Opinion: Adolescence Blog – Part 1

In just 4 episodes, Adolescence explores the complexities of gender violence, the online world, and age-based vulnerability. Episodes 1 and 2 of Adolescence focus on the immediate aftermath of 13-year-old Jamie’s murder of classmate Katie, driven by incel ideologies and the manosphere (views promoting masculinity, traditionally in opposition to equal rights for men and women).

The first episode explores Jamie’s initial arrest and treatment in custody, outright depicting his culpability for Katie’s murder at the end . However, despite this, some public reaction to this scene has been to deflect Jamie’s actions and wrongfully twist Adolescence into a ‘whodunit’. Adolescence shows Jamie as guilty to focus the series on the harmful nature of anti-feminist online spaces. Not leaving things open to discussion forces the viewers’ attention onto how the online world is unweaving decades of progress into gender equality. However, some public reactions to episode 1 appear to ignore this.

Discussions in some online spaces have shown a failure to accept the messages Adolescence episode 1 wants the viewer to take in. Some posts focus on Jamie’s identity as a white young boy, picking apart at his identity and suggesting that because of his whiteness Jamie could not have committed the murder. Other posts focus on Jamie’s youth and use this to detract from the seriousness of the crime. Both these lines of discussion minimise the conversations that Adolescence wants us to have, revolving around incel ideology and anti-feminism.

The denial of the scale of incel ideologies continues in the public response to episode 2.  This episode focusses on DI Bascombe and DS Frank continuing their investigation into Katie’s murder in Jamie and Katie’s secondary school. Here viewers are forced to confront the impact of Katie’s murder head-on, including the anger and hurt felt by Katie’s best friend Jade. We see that incel views have spread throughout the school, where even students who do not follow these beliefs are in the know about the language they use and how incels act, think, and feel. Contrasting the intrusive nature of the manosphere in secondary schools with the experienced pain of Katie’s loved ones and wider community forces viewers to face the impact of incel views. However, for some viewers this was not the takeaway.

Similarly to the response to episode 1, some of the public’s online response to episode 2 has been to ignore the issue of gender violence and the manosphere. Instead, some viewers focus on an ‘unrealistic’ depiction of secondary school, where in my recent experience, Adolescence depicts the chaos of school accurately. Other viewers ‘call out’ Adolescence for having black actors portray the ‘good guys’, namely DI Bascombe, whilst the ‘bad guys’ are white. Both of these responses feel like a ‘burying your head in the sand response’ to the difficult topics discussed in Adolescence, including a turn against equality and incel views. The volume of these inappropriate discussions showcases how it is essential that work in the community is done to combat the spread of harmful views. In turn, this could reduce the frequency of gender violence and improve support for victims.

Sometimes it can feel as though the internet is a dark hole sucking in society’s most vulnerable and twisting pro-social views into harmful ideologies. It can feel that how someone is raised is undone by the internet, or that the internet exacerbates negative views towards women already felt in the family. However, there is still hope for progress in tackling the issues raised by Adolescence. Across the world, work is being done to regulate the internet and how young people consume it. Professional guides for how local communities can promote equality are being produced. Inclusivity and diversity are promoted in classrooms across the UK. It is important that the work done to encourage equality reaches all community groups, leaving no one left behind to best minimise the chances of gender-based violence occurring. In response to Adolescence, work must be done to prevent the spread of the manosphere, protect vulnerable people on both sides of the conflict, and better respond to victims of gender-violence. This could be done by community groups, the police, and local and national governments; having a wide range of groups involved will have the best chance at making change.

To conclude, it is important to keep in mind that online discussions about Adolescence episodes 1 and 2 reflect real-world attitudes and responses to actual experiences of gender-based violence and incel ideologies. To improve the response to victims of these crimes, work needs to be done to change the way people think and the role of the internet in spreading attitudes that challenge equality. This could involve professionals getting into the community to spread awareness and improving the regulation of online spaces, particularly for more vulnerable groups, including under 18s.