series about a 13-year-old boy who is arrested for stabbing a female classmate premiered in March, it’s been lauded as “unnervingly on-the-nose,” “a gutting account of murder, misogyny and teen fragility,” and “a cautionary tale of the male rage and isolation fueled by the manosphere.” But it’s not its take on the far-reaching ramifications of a fast-growing, unrepentantly hateful subculture that glorifies and preaches misogyny to a new generation of young men that remained with me after I turned off my TV. Instead, it’s the way systemic poverty—or at least a lack of wealth—exacerbates every character’s problems.
When Jamie Miller (the protagonist, portrayed by the revelation that is Owen Cooper), is confirmed guilty by the end of the first episode, Adolescence has already alluded to the fact that blame exceeds that of an impressionable, isolated teenager. It spends the next three episodes delving into the issues that contributed to the murder, including underfunded education systems, overworked parents, and, of course, the men who wield power via the internet. Jamie, it’s revealed, had been emboldened by the manosphere and, as one character succinctly puts it, “the Andrew Tate shite.” The show’s bottom line is bleak: There’s not a lot of hope for many young, male minds if the internet (and the world writ large) continues to function under the unchecked order of billionaires, edgelords, and misogynists.
Set in a working class suburb of Liverpool, England, the story begins in the Miller family’s humble two-story home on the morning of Jamie’s arrest. His father, Eddie (Stephen Graham), has just returned home from work. Eddie is an on-call plumber who works nights and weekends to sustain his family. Money troubles, as it’s established in the series, play a role not just in the Millers’ daily lives, but in Jamie’s case. Upon his arrest, Jamie has no choice but to rely on a court-appointed attorney, because the family can’t afford their own. Reminders of the family’s financial restrictions are frequent—from Jamie’s mother’s lamenting damage the police left on their home while arresting Jamie, to Eddie’s attempt to repaint his work van after it’s vandalized by local kids.
Their community is constrained, too. In episode two, as the detectives assigned to Jamie’s case visit his school, they find a largely overwhelmed and underfunded institution in which teachers are checked out, students are flailing, and resources for those struggling to process the stabbing are scant. There, we meet Jade (Fatima Bojang), the best friend of Katie Leonard, the girl Jamie murdered. Devastated by the sudden loss of her only friend, Jade lashes out at the detectives, faculty, and her fellow classmates. The solitary solution presented to mitigate her grief (speaking to a school counselor) is one that she contests hasn’t previously helped. Her single mother works full-time; only one teacher displays an actual interest in her; and, without Katie, the 13-year-old is left to be shuffled through the system as yet another student with emotional needs that its infrastructure wasn’t built to support.
In the end, Jamie pleads guilty to Katie’s murder, as his parents grapple with what they could’ve gotten wrong. Were they present enough? With the exception of trying to put food on the table, yes. Was there any behavior they could’ve clocked? Maybe. Should they have monitored his internet activity more? Certainly. Wracked by guilt, Eddie enters Jamie’s bedroom for the first time since his arrest, and sobs into the comforter clutching desperately at the boy’s old teddy bear. “I’m sorry, son,” he says through tears. “I should have done better.”
Jamie’s parents are abandoned to assume accountability for Katie’s murder—even if it’s not entirely their sole blame to bear. As seen multiple times throughout the series, law enforcement doesn’t have the slightest idea of Andrew Tate’s increasing stronghold on young boys until one detective’s teenage son informs him of such. Further, the school’s leadership doesn’t offer any demonstrable strategies to combat the dangerous ideologies its students are being exposed to.
It’s a startling reflection of real-life. While the U.K.’s National Police Chiefs Council recently declared the radicalization of young men and boys “a national emergency,” there appears to be little appetite to respond on legislators’ or leaders’ parts. In March, prosecutors revealed that a young man who was convicted of rape and of murdering his ex-partner, her sister, and their mother had searched for misogynistic podcasts the night before the crimes, and had watched 10 Andrew Tate video, according to the Guardian. Meanwhile, Andrew Tate and his brother, who face sexual misconduct charges in the U.K. and an investigation in Romania over allegations of rape, human trafficking, and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women, continue to be able to spread their misogyny on multiple platforms including Twitter, Apple podcasts, and Spotify. (Though Meta banned Andrew Tate in 2022, the brothers’ content still circulates via third parties on its platforms.)
Jamie is an avatar for the average boy coming of age in a time where men who hate women have the internet and its rage-baiting algorithms to disseminate their misogyny; how can even the most engaged parents feel optimistic about what their children are exposed to? Without system-spanning reformation and regulation, stronger emphasis on community care, and significant educational resources to counterbalance the “manosphere,” who (or what) is actually capable of protecting the real-life Jamies and their would-be targets? The people with actual power have proved time and again that they’re not only unhelpful, but actively harmful in their perpetuation of the culture wars.
If it takes a village to raise a child, then it requires the same to ruin them. How truly sad for people like Jamie’s parents who willingly accept responsibility for their personal mistakes, while those in power refuse to, and instead merely reap their millions.
GET JEZEBEL RIGHT IN YOUR INBOX
Still here. Still without airbrushing. Still with teeth.
