Loss

Matriarchy versus Patriarchy (15)

This post is continuing on from last week’s Enter the Manosphere! on the TV series Adolescence. Friends I spoke to were equally critical of Adolescence. One insider professional cited its lack of realism, and I’d agree with them. But they found it easy to dismiss from their minds. I couldn’t, and I had no idea why. Usually I get a clue from dreams or nightmares that the Muse ‘kindly’ sends to assist me. So the night after pondering on Adolescence I had a fairly bad nightmare about Loss. Bad enough to wake me up with a start. But it was a general kind of dream about Loss, and it didn’t appear to be connected with the people or the issues raised.

So on with my unpacking of the drama and its notable absence of female views.

In the excellent part three, which was superbly acted and riveting to watch, there is a strong female psychologist, who I hoped might give us a female perspective. Unfortunately, I found her often speaking in heartless, social-worker speak, and following patriarchal tram lines. There was no compassion, no warmth towards her client. No genuine humanity. A fellow female psychologist reviewing Adolescence said that she seriously broke professional rules and established procedures by being so heartless at the end. So why would the authors do this?

There are insights into the murderer, but no female insights that I could take away from the episode.

Above all, we should surely have the murder victim’s perspective?

We know almost nothing about her, yet she is accused of being a ‘mean girl’ bully. That surely needs following up.

Similarly, we don’t see the victim’s mother’s reaction.

I suspected that the writing, which was often Dogme-driven, with style over substance, made it creatively impossible. The writer Thorne – in my view –confirms this when he says:

He never considered delving more into victim Katie's life, explaining: 'I think doing an episode on Katie or spending time with Katie's family would have sort of taken us into a story that we weren't telling, and that would have been a mistake.'

I disagree. There’s too much at stake. It should not have been ignored in a drama that may turn out to be a social media game-changer. It may even have been designed as a game-changer – judging by the State and media’s on-cue enthusiastic support.

Off-Guardian highlighted the concern that there was a definite agenda here. Namely: ‘More control. Censor the internet, ban smartphones in schools, forbid the sale of knives online, crack down on hate speech.’

For good measure it showed a group of brainwashed Archon-like robots all chanting ‘Adolescence.’

So, despite it being a terrible crime against a young girl, it’s the blokes who dominate this four parter!

It’s also a crime that’s cut short in the CCTV footage and anything graphic is NOT shown – such as the bloodstained trainers – so we don’t feel the enormity of the crime. The impact of what happened to that poor girl is significantly reduced in favour of all the male perspectives.

Potentially, this makes it unconsciously or inadvertently misogynistic in its presentation. I don’t know why the writers would make such an obvious and worrying faux-pas. If they’re making a point about patriarchal dominance of our world, it’s another example of their underwriting, which is so left-field and oblique it will be lost on the majority of viewers. To make such a point, it has to be highlighted in some way. There were a couple of possible places – like the female teacher who introduces the male cop and forgets to introduce the ‘less important’ female cop to the class. That’s the patriarchy in action, for sure, but I’m not certain that was their intention.

However, because I so approve of Adolescence exposing the Manosphere, no matter how imperfectly, I’d prefer to say it was too male orientated and they got the balance wrong. I wish I could believe that. I’m trying.

The media have all reacted sheep-like to the drama, praising it with few reservations and insights. They’ve all been thoroughly briefed and they know how to do what they’re told.

I could only find one honourable exception that said what those of us who aren’t sheeple are already thinking: VULTURE’s What About Katie?

To quote from a key passage in the article:

Meanwhile, the person whose life he’s extinguished is relegated to a briefly shown photograph of a smiling girl in a baseball cap, some comments on social media, and a teacher who remembers she “talked a bit too much.” The only time we see Katie alive is at a distance in the CCTV footage police have obtained of the girl silently shoving Jamie away from her in a parking lot late at night, before he pursues her and stabs her to death. In Adolescence’s four episodes — all shot in one appropriately claustrophobic and unsettling long take — Katie isn’t important; Jamie is. The show knows this, acknowledges it, and makes the case for its own existence nonetheless. But focusing on the topic of teenage violence and misogyny from the perspective of one of its perpetrators doesn’t necessarily provide us with any new or special insights into young men’s online radicalization — and it threatens to further obscure the lived reality and humanity of those who suffer its real-world consequences in the process.

Wasn’t it Katie’s friends and family, and Katie herself, who experienced the worst nightmare of all?

