I've never visited the UK. But seeing its sad decline is so bizarre too me. Especially always seeing the UK as a once great respected power growing up. And adolescence sounds quite bad. Honestly if they were gonna showcase UK youth gangs as predominantly "white" then at least make it as compelling as a clockwork orange. That movie is from the early 70s and it still holds up metaphorically. Regarding the dystopian future of the UK. Children of men wasn't a crime film persay but it definitely shows a bleak not to far future for the UK. And that was directed by a Mexican for crying out loud.
Many classic films. Clockwork Orange. Children of Men. Quadraphenia. The UK has not actually got overall more violent, it's been pretty stable the last 20 years. It has plenty of other problems though.
And it's pretty surprising that every brit I encounter now secretly wishes they were American and is trying to immigrate further telling me the sorry state of affairs in their home country. And it just makes me all the more proud to be an American! 😂
Where do you encounter these Brits wanting to be American? I’m Irish and find the UK’s steady decline pretty hilarious, but you’re absolutely kidding yourself if you think the USA isn’t the laughing stock of the western world.
All best there Adam. With our history, I think the Irish have a right to a laugh here! Although Ireland also faces some challenges - I heard the prices of a room in Dublin is almost impossible for the young. I love Ireland and Britain though - but then Mexico is fantastic...
Cheers, living in Mexico the last 7 years and love it here. And I have a lot of respect for all 3 countries mentioned, while also being able to acknowledge their flaws. Cost of living and the housing crises being huge ones in Ireland for sure.
Ah, another enjoying and loving these climes. I recently met another Sheridan, the daughter of the great Irish film director Jim Sheridan, here by chance. Great to have your voice here friend.
And not only an American but how fortunate is the united states to be next to such a culturally rich continent like Latin America especially Mexico 😂 . We get the best of both worlds lol. Is it any wonder why brits want to be American?
Ioan how come every British actor I can think always gets American citizenship? Musicians too? John lennon never became an American but I think he very much fell in love with the united states given his activism and solo career here. Not to mention countless other well known brits Making the united states their new home. Face it this country is still the promise land wether people hate us or love us. I come from a Mexican family but I still adore the US much more. Alot of Americans who haven't traveled don't realize how fortunate they are
I'll have to look at that; it would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. Paddington Bear. At least they chose a good children's TV show! (Before it was a movie...)
I have to say I disagree to a large extent with your analysis.
As you say, the series is a drama and was focused on one issue: misogyny and toxic masculinity, it never set out to tackle the issue of knife crime or gang crime more generally.
Perhaps it’s high time a drama did this, but it’s not the fault of the writers that hasn’t happened yet, and no drama can cover every issue.
Equally, while you’re right that there thankfully hasn’t been a murder such as depicted, murder is the most extreme crime and so served as a dramatic fiction.
But let’s be clear, there is evidence of serious crimes being committed, at least in part due to misogyny, and it’s quite possible a murder such as depicted could occur.
For example, just the other day the National Crime Agency (for your non-English readers, the NCA is the nearest the UK has to an FBI) released a warning about sadistic online harm groups (see link below) who blackmail vulnerable people (often girls) into degrading and harmful acts.
I agree with what you say though about journalists and politicians acting like it was a documentary (and Starmer’s slip of the tongue is telling).
But aren’t you making an equally flawed leap, in expecting a drama to cover every issue (e.g. in this case, gang crime, etc)?
Thanks much there PoliticalGee and great to have your insights. I agree it's not a story about gangs - but I think the show conflates the real issue of gangs and stabbings with the real issue of teenage boys and the manosphere. It works dramatically. But I find the discussion around this makes out like teenage murders by incels are actually happening. That is my critique. Again, I haven't got a problem with them making a drama like that if it works - but journalists and politicians should not conflate this drama with reality. All best there friend and great to have your voice here. (I've also been out the UK a long time and am a bit out of touch perhaps with discussions back there!)
I think you said it all with "Perhaps it’s high time a drama did this, but it’s not the fault of the writers that hasn’t happened yet,"
If it hasn't happened yet, then why depict is as realistic? Why didn't the show focus on the actual knife murders taking place in Britain? Wouldn't that be a much better method of informing people? Instead, this series is making people think the opposite of what's actually happening. It's misinforming people.
I meant it’s not the fault of the writers of Adolescence that a drama, of the kind you’d like to see, hasn’t been made yet.
Though actually there have been dramas about knife crime and gangs. The excellent Top Boy (also available on Netflix) with Ashley Walters in the lead role as a gang leader, is all about UK street gangs. It didn’t make the big impact politically that Adolescence rightly or wrongly has, but 3 seasons of it were made.
