Adolescence on Netflix

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stephen Graham (who played the father) was interviewed on Fresh Air today.

https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2025/03/31/fresh-air-for-march-31-2025

And the audition tape for the boy who played Jamie is making the rounds of Instagram.

Why am I not surprised this utter-garbage series is being praised by npr?

OMG, can you just move to the Political forum…or better yet another country!

(The episode was about the actor’s career, including his newest project—-which is not Adolescence. But the cult of grievance just inserts Trump’s latest rant, whether it fits the facts or not. No surprise there)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The show is entirely fictional. Nothing like it (cute, polite white boy randomly stabs classmate) ever happened in the UK. The show is slander against boys.

What it does capture is a real phenomenon where boys are increasingly rude to their female teachers, as expressed in this NYT op Ed:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/29/opinion/adolescence-misogyny-schools.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

Schools have been hell for boys for too long to count. Girls are doing better on most every measure of academic success. Is it any wonder boys are opting out or lashing out? Schools are no longer set up for them. Adolescence is anti boy propaganda that will only make the problem worse by instilling a false sense of righteousness in the female educational establishment.

People always say this, but my question is when were schools EVER set up for boys? When my father went to school, teachers smacked him with rulers. They had to be obedient and quiet. They had leadership positions and got the best grades and went on to college. Girls were not encouraged to go on to university.

Nowadays, it’s flipped. Classroom rules are very loose. Students are allowed to do anything. Chat, walk around, call out, use their phone. It’s a disruptive environment.

I disagree that classrooms favor girls these days. I think they favor boys and yet they’re still doing poorly. Why?

Failed parenting. Jamie’s parents didn’t fail him in all of the small common ways we live with. I’m aware of parents who let their kids at this age do whatever they like online, who don’t take bullying seriously if the other child isn’t severely physically hurt, and so forth. It’s partially a shift in mores but there are a lot of overly indulgent parents who think they’re “gentle” when “neglectful” is more accurate.

Spot on.

The kid was driving the bus, not the parents. Esp the toxic screen time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The storyline was just ok, but the acting and the camerawork were phenomenal!

+1 the acting was fantastic. I don’t really get the hype otherwise. (And I have a 14 year old boy.) Granted, I was not giving it my full attention while it was on. But I feel like I missed something. A lot of things, really.

You didn’t ‘miss’ anything. You resist anything it depicted, and that’s a willful mindset.

I’m not sure what you mean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not condoning the boy but kindness goes a long way. Has the girl been kind and rejected him kindly, she probably wouldn’t die.

You just condoned it.

Women don’t need to be nice to creeps who won’t take a hint. No one should be murdered for “not being nice enough”. Gfy.

Wow, you sound mental. The kid asked her to go to a fair. Why does that make him a creep? No wonder teen boys don't want to date anymore. She had every right to reject him but she could have been kind about it. The world would be a better place if we were all a little bit kinder to each other. I was asked out all the time in HS. If I wasn't interested I was direct but kind about it. There is no reason to make someone feel bad.

Kid waited until she'd been shamed, participated in the shaming (he looked at her pics), and then thought he could pick her up because she was vulnerable... and you want us to think about HIS feelings?

The problem. You're part of it.

I got the opposite impression
He had compassion for her and wanted to be her friend
He did feel hurt. Then again this series is not about who dunnit but why dunnit
He had anger issues and felt rejected and hurt and was influenced by the toxic online culture. Not that this excuses anything, but that just subtly points to a why dunnit

Unless you want to blame the parents

He was friends with the son of the cop, and he was very careful to keep his kid out of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not condoning the boy but kindness goes a long way. Has the girl been kind and rejected him kindly, she probably wouldn’t die.

You just condoned it.

Women don’t need to be nice to creeps who won’t take a hint. No one should be murdered for “not being nice enough”. Gfy.

Wow, you sound mental. The kid asked her to go to a fair. Why does that make him a creep? No wonder teen boys don't want to date anymore. She had every right to reject him but she could have been kind about it. The world would be a better place if we were all a little bit kinder to each other. I was asked out all the time in HS. If I wasn't interested I was direct but kind about it. There is no reason to make someone feel bad.

Kid waited until she'd been shamed, participated in the shaming (he looked at her pics), and then thought he could pick her up because she was vulnerable... and you want us to think about HIS feelings?

The problem. You're part of it.

I got the opposite impression
He had compassion for her and wanted to be her friend
He did feel hurt. Then again this series is not about who dunnit but why dunnit
He had anger issues and felt rejected and hurt and was influenced by the toxic online culture. Not that this excuses anything, but that just subtly points to a why dunnit

Unless you want to blame the parents

He was friends with the son of the cop, and he was very careful to keep his kid out of it.