I wholeheartedly agree. Why the writers didn’t properly address their omission, or be alerted by their script editor or producers who surely must have picked up on it, is yet another disturbing unanswered question.

Then the Muse, in her wisdom, finally revealed why she had insisted I take an in-depth look at Adolescence.

There was a haunting song by Aurora : Through the Eyes of a Child at the end of episode four, which had little impact on me at the time because I was so distracted and irritated by the murderer’s father taking unwarranted centre-stage. But I learnt from a media interview with Stephen Graham that the song was sung by the school choir who featured in the drama. I suppose I could have guessed this. But not that the beautiful solo sequence was sung by the girl who was murdered. The girl we’ve never actually seen, except in the CCTV footage.

How could we possibly know this?

No one I spoke to ‘got it’ when they watched the last episode. Vulture certainly couldn’t have known, otherwise they’d have picked it up in their review. Indeed it may have softened the critical nature of their review.

Was it meant to be an ‘Easter egg’ to be delivered later in media interviews for the benefit of the chattering classes? No Incels are likely to watch it, that’s for sure. And shouldn’t the drama be seeking to persuade them to think again about their Manosphere, as a better alternative to ever tighter State control.

I’d say it was underwriting, trying to be too subtle, too clever, too cool. Again. Any good script editor would have picked up on this and told the writers, ‘You’ve got to spell it out for the audience.’ And it would be easy enough. Jade could have said how Katie was so proud to be the solo singer. That would have fitted the existing storyline. Or, if Katie’s family had featured, they might have been watching a video of her in the choir. So the song at the end would have far greater meaning and significance. That would have been far more relevant than Dad visiting a DIY store, and freaking out.

Knowing who the singer is transforms the ending. Making it into the poignant and lyrical ‘Rosebud’ moment it was intended to be.

So I played it.

And then I felt what the Muse wanted me to feel. The theme of the drama. Despite its distracting flaws and crude, intrusive State agenda, the underlying theme of Adolescence is still important.

A theme relevant to kids growing up in the social media world of today and to all of us.

The theme of Loss.

The Loss of childhood innocence.

How do we get it back? Perhaps by celebrating innocence, not in a Christian way where the body is hated, or in a fake Disney way, or with State censorship and control, or by outlawing Incel opinions so they’re forced underground.

But through Truth.

Debating with and understanding Incels.

There’s far more to this faction than was presented in Adolescence and which needs a sympathetic ear. Issues of Incels’ major anxiety, suicidal leanings, lack of social skills and isolation, for example. Race and autism are also factors that feature in any genuine study of Incels, which is what this drama claims to be.

Instead, the way Incels are used in Adolescence is glib, simplistic, largely unsympathetic and inaccurate ‘click bait’.

And the authors’ agenda now seems especially clear as outlined below in Off-Guardian. Such an agenda could help explain the drama’s numerous faults because their blatant government agenda took priority over genuine content:

Off-Guardian’s Kit Knightly had this to say about the UK’s Online Safety Act already in force:

It has entire sections dedicated to “false communication offenses” – meaning publishing material the state has deemed “misinformation”, and a second section specifically and explicitly giving newspapers and media companies immunity from those offences.

Nobody is talking about any of that, though, because fortunately enough Adolescence came out at the exact same time the act came into force, and has totally steered the national conversation on this topic while flooding social media with “concerned mothers” who really want the government to “take action”.

That’s right, the formerly-creeping now-galloping authoritarianism is a great thing because we need to save our children from…whatever.

Kit devotes an entire further article to Adolescence, which is well worth a read: How “Adolescence” offers us a peek inside the machine.

It bears out my analysis of the drama and its disturbing implications.

Two of the readers’ comments on his article are also worth quoting here:

unwashed

Apr 5, 2025 6:36 PM

Give it a year and your find it was subsidise by the government and Just like top gun was.

Toni Moseley

Apr 5, 2025 2:23 PM

13 year old boys / girls are NOT incels, they are NOT adolescents, they are pre pubescent children.

The onset age of puberty is open to question, but I agree with the comment – these young kids are too young to be Incels in the generally accepted sense of the word. It is wilfully and knowingly combining two separate issues together – social media bullying and Incels – in a confusing and irresponsible way.

It’s this cynical exploitation of childhood innocence by the Adolescence team that I especially despise.

Under the guise of protecting children, they are contributing to a Loss of Truth.

And a Loss of Innocence.