Enter the Manosphere: Adolescence

Matriarchy versus Patriarchy (14)

No consideration of matriarchy versus patriarchy would be complete without looking at misogyny today, which has been transformed into a potent and coherent force known as the Manosphere, possibly more powerful than any patriarchal institution before.

I say ‘possibly’, because the Catholic Church has had its own highly successful Manosphere for two thousand years. Today, it has slyly learnt to keep a low profile on its misogyny and not draw attention to its criminal history – such as the Burning Times. But it remains anti-women in every way and continues to encourage its female devotees to approve of and accept their inferior status. As my Catholic aunt would say to me, ‘The trouble all started with Eve.’ In her mind, and in the minds of many Catholic women, they are the fallen sex who must conceal their temptress bodies from weak, easily led men. The position is similar in the other two Abrahamic religions.

Though the Church will deny it, they hate women with a passion and there’s plenty of documents and physical evidence to prove it.

But now Incel culture is in the headlines, with its codifying (such as the 80/20 rule that supposedly 80% of women are attracted to the top 20% of men) and ‘legitimising’ of misogyny with its own high priest of hate in Andrew Tate and his legions of followers .

So I looked forward to Netflix’s Adolescence about Incels, not least because ‘Matriarchal Productions’ were one of the producers.

But, to my surprise, it didn’t live up to my expectations. On the contrary.

In summary, although groundbreaking, thought-provoking and revealing, it is riddled with misleading dramatic, factual and procedural errors, is seriously underwritten and inadvertently (I hope) misogynistic itself. The drama’s solution to the Incel problem is an openly pro-State agenda of control. It is visually spelt out for us in the opening clickbait sequence, where the State shows an unnecessary, factually incorrect, savage demonstration of its power with heavily armed police breaking into the thirteen-year-old murder suspect’s house. To which the principal working class characters respond with token protests, but are largely helpless, hopeless and obedient; good role-models for how the State wants us all to be.

I have to unpack this TV show because of its disturbing agenda and its relevance to this in-depth look at matriarchy versus patriarchy.

Also because that is what my Muse wants me to do. I’d have preferred to just let the whole drama pass me by with a shrug of my shoulders and a flippant ‘Who cares?’ but my Muse wasn’t having it. If you’re not familiar with the Muse, check out my book Pageturners and you will see just how she works. All creatives are driven by the Muse, whether we like it or not (and I often don’t like it), and whether we admit it or not.

The two errors that immediately jumped out at me were, firstly, the opening cop scene which seemed implausible and was confirmed as wrong by a cop writing for Time Out. He said:

Is the raid realistic? I used to do raids like this and if we’d had firearms officers in this situation, we would have looked at each other and gone: “This is a 13-year-old boy, we don’t need two big lads with a shield.” Yes, a knife is a deadly weapon, but they have baton rounds (rubber bullets). You would have so many things to de-escalate in that situation.

And, secondly, the missing confirmation of blood-stained trainers (never mind the rest of the murderer’s clothes) which would have confirmed guilt above and beyond the CCTV footage. Probably this was down to the drama’s under-written style, where we’re meant to figure it all out for ourselves

Then there was the dad who is a typical fictional, unreal, working class character who has no clue what to do, other than to get angry. And that’s just how the State and TV insists working-class characters should be presented. It’s a long (and provable) calculated and denied protocol that goes all the way back to Boys from the Black Stuff and Yosser, who was immortalised with his catchphrase, ‘Gissa job’. I’ve been on the receiving end of media directives about working-class protagonists with Doctor Who, so I know it was deliberate. Where are the working-class protagonists who are proactive? The Monocled Mutineer? Yeah, but he was punished for daring to challenge the system. Bank robbers? Ditto.

Dad could have taken back his power. He could have searched for the Truth. He could have checked out his son’s computer (after it was returned from the police) and viewed relevant Incel sequences from a fictional website which would have spelled it out to those of us who don’t unknow about the Manosphere. He might have empathised with his son’s state of mind and why he did what he did. He could have used this as evidence in mitigation or getting his son to own up to his crime. Working-class people dealing with tragic events often become activists in real life, as a way of coping with grief, but never on TV. Too dangerous. He might challenge the State. So he needs to shut up.

Instead, the State believes it should all be left to its professionals, its experts, its enforcers.

The understatement of the drama’s theme meant we had to figure out the theme for ourselves. Some people figured it out wrongly. So the writers must take some responsibility for this. Thus, it allowed many viewers, with covert racist agendas, to criticise it for not focussing on black knife crime, when, of course, it was nothing to do with it. So the race-swapping claim – that it should have been a black kid who was the murderer – was ridiculous.

As the writer Jack Thorne rightly says:

'We're not making a point about race with this. We are making a point about masculinity. We're trying to get inside a problem. We're not saying this is one thing or another. We're saying this is about boys.'

