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Is Netflix’s Adolescence worth the ordeal of watching it? · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From the Australian. This is the weekend edition of The Front.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Claire Harvey. Every decade has its own movie or
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  Speaker 1: TV show which puts the fear of God into parents
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  Speaker 1: and kids alike. In twenty twenty five, it's the Netflix
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  Speaker 1: series Adolescence, which is jolting conversations about bullying, misogyny, the
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  Speaker 1: impacts of digital media on our kids, and how parents
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  Speaker 1: respond to all of the above. The reviews are in
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  Speaker 1: and they're almost universally glowing, but they all say Adolescence
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  Speaker 1: is a tough watch. Thankfully, Tim Douglas, editor of Review,
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  Speaker 1: has watched Adolescents for us and joins me to help
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  Speaker 1: decide whether it's worthy anxiety. Adolescence is a show I've
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  Speaker 1: read a lot about. I've listened to podcas Us about it,
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  Speaker 1: but I haven't actually taken a step to watch it
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  Speaker 1: myself yet. Not because I'm too busy, but because I'm
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  Speaker 1: scared of it. I'm the mother of an eleven year
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  Speaker 1: old boy and a little girl. I know you're the
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  Speaker 1: father of sons. Is this a show that's going to
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  Speaker 1: make me totally despondent about this entire generation of kids
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  Speaker 1: that we're raising.
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  Speaker 2: It's a difficult question to answer. Short answer is yes,
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  Speaker 2: Longer answer is no. Of course the kids are all right,
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  Speaker 2: as they say. You know, you would have seen in
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  Speaker 2: the news Kiostama and in the UK kind of advocated
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  Speaker 2: that every child in Britain should watch this show. Now,
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  Speaker 2: you know, I don't necessarily subscribe to that view because
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  Speaker 2: I think a show like this might play into those fears,
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  Speaker 2: might actually kind of prosthetize the idea that boys are
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  Speaker 2: intrinsically violent or evil and the only salvation they have
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  Speaker 2: absolution is to, if not self flagellate, then be flagellated
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  Speaker 2: in public by the biggest TV show on the planet.
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  Speaker 2: That said, I think as a parent it's certainly worth
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  Speaker 2: seeing because it discusses a lot of issues, not less
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  Speaker 2: of which is cyberbullying. And I think as parents of
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  Speaker 2: gen Z's or I forget which generation it is now Alpha,
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  Speaker 2: I think Alpha and whatever it is, it's probably the
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  Speaker 2: prevailing narrative in our parenting careers, as it were, because
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  Speaker 2: I think it's something it's always at the front of
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  Speaker 2: my mind. How much are my kids seeing on their phones?
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  Speaker 2: What are they looking at? I think it's a really
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  Speaker 2: important notion for parents to be across.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a tradition of dystopian television or film about
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  Speaker 1: young men.
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  Speaker 3: And we sat in the Corova Milk Bar trying to
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  Speaker 3: make up our razukdocs what to do with the evening.
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  Speaker 3: The Corova Milbar sold the milk plus.
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  Speaker 1: A clockwork Orange is probably the most famous example of that.
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  Speaker 3: This would sharpen you up and make you ready for
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  Speaker 3: a bit of the old ultra violence.
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  Speaker 1: I remember when I was in my early twenties, a
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  Speaker 1: show called Kids came out which really made me feel
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  Speaker 1: the spare for my own generation or the generation just
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  Speaker 1: slightly after me. Of course, I'm surrounded by lovely, intelligent,
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  Speaker 1: soulful kind men, and I know from my own real
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  Speaker 1: life experience that neither of those generations, the Clockwork Orange
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  Speaker 1: generation and the Kids generation were not awful people and
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  Speaker 1: were not all kind of raping each other or committing
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  Speaker 1: mass murder. But it is it seeps into your consciousness,
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  Speaker 1: doesn't it, This idea that a generation is doomed.
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  Speaker 2: Throughout history, much violence has been perpetrated by men, and
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  Speaker 2: there is a real basis for this fictional show.
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  Speaker 4: Convicted murderer Hassan Santami was seventeen years old when he
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  Speaker 4: murdered Ellie and and I'm outside the shopping center in Croydon.
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  Speaker 2: She was just fifteen years old.
