I agree that this is a classical case of a moral panic, but it is strangely muted in some ways (compared to say Middle Eastern Crime gangs) and underdone in others (female teachers have been reporting disturbing behaviour in male students for a few years now).
The other aspect to it which is interesting is how proponents/ promoters of the actual behaviours in question are being celebrated by the current US cultural hegemons. To see the Tate brothers released literally days after Trump took office was disturbing to say the least. Yes, I know charges still pending, but what kind of message was intended in the swift discharge to the US?
Good to see Stuart Hall get a name check! He was one of my go-to sources at Uni. Fun fact: there was another contemporaneous Stuart Hall who was a big windbag of a sports commentator famous for his OTT guffawing on ‘Its a Knock Out.’
The normalisation of such matters by Trump can co in the way that you mention is truly disturbing. So much of the rightwing grievance is tied in with these issues and I suspect we will see more of it as the mainstream right here in Australia continues to collapse. The recent spate of neoNazis attacking welcome to country is likely the thin edge of a wedge coming at us, esp if the Liberals collapse in the way they appear to be doing.
Agreed. And to see a mealy-mouthed Dutton, the man who walked out on the Stolen Generations Apology, who regressed to a ‘one-flag’ dog whistle and lead a nasty, misleading and racist ‘No’ campaign mumble an insincere ‘condemnation’ of the Neo-Nazi behaviour is grotesque. His willingness to pull these levers of division for personal advancement is beyond disgusting.
Agree with this entirely. One thing I have noticed over the past ten years is that the right in Australia love to borrow and steal from the right in the US. A little while back, for example, Pauline Hanson tried to do this whole thing about 'critical race theory' when it was blowing up in Aus. I think we'll see more of that - around men's rights, trans rights, general 'anti-woke' stuff. Luckily, at the moment, there is nowhere near as strong a base for it in Australia as there is in the US or even UK/Europe. But we have to be wary of it. If and when economic and social issues get worse here, these campaigns will gain more prominence.
Both your Apr 1 piece (Tim) and this piece (Simon) do a terrific job of pointing out the broader importance of Adolescence—easily one of the best pieces of film-making I've seen in years.
I have been puzzled by the extraordinarily cramped 'reading' ('viewing?') given Adolescence by many cultural critics who seem to be blinded to the larger picture by their own obsession with toxic masculinity—which BTW I believe is a very real and very serious problem that is closely related to toxic individuality (a condition that affects and increasingly large number of women as well as men).
What impressed me about Adolescence was the devastating critique it made of the entire society of which the 'manosphere' is a part and within which social media operates. In Iain Banks' novel The Player of Games one of the characters makes the observation:
“… a guilty system recognizes no innocents. As with any power apparatus which thinks everybody’s either for it or against it, we’re against it. You would be too, if you thought about it. The very way you think places you among its enemies. This might not be your fault, because every society imposes some of its values on those raised within it, but the point is that some societies try to maximize that effect, and some try to minimize it. You come from one of the latter and you’re being asked to explain yourself to one of the former. Prevarication will be more difficult than you might imagine; neutrality is probably impossible. You cannot choose not to have the politics you do; they are not some separate set of entities somehow detachable from the rest of your being; they are a function of your existence. I know that and they know that; you had better accept it.”
Much later, another character picks up on this comment:
“The ship told you a guilty system recognizes no innocents. I’d say it does. It recognizes the innocence of a young child, for example, and you saw how they treated that. In a sense it even recognizes the ‘sanctity’ of the body… but only to violate it. Once again, Gurgeh, it all boils down to ownership, possession; about taking and having.”
This comes very close to what I saw in the film: People struggling with their world coming apart and with the long-developing sense that their social and political and economic institutions were failing them — and that they were themselves part of and contributing to that failure. The 'manosphere' was simply a symptom of that broader failure, not its totality or its cause. Adolescence is a brilliant picture of what moral failure looks like and feels like.
In my opinion the critics who keep reducing the film to a complaint about the manosphere are simply illustrating the larger point made by the film and its extraordinary writers, director, cinematographers, technical crew, and actors. The use of single continuous shot for each of the four episodes was not merely a technical tour de force but was also essential to the point, brilliantly made, that you can't pick the fabric of these characters lives apart to decide who (or what) to blame for the tragedy.
My apology for using your really terrific commentary — I can't wait to read your book — as a jumping off point for my own thoughts.
