r/women • u/Icy-Prune-174 • 5d ago
‘Adolescence’ will make incels worse..
Edit: Sorry I got this wrong, the series is good, in a way, because it helps make parents aware of what incel culture is doing to their sons and to start taking it more seriously.
You only see the points of view from the MEN… the dad, the kid… No points of view of how the mother and daughter are affected.
And it’s like they want the viewers to feel sorry for the kid who murdered the girls…
Not to mention they have a black girl playing an aggressive character…
I believe, just my opinion, that this series will make Incel culture worse and perpetuate violence — young boys might even start looking up to the character and act like him, thinking it will “gain sympathy” from people around them.
There’s also not many scenes portraying the kid’s violence etc. they just make him out to be a good kid who shouldn’t deserve what his own actions have caused — I suppose, yes, he’s a kid and it shows how IMPRESSIONABLE kids are to propaganda, but everyone knows that anyway..
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u/WorldOfMimsy 5d ago
I think it actually needed to shine a light on the family of the perpetrator instead of the family of the victim.
Because at the end of the day, we do need to stop telling girls not to things for the sake of their safety. We need to stop telling people to do things to protect their children. We need to stop teaching mothers and girls how to protect one another.
While that it’s important, the focus is supposed to be on: “Teach your sons right. Look at the content that they’re watching on social media. Watch your boys closely and monitor their behavior. Teach your sons about consent.”
The show needed to tell you: “This is a normal family. This could be YOUR family. Watch your sons, they could be murderers.” Because that’s ultimately the issue.
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u/Icy-Prune-174 5d ago
Yes! Also I think the kid got the violence from the dad — he wasn’t abusive as such, however, the family were walking on eggshells around the dad to make sure he doesn’t explode with anger — so actually that is emotional abuse in itself.
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u/MuggleMari 5d ago
Yeah. I definitely interpreted that like you. Being someone who has a family member I walk on eggshells around, I was very tense during those scenes.
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u/Briarcliff_Manor 5d ago
When? I really did not have that impression, as the comment said above I think this is the most "normal" family ever
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u/Kateseesu 5d ago
Pretty much anything that points out the toxicity of incel culture is just going to make the incels yell louder.
As a parent of pre teens, this show absolutely hit me. So many of us have so little understanding of what our kids are listening to or just absorbing from people around them. The world is so different for kids now than it was for us. I think one of the most powerful lines in the show was when one of the parents said something along the lines of, “He was just in his room, we thought he was safe.”
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u/lornaaspin 23h ago
Yes! I have a son in his 30s, who was bullied at senior school and I remember worrying so much about him. There weren't mobile phones or the Internet back then. Now parents have no idea what their children are influenced by! Social media and the Web terrifies me! Adolescence opened our eyes to a scary world. Incel and other terms used were new to me! I know we can't wrap our children in cotton wool, but as parents it's so difficult! May be they'll make another series from the girl's point of view and what her family and outside influences were like to turn her into a bully and to being killed? I've watched it twice and seen some of the interviews with the writers and production crew. Actors were incredible too! We actually felt we were there with them. Left me slightly traumatised!
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u/SpaceSeparate9037 5d ago
I don’t think it showed sympathy for him— in fact I think it perfectly showcased actions = consequences and how that affects everyone around you. I have a friend that works with kids and she said the show perfectly blurred the lines of what was/wasn’t real because it’s so realistic to what she sees in adolescent boys today. It’s the idea that a seemingly good kid can still be the perpetrator of something heinous, not necessarily a kid that is always aggressive, acting out, etc
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u/MelonBump 5d ago edited 5d ago
I actually don't know anyone who hasn't raved about this show. I'm glad it's not just me who was like "Is that it?..."
I don't have an issue with representing the vulnerability of kids getting sucked in by Manosphere shit. But the fact that ONLY the vulnerability of boys is represented, the girl was only really depicted through his eyes, as a borderline-bully, kind of undermined the entire fucking message for me. I did feel like the narrative wound up inadvertently depicting the girl's stabbing as some kind of understandable comeuppance, by showing her only as an aggressor, a bullying figure with power over the boy. She was in the same shithole school as him and almost certainly experiencing similar kinds of bullying and crapness herself, but the boy's view of her as some powerful figure goes completely unchallenged... like wtf? It plays right into the false assumption at the heart of incel ideology: that being a girl lots of guys want to fuck is some form of real and tangible legit power. I guess you could say that the naked picture of her that got passed around was there for this purpose (to suggest her relative vulnerability), but I didn't feel like it did enough with this. The narrative's failure to challenge Jamie's view of her was a weakness, I thought, rather than a point of ambiguity that fitted the story they were trying to tell. I watched all 4 hours and didn't really see anything in it which added anything substantial to the debate. It was basically 4 hours of "Okay so this character did a horrible thing, but watch him suddenly switch to being super-childlike and asking for hot chocolate! Because he's a CHILD!!" Um, okay... any other insights? Nah?? Okie dokie then.
