Adolescence is an impressive and effective drama, but the reactions to it are misunderstanding the nature and origins of the rising violence in society, argues Lucy Nichols 

Adolescence is a phenomenal piece of television. It has sparked debates on violence against women, concepts of masculinity, and the problems of the criminal justice system. The right and liberal media are drawing all the wrong conclusions from this important piece of social commentary. 

The programme is uniquely filmed: each hour-long episode is one long shot, filmed in real time and leaving little room for error. This ups the stakes in the already tense crime drama and makes for gripping, heart-wrenching viewing. It marks a departure from the darkly lit, close-up-heavy conventions of the genre. Instead of quick shots with plenty of movement and action, we see long shots of characters as they must come to terms with the horror facing them: the violent murder of a best friend, the loss of a son, the prospect of a life behind bars. 

This pure form of realism is brutal for the viewer: loose ends are deliberately left this way, scenes are slow and intense. Ultimately there is no hiding from the fact that Jamie is also a victim as he is led into a police cell by men twice his size in police uniforms. Stephen Graham (This is England, A Thousand Blows) plays Jamie’s dad Eddie and cements himself as one of the UK’s finest actors in the final episode, which is overwhelmingly tragic and difficult to watch. 

Ashley Walters, of Top Boy fame, also excels as DCI Bascombe, the detective in charge of nailing Jamie. Erin Doherty (The Crown, A Thousand Blows) is Briony Ariston, a psychiatrist who interviews Jamie in episode three, attempting to understand how Jamie went from a quiet schoolboy to being accused of violent murder.  

There is a stellar cast in general, including some fantastic child actors. The success of Adolescence should not only be put down to the difficult subject it tackles, but the quality of the programme in and of itself. 

The problem of violence against women 

Adolescence has captured the cultural zeitgeist. It dives into the problem of male violence against women, which has been in the news consistently over the last few years with a number of high-profile cases where both adults and teenagers are the perpetrators and victims. There are criticisms to be made. The programme arguably treats the police with too much sympathy, and clearly comes to the wrong conclusion about the root cause of violence against women.  

On watching Adolescence, liberal commentators have been attempting to unpack it through the unhelpful framework of toxic masculinity, the idea that men are inherently chauvinistic and can only really interact with the world around them through a problematic and violent interpretation of masculinity. This interpretation must be unlearnt by the individual man, and is seen as a societal problem only at surface level. Even Keir Starmer has waded into the ‘toxic masculinity’ debate, telling the BBC he is worried about it (ironic given his propensity to be photographed in military fatigues, next to tanks). 

Smartphones are taking a lot of the blame for teenage violence. Campaigns such as Smartphone Free Childhood, arguing that giving children unlimited access to smartphones opens up the risks of bullying, grooming, addiction and harmful content. The Guardian is beside itself, publishing opinion pieces on whether or not teens should be banned from using smart devices and the internet altogether. The writer of Adolescence, Jack Thorne, has backed the ban, and the government is looking into how it may be enacted in schools. 

Andrew Tate is the main bogeyman of the moment. As a result of his extreme views on the role of women, his name rightly crops up in discussions of violence, misogyny and teens being radicalised. Triple murderer Kyle Clifford is alleged to have watched videos by Andrew Tate before killing his ex-partner, her sister, and her mother. Tate is even named in Adolescence as a potential factor in Jamie’s radicalisation into the world of ‘incels’ and the ‘manosphere’. 

It is true that in Adolescence, Jamie has been radicalised by online sexists who promote ideas that women are inherently inferior to men, that ‘80% of women are only attracted to 20% of men,’ and that young men who aren’t ‘attractive’ must use violence for sexual gratification. It is also true that children should be protected from seeing harmful content online, and that Andrew Tate’s vile ideas encourage backward views about the role of women. However, we must dig deeper to understand the true root of misogyny and the lessons to be taken from Adolescence. 

Why do men kill women? 

Men have been murdering women for much longer than teenagers have had smartphones, and longer too than Andrew Tate has been alive. Aside from being just a teenage problem, one woman is killed by a man every three days in the UK (this has been the case since 2009). 

Instances of hatred other than misogyny have been motivating factors in teenage violence too. Racist bullies murdered Somali schoolgirl Shukri Abdi in 2020, and Brianna Ghey’s murderers were motivated by their transphobia. 

This is a question not just of individuals being radicalised to extremism online, but also of the failure of the state to provide a fundamental level of safety from violence. Schools are often where early indicators of violence emerge, as with the case of Axel Rudakubana. However, the Prevent strategy – which public bodies are told to follow – is not designed to stop violence against women, but is a tool of state repression far more likely to be used to crack down on people (especially Muslims) for demonstrating solidarity with Palestine than it is to tackle sexist ideas. Rudakubana was reported to Prevent numerous times before carrying out his crime, but his case was dropped by counter-terrorism police because he didn’t display any ‘ideology’. 

The criminal-justice system is deeply flawed, and in any case is stretched too thin to enact any kind of meaningful change when it comes to preventing violence, even if this were its aim. In the 2023/24, 53.4% of rape cases brought to trial ended in conviction, but the percentage of alleged rapists ever being charged by police – let alone brought to trial – is in the single digits. Aside from this, there are far too many cases of the police being the perpetrators of violence against women to inspire much trust in the law. 

The NHS is also in what feels like permanent crisis. Mental-health services are unable to deal with growing pressure. This is especially the case for children’s mental-health services, with long waiting times even for the most unwell children and young people.  

Social services are largely privatised and too over-stretched to meet the needs of the communities they serve. Other services for children have also been cut: youth clubs and access to sports and other activities. Libraries and other safe spaces for children to go after school are also dwindling. 

A shocking number of children are living in poverty: 4.3 million or 30% of children, and 60% of these have at least one working parent. The government has just decided to cut disability benefits and the Spring Budget will likely bring more cuts, which will make the lives of thousands of children around the country much more difficult. 

Right-wing and far-right ideology is also on the rise. Tommy Robinson (no friend to women) is one example, but the press also happily gives airtime to the likes of Nigel Farage and Reform. Although not as obviously sexist as they are racist, Reform still pushes ideas of hatred and division. There is also the problem of Donald Trump, who has been accused of all sorts of crimes against women, while fighting against a woman’s right to autonomy over her own body. Keir Starmer’s Labour Party happily borrows reactionary, divisive policies from both Farage and Trump. Starmer also drives us closer to war in Ukraine and backs Israel’s genocidal project in Gaza, but refuses to invest in welfare. 

With circumstances like these, it is easy to understand why children may resort to desperate measures, or are more vulnerable to online grooming and radicalisation. If we want to learn from the fictional case of Jamie Miller in Adolescence, we need to understand that the state is responsible.