I'm going to have to reread Player of Games: thanks for the quotes. Thanks for the comment in general and really wanted to concure with the importance of what you say about the continuous shot technique: it is absolutely part of the storytelling, essential to it.
Thanks so much Henry for this comment and no need to apologise! I have to add that novel to my list, I've only ever really read one Iain Banks novel and haven't gone back.
I have to say, I was really taken aback when I watched Adolescence. I think I watched it maybe two weeks after it came out and I had already seen a lot of the commentary. After seeing the commentary I was expecting this full narrative about the Manosphere, but it is such a small part of the show. And it's not even clear Jamie would identify as being in the Manosphere - it seems like he was teased as being an incel, but didn't even identify as one. It really showed to me how narrowly people were reading what was going on, and I think it's because it was the easiest narrative that people could find. It's much easier to blame Jamie's violence on the Mansophere and social media than it is on institutional violence in our world that has taught that violence is the only answer!
I really like that quote from Banks...I think the first line about a guilty system recognising no innocents is so interesting. I think a system does and it doesn't. More specifically, I think it is always searching for 'innocents' - those who play the game and can blame something that is different from it. They are seen, at least for a time, as innocent. But then, as we see in this instance, everyone can be turned on if it is useful for the guilty system. Anyway, it is a though provoker!
I'm so glad you raised the point about the normalisation of much of the behaviour of the older males in this post. The creepy security guard's actions and words towards the psychologist in the 3rd episode, and the attempts by the mother and daughter in the 4th episode to placate and pacify the father's anger indicate how normalised male violence is and how much effort women put into navigating that world of normalised violence. And it didn't just start with the internet!
Yes, agreed entirely. Everywhere we look we see that male violence is considered normal - it's how men 'should' respond to things. No wonder boys pick up on that.
Yup. One of the things that got me about Adolescence was the violence of the police raid in the opening scene, and the way everyone accepted that arresting a 13-year-old child accused of murder justified a pre-dawn raid that terrorised his entire family. I think there’s a line later about how the police didn’t throw anyone to the ground, they just instructed his family to get on the ground for their own safety, and we’re all meant to think, “Oh, yes, these police are the good ones”. Sexist, misogynist, homophobic, racist violence has always been a problem, but as we watch a live-streamed genocide, as the American government disappears protesters, and as we still haven’t come to terms with the founding violence of the Australian colony that continues to play out in things like deaths in custody, I can’t accept the idea that individual 13-year-old murderers are the world’s worst violent offenders.
The level of displacement of blame is extraordinary, and I'm thinking also about how we treat Indigenous kids and the response of parties like the Nationals. DAvid Littleproud recently speculating about suspending right etc. Ffs. Gaza is another obvious example I'm glad you raised. Purely on the matter of scale, your final sentence is exactly right. But what a distraction they provide!
The police scene was particularly harrowing for me. I find it constantly galling how we justify police violence, particularly toward children. I come from a family of teachers and my partner is a teacher. They've all worked with extremely difficult kids, many of whom are violent. Yet, we would never allow for a teacher to use violence in response, and teachers learn all these other ways to deal with these problems. But the moment it is a police officer it is just assumed that violence is the only option. It is just awful and I don't accept it.
I haven't seen "Adolescence", and probably won't for a variety of reasons.
I recently listened to the Mothers' "Freak Out!" from beginning to end for the first time in decades. (Don't worry, I have a relevant point.) The music stands up. It's not Zappa's best work, but it's OK. But the words! It is a deeply misogynistic record, but we thought the sentiments it expresses were OK at the time. That led me to reflect (not for the first time) on my own attitudes and actions when I was a teenager and young man, and I'm horrified at myself.
There is so much like this. I saw an episode of How I Met Your Mother recently, which I used to watch all the time. And Barney is so misogynistic. In today's world he would absolutely be considered a 'pick up artist' - all of the techniques he uses are actually really similar to what PUAs use now. And that was a mainstream show that we all laughed at. None of this is new, it's just been repackaged.
What about MASH! I loved that show to bits when I was a teenager. And, to be sure, much of it is brilliant, anti-militarist comedy. But also much of it is sickening. And this was a left-wing, anti-establishment show. Why was it so packed with misogyny? I'm on a roll now...the West Wing, anyone?
I agree that this is a classical case of a moral panic, but it is strangely muted in some ways (compared to say Middle Eastern Crime gangs) and underdone in others (female teachers have been reporting disturbing behaviour in male students for a few years now).
