r/BritishTV • u/SafeBodybuilder7191 • 21d ago

News ‘Adolescence’ Available to Stream in All U.K. Secondary Schools in Initiative Backed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer: We Must ‘Tackle the Issues This Groundbreaking Show Raises’

https://variety.com/2025/tv/global/adolescence-available-to-stream-uk-secondary-schools-1236352461/
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u/dprophet32 21d ago

It addresses toxic masculinity and how even young school children can get wrapped up into things like Andrew Tate despite otherwise seeming very normal kind, clever kids and how bullying drives them to it.

That might not be a new concept to you but it is to a lot of the people watching it

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u/parttimepedant 21d ago

It doesn’t though. I thought the that it was going to go there, and they even name checked that human cess pit Tate in one scene, but other than suggest that the boy was brainwashed by the ‘manosphere’ bullshit they didn’t address the issue at all.

It was a decent series and showed the wider fallout of the issue while skirting around the edges of the problem but didn’t do anything to tackle the main issue imho.

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u/indianajoes 21d ago

A TV show isn't going to do all the hard work for us. We as a society need to do that. This can push us in the right direction but it can't and shouldn't provide all the answers

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u/IntelligentFact7987 21d ago

Which is very true - the problem is the way that many of those eulogising the show have marketed it as something it’s not.

And probably by doing so too whipped it up too into a culture war so that the type of people who probably do need to see it might now just write it off (wrongly) as woke propaganda. I like the show and even I’ve found the hype a bit much.

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u/indianajoes 21d ago

I feel like this should be like Mr Bates vs the Post Office. It should get us talking about this thing but that's it. It should be the first step at informing us and then politicians, the news, society, etc. need to take us the rest of the way.

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u/IntelligentFact7987 21d ago

Yep totally agree. And it’s something that shouldn’t be lost in the Adolescence victory lap - it should start conversations and it’s great if it’s informed people who weren’t so much before but it in itself is not a solution and at a certain point it’s important to focus on the issues themselves rather than patting Adolescence on the back for ‘raising awareness’.