The makers of hit Netflix show “Adolescence ” have sparked a conversation in Britain and beyond on how to protect children from violent misogyny and other harmful content on social media.
Now they have the ear of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who welcomed the filmmakers to Downing Street on Monday for talks on child protection. Starmer’s office said he backed an initiative by Netflix to stream the drama series for free to secondary schools across the country, so that as many teens as possible can watch it.
The show, filmed in England, explores the difficult questions that arise when a 13-year-old boy is accused of the fatal stabbing of a girl in his school — and how much social media interactions that are largely impenetrable to parents and teachers may have played a part.
Netflix says since the drama launched in March it has amassed 66.3 million views worldwide and has become one of the most talked-about U.K. series in recent memory.
Starmer said it was difficult watching the drama with his 14-year-old daughter and 16-year-old son. But showing the drama widely in schools will “help students better understand the impact of misogyny, dangers of online radicalization and the importance of healthy relationships,” his office said.
“It seems like the whole nation is talking about ‘Adolescence’ and not just this nation,” Starmer said. “As a dad, I have not found it easy to watch this with children, because it connects with the fears and worries that you have as parents and adults.”
“There isn’t one single policy lever to pull. It’s actually a much bigger problem than that,” he added. “And that’s the devastating effect that the problem of misogyny has on our society.”
Jack Thorne, a co-writer on the show, said the team behind “Adolescence” made it to provoke a conversation.
“So to have the opportunity to take this into schools is beyond our expectations,” he said. “We hope it’ll lead to teachers talking to the students, but what we really hope is it’ll lead to students talking amongst themselves.”
Actor Stephen Graham, a co-creator of the drama who stars as the boy’s father, has told The Associated Press he wanted the narrative to focus on the seemingly ordinary life of the accused.
He said that when a knife crime among young people takes place, the first reaction may be to question the background of the murder suspect and how they were raised.
“But what if it’s not the family?” Graham asked. “We’re all maybe accountable. School. Society. Parents. Community.”
Child-on-child sexual abuse
Soma Sara, who founded a charity focused on highlighting child-on-child sexual violence and what she calls “rape culture” in schools, said recent evidence shows that the problem is “aging down” to children younger than 10 — and it may be too late to tackle misogynistic attitudes by the time children turn 13.
Her charity, Everyone’s Invited, has collected thousands of anonymous testimonies from women and girls describing groping, assault, sexist name-calling, inappropriate touching and other abusive behavior they experienced on school grounds. Of those submissions, about 1,600 took place in elementary schools, she said.
“The testimonies show how early this starts, and how it’s children abusing children — that’s just the devastating reality,” Sara said.
Sara said that banning social media among children, like Australia did last year for those under 16, isn’t pragmatic. Instead, her group is leading education programs in schools to help children understand how to critically evaluate the pornography or misogynistic narratives they are exposed to.
“We feel the generational gap has never been wider. Parents need to be digitally literate themselves, and understand all these apps — Snapchat, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok — because that’s what your children are spending hours scrolling,” she said.
“We’re all responsible”
The success of “Adolescence” has come during growing concern over children’s use of smartphones and the easy availability of pornography and extreme misogynistic content on social media pushed by controversial influencers like Andrew Tate and his brother, Tristan. The dual U.S. and British citizens face charges of human trafficking and forming an organized criminal group to sexually exploit women.
Gavin Stephens, chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, warned last week that “the harmful effect of Tate is plain to see.”
Police in the U.K. are now dealing with more than a million crimes related to violence against women and girls each year, or a fifth of all recorded crime.
“This is everyone’s problem. And this is what ‘Adolescence’ says: when a child is accused, everyone’s to answer,” Sara said. “It’s about realizing that we’re all responsible.”
