This article is part of a three-part series breaking down the technical and thematic aspects of the Netflix series 'Adolescence". Read Apeksha Priyadarshani's "A Technical Masterpiece Exploring Teenage Misogyny" and Tatsam Mukherjee's "The Nightmare That is School"
In Netflix's 'Adolescence', when DIs Bascombe and Frank reach Jamie바카라s school to conduct enquiries and interrogate his classmates, a terrifying, bigger picture emerges. How does the vicious online world drive the moods and whims of teens? This sequence chillingly establishes that Jamie isn바카라t some anomaly or has horribly strayed; his school has scores of his likeness. His actions are emblematic of an entire ecosystem where his crime is the ultimate station of a set norm. Most of the students are all perfectly capable of tipping over the edge, Jamie just happened to take the plunge. Frank memorably describes the regular smell of a school: 바카라sweat, vomit and masturbation바카라. There바카라s screaming, rowdiness, bullies ganging up everywhere. A banner hanging outside the school reads: 바카라Stop knife violence.바카라
With raging hormones and nerves that fly through the roof, the students바카라 volatility, their constant readiness to rear knives and pull aim make for one of the series바카라 most suffocating sections. To engage with them is to tread eggshells. The other constant is the phone that바카라s in everyone바카라s hands.
Online scrutiny compounds the social image teens have to keep up. Their envy, insecurity, perceptions of their bodies and equations with others get riled up when refracted through the prism of virtual projection. Students are perched on the very precipice; a small trigger can make them erupt into violent, cussing confrontations. Jade, the slain girl바카라s best friend, has a difficult situation at home, an uneasy relationship with her mother. The minute she suspects someone of the murder, she attacks him in the open, spurred by anger for having her only safe, happy space ripped away.
In the single, unbroken take, the camera dashes through classrooms, down stairwells and hallways, leaping into the courtyard바카라an uninterrupted chain-link of windows into an environment dripping with casual violence. Teachers scramble to bring order. Power, instead, remains with the students themselves, who mock, laugh at and patronise the teachers, unconcerned with consequence.
We witness the generational gap reveal itself, teachers and parents terribly unequipped to understand how teens see and interact with the world. Their opinions are entirely shaped by online communities, a world alien to the guardians. One of the educators says she바카라s heard of Andrew Tate being mentioned by students, but she knows nothing more. Most of the students keep themselves guarded or try to dodge the authorities바카라 questions.
The DIs end up running into half-baked conclusions. It takes Bascombe바카라s son Adam, a student at the same school, to clear the air and put things in perspective. He tells his father how embarrassing it was to watch him fumble before his classmates. He gives him a rundown on emojis the girls use on Instagram, referring to the manosphere of incels. There바카라s the 80:20 number governing the female-male attraction game. Only a marginal percentage of men get noticed, Adam confides in his clueless father. It바카라s a theory pushed by Tate, the manosphere supremo.
Katie thought Jamie was an incel and publicly called him out, leading to the latter바카라s revenge. Bascombe takes some time to process this. How can mere emojis shove someone into murder?
There바카라s a veil between the father and son. Adam himself is bullied at school, which Bascombe observes in a class he staggers in, yet baulks discussing it openly. How much can Adam share with his father?
All it takes, Frank remarks, is just one person바카라be it a teacher or parent바카라to assure the kids they바카라re alright. It takes no special intuition to guess her school memories aren바카라t particularly pleasant either. She wants to get the job quickly done and head out.
UK has just decided to show Adolescence in secondary schools to flag awareness into online perils. But how far can this step take the conversation forward without being backed by proper policies? It바카라d be nothing but occasional lip-service tailored to the season바카라s sensation. All stakeholders need to partake in the conversation with urgency, rigour and empathy.
Debanjan Dhar is a film fest-junkie & is fascinated by South Asian independent cinema
This article is part of Outlook바카라s April 21, 2025 issue 'Adolescence' which looks at the forces shaping teenage boys today바카라online misogyny, incel forums, bullying, and the chaos of the manosphere. It appeared in print as 'The Nightmare That Is School'.