That's not what he told the therapist - he told her that he thought she'd be an easier yes because she'd been humiliated with the pics.

[Anonymous]

I like how the therapist phrased that point for him. Something like, “You thought she’d be more gettable when she was weaker.”

I can tell that I read into things a lot, because I thought the reason that the therapist cried after Jamie left, was because she was relating to what happened to Katie, the victim. I thought it was “triggering” for her. Loved that actor’s performance and the character, even though I was reading this wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I like how the therapist phrased that point for him. Something like, “You thought she’d be more gettable when she was weaker.”

I can tell that I read into things a lot, because I thought the reason that the therapist cried after Jamie left, was because she was relating to what happened to Katie, the victim. I thought it was “triggering” for her. Loved that actor’s performance and the character, even though I was reading this wrong.

I think Briony understood then that Jamie was a settled issue in many ways. He dehumanized Katie and he dehumanized her. There were flashes of the bright kid he was mixed in with the misogynist.

I have a daughter around the same age and I live in a very well-off liberal area, and I hear a lot of boys with the same attitude at different events and pickups. I have no idea what they’re listening to or how they’re watched or what social media they have. But it’s not good. And I’m not predicting any of them will do something like this. The ambient, the shift in what’s okay, it feels new, and bad, and I think the show creators tapped into that essential problem even if it’s all framed around a horrific and still relatively extreme scenario.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not condoning the boy but kindness goes a long way. Has the girl been kind and rejected him kindly, she probably wouldn’t die.

You just condoned it.

Women don’t need to be nice to creeps who won’t take a hint. No one should be murdered for “not being nice enough”. Gfy.

Wow, you sound mental. The kid asked her to go to a fair. Why does that make him a creep? No wonder teen boys don't want to date anymore. She had every right to reject him but she could have been kind about it. The world would be a better place if we were all a little bit kinder to each other. I was asked out all the time in HS. If I wasn't interested I was direct but kind about it. There is no reason to make someone feel bad.

Kid waited until she'd been shamed, participated in the shaming (he looked at her pics), and then thought he could pick her up because she was vulnerable... and you want us to think about HIS feelings?

The problem. You're part of it.

I got the opposite impression
He had compassion for her and wanted to be her friend
He did feel hurt. Then again this series is not about who dunnit but why dunnit
He had anger issues and felt rejected and hurt and was influenced by the toxic online culture. Not that this excuses anything, but that just subtly points to a why dunnit

Unless you want to blame the parents

He was friends with the son of the cop, and he was very careful to keep his kid out of it.

This angers me because it’s flatly untrue. He had no compassion for her, and as posted above me, Jamie explicitly said he could get Katie only because she felt brought low by her topless photo. He did not say one thing - not one- about liking her. Or thinking she was pretty. Not one. He thought he could take her because he was humiliated. It’s ugly and dark and most upsettingly, a highly credible depiction of how a deeply immature, always online, picked on, smart but not smart enough boy, might react to a girl in those circumstances. He didn’t want to save her. He didn’t want to be her friend in open air at all. Come on.

[Anonymous]

Yup if Jake and Katie had dated, he would’ve been desperate to squash any self esteem she had. He would’ve lashed out at any perceived male attention she received. He wouldn’t have cared for her as a person. She would’ve just been a consolation trophy for him and he would’ve hated her for it quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like how the therapist phrased that point for him. Something like, “You thought she’d be more gettable when she was weaker.”

I can tell that I read into things a lot, because I thought the reason that the therapist cried after Jamie left, was because she was relating to what happened to Katie, the victim. I thought it was “triggering” for her. Loved that actor’s performance and the character, even though I was reading this wrong.

I think Briony understood then that Jamie was a settled issue in many ways. He dehumanized Katie and he dehumanized her. There were flashes of the bright kid he was mixed in with the misogynist.

I have a daughter around the same age and I live in a very well-off liberal area, and I hear a lot of boys with the same attitude at different events and pickups. I have no idea what they’re listening to or how they’re watched or what social media they have. But it’s not good. And I’m not predicting any of them will do something like this. The ambient, the shift in what’s okay, it feels new, and bad, and I think the show creators tapped into that essential problem even if it’s all framed around a horrific and still relatively extreme scenario.

Well, twice our country has elected a man who brags that he can do whatever he wants to woman. He was found civilly liable for rape and his first wife accused him of rape in their divorce (though he later bought her silence). He pulled diplomatic strings to let the Tate brothers travel here (they tattoo their women to indicate whose “property” they are). He was friends with Epstein. So yeah. The ambiance is pretty f*cked for women in America right now.

