Perhaps I saw a different drama altogether but for me two things stood out - the frenzied multiple stabbing was the act of a psychopath in the making and not a 13 year old boy angry at being bullied. Likewise the scenes with the forensic psychologist were a study in deep disturbance, manipulation and the exposure of his inner sociopathy. An experienced, trained professional cries and shakes uncontrollably she is so disturbed by his behaviour!! Not normal. In both scenes his response is completely disproportionate to that of a vulnerable 13 year old child caught in a moment of rage.. it made absolutely no narrative sense to me that this was about internet culture alone and that most people seem to not even notice this rupture.
I did hear it was based on a true story of a black boy - clearly that was wrong but I did wonder why Netflix would not have stayed truer to the facts and offered the role of a lifetime to a talented young black actor and his family? I mean this will make many a career - so an important choice. I suspect this was considered by the writers. My suspicion was that there would have been ‘outrage’ that Netflix was vilifying black youth and families. I might be wrong but as a thought experiment it’s worth running.
So it left me wondering if this was more of an attempt to garner votes for online censorship and more hate speech laws by Labour. We are inundated with calls for this in Australia and they always hide behind the ‘vulnerable youth’ stories while at the same time refusing to ban violent porn, have phone free schools etc.
It reminds me of the other social engineering series - Orange Is the New Black when we were presented with the MOST sympathetic black transsexual in a woman’s prison (a hairdresser to boot) and all along we were being primed to ignore the reality of men like Isla Bryson in women’s prisons.
I had similar thoughts about the psychologist’s emotional response, which one would assume is out-of-place if you are a professional who engages regularly in this kind of work. But also, people are still people. I have worked for years with aggressive kids, and most days you are ok, just dealing with things no problem. Then every once in awhile a situation cuts through to your core and leaves you weeping. This is especially true if you experience violence directly, but can also occur in those moments when you are struck by the absolute tragedy of a kid who has been handed a tough hand and ends up doing terrible things.
The other pushback I would give is that the framing of “psychopath in the making” can only ever be diagnosed in hindsight, once a kid is an adult. As kids, all they can have (at least if we are referencing the DSM) is risk factors. It’s my belief, after years of working with “troubled” kids, that there is no such thing as a “bad” kid. This is, perhaps, more of a functional heuristic than a statement of fact, but this shapes the responses of the adults. The question then becomes: “how do we support and give this kid what he needs so that he can become a psychologically stable adult who feels happy and contributes positively to society?”
Thus I would avoid “psychopath in the making” and rather speak of a highly sensitive kid (referencing the biological risk factors or personality/disposition) and then focus intervention on the environmental risk factors, which is the only place you have any influence.
While I do agree in general with your argument, I believe you didn’t (satisfyingly) address one aspect of this whole drama: the fact that the series is based on real events, yet they changed the race of the kid based on the real murderer from black to white, given how if the reverse were to happen, it would be criticised as being racist towards black/non-white people. I’m not accusing you of anything, but how would you address this point, more directly?
It's not based on real events. I did wonder whether to state that more explicitly but I thought it was covered by saying it was based on parental anxiety by the father of a son and research into online culture.
Yes, that’s because it’s bollocks. Maybe I should have anticipated that people who aren’t British won’t know it’s bollocks because they don’t know the cases. They were all over the news here
Bollocks in that the real events are too dissimilar to the show's story? In that there's plenty of similar stories involving white kids? Or just in that the show's creators didn't cite real events directly?
In any case, this was the core argument of the posts you were responding to, so it really stood out that you didn't address it.
Do you think that I need to actually spell out that those claims are not true? I’m assuming that people know neither of those cases involve a 13 year old boy killing a girl who had bullied him for being an incel on social media. One involved the murder of three random little girls and one was a 17-year-old who killed his ex girlfriend.
And should I not address the creators saying they wanted to set it in an ordinary family and stress that it could happen to anyone? Or do you not like their use of the word “ordinary?”