Nearly one million people over 65 years old in the US and Europe have died from psychiatric drugs every year and doctors have prescribed these same drugs to children. Almost every school shooter in the United States was on psychiatric drug prescriptions. In the attempts over decades to alter human behavior, psychiatric drugs have been a massive failure leaving behind side effects that have really altered people's behaviors and ability to cope, love and reason. Violence, whether to yourself or to others is the most obvious side effect of these drugs. The reliance of school officials to control behavior in schools and the incompetence and laziness of teachers to provide an interesting and entertaining learning environment have resulted in an epidemic of psychiatric drugs prescribed to children.
Also imagine the genetic effects of alcoholism, psychiatric drug prescriptions, illegal drug use besides the contamination of our food with pesticides and additives and what that has done in creating children that have been fractured at birth in the ability to grow into any normal sense of a life. Any proper social environment cannot overcome this destroyed mental acuity of a newborn.
Psychiatry has destroyed it's legacy of helping people with the reliance on prescribing psychiatric drugs and has wrapped their life and profession into the profits of this real drug obscenity cloaked in the banner of helping children.
Thank you for your commentary here and your work in Mexico that makes this all possible; great take too on 'Adolescence', I probably won't watch it now.
But I would love to hear your thoughts on psychiatry and pharmaceuticals (legal production and usage), so I hope you do write about it.
Appreciated. Though like I say Adolescence is still good TV - and has struck a nerve in modern society, although I disagree with many of the interpretations. Yeah, more on drugs and mental illness to come. Best there friend.
Excellent comment, thank you. The US Repubs did a good job politically in labeling Biden's Dems on this very issue for Election 2024. But, yeah, from Nixon's 'War On Drugs' until now, much could be read and written across multiple polictical administrations.
Good critique, I got half way thru ep 3 and stopped, in part because I didn’t think it was living up to the hype. Impressed with teen actors, found the adults affect too flat, and I don’t agree with the reviews and social that thinks this is ‘cathy come home’ for the manosphere and misogyny, or problematizing young men.
Would be interesting to review comparatively with other dramatisations and also what the ‘discourse’ was, I just get the feeling the bien pensant came out and told everyone what they should be thinking about it
Interesting point. I think one factor is the internet can encourage rapid same opinions, and indeed mass hysteria (although it can also be a space for independent critical thinking). I don't remember seeing this level of discourse about a drama so quickly.
A great change of pace and judging from your interactions a hit. I don’t have Netflix so haven’t seen the show in question but from your perceptive analysis, it seems like a number of shows out currently with all the correct stereotypes. I don’t hear much from the UK these days about violence that doesn’t seem to be entwined with immigrant gangs, but I suppose there could be that rogue white kid who ODd on Andrew Tate. I’m surprised they didn’t work a white supremacist or two into the plot. The UK has changed so much over the years. I remember the first time I was there, right after graduating from college. I was a fan of Jane Austen and had been in contact with a lady who was head of the Austen Society in London. When I showed up she was shocked. I didn’t look like what she expected. She recovered though and ended up showing me the city. I was back on many tours so knew London pretty well. I have no desire to go back these days. Sorry for jumping off topic on you. Great post.
I think it's just a testament to how much we have succumbed to American cultural imperialism with the embrace of basically a incel school shooter as Britain's public enemy no.1
I've noticed that TV and movies in the last 10-15 years or so focus not only in telling a story of what happened, but why. This "why" then usually gets associated with one or more of the big social issues that Western society (including Hispanoamérica) is currently battling, like racism or misogyny. It used to be that the "why" was many times left to the public to decide, although answers would be suggested.
That's why so many recent movies or shows are sometimes polarizing, since people that don't believe that's the "correct why" stop watching them, so you start getting a division of audience and an echo chamber effect. I wish art would be less "in your face" and would let people think profoundly about these issues instead of trying to educate.
Either way, I fully agree that social media has terrible negative effects. Just as we've relied on culture and education for generations to prevent us becoming swamped by gossip, now we have to develop tools against its digital, steroided cousin.
I should also point out that the UK has a very disturbing, and growing problem, with neo Nazi satanists (again mainly online) who hold a toxic brew of racist, misogynist and antisemitic attitudes. For example the groups 764, and the Order of Nine Angles (see links below to two cases of young men arrested).
While these aren’t clear cut cases like in Adolescence, misogyny is part of the mix and I think is a problem, and I honestly think it’s one that needs addressing (albeit with all the other issues, too)
I love to get all kind of different opinions here so thanks on that count. But this is just not racist or even border-line or edgy. I was simply stating facts about the youth gangs in the UK and this is the full sentence. "Many of these gang affiliates are black, but there are also white immigrant and white British members." It's in the context of an existing debate about race and knife crime around the discussion of the series. Unfounded accusations of racism like this don't have the same spell power they used to. But no worries. Best there anyways.