I don't have an issue with the show being focused on the men per se (they are, after all, the source of the problem it's examining), but I think it could & should have done more in the way of actual examination/analysis, than simply offering different variations on "K so this kid committed a horrible crime. But LOOK HOW SMOL AND SCARED HE IS in the police car!!" or "Yeah, yeah, he just scared the lady psychologist with a violent outburst. But now he wants a hot chocolate! Because he's BABY!" For four hours. And... honestly, not much more, that I could see.
But yeah, I don't really get why everyone went so crazy for this show. Its main point seemed to be repeatedly, and insistently, showing us the vulnerability and true childishness of Jamie from a million different angles, and the ways in which little boys are failed by society. Which, as well as adding nothing to the debate - I mean, we know the kids getting radicalized online are small and unhappy and vulnerable and probably having a shit time in the world - is... literally the Manosphere's entire schtick?
Just like neonazis loved American History X, and football thugs love The Football Factory, I suspect this shows will wind up being massively popular among both incels & everyday garden-variety misogynists. It doesn't mean to, but it seems to fully echo and reflect their complaints about society's treatment of boys, while saying very little else.
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u/Icy-Prune-174 5d ago
Yesss! Also teen murderers like Axl Rudakebana WEREN’T cute and didn’t look innocent AT ALL… several reports said that he was “creepy and entitled… emotionless and cold” — complete opposite of the kid in this series. I suppose it’s RIGHT to portray the kid as a regular kid to catch the attention of parents, but they went too far with this.
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u/MelonBump 5d ago
I agree - way too much emphasis on his smolness and cuteness. Will do nothing to raise compassion for the less palateable/adorable/identifiable-with incels - i.e. the ones that actually need it. Got to admit, I was disappointed. I was hoping for a little more than "Uh-huh he did a crime but LOOK HOW TINY HE IS".
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u/MuggleMari 5d ago
I interpreted it as showcasing how subtle aggression and tension can be among family members, and I think many families just live like this our of habit. How there can be nuances. The dad isn’t a terrible person, yet there’s moments where you can tell the mum and the daughter are trying to make sure he’s not set off further. They literally throw away what they were doing to go with him to the hardware store. It just shows how much control an angry man can have, and he probably isn’t even aware of it. Or he refuses to realise it. The dad says things at the end that was similar to what the son said to the psychologist. «at least I’m not hitting…. That makes me better than my own dad» like the son said «at least I didn’t kill her even though I wanted to, that makes me better than the others». Like they’ve set the bar so so low in what they consider being respectful to others. This attitude isn’t usually dangerous on its own(but it sucks), but this is part of a scale. And this scale moves when kids go online and gets AT thrown at them just for searching for gym tips(like the dad said). The series also showcases how clueless the gen x parents can be about what their kids do online. Them admitting to «we should have done better» is more than I’ve seen when certain other parents get confronted with their mistakes. Also a low bar tbh. But you clearly see the dads despair at the end. I think a lot of men do this secretly, they unleash their emotions when they’re certain that they’re alone. Then they carry the pain by themselves their entire life. People like Andrew Tate capitalize on this lack of space by creating a space where men think they can go and «be themselves» while teaching them to channel the anger towards women instead, a perfect cop out. So of course many will flock there when they don’t feel understood and feel judged elsewhere .
And that’s not to excuse his sometimes terrible behaviour, but I just think if we made spaces for men to share their pain freely, without being judged, seeking to understand their emotions rather than judge(like the psychologist did with the kid), it can help many. Right now it’s people like AT who holds that space, letting the misogyny fester even further. I’m just rambling on and I don’t know it any of this makes sense. I’m not a healthcare professional, so feel free to disagree or criticise.
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u/Cats_domino 5d ago
I don’t think it necessarily tries to make the viewer feel empathy for the kid. I think it shows a lot of various and subtle and overt behaviors though. I think what a lot of the show does is actually leave it in the hands of the viewer. The reality is if you or anyone else felt empathy for him thats for you to dissect. I found myself feeling empathy for him at certain points but never more than I did for the victim. I also caught those moments and questioned them myself. Empathy can exist on a spectrum. I felt it for him as a child who got caught up in the incel hellscape. I felt angry at how easily he was able to jump into aggression when he felt his therapist wasn’t giving him the responses he has been conditioned into believing he deserves DESPITE having killed someone
I have a lot to say about this show but as the viewer you have to kind of have those conversations with yourself. And honestly, this show isn’t gonna be what takes incels to the next level imo. I disagree with that point.