Hi Helen, I think you have characterised the drama really well. I enjoyed it and it was really really well acted but I was hoping for a believable denouement or satisfactory conclusion of some sort… I held out hope that it was a case of mistaken identity… but if it had been, say, the boy’s friend rather than him, it would an 13 year old boy doing something that doesn’t compute.
As you say in your essay, the 17 year old “Sentamu killed his ex-girlfriend’s friend after she embarrassed him”… about, of all things, a teddy bear. So the storyline is certainly not based on this particular true story; the only possible linkage is embarrassment. However, though I can’t cite the source, I am sure that one of the writers has said that the drama was inspired by this horrific event.
My interpretation of the writer’s statement (assuming I haven’t imagined it) was that the demented murder of a young girl in a London street in broad daylight over nothing more than a slight about a cuddly toy, was the starting point for the drama; as in, “what might elicit such an extreme reaction from a young man and what are the ramifications for family and friends?” For me it is unfathomable; the drama at least tries to understand what might be behind it.
Maybe others who heard the statement interpreted it as the drama being based on rather than inspired (if that’s the right word) by Sentamu’s act of barbarity.
I found it an utterly compelling watch, with very high quality acting. Each episode having a distinct scene and main character worked really well in my view, giving us multiple perspectives. I thought the last episode centred the boy's sister, even though she said very little.
When my daughter was at school, one boy in her year stabbed to death another boy, away from the school. They were both white. My daughter shared a class with the killer's girlfriend, who was 16 and pregnant with the killer's child. I felt this girl's experience was overlooked in all the reporting, and perhaps that's why I focused on the sister's experience in the final episode. She's 17, has perhaps lost friends over this incident, and is stuck in the middle between her parents in an intense, emotionally charged time, trying to support them while her Dad almost loses it.
As to the race thing, there are stabbings by white kids of other white kids in the UK, and they're getting younger. But perhaps there's less media coverage of these cases, than when the offender is black?
“Netflix had aired a piece of appalling anti-white propaganda.”
You must realize Helen, or then maybe you don’t, that there is cognitive dissonance demonstrated here. The old Twitter, that by your comment I assume you consider a non-cesspool or lessor cesspool, you would have been canceled, shadow banned, actually banned and de-platformed for making that second comment.
“These are the same people, by the way, who will watch a footballer take the knee and go "Why has everything got to be made about race? I thought you wanted more TV shows with white people in them? “
I think this is bad faith strawmanning, no? Those people who complain about lack of representation of a certain group on TV, mean positive representation, not villains. Come on!
He’s mentioned more than one and also explicitly said it’s not based on any one of them. I’ve linked three pieces that say this in there. It’s also quite clearly not that case
Your article condemns people for misrepresenting the drama as based on the Croydon case. You don’t say why they might have thought this other than implying they might be racists. However, it becomes much more understandable when you know that this link was made by Stephen Graham himself. Without this context, your article is unbalanced (regardless of what you might have linked to).
I have the impression that the fuss reflects our disjointed times. You cannot make a drama without upsetting the people it depicts as well as the people it doesn’t depict. We all have views about what should be reflected in a serious drama. I have read enough now not to feel the need to watch, there’s not much suspense when you know the unhappy outcome at the start..
While there can be made a compelling argument about the circumstances that could affect anyone, the fact is, this was an actual event that had material changes in the facts. And certainly, if the facts were reversed, then there would be outrage about that. Are the people who make entertainment incapable of following the facts without changing them? If they are afraid that the facts might make people generalize about race, then do some hard work and present those facts in a way that exposes an underlying non-race explanation. If there is none, then examine that as well. It is lazy to simply make the white male the bad guy and a non-white whoever the victim. Look at the stats before you come up with the story. And yes, the majority of violent crimes are perpetrated by males. But all races and against, many, many times, other males. Do the entertainment/docudrama types have the guts to tell stories based on what actually amount to the circumstances? I submit that this crop of them does not.