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  Speaker 1: Let's start without breaking news from Liverpool, a fourteen year
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  Speaker 1: old boy found guilty of the murder of schoolgirl Eva White.
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  Speaker 1: The twelve year old was stabbed while out with friends.
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  Speaker 2: Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne came up with this idea
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  Speaker 2: after two girls were murdered in the UK by boys,
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  Speaker 2: and you know, coincided with a rise in knife crime.
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  Speaker 2: Apparently eighty three percent of teen murders done with a
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  Speaker 2: blade in the UK. So they were inspired by that
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  Speaker 2: idea to shine a light on this issue. But whether
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  Speaker 2: it's alarmer store, whether it's ringing alarm bells, I think
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  Speaker 2: they're two different things. It's been a little bit of
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  Speaker 2: commentary in the last couple of days leaning towards the
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  Speaker 2: ladder that it might be a little bit alarmist. That said,
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  Speaker 2: this show is two weeks old. It feels like it
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  Speaker 2: is the predominating conversation of twenty twenty five. Everyone's talking
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  Speaker 2: about it. Claire, you might be one of the only
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  Speaker 2: people that hasn't seen it. There sixty six million people
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  Speaker 2: streamed this show in the first eleven days of being
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  Speaker 2: on Netflix. It is on track to become the biggest
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  Speaker 2: Netflix show in history. Stephen Graham, for him, this will
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  Speaker 2: be a crowning moment in his career, and I think
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  Speaker 2: we should expect award season that year to dominated by
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  Speaker 2: this show. But I do think also the irony of
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  Speaker 2: this show in its own way is that men will
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  Speaker 2: be the ones that take home these awards.
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  Speaker 4: Men are the ones that pronominate in the show.
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  Speaker 2: Katie, the young girl isn't really seen in real time
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  Speaker 2: in the show. It's only really the boys and the men,
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  Speaker 2: and so really kind of interesting takeaway is that men
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  Speaker 2: will come out on top of the show that actually
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  Speaker 2: is about women.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: So, Stephen Graham is one of the most thoughtful and
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  Speaker 1: interesting creatives working today. He's capable of playing men who
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  Speaker 1: are walking a line between sort of violence and aggression
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  Speaker 1: and deep sensitivity. I've heard him talking about how in
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  Speaker 1: real life he is a crier and he's very sensitive.
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  Speaker 1: He's a hugger, and he's constantly sort of lavishing his
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  Speaker 1: children with hugs and kisses. But he wanted in adolescence
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  Speaker 1: to play a father who was not really like that,
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  Speaker 1: very hard working kind of self made man runs a
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  Speaker 1: successful plumbing business out all day and is coming to
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  Speaker 1: the sort of realization that his son is being influenced
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  Speaker 1: by others outside of the home. Just tell me about
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  Speaker 1: the premise of adolescence. What happens?
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  Speaker 2: The story revolves around thirteen year old Jamie, who's raised
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  Speaker 2: in a working class suburban English home by The series
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  Speaker 2: begins with the police in a dawn raid outside the house,
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  Speaker 2: knocking the door down, very dramatic scenes kind of arresting
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  Speaker 2: this teenager in his bedroom. The show then shows him
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  Speaker 2: taken to the police station where he's processed and eventually
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  Speaker 2: charged with murder, and then the show basically deals over
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  Speaker 2: the next three episodes with the fallout from the family
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  Speaker 2: and where that story takes us.
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  Speaker 5: Ask your watch, Okay, no matter what happen, did you
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  Speaker 5: do it?
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  Speaker 2: Ultimately it finishes with the embodiment of exactly what you
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  Speaker 2: said about Stephen Graham and the character he plays in
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  Speaker 2: this film. He's a very hard working man who at
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  Speaker 2: the end he crumbles. It's an astonishing performance.
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  Speaker 4: You know.
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  Speaker 2: One of the final scenes, without giving too much away,
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  Speaker 2: is that he basically, you know, puts his head in
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  Speaker 2: his child's pillow.
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  Speaker 4: And says, I fail you. I should have done better.
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  Speaker 2: And I think that's a really interesting idea on modern fatherhood.
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  Speaker 2: Even talking to a lot of my friends, I feel
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  Speaker 2: like we want to do so much for our children.