The unrepeatable social media ad hominem attacks on the writers themselves were vile, evil and racist. That’s not a reason for social media control, by the way. Just ignore or block the scum responsible. Or name and shame them. Or have a quiet, steely word with them on their DMs. That will do it. There’s plenty of ways to legally hit back without more State control of the media.

But the drama has an agenda that was disturbing. The production was clearly intended to work hand in hand with the State, possibly even in consultation with the State, as noted by Off-Guardian:

A Labour MP brings up the Netflix series "Adolescence" and asks Keir Starmer if he will support the creators calls to show it in schools to counter "toxic misogyny early" Starmer: "Yes, and at home we are watching Adolescence with our children... it's very good

This is obviously product placement

One of the authors admitted they had an agenda:

‘The writer of the Netflix drama Adolescence has suggested that children should be denied access to social media to protect them from toxic ideas online.

Bristol-born Mr Thorne said: "We do believe perhaps the answer to this is in parliament and legislating – and taking kids away from their phones in school and taking kids away from social media altogether.”’

More State control is his solution, taking power away from kids and parents, rather than more Truth, enlightenment, responsibility and empowerment.

But I was more upset by something else.

The lack of a comprehensive female perspective in a drama where a girl has been brutally murdered.

Underwriting, only showing the male perspective, focussing on unconvincing father-son relationships, or putting Dogme-style film-making ahead of substance, cannot excuse or explain this grave omission. Grave, because this drama is likely to be referred to in future control legislation that could change society.

There was boys’ gossip in the school about the murder. But no girls’ gossip in the school about the murder.

In a chaotic school where the teachers were written as deliberately pathetic and useless, there was a sudden furore. The murder victim’s best friend, Jade, launched a violent and incoherent attack on the murderer’s accomplice, who she – confusingly – actually called the murderer, but didn’t enlarge on what she clearly knows which would have surely helped provide justice for her mate. Perhaps because the professionals were so pathetic, she had no faith in talking to them. That’s how she came over to me. She’d had enough of talking to do-gooding teachers, psychologists or social workers. They were all useless to her. There’s some truth in that. It’s a view I’ve heard expressed by many Survivors of State systems. The Jade scenes were noticeably cut short, so we don’t know for certain.

Thorne admits the writers’ short-fall. 'I wish, having now seen it and completed it and thought about it since, I wish we'd spent longer with Jade, her best friend, because I think Jade was a really interesting character, and she was beautifully played,' he mused of the character played by Fatima Bojang.

'She was really angry at Katie's death. And I think there was a way that I could have written that episode two, where I gave the audience slightly more glimpses of her, and in retrospect, I would have written a bit more of her in.'

The detective’s son interprets emojis for his dad and the cop concludes that it may be mean girl bullying, more than rejection, although this is subsequently diluted somewhat by other conversations. Even so, the idea has been strongly planted in our heads that female bullying online has led to the tragedy.

That’s a very serious charge, and one that Incel defenders approve of: blaming it on the victim, claiming she brought it on herself. So its validity, or otherwise, is important to know.

Thorne says, 'There is no part of this that's based on a true story, not one single part.' But, of course, as he acknowledges, the drama is inspired by real-life events, otherwise it’s pointless. I couldn’t find any comparable example of mean girls on-line bullying. I guess it must exist, otherwise the writers wouldn’t have used it. Even so, the allegation of female bullying as the inciting incident left me feeling very uncomfortable.

The murderer’s older sister is a good, kind, dutiful daughter – and a complete cipher. No one in real life is that bland. She could have been proactive and deciphered the emojis for dad, so he could also be more proactive and get to the bottom of and try to understand what had happened – which any dad would do. (Unless you’re a TV, working-class dad who leaves it to his betters.)

Instead, he indulges in a long final sequence of anger and ‘grief porn’ in the precious last act of all places. In the course of it, we only learn a little more about what happened, and there is no convincing explanation for why the murderer changed his plea to guilty. Instead, we have to sit through his prolonged and boring misery. But the drama is meant to be about two adolescents, not an adult.

I was left wondering why.

Stephen Graham is a brilliant actor who usually plays rare proactive working-class characters (like the drug dealer in Peaky Blinders). His BAFTA for Adolescence is already assured from his genuinely emotional response in Episode One. The scene where his son is strip-searched in the police station, and the camera focuses on his father’s face is incredible. It didn’t need this overwrought and irrelevant finale.

His wife and daughter focus on placating him (well, it was his birthday, you know), so we have little idea about how they feel about Incels. The mother seems to blame herself and her husband in a lukewarm, half-hearted and unconvincing way. They both follow their therapist’s advice because they don’t seem to have any ideas of their own. But what really matters is Dad. Dad’s feelings must come first – especially when he’s also the screenwriter.

The blokey nature of Adolescence continues, as I’ll relate in Part Two.

But why should I care? Why does it bother me so much? Why is it so important? I regularly write, read and view comparable characters and stories. And I have other, arguably more important things to do with my time. But the Muse cares. It bothers her, it’s important to her and she decides my priorities. Maybe I’ll find the answers when I take a further look at Adolescence in Part Two: Loss.