No, it wasn’t an actual event. That was made up. I’m assuming people know that neither of the cases it’s claimed to be about are of a 13-year-old boy killing a girl who’d been bullying him and calling him an incel. Also, it was the idea of the actor who played the father and he’s white.
“While the specific story of Jamie in the Netflix series "Adolescence" isn't based on a real person or event, the idea for the series did stem from reports of young boys being involved in knife crimes that co-creator Graham heard on the news.
Here's a more detailed breakdown:
Not Based on a Specific True Story:
The series, which follows a family whose lives are shattered when their teenage son is arrested for killing a classmate, doesn't draw directly from a particular real-life case.
Inspired by News Reports:
The co-creator, Graham, was inspired to create the series after hearing news reports about young boys involved in knife crimes.
Focus on Understanding the "Why":
The creators wanted to explore the reasons behind such actions, aiming to make the audience question the circumstances and potential causes.”
Final comment - this drama was not made in a culturally-neutral place where the issues of race, 'toxic masculinity' internet culture, porn etc are not in fact massive hot buttons. I still believe there would have been a discussion by the creators regarding the race of the boy/family and a choice made not to give a huge opportunity to talented black British actors in order to avoid the culture war issue on the other side. I could be entirely wrong. I think many of us want to mull this over and pick through where the culture wars leave us in all the creative arts but a position that states that to raise the question of the casting choices is right wing bigotry is a little insulting. Graham is not stupid and will have been very careful in terms of PR and positioning because he's not stupid or blind and neither are we.
I watched it (it is great) and never once thought about race.
Perhaps I saw a different drama altogether but for me two things stood out - the frenzied multiple stabbing was the act of a psychopath in the making and not a 13 year old boy angry at being bullied. Likewise the scenes with the forensic psychologist were a study in deep disturbance, manipulation and the exposure of his inner sociopathy. An experienced, trained professional cries and shakes uncontrollably she is so disturbed by his behaviour!! Not normal. In both scenes his response is completely disproportionate to that of a vulnerable 13 year old child caught in a moment of rage.. it made absolutely no narrative sense to me that this was about internet culture alone and that most people seem to not even notice this rupture.
I did hear it was based on a true story of a black boy - clearly that was wrong but I did wonder why Netflix would not have stayed truer to the facts and offered the role of a lifetime to a talented young black actor and his family? I mean this will make many a career - so an important choice. I suspect this was considered by the writers. My suspicion was that there would have been ‘outrage’ that Netflix was vilifying black youth and families. I might be wrong but as a thought experiment it’s worth running.
So it left me wondering if this was more of an attempt to garner votes for online censorship and more hate speech laws by Labour. We are inundated with calls for this in Australia and they always hide behind the ‘vulnerable youth’ stories while at the same time refusing to ban violent porn, have phone free schools etc.
It reminds me of the other social engineering series - Orange Is the New Black when we were presented with the MOST sympathetic black transsexual in a woman’s prison (a hairdresser to boot) and all along we were being primed to ignore the reality of men like Isla Bryson in women’s prisons.
I had similar thoughts about the psychologist’s emotional response, which one would assume is out-of-place if you are a professional who engages regularly in this kind of work. But also, people are still people. I have worked for years with aggressive kids, and most days you are ok, just dealing with things no problem. Then every once in awhile a situation cuts through to your core and leaves you weeping. This is especially true if you experience violence directly, but can also occur in those moments when you are struck by the absolute tragedy of a kid who has been handed a tough hand and ends up doing terrible things.
The other pushback I would give is that the framing of “psychopath in the making” can only ever be diagnosed in hindsight, once a kid is an adult. As kids, all they can have (at least if we are referencing the DSM) is risk factors. It’s my belief, after years of working with “troubled” kids, that there is no such thing as a “bad” kid. This is, perhaps, more of a functional heuristic than a statement of fact, but this shapes the responses of the adults. The question then becomes: “how do we support and give this kid what he needs so that he can become a psychologically stable adult who feels happy and contributes positively to society?”