Teach your sons to be better please than our current leaders.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not condoning the boy but kindness goes a long way. Has the girl been kind and rejected him kindly, she probably wouldn’t die.

You just condoned it.

Women don’t need to be nice to creeps who won’t take a hint. No one should be murdered for “not being nice enough”. Gfy.

Wow, you sound mental. The kid asked her to go to a fair. Why does that make him a creep? No wonder teen boys don't want to date anymore. She had every right to reject him but she could have been kind about it. The world would be a better place if we were all a little bit kinder to each other. I was asked out all the time in HS. If I wasn't interested I was direct but kind about it. There is no reason to make someone feel bad.

Kid waited until she'd been shamed, participated in the shaming (he looked at her pics), and then thought he could pick her up because she was vulnerable... and you want us to think about HIS feelings?

The problem. You're part of it.

I got the opposite impression
He had compassion for her and wanted to be her friend
He did feel hurt. Then again this series is not about who dunnit but why dunnit
He had anger issues and felt rejected and hurt and was influenced by the toxic online culture. Not that this excuses anything, but that just subtly points to a why dunnit

Unless you want to blame the parents

He was friends with the son of the cop, and he was very careful to keep his kid out of it.

This angers me because it’s flatly untrue. He had no compassion for her, and as posted above me, Jamie explicitly said he could get Katie only because she felt brought low by her topless photo. He did not say one thing - not one- about liking her. Or thinking she was pretty. Not one. He thought he could take her because he was humiliated. It’s ugly and dark and most upsettingly, a highly credible depiction of how a deeply immature, always online, picked on, smart but not smart enough boy, might react to a girl in those circumstances. He didn’t want to save her. He didn’t want to be her friend in open air at all. Come on.

Like the many men who pay to have sex with down and out sex workers. Exploiting a woman’s desperation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I like how the therapist phrased that point for him. Something like, “You thought she’d be more gettable when she was weaker.”

I can tell that I read into things a lot, because I thought the reason that the therapist cried after Jamie left, was because she was relating to what happened to Katie, the victim. I thought it was “triggering” for her. Loved that actor’s performance and the character, even though I was reading this wrong.

I think Briony understood then that Jamie was a settled issue in many ways. He dehumanized Katie and he dehumanized her. There were flashes of the bright kid he was mixed in with the misogynist.

I have a daughter around the same age and I live in a very well-off liberal area, and I hear a lot of boys with the same attitude at different events and pickups. I have no idea what they’re listening to or how they’re watched or what social media they have. But it’s not good. And I’m not predicting any of them will do something like this. The ambient, the shift in what’s okay, it feels new, and bad, and I think the show creators tapped into that essential problem even if it’s all framed around a horrific and still relatively extreme scenario.

Well, twice our country has elected a man who brags that he can do whatever he wants to woman. He was found civilly liable for rape and his first wife accused him of rape in their divorce (though he later bought her silence). He pulled diplomatic strings to let the Tate brothers travel here (they tattoo their women to indicate whose “property” they are). He was friends with Epstein. So yeah. The ambiance is pretty f*cked for women in America right now.

Teach your sons to be better please than our current leaders.

I don’t have sons. I’m not Republican. Why don’t you direct your little screed to someone else.

[Anonymous]

I felt like the parents bore some blame (e.g. letting him stay up on the computer in his room watching God knows what till 1 am on school days), but not as much as they seemed to be putting on themselves. I have an older kid with serious behavioral and mental health issues, which may be tainting my perspective. I have gone to the end of the earth to help him and get him help, with some limited success, but at the end of the day, much of his current situation was a preordained outcome.

[Anonymous]

There are no easy answers. Humans are brutish and will likely forever be that way.

Kids were stabbing raping and torturing each other way before social media even existed. Put every teenager in community sports, youth groups, etc. after school, take away their phones/computers forever, and they’ll still find ways to bully each other and be heartless.

Maybe Jamie (and Katie) could have been saved. Maybe not. But I feel the hysteria over social media is somewhat overblown. I’m not saying we just give up on trying to make things better but I don’t see the show as attempting to provide one correct answer to one tidy problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are no easy answers. Humans are brutish and will likely forever be that way.

Kids were stabbing raping and torturing each other way before social media even existed. Put every teenager in community sports, youth groups, etc. after school, take away their phones/computers forever, and they’ll still find ways to bully each other and be heartless.

Maybe Jamie (and Katie) could have been saved. Maybe not. But I feel the hysteria over social media is somewhat overblown. I’m not saying we just give up on trying to make things better but I don’t see the show as attempting to provide one correct answer to one tidy problem.

Wow - you really live in a bubble.

Social media is far more toxic than we realized, but you cannot see what’s right in front of you.