We must do "something" has been shown over and over to be a dangerous knee jerk reaction.
Also these types of stories, can be used by people who never let a crisis made up or not go to waste.
I agree with your analysis.
Thanks there David. A lot of issues tangled up in this one.
Yeah
I'm a complete hypocrite, if a narrative is being pushed it better be one I agree with.
Lol
I have seen that no soul stare.
I knew a kid that was in elementary school with me that was like that.
Max Soffar
He was very scary as a child.
He died on death row.
Oh you probably know of him.
Covered much by Houston Chronicle.
I'll have to look him up! So went to elementary with a real killer. Interesting experience there.
Yes
I knew him quite well.
He was just sort of dangerous when I knew him.
I've never visited the UK. But seeing its sad decline is so bizarre too me. Especially always seeing the UK as a once great respected power growing up. And adolescence sounds quite bad. Honestly if they were gonna showcase UK youth gangs as predominantly "white" then at least make it as compelling as a clockwork orange. That movie is from the early 70s and it still holds up metaphorically. Regarding the dystopian future of the UK. Children of men wasn't a crime film persay but it definitely shows a bleak not to far future for the UK. And that was directed by a Mexican for crying out loud.
Many classic films. Clockwork Orange. Children of Men. Quadraphenia. The UK has not actually got overall more violent, it's been pretty stable the last 20 years. It has plenty of other problems though.
And it's pretty surprising that every brit I encounter now secretly wishes they were American and is trying to immigrate further telling me the sorry state of affairs in their home country. And it just makes me all the more proud to be an American! 😂
It's an especially pesimistic moment in the UK. I hope it picks up soon.
Where do you encounter these Brits wanting to be American? I’m Irish and find the UK’s steady decline pretty hilarious, but you’re absolutely kidding yourself if you think the USA isn’t the laughing stock of the western world.
All best there Adam. With our history, I think the Irish have a right to a laugh here! Although Ireland also faces some challenges - I heard the prices of a room in Dublin is almost impossible for the young. I love Ireland and Britain though - but then Mexico is fantastic...
Cheers, living in Mexico the last 7 years and love it here. And I have a lot of respect for all 3 countries mentioned, while also being able to acknowledge their flaws. Cost of living and the housing crises being huge ones in Ireland for sure.
Ah, another enjoying and loving these climes. I recently met another Sheridan, the daughter of the great Irish film director Jim Sheridan, here by chance. Great to have your voice here friend.
Cheers Ioan. The shared history with the Irish and Mexicans has been so eye opening since living here. Keep up the great work.
Your not even in Ireland anymore 😂
Give the guy a break brother. It's rainy and cold back our side of the puddle...
We have always been disliked dude. We could honestly could give less of a shit what you guys think of us 😉
“We don’t care what they think of us”
You’re literally posting comments about what Brits think of you and their imagined desire to be American.
And thinking there’s no culture on the UK’s doorstep is just breathtakingly ignorant as well.
Anyway, you have yourself a good day
But anyway you have fun there in Ireland my friend 😉
What culture? France? They aren't any better either just look at paris lol
I love your voice here Jonathan - but this is right, you can't say France, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Germany have no culture!
The uk and Ireland is now filled with millions of Pakistani Muslims lol. London is not even an English city anymore lol
You’re telling on yourself with comments like this.
And to clarify, this would be the UK that you have never been to according to your first comment, yes?
Now conor mcgregor wants to run for Irish politics lol
Are people laughing to get in or dying to get in ?
Lol
🙃
And not only an American but how fortunate is the united states to be next to such a culturally rich continent like Latin America especially Mexico 😂 . We get the best of both worlds lol. Is it any wonder why brits want to be American?
"Brits want to be America" Never. Unless you are offering me a passport. Then, damn, yeah, I'll be American!
Ioan how come every British actor I can think always gets American citizenship? Musicians too? John lennon never became an American but I think he very much fell in love with the united states given his activism and solo career here. Not to mention countless other well known brits Making the united states their new home. Face it this country is still the promise land wether people hate us or love us. I come from a Mexican family but I still adore the US much more. Alot of Americans who haven't traveled don't realize how fortunate they are
True that. And also true the tacos are better in Tijuana than in San Diego!
I've never traveled to South America but I hear Colombians love Mexicans so that would be very nice 😁
Yeah it's pretty sureal just walking into another country and still knowing the same language and ordering alot of the same food
Taxes
Judges in the UK and USA have recently quoted Hamilton the musical and Paddington Bear in their written decisions.
