This year, a newly premiered Netflix original, Adolescence, rapidly ascended the streaming service’s ranks as its number one most watched show. This ranking is justified by its exceptionally raw and unsettling depiction of the dangers associated with toxic masculinity.
The four-part British drama follows young Jamie (played by the debuting Owen Cooper), a 13-year-old boy accused of murdering a female classmate. The vulnerability and terror of each actor’s performance unveils the complexities of their characters, breaking free from the impersonal style adopted by so many crime dramas and making for an emotionally harrowing watch. The series has earned plenty of recent praise for its portrayal of a problem too often overlooked within online spaces: misogyny. It portrays the issue as a disturbing yet necessary consideration in the social media consumption of young users, and its relevance to our current times contributes to its urgency and stirring qualities.
As a teenage boy who lacks self-confidence, Jamie finds comfort in consuming internet bigotry. Adolescence presents the matter as a kind of trend which feeds off of male insecurity — after all, the promotion of online violence against women is, without a doubt, marketable. The growing popularity of content advertising the alpha-male mindset, which often illustrates women as weak and exploitable, has contributed to an online narrative that claims women are depriving men of their right to sexual gratification and respect. One episode of Adolescence directly references the popular self-proclaimed misogynist and social media personality Andrew Tate, whose audience is overwhelmingly made up of young men and boys and whose content often errs toward blatant sexism.
Jamie seeks solace from his feelings of weakness in the power he finds in his own cruelty, a pattern commonly echoed in these male-dominated online spaces. Jamie’s crime resulted from the vice he relied on to dilute his unhappiness. Adolescence reminds its audience of the ease with which harmful rhetoric infiltrates the minds of teens and children, acting simultaneously as a reality check and a triumph of media.