The other aspect to it which is interesting is how proponents/ promoters of the actual behaviours in question are being celebrated by the current US cultural hegemons. To see the Tate brothers released literally days after Trump took office was disturbing to say the least. Yes, I know charges still pending, but what kind of message was intended in the swift discharge to the US?
Good to see Stuart Hall get a name check! He was one of my go-to sources at Uni. Fun fact: there was another contemporaneous Stuart Hall who was a big windbag of a sports commentator famous for his OTT guffawing on ‘Its a Knock Out.’
The normalisation of such matters by Trump can co in the way that you mention is truly disturbing. So much of the rightwing grievance is tied in with these issues and I suspect we will see more of it as the mainstream right here in Australia continues to collapse. The recent spate of neoNazis attacking welcome to country is likely the thin edge of a wedge coming at us, esp if the Liberals collapse in the way they appear to be doing.
Agreed. And to see a mealy-mouthed Dutton, the man who walked out on the Stolen Generations Apology, who regressed to a ‘one-flag’ dog whistle and lead a nasty, misleading and racist ‘No’ campaign mumble an insincere ‘condemnation’ of the Neo-Nazi behaviour is grotesque. His willingness to pull these levers of division for personal advancement is beyond disgusting.
Agree with this entirely. One thing I have noticed over the past ten years is that the right in Australia love to borrow and steal from the right in the US. A little while back, for example, Pauline Hanson tried to do this whole thing about 'critical race theory' when it was blowing up in Aus. I think we'll see more of that - around men's rights, trans rights, general 'anti-woke' stuff. Luckily, at the moment, there is nowhere near as strong a base for it in Australia as there is in the US or even UK/Europe. But we have to be wary of it. If and when economic and social issues get worse here, these campaigns will gain more prominence.
Both your Apr 1 piece (Tim) and this piece (Simon) do a terrific job of pointing out the broader importance of Adolescence—easily one of the best pieces of film-making I've seen in years.
I have been puzzled by the extraordinarily cramped 'reading' ('viewing?') given Adolescence by many cultural critics who seem to be blinded to the larger picture by their own obsession with toxic masculinity—which BTW I believe is a very real and very serious problem that is closely related to toxic individuality (a condition that affects and increasingly large number of women as well as men).
What impressed me about Adolescence was the devastating critique it made of the entire society of which the 'manosphere' is a part and within which social media operates. In Iain Banks' novel The Player of Games one of the characters makes the observation:
“… a guilty system recognizes no innocents. As with any power apparatus which thinks everybody’s either for it or against it, we’re against it. You would be too, if you thought about it. The very way you think places you among its enemies. This might not be your fault, because every society imposes some of its values on those raised within it, but the point is that some societies try to maximize that effect, and some try to minimize it. You come from one of the latter and you’re being asked to explain yourself to one of the former. Prevarication will be more difficult than you might imagine; neutrality is probably impossible. You cannot choose not to have the politics you do; they are not some separate set of entities somehow detachable from the rest of your being; they are a function of your existence. I know that and they know that; you had better accept it.”
Much later, another character picks up on this comment:
“The ship told you a guilty system recognizes no innocents. I’d say it does. It recognizes the innocence of a young child, for example, and you saw how they treated that. In a sense it even recognizes the ‘sanctity’ of the body… but only to violate it. Once again, Gurgeh, it all boils down to ownership, possession; about taking and having.”
This comes very close to what I saw in the film: People struggling with their world coming apart and with the long-developing sense that their social and political and economic institutions were failing them — and that they were themselves part of and contributing to that failure. The 'manosphere' was simply a symptom of that broader failure, not its totality or its cause. Adolescence is a brilliant picture of what moral failure looks like and feels like.
In my opinion the critics who keep reducing the film to a complaint about the manosphere are simply illustrating the larger point made by the film and its extraordinary writers, director, cinematographers, technical crew, and actors. The use of single continuous shot for each of the four episodes was not merely a technical tour de force but was also essential to the point, brilliantly made, that you can't pick the fabric of these characters lives apart to decide who (or what) to blame for the tragedy.
My apology for using your really terrific commentary — I can't wait to read your book — as a jumping off point for my own thoughts.
I'm going to have to reread Player of Games: thanks for the quotes. Thanks for the comment in general and really wanted to concure with the importance of what you say about the continuous shot technique: it is absolutely part of the storytelling, essential to it.
Thanks so much Henry for this comment and no need to apologise! I have to add that novel to my list, I've only ever really read one Iain Banks novel and haven't gone back.