Thus I would avoid “psychopath in the making” and rather speak of a highly sensitive kid (referencing the biological risk factors or personality/disposition) and then focus intervention on the environmental risk factors, which is the only place you have any influence.
I had the exact same response to the third episode (which was the best of the four).
While I do agree in general with your argument, I believe you didn’t (satisfyingly) address one aspect of this whole drama: the fact that the series is based on real events, yet they changed the race of the kid based on the real murderer from black to white, given how if the reverse were to happen, it would be criticised as being racist towards black/non-white people. I’m not accusing you of anything, but how would you address this point, more directly?
It's not based on real events. I did wonder whether to state that more explicitly but I thought it was covered by saying it was based on parental anxiety by the father of a son and research into online culture.
Which real event did you think it was based on?
Both posts you quote cited real events, though they are all different.
Yes, that’s because it’s bollocks. Maybe I should have anticipated that people who aren’t British won’t know it’s bollocks because they don’t know the cases. They were all over the news here
Bollocks in that the real events are too dissimilar to the show's story? In that there's plenty of similar stories involving white kids? Or just in that the show's creators didn't cite real events directly?
In any case, this was the core argument of the posts you were responding to, so it really stood out that you didn't address it.
I have now added an edit for people outside the UK. Thanks!
Do you think that I need to actually spell out that those claims are not true? I’m assuming that people know neither of those cases involve a 13 year old boy killing a girl who had bullied him for being an incel on social media. One involved the murder of three random little girls and one was a 17-year-old who killed his ex girlfriend.
And should I not address the creators saying they wanted to set it in an ordinary family and stress that it could happen to anyone? Or do you not like their use of the word “ordinary?”
Hi Helen, I think you have characterised the drama really well. I enjoyed it and it was really really well acted but I was hoping for a believable denouement or satisfactory conclusion of some sort… I held out hope that it was a case of mistaken identity… but if it had been, say, the boy’s friend rather than him, it would an 13 year old boy doing something that doesn’t compute.
As you say in your essay, the 17 year old “Sentamu killed his ex-girlfriend’s friend after she embarrassed him”… about, of all things, a teddy bear. So the storyline is certainly not based on this particular true story; the only possible linkage is embarrassment. However, though I can’t cite the source, I am sure that one of the writers has said that the drama was inspired by this horrific event.
My interpretation of the writer’s statement (assuming I haven’t imagined it) was that the demented murder of a young girl in a London street in broad daylight over nothing more than a slight about a cuddly toy, was the starting point for the drama; as in, “what might elicit such an extreme reaction from a young man and what are the ramifications for family and friends?” For me it is unfathomable; the drama at least tries to understand what might be behind it.
Maybe others who heard the statement interpreted it as the drama being based on rather than inspired (if that’s the right word) by Sentamu’s act of barbarity.
Yes, I think so.
I found it an utterly compelling watch, with very high quality acting. Each episode having a distinct scene and main character worked really well in my view, giving us multiple perspectives. I thought the last episode centred the boy's sister, even though she said very little.
When my daughter was at school, one boy in her year stabbed to death another boy, away from the school. They were both white. My daughter shared a class with the killer's girlfriend, who was 16 and pregnant with the killer's child. I felt this girl's experience was overlooked in all the reporting, and perhaps that's why I focused on the sister's experience in the final episode. She's 17, has perhaps lost friends over this incident, and is stuck in the middle between her parents in an intense, emotionally charged time, trying to support them while her Dad almost loses it.
As to the race thing, there are stabbings by white kids of other white kids in the UK, and they're getting younger. But perhaps there's less media coverage of these cases, than when the offender is black?
“On the cesspool of a site that is X.”
“Netflix had aired a piece of appalling anti-white propaganda.”