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  Speaker 2: We want the world for them. We try to be
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  Speaker 2: great dads, and there's still the subtext among them a
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  Speaker 2: lot of dads that you know, he's still the authoritarian
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  Speaker 2: in the family. And I think that balance is really
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  Speaker 2: kind of well defined by someone like Stephen Graham, who,
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  Speaker 2: as you say, is a very gritty character, but he
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  Speaker 2: does crumble. It's that kind of male fragility that I
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  Speaker 2: think most modern dads are walking that.
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  Speaker 4: Tirape, and I think he really articulates it perfectly.
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  Speaker 5: But do do you sometimes think we should have stopped
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  Speaker 5: he seeing it and stopped her wet later. It's not
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  Speaker 5: our faults. I can't blame ourselves, but we made them.
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  Speaker 1: He and his wife are talking about the choices that
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  Speaker 1: they've made as parents, and Stephen Graham's character says, my
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  Speaker 1: dad beat me black and blue, and I didn't do that.
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  Speaker 1: I promised myself I wasn't going to do that. That
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  Speaker 1: is the big picture of the way humans have evolved.
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  Speaker 1: I think we are getting better generation upon generation. You know,
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  Speaker 1: we are kinder and gentler parents than our parents were.
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  Speaker 1: They didn't make the mistakes that their parents did, you know.
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  Speaker 1: And now we're in an age in the twenty first
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  Speaker 1: century where we all have the opportunity to be kind
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  Speaker 1: of warm, loving parents, lavishing the kids with hugs and kisses.
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  Speaker 1: So this is a harsh assessment of parenting as well, isn't.
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  Speaker 1: It's not just about the failures of teenage boys.
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  Speaker 2: It is, and in fact, it really is a show
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  Speaker 2: for the parents, not just because of the way your
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  Speaker 2: parent in the way your parents did it.
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  Speaker 4: It's these outside influencers.
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  Speaker 2: And this is a big part of what this show
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  Speaker 2: deals with, the so called mano sphere or the man
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  Speaker 2: of verse, you know, one of the ugliest portmanteaus in
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  Speaker 2: recent linguistic history. But you know, this is a controversial
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  Speaker 2: sub genre of male dominated influences, people like Andrew Tate
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  Speaker 2: who advocate men's rights and basically oppose feminism.
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  Speaker 1: So I think my sister is her husband's property.
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  Speaker 5: Yes, When a bride is walking down the aisle to
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  Speaker 5: marry the groom, the father walks next to her and
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  Speaker 5: gives her away true or false.
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  Speaker 2: And So it's this idea that you might be fighting
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  Speaker 2: against those inner demons to be the most loving dad
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  Speaker 2: you can be and to kind of you reverse the
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  Speaker 2: sins of your own father. But there are these outside
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  Speaker 2: influencers that are even more evil and insidious that you
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  Speaker 2: don't have control over. And I think that is the
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  Speaker 2: most important part about this show, is that we need
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  Speaker 2: to know what our kids are watching.
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  Speaker 4: There's also some interesting things too.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, we had an email exchange yesterday, Claire where
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  Speaker 2: I sent an emoji and jokingly kind of said, I
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  Speaker 2: hope this means what I think it means, you know,
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  Speaker 2: because I'm never required across it. But that's a key
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  Speaker 2: part of this show too, because the protagonist, Jamie is
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  Speaker 2: well allegedly bullied by some of the females at his school.
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  Speaker 2: And you know, some of the emojis are quite adatying
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  Speaker 2: to the police when they read them, but it's not
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  Speaker 2: until a child comes and articulates exactly what those things
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  Speaker 2: mean that the pieces of the puzzle for the police
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  Speaker 2: start to become clear. So it's a real generation gap too.
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  Speaker 2: I suppose it's been ever thus between parents and children,
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  Speaker 2: but I think it is a really interesting kind of
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  Speaker 2: line that they prosecute with respect to communication and how
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  Speaker 2: kids talk to each other.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up adolescence is definitely alarming, But is that enough
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  Speaker 1: to make it really great television? Tim, you made a
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  Speaker 1: distinction a little earlier between alarmism and ringing alarm bells.
