Aahana Swrup
Created by Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne, Netflix’s ‘Adolescence’ is a drama series that scrutinizes a horrifying yet incredibly prevalent social issue through a young boy’s narrative. It revolves around the Miller family, whose lives are turned upside down after thirteen-year-old Jamie finds himself accused of murdering one of his classmates, Katie. As a result, the following investigation into the serious crime allegation—with Detective Bascombe in the lead—unravels the young boy’s life, revealing unexpected avenues. Thus, in the months that follow, various aspects of Jamie’s life—from his social circles and familial relationships to his inner psyche—are put under a microscope. The show offers a unique peek into the nefarious workings of contemporary culture on the youth through themes of radicalized misogyny. Furthermore, its distinct one-shot approach to each episode grounds each plotline into reality, paving the way for extremely authentic and realistic storytelling.
Adolescence Explores the Effect of Social Media on the Psyche of Young Boys
‘Adolescence’ provides an exceptional dive into a criminal case that revolves around the accusations against a boy for the murder of a fellow teenager. As the lead investigator pursues the case, it reveals a troubling reality about the current social sphere around the young generation. Even though the specifics of Jamie’s narrative aren’t directly based on a real-life crime, there is plenty of context around the story’s origin. Co-creator Stephen Graham, who also stars in the show as Jamie’s father, Eddie, went into this project with the intention of exploring the societal pressures faced by young men in the contemporary world. Particularly, he wanted to focus on the increased influence of the internet and social media in the formative minds of the youth.
As a result, this naturally compelled the story to touch upon the realities of the online community of incels and even radically misogynist influencers like the name-dropped individual Andrew Tate. The inspiration for this emerged after Graham accidentally stumbled across a video from an influencer (likely Tate). The video, which entered his algorithm after his son, Alfie, sent him a post about training, eventually exposed the artist to the prevalence of similar content on social media. As such, he found himself questioning the impact such internet personalities and their algorithm-backed frequency can have on young minds.
“(And then) I thought, Well, I’m a semi-put-together 51-year-old man who knows a little bit of who I am and what I’m about,” Graham told GQ in a conversation about the show’s inception. “So what if I was a 13-year-old boy who didn’t have the greatest relationship with my father, didn’t really have that solid connection with a role model, and was finding my feet out there?” Recently, there has been a rise in official concern around the same concept—of young men being radicalized through online content. In 2024, Deputy Chief Constable Maggie Blyth emphasized the correlation between the online radicalization of young people by influencers like Tate. Thus, ‘Adolescence’ retains this concept as a narrative nucleus that Jamie’s story perpetually revolves around.
Adolescence Retains Relevance in Real-Life Crime
Much like within the show’s premise, this rapid rise of radicalized misogyny in young boys and men has had violent consequences in real life. Reports suggest that recent years have seen epidemic levels of violence against women and girls. Reportedly, between 2018 and 2023, there has been an increase of 37% in the number of violent crimes against the female population. Co-creator Stephen Graham himself was encouraged to create the show after noticing the disheartening commonality of news about incidents where young boys were killing girls. As such, even though Graham didn’t take a real-life instance to replicate in the on-screen story, the show definitely employed the reality of such crimes as a base inspiration.
For the same reason, despite a lack of biographical elements, Jamie’s story mirrors many real-life criminal cases. For instance, a 17-year-old boy was charged with murder in September 2023 in connection to the murder of a 15-year-old girl. The victim was attacked on her way to the school in South London’s Croydon and died of fatal stabbing. At the time, the news made several headlines, inviting horror and grief from all over the nation. Many from the general public took to connecting the perpetrator’s violent actions to incel ideology and its concerning rampancy in real-life. The parallels between this real-life insurance and Jamie’s story remain evident—in part due to the universal pervasiveness of misogyny-fueled acts of violence against women committed by men.
Adolescence Highlights the Horrifying Danger of Radicalization
One of the most subtly insidious and unnerving aspects of ‘Adolescence’ is the entirely mundane and universally relatable depiction of Jamie’s life and his family. Unlike many other media outlets that discuss similar topics, this show focuses almost entirely on the perpetrator’s side of the events. Since the story revolves around Jamie, his victim, Katie, inedibly ends up taking the backseat—barely explored in any valuable capacity by the narrative. While this creates a certain commentary on the treatment of men and women in such criminal cases, it also serves a different, more significant narrative purpose. By putting all its focus on Jamie and his family, the show forces the audience to contemplate the reality of having a loved one involved in a violent crime.
Stephen Graham and his creative team, including Jack Thorne and director Philip Barantini, were intentional about keeping Jamie’s family life grounded in normalcy and relatability. Consequently, this decision makes it a specific point to underline how easy and ubiquitous such radicalization has become in the social norms for the modern youth. “We could have made a drama about gangs and knife crime or about a kid whose mother is an alcoholic or whose father is a violent abuser,” Graham explained to Netflix. “Instead, we wanted you to look at this family and think, ‘My God. This could be happening to us!’ And what’s happening here is an ordinary family’s worst nightmare.”
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