I have to say, I was really taken aback when I watched Adolescence. I think I watched it maybe two weeks after it came out and I had already seen a lot of the commentary. After seeing the commentary I was expecting this full narrative about the Manosphere, but it is such a small part of the show. And it's not even clear Jamie would identify as being in the Manosphere - it seems like he was teased as being an incel, but didn't even identify as one. It really showed to me how narrowly people were reading what was going on, and I think it's because it was the easiest narrative that people could find. It's much easier to blame Jamie's violence on the Mansophere and social media than it is on institutional violence in our world that has taught that violence is the only answer!
I really like that quote from Banks...I think the first line about a guilty system recognising no innocents is so interesting. I think a system does and it doesn't. More specifically, I think it is always searching for 'innocents' - those who play the game and can blame something that is different from it. They are seen, at least for a time, as innocent. But then, as we see in this instance, everyone can be turned on if it is useful for the guilty system. Anyway, it is a though provoker!
I'm so glad you raised the point about the normalisation of much of the behaviour of the older males in this post. The creepy security guard's actions and words towards the psychologist in the 3rd episode, and the attempts by the mother and daughter in the 4th episode to placate and pacify the father's anger indicate how normalised male violence is and how much effort women put into navigating that world of normalised violence. And it didn't just start with the internet!
Thanks for a very interesting read!
Yeah, that aspect was overwhelming for me. Or rather, those aspects...
Yes, agreed entirely. Everywhere we look we see that male violence is considered normal - it's how men 'should' respond to things. No wonder boys pick up on that.
Yup. One of the things that got me about Adolescence was the violence of the police raid in the opening scene, and the way everyone accepted that arresting a 13-year-old child accused of murder justified a pre-dawn raid that terrorised his entire family. I think there’s a line later about how the police didn’t throw anyone to the ground, they just instructed his family to get on the ground for their own safety, and we’re all meant to think, “Oh, yes, these police are the good ones”. Sexist, misogynist, homophobic, racist violence has always been a problem, but as we watch a live-streamed genocide, as the American government disappears protesters, and as we still haven’t come to terms with the founding violence of the Australian colony that continues to play out in things like deaths in custody, I can’t accept the idea that individual 13-year-old murderers are the world’s worst violent offenders.
The level of displacement of blame is extraordinary, and I'm thinking also about how we treat Indigenous kids and the response of parties like the Nationals. DAvid Littleproud recently speculating about suspending right etc. Ffs. Gaza is another obvious example I'm glad you raised. Purely on the matter of scale, your final sentence is exactly right. But what a distraction they provide!
Beautifully said Avril, thank you. Your last sentence especially.
Thanks Avril! Could not agree with you any more.
The police scene was particularly harrowing for me. I find it constantly galling how we justify police violence, particularly toward children. I come from a family of teachers and my partner is a teacher. They've all worked with extremely difficult kids, many of whom are violent. Yet, we would never allow for a teacher to use violence in response, and teachers learn all these other ways to deal with these problems. But the moment it is a police officer it is just assumed that violence is the only option. It is just awful and I don't accept it.
Agree 100% Simon. I'm a teacher too and yes, we learn other ways.
Very well-said Simon. Teenage boys and social media did not invent misogyny - this very obvious truth needs to be said. Thank you.
I haven't seen "Adolescence", and probably won't for a variety of reasons.
I recently listened to the Mothers' "Freak Out!" from beginning to end for the first time in decades. (Don't worry, I have a relevant point.) The music stands up. It's not Zappa's best work, but it's OK. But the words! It is a deeply misogynistic record, but we thought the sentiments it expresses were OK at the time. That led me to reflect (not for the first time) on my own attitudes and actions when I was a teenager and young man, and I'm horrified at myself.
See also any early Rolling Stones recording.
Toxic masculinity is not a new thing.
Reminds me, I'm reading th Keith Richards bio, and hoo boy. Some stuff in there.
There is so much like this. I saw an episode of How I Met Your Mother recently, which I used to watch all the time. And Barney is so misogynistic. In today's world he would absolutely be considered a 'pick up artist' - all of the techniques he uses are actually really similar to what PUAs use now. And that was a mainstream show that we all laughed at. None of this is new, it's just been repackaged.
What about MASH! I loved that show to bits when I was a teenager. And, to be sure, much of it is brilliant, anti-militarist comedy. But also much of it is sickening. And this was a left-wing, anti-establishment show. Why was it so packed with misogyny? I'm on a roll now...the West Wing, anyone?