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  Speaker 1: Adolescence has chosen to go to the extreme. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: this is not about an attempted murder or a fight
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  Speaker 1: in the playground. This is actually a murder. Somebody dies.
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  Speaker 1: So can we talk a little bit about that choice.
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  Speaker 1: Would it have been as effective if it hadn't been
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  Speaker 1: quite so catastrophic? Would it have been more real if
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  Speaker 1: it hadn't been quite so alarmist?
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  Speaker 2: They clearly, as you say, went to that nth degree.
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  Speaker 2: Their creative choices were very clear. They wanted to shock
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  Speaker 2: people here. They wanted to go and make a point. Also,
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  Speaker 2: they don't just allude to Andrew. Andrew Tat is mentioned
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  Speaker 2: in cell culture, you know, in cells, of course, being
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  Speaker 2: this network of men dominated by alpha type personalities.
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  Speaker 1: And who say if you're an involuntary celibate that it's
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  Speaker 1: women's fault.
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  Speaker 4: That's right.
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  Speaker 2: Those views are expressed subtly through the protagonists and his friends.
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  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, there's a real conscious choice because
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  Speaker 2: you know, there is a very clumsy moment in the
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  Speaker 2: dialogue where Stephen Graham's character says, oh, you know, I
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  Speaker 2: was just looking through my phone and some guy came
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  Speaker 2: on telling me how much I should hate women, and
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  Speaker 2: I was just trying to find something for the gym.
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  Speaker 2: It's a very kind of clumsy sort of moment, almost
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  Speaker 2: as clumsy as the way I rearticulated it just now.
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  Speaker 2: But you know, they are very conscious choices made so
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  Speaker 2: that you know who we're talking about.
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  Speaker 1: Let's talk about it as a piece of storytelling. Britain
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  Speaker 1: specializes in very bleak crime procedurals, usually focused on the
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  Speaker 1: victim and then the investigators. This one's focused on the
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  Speaker 1: family and the alleged perpetrator. How do you think that works?
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  Speaker 1: Do they pull that off?
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  Speaker 4: I think they pull it off.
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  Speaker 2: We focus on the child in the first episode and
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  Speaker 2: then the family for the rest of them. Devastating kind
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  Speaker 2: of finale is focused almost exclusively on the parents and
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  Speaker 2: the father and mother who feels kind of sidelined by
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  Speaker 2: the relationship between the men in the house.
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  Speaker 5: You are a good one. Maybe I took me off
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  Speaker 5: the ball alone what's a good ball. She was.
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  Speaker 2: But I think one of the strongest characters is actually
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  Speaker 2: the cinematography. I mean, this is shot in one take.
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  Speaker 2: If there's a mistake, they go back and start it again.
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  Speaker 2: So every episode was filmed at least ten times. And
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  Speaker 2: when you realize how this thing is shot, it's basically
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  Speaker 2: on a handheld gimbals. They passed to each other, so
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  Speaker 2: you know, the opening scene we showed the police storming
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  Speaker 2: up the stairs, and you feel like you're bobbing like
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  Speaker 2: a cork on the surface of the action. It was
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  Speaker 2: a very claustrophobic way of filming something. We finished this
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  Speaker 2: first episode and my wife kind of sat there devastated
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  Speaker 2: on the couch. I couldn't tell she was devastated by
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  Speaker 2: what she'd seen, or that i'd introduced it to her.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, we still haven't had a conversation. You're in
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  Speaker 2: trouble and so yeah, it really is. The anxiety is
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  Speaker 2: real and you should be prepared for it.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I might watch ADO lessons, but then I'll be
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  Speaker 1: straight afterwards watching The Great British break Off to make
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  Speaker 1: myself feel better.
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  Speaker 4: That's good, it'd be like getting the bends.
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  Speaker 2: But good luck with that just have some oxygen handy.
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  Speaker 1: Tim Douglas is editor of Review in the Weekend Australian.
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  Speaker 1: You can find it wherever you buy the payper and
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  Speaker 1: online at Beaustralian dot com dot au slash review. Thanks
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  Speaker 1: for joining us on the front. Our team is Kristen Amy.
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  Speaker 1: It's Stephanie Coombs, Joshua Burton, Lea Tamerglue, Tiffany Dimak, Jasper
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  Speaker 1: League and me Claire Harvey.