Adolescence

[heartsinvisiblefury]

What an amazing piece of television. Stephen Graham is exceptional. Highly recommend this - on Netflix.

No as he’s a teenager @Fordian.

If you look in the news sadly there’s plenty of stories of young teenagers engaging in knife crime. I think one of the points of the whole drama is to highlight how exposed young teenagers are to sex, social media, and gang culture even if we as parents don’t realise it because we think they are too young.

I like ‘The Rest Is Entertainment’ podcast, but heavens. The last two have been a hagiography to this. I was quite taken aback by Richard Osman, in particular. Practically wetting himself at the unparalleled brilliance of Adolescence. He was lost for words at its sheer brilliance.

Maybe the ‘single-shot’ thing blinded him to the banality and infeasible nature of much of the script and action?

🤔

He’s a pre-pubescent teenager. There’s ‘13’ and ‘13’. His age isn’t the thing, it’s his sexual development.

I thought the same about ‘Sam’ in Love Actually. Inappropriately young for the emotions being attributed.

At my DCs school a boy was ultimately expelled following court proceedings as he’d tried to pressure his ‘girlfriend’ from his class into having sex with him. I think it was year9 could have been year8 I can’t quite remember. He didn’t look ‘old’ enough at the time to be wanting to do that but there we are..

I've just finished watching it and thought a lot of the acting was good and the way it was filmed impressive, but found the plot very disappointing.

Why didn't the police want to know more about why Jade beat up the boy? Why didn't the police interview Tommy given they were a group of three? Why didn't we see more about the actual events of that night? Soooo many unanswered questions. Infuriating. I found the final episode very dull and would have much prefered to have such questions answered!

I enjoyed episode 3 and seeing how Jamie could look so innocent but actually be so volatile and manipulative.

You watched it 2 weeks ago and said you didn’t like it, and yet you’re still here every day discussing it? Do you do this with every programme you think is rubbish or has this really triggered you for some reason.

I watched The Replacement the other day and thought it was absolute shite and implausible yet I haven’t gone looking for threads discussing it to tell everyone how bad I think it is, why would I?

Is The Replacement being gushed about on programmes every time you put the telly on as if Graham is some kind of hero? Are there multiple threads with posters impressed with poor acting and an implausible story line?

This one is on my 'I'm on' list so I will carry on commenting thanks.

I got disproportionately confused by the Aha reference in episode 4 😂 Apparently the mum was in the fan club but said it was top of the charts at the school disco when they were 3rd years, so aged 13. On Eddies 50th birthday. Take on Me came out in 1985. I know it was a plot device but if this was set in present day the maths doesn’t stack up!

There’s nothing to say what year it is set in - could be 2022?

I was more surprised by how late they apparently had their kids bearing in mind they’d been together since they were 13 - 37 for Jamie and 35? for Lisa

Just watching the last episode and the way the father is making his wife and daughter feel.so vulnerable with his inappropriate iloty to regulated his emotions struck hard. There were moments too familiar to me..the Mum had learned to allow and navigate his utterly selfish behaviour as a means of self preservation was chilling. The daughter also had learned the same but we hope she wont end up in a similar relationship.

Yes agree, their demographic set up would be having the DC much much earlier.

I really enjoyed it if that's the right expression, not really 'enjoyed' obviously but it was good. Liked the filming style, felt the van journey section was too long but totally got the concept of trying to keep a grip on happiness when you've lost all hope of a 'normal' life.

Agree security guard was completely creepy, can't believe any woman can't see how he stares inappropriately, moves too close to Briony etc.

Thinking about it a lot .

No one ever has fertility issues?

what a watch!
just finished this
bit of a hype but very much worthy of discussion

no glad i dont have a teenage boy in the house any more

Steven Graham may not have beat his son up physically like his father did him,
but the football scene we are told about twice, where he just refused to look at his son, where his son said he was pleading guilty, no response,
and of course his whole masculine attitude, shone through as toxic

Gosh I get the impression from this thread that it’s only when men and their behaviours are completely feminised that they will be regarded as acceptable. No wonder there’s a crisis affecting young males.

this is interesting - i work with young people (so obvs young boys) and they all find it hard to talk about emotions, or even name the emotions they are feeling when they are overwhelmed.
It is interesting to me that (and this is obvs a generalisation and not true for every single kid) girls find it safer to cry/express sadness than they do anger, and boys find it easier to express anger than any other emotion

i don't think its a case of "feminising" behaviour, I think the point made by the show, and the point I'd also argue for, is that we need to be ok with everyone expressing all emotions without it being used against them.

i don't think its an accident that the girl who expressed anger through physical violence was then shown to have been sent to multiple "shrinks" , i also dont think it was an accident that when jamie's dad was crying in the interview room he couldnt look at his son

in fact, labelling any behaviour as "feminised" is kind of the whole point of the discussion, no?

It has been well established over milllenia that men and women are different when it comes to expressing emotion.

Yes, but how much of that is innate because they are men or women and how much of it is down to society saying this is how women and men “should” behave

@happinessischocolate well the current experiment in certain western countries ie telling men they’ve been doing it all wrong doesn’t seem to be working out too well. According to recent research, amongst young people relations between males and females have never been worse.

Does the “toxic masculinity” and “manosphere” as highlighted in Adolescence make that divide better or worse?

Personally I think the question that should be asked is what has lead to the “manosphere” and the rise of “toxic masculinity “ and no I don’t think it’s purely the arrival of social media platforms.

Surely the whole point of “Adolescence” was to show that it’s not just social media that’s the problem ?

Quite how you stop making thirteen year olds think theyre defective if they're not getting laid at that age is beyond me too.

Thinking they're involuntarily celibate at thirteen.

Toxic, the Andrew tate stuff is that was something that was applied to much older men. Not adolescent children.

I know precisely how much sex I was having it that age, and it was zero. I wasn't even thinking about it at that age.How did all this start.

@happinessischocolate sorry I don’t really follow - yes of course Adolescence didn’t suggest social media on its own was the problem. But the discussion seems to have now moved on to the fact that misogyny is the primary problem rather than why is there such a massive disconnect between the sexes amongst young people.

There was a display in one of the episodes saying something like "RIP Katie 2011 - 2024) so presumably it's set in summer 2024 and the episode 13 months ahead is set in the near future.