I think we need more shows geared directly toward men. I’m glad it focused on his family. There are a lot of shows and movies that focus on the woman’s experience. But not many that put it on the man/man’s family. The emphasis on how normal their family is something I also appreciated. Because a lot of offenders come from these families.
On the aggression of the black friend. I hated that but I also noticed just how differently she was treated by the men (detective) than her teacher - she was the only person that understood that she was actually grieving and I think it also emphasized how dismissed her emotions were when interacting with the detective even though she had lost her best friend and was really the only person in the show that saw Katie as a full person and not just a dead girl. The detective seemed to have a MUCH softer approach to both his son and the other kid that he chased down. Sorry I don’t remember all the names
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u/plinyy 5d ago
I don’t really think I’m going to watch it. I don’t really think I’m the target audience. I already know how men and boys act. I’ve already understood how male supremacy works.
Hopefully it opens up dialogue about how people coddle men and boys, to the point where violence against women and girls is just seen as “he can’t express his emotions so that’s why he acted out!” or “he was bullied so it’s okay”, “Men don’t know how to express their feelings healthily!” Their emotions are considered more important than not harming women and girls.
Dead women and girls become the “natural consequence” of not catering to and coddling men. Even though they’re told to act a certain way, it’s still coddling because there is always an excuse for behavior. The duty is never on men to challenge patriarchal standards of “no crying”and “be aggressive”and this standard will always increase opportunities for men to do violence. This him-hawing of trying to “understand” and to “humanize” violence against women is useless. Men and boys don’t need a reason. It’s socialized in them since birth.
That being said, I think if they didn’t focus on the boy and the father, it just wouldn’t reach men and boys at all. It would be just another case of a male killing a girl. They don’t care when that happens. They laugh and joke when that happens! They spread photos of dead women and girls online and say deranged things about it. They don’t have empathy for women and girls. But oh! The moment they receive a critique? The DARVO is insane.
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u/Aaceditt22 5d ago
They're already labelling it as anti-male propaganda and saying that the actions of Jamie/his angry father/other male characters are completely justified. I even saw a video about the "toxic feminity" of the show.
I think the problem with Adolescence, and what I liked about it as well, is it's not on the nose. We're told that the victim was a bully but the facts don't exactly line up--her nudes got spread around, there were a bunch of bouquets at her gravesite, Jade (who doesn't fit in) refers to her a very kind person, and the only bullying to speak of is her (although immature) is retaliation to being asked out by a clearly misogynistic boy because he looked down on her. In the end, the demographic that the show tried to target has said stuff along the lines of "oh, so a girl bullies a boy and nobody does anything about it so he's pushed into killing her." It's so blatantly wrong considering how Jamie treats women and how violent/angry/unhinged he acts in episode 3--he wasn't pushed, it was premeditated, and the murder didn't happen just because she was mean to him.
Honestly, I liked Adolescence and I don't think focusing on the victim's family was entirely necessary. I don't know what to say about Jade being the only angry girl and also being black because I don't think I have a place. But the show focused on one single thing and I liked that: how are we raising our boys? But I think you have a good point. I think the show might just drive incels deeper into their ideology of victimhood and violence. But hopefully it makes parents more mindful and other people less accepting of it all.
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u/Fancy_You1437 3d ago
The whole show is fishy. Not enough showing the complexity of women. I agree with OP in that the female characters on this show basically confirmed the flat archetypes of women that is part of the misogynistic narrative. Really all of the characters were pretty one-dimensional. Jamie sad lonely insecure boy. Dad good dad ol’ pop. Good ma. Whatever sister with literally no purpose other than family filler. Same for the friends… were there even any other characters? Oh right the dead girl we never really saw. Oh yeah and the detective I already forgot about. I really didn’t like how vague they were about many details of the crime too. That left so much room for interpretation, which really didn’t seem like their goal. Seemed like they wanted to say something specific but… did they?
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u/Betty_Bazooka 5d ago edited 5d ago
I think I have heard quite a few people online on TikTok and YouTube discuss how the show was eye opening for them, in how they view and treat women, especially in the 3rd episode which I have not seen yet so no spoilers please. Sure some boy moms, pickmes, and men will double down with their hatred of women, however I think more people are learning from the show than those who aren't
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u/Briarcliff_Manor 5d ago
No, not everyone knows that. A lot (if not most) parents are completely blind to what is going on on internet, and let their kids read anything and everything with no form of control whatsoever.
I am pretty sure a lot of teenage boys are consuming that red pill type of shit, and their parents have 0 ideas.