You must realize Helen, or then maybe you don’t, that there is cognitive dissonance demonstrated here. The old Twitter, that by your comment I assume you consider a non-cesspool or lessor cesspool, you would have been canceled, shadow banned, actually banned and de-platformed for making that second comment.
“These are the same people, by the way, who will watch a footballer take the knee and go "Why has everything got to be made about race? I thought you wanted more TV shows with white people in them? “
I think this is bad faith strawmanning, no? Those people who complain about lack of representation of a certain group on TV, mean positive representation, not villains. Come on!
Just so we're clear, the greatest danger to women is not men--it is women.
4,251 American women were murdered in 2022:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1388777/murder-victims-in-the-us-by-gender/
10,395 American women committed suicide in 2022:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States
A similar split occurs in England, with 174 women murdered in 2023 compared to 388 women who took their own lives.
Are you unaware that co-creator Stephen Graham specifically referred to the Croydon murder in interviews? https://www.mylondon.news/news/tv/netflixs-adolescence-inspired-true-story-31201349
He’s mentioned more than one and also explicitly said it’s not based on any one of them. I’ve linked three pieces that say this in there. It’s also quite clearly not that case
Your article condemns people for misrepresenting the drama as based on the Croydon case. You don’t say why they might have thought this other than implying they might be racists. However, it becomes much more understandable when you know that this link was made by Stephen Graham himself. Without this context, your article is unbalanced (regardless of what you might have linked to).
I have the impression that the fuss reflects our disjointed times. You cannot make a drama without upsetting the people it depicts as well as the people it doesn’t depict. We all have views about what should be reflected in a serious drama. I have read enough now not to feel the need to watch, there’s not much suspense when you know the unhappy outcome at the start..
While there can be made a compelling argument about the circumstances that could affect anyone, the fact is, this was an actual event that had material changes in the facts. And certainly, if the facts were reversed, then there would be outrage about that. Are the people who make entertainment incapable of following the facts without changing them? If they are afraid that the facts might make people generalize about race, then do some hard work and present those facts in a way that exposes an underlying non-race explanation. If there is none, then examine that as well. It is lazy to simply make the white male the bad guy and a non-white whoever the victim. Look at the stats before you come up with the story. And yes, the majority of violent crimes are perpetrated by males. But all races and against, many, many times, other males. Do the entertainment/docudrama types have the guts to tell stories based on what actually amount to the circumstances? I submit that this crop of them does not.
No, it wasn’t an actual event. That was made up. I’m assuming people know that neither of the cases it’s claimed to be about are of a 13-year-old boy killing a girl who’d been bullying him and calling him an incel. Also, it was the idea of the actor who played the father and he’s white.
“While the specific story of Jamie in the Netflix series "Adolescence" isn't based on a real person or event, the idea for the series did stem from reports of young boys being involved in knife crimes that co-creator Graham heard on the news.
Here's a more detailed breakdown:
Not Based on a Specific True Story:
The series, which follows a family whose lives are shattered when their teenage son is arrested for killing a classmate, doesn't draw directly from a particular real-life case.
Inspired by News Reports:
The co-creator, Graham, was inspired to create the series after hearing news reports about young boys involved in knife crimes.
Focus on Understanding the "Why":
The creators wanted to explore the reasons behind such actions, aiming to make the audience question the circumstances and potential causes.”
Final comment - this drama was not made in a culturally-neutral place where the issues of race, 'toxic masculinity' internet culture, porn etc are not in fact massive hot buttons. I still believe there would have been a discussion by the creators regarding the race of the boy/family and a choice made not to give a huge opportunity to talented black British actors in order to avoid the culture war issue on the other side. I could be entirely wrong. I think many of us want to mull this over and pick through where the culture wars leave us in all the creative arts but a position that states that to raise the question of the casting choices is right wing bigotry is a little insulting. Graham is not stupid and will have been very careful in terms of PR and positioning because he's not stupid or blind and neither are we.