I'll have to look at that; it would be funny if it wasn't so tragic. Paddington Bear. At least they chose a good children's TV show! (Before it was a movie...)
I have to say I disagree to a large extent with your analysis.
As you say, the series is a drama and was focused on one issue: misogyny and toxic masculinity, it never set out to tackle the issue of knife crime or gang crime more generally.
Perhaps it’s high time a drama did this, but it’s not the fault of the writers that hasn’t happened yet, and no drama can cover every issue.
Equally, while you’re right that there thankfully hasn’t been a murder such as depicted, murder is the most extreme crime and so served as a dramatic fiction.
But let’s be clear, there is evidence of serious crimes being committed, at least in part due to misogyny, and it’s quite possible a murder such as depicted could occur.
For example, just the other day the National Crime Agency (for your non-English readers, the NCA is the nearest the UK has to an FBI) released a warning about sadistic online harm groups (see link below) who blackmail vulnerable people (often girls) into degrading and harmful acts.
I agree with what you say though about journalists and politicians acting like it was a documentary (and Starmer’s slip of the tongue is telling).
But aren’t you making an equally flawed leap, in expecting a drama to cover every issue (e.g. in this case, gang crime, etc)?
https://www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/news/sadistic-online-harm-groups-putting-people-at-unprecedented-risk-warns-the-nca
Thanks much there PoliticalGee and great to have your insights. I agree it's not a story about gangs - but I think the show conflates the real issue of gangs and stabbings with the real issue of teenage boys and the manosphere. It works dramatically. But I find the discussion around this makes out like teenage murders by incels are actually happening. That is my critique. Again, I haven't got a problem with them making a drama like that if it works - but journalists and politicians should not conflate this drama with reality. All best there friend and great to have your voice here. (I've also been out the UK a long time and am a bit out of touch perhaps with discussions back there!)
PoliticalGee,
I think you said it all with "Perhaps it’s high time a drama did this, but it’s not the fault of the writers that hasn’t happened yet,"
If it hasn't happened yet, then why depict is as realistic? Why didn't the show focus on the actual knife murders taking place in Britain? Wouldn't that be a much better method of informing people? Instead, this series is making people think the opposite of what's actually happening. It's misinforming people.
I meant it’s not the fault of the writers of Adolescence that a drama, of the kind you’d like to see, hasn’t been made yet.
Though actually there have been dramas about knife crime and gangs. The excellent Top Boy (also available on Netflix) with Ashley Walters in the lead role as a gang leader, is all about UK street gangs. It didn’t make the big impact politically that Adolescence rightly or wrongly has, but 3 seasons of it were made.
It's a good series. Enjoyed it a lot, and like both Walters and Kano.
Nearly one million people over 65 years old in the US and Europe have died from psychiatric drugs every year and doctors have prescribed these same drugs to children. Almost every school shooter in the United States was on psychiatric drug prescriptions. In the attempts over decades to alter human behavior, psychiatric drugs have been a massive failure leaving behind side effects that have really altered people's behaviors and ability to cope, love and reason. Violence, whether to yourself or to others is the most obvious side effect of these drugs. The reliance of school officials to control behavior in schools and the incompetence and laziness of teachers to provide an interesting and entertaining learning environment have resulted in an epidemic of psychiatric drugs prescribed to children.
Also imagine the genetic effects of alcoholism, psychiatric drug prescriptions, illegal drug use besides the contamination of our food with pesticides and additives and what that has done in creating children that have been fractured at birth in the ability to grow into any normal sense of a life. Any proper social environment cannot overcome this destroyed mental acuity of a newborn.
Psychiatry has destroyed it's legacy of helping people with the reliance on prescribing psychiatric drugs and has wrapped their life and profession into the profits of this real drug obscenity cloaked in the banner of helping children.
Huge issues we have to look into. I have some issues with this in my own family and might write about it one time.
Thank you for your commentary here and your work in Mexico that makes this all possible; great take too on 'Adolescence', I probably won't watch it now.
But I would love to hear your thoughts on psychiatry and pharmaceuticals (legal production and usage), so I hope you do write about it.
Appreciated. Though like I say Adolescence is still good TV - and has struck a nerve in modern society, although I disagree with many of the interpretations. Yeah, more on drugs and mental illness to come. Best there friend.
Excellent comment, thank you. The US Repubs did a good job politically in labeling Biden's Dems on this very issue for Election 2024. But, yeah, from Nixon's 'War On Drugs' until now, much could be read and written across multiple polictical administrations.
Good critique, I got half way thru ep 3 and stopped, in part because I didn’t think it was living up to the hype. Impressed with teen actors, found the adults affect too flat, and I don’t agree with the reviews and social that thinks this is ‘cathy come home’ for the manosphere and misogyny, or problematizing young men.
Thanks and best there Rupert. Yep, it's Nice to have this platform to offer an alternative view point.
Would be interesting to review comparatively with other dramatisations and also what the ‘discourse’ was, I just get the feeling the bien pensant came out and told everyone what they should be thinking about it
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polytechnique_(film)
Interesting point. I think one factor is the internet can encourage rapid same opinions, and indeed mass hysteria (although it can also be a space for independent critical thinking). I don't remember seeing this level of discourse about a drama so quickly.
A great change of pace and judging from your interactions a hit. I don’t have Netflix so haven’t seen the show in question but from your perceptive analysis, it seems like a number of shows out currently with all the correct stereotypes. I don’t hear much from the UK these days about violence that doesn’t seem to be entwined with immigrant gangs, but I suppose there could be that rogue white kid who ODd on Andrew Tate. I’m surprised they didn’t work a white supremacist or two into the plot. The UK has changed so much over the years. I remember the first time I was there, right after graduating from college. I was a fan of Jane Austen and had been in contact with a lady who was head of the Austen Society in London. When I showed up she was shocked. I didn’t look like what she expected. She recovered though and ended up showing me the city. I was back on many tours so knew London pretty well. I have no desire to go back these days. Sorry for jumping off topic on you. Great post.
Thanks much there Daniel. And no topic is off topic in this forum. It's a free-for-all to speak about it all. Best friend.
I think it's just a testament to how much we have succumbed to American cultural imperialism with the embrace of basically a incel school shooter as Britain's public enemy no.1
Very well put. Best there Paavan.
Incredible analysis. Needs to be in the NYTimes
Thanks there Chris. That would be nice! All Best there friend.
Sounds like Islam.
Adolescence explores how Jamie stabs a schoolgirl to death after he is influenced by the so-called“manosphere,” which is described on Wikipedia as
“a varied collection of websites, blogs, and online forums promoting masculinity, misogyny and opposition to feminism.
I've noticed that TV and movies in the last 10-15 years or so focus not only in telling a story of what happened, but why. This "why" then usually gets associated with one or more of the big social issues that Western society (including Hispanoamérica) is currently battling, like racism or misogyny. It used to be that the "why" was many times left to the public to decide, although answers would be suggested.
That's why so many recent movies or shows are sometimes polarizing, since people that don't believe that's the "correct why" stop watching them, so you start getting a division of audience and an echo chamber effect. I wish art would be less "in your face" and would let people think profoundly about these issues instead of trying to educate.
Either way, I fully agree that social media has terrible negative effects. Just as we've relied on culture and education for generations to prevent us becoming swamped by gossip, now we have to develop tools against its digital, steroided cousin.
Great analysis!
Thanks and great point there Diego. A lot of the classic works try and portray a situation deeply in it - not starting at, "why is this happening"
I should also point out that the UK has a very disturbing, and growing problem, with neo Nazi satanists (again mainly online) who hold a toxic brew of racist, misogynist and antisemitic attitudes. For example the groups 764, and the Order of Nine Angles (see links below to two cases of young men arrested).
While these aren’t clear cut cases like in Adolescence, misogyny is part of the mix and I think is a problem, and I honestly think it’s one that needs addressing (albeit with all the other issues, too)
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/03/harry-vaughan-far-right-satanist-given-suspended-sentence-terrorist-offence-teen-jailed-38-month-indecent-images-children
https://news.sky.com/story/neo-nazi-satanist-cameron-finnigan-jailed-for-encouraging-suicide-online-and-possessing-terror-material-13289400
Thanks there PoliticalGee and that is worrying. I have a piece to do with Satanists coming up. It's a terrifying issue!
Great review/criticism... with the caveat that I fucking loved the show! Up there with 'River' (2025) and 'Years and Years' (2019).
I was waiting for it and immediately stopped reading after, "...gang affiliates are black."
I've worked with unhoused youth, was an auntie at 11, taught Pre-K to HS, and was a paraprofessional [SPED].
I may be American, but this is kind of showing racism...
I love to get all kind of different opinions here so thanks on that count. But this is just not racist or even border-line or edgy. I was simply stating facts about the youth gangs in the UK and this is the full sentence. "Many of these gang affiliates are black, but there are also white immigrant and white British members." It's in the context of an existing debate about race and knife crime around the discussion of the series. Unfounded accusations of racism like this don't have the same spell power they used to. But no worries. Best there anyways.