What can Adolescence tell us about the radicalization of teen boys?

Adolescence is the number one Netflix show right now, as well as the most critically acclaimed show of the year. The four-part mini series follows a 13-year-old British boy accused of murdering a female schoolmate. 

The show is not only a compelling story, but openly discusses the effect of the toxic masculinity online that's shaping the worldview of teens today.

Today on Commotion, TV critic Aramide Tinubu and culture writer Amil Niazi join host Elamin Abdelmahmoud to discuss Adolescence, the effect of the "manosphere" on teen boys and what adults can do to prevent this from happening to the kids in their lives. 

We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player.

Elamin: The show is positioned, and maybe advertised a little bit, as a regular police procedural. But this is a show about a murder and a suspect, and you do not get much centering of the victim. You kind of see her in some photographs, you don't really learn that much about her life, we don't even see her family grieving at all. The show is so focused — so intently focused — on the accused and then the impacts on his group of friends, family, community. Amil, what do you make of that narrative focus? 

Amil: I think it's important to say that you do get a sense of her from her best friend who's really grieving her and some of the things that she's been through that paint a specific picture of this young girl. 

But I think what is so important here and and what really lends to the tension, but also the range of emotion that you feel, is because you have to empathize with this young boy and his family. You have to see him as normal. You have to see him as someone that could be your child in order for you to understand the gravity of what's happening to these young men. Because it's not some strange-looking boy that you can immediately clock, "Oh, it's everyone's kid but mine." No, they're trying to tell you: adults are not in the know. And I love that, from the cops to the dad to the mom, none of the adults are aware of what's going on in these kids' lives. And I think that's very accurate. And so they want you to feel like you could be this boy's parent, and you need to see him as normal in order to understand that this type of misogyny lives amongst all of us. And I think centering him versus her is the only way to get that across.

They talk about Andrew Tate and his brother in their podcast. They talk about the incel universe. They talk about what's happening on Snapchat and Instagram and what all of these different emojis mean, and how they are tagged to avoid detection from their teachers and their parents and the world that they live in.

Elamin: Aramide, how do you think that will resonate in this moment? 

Aramide: I think being in the States, if the States still exists in the next few months …you can see people who are wanting to understand how we got here might start bridging the gap. But I think more than anything, it's really about our parenting, our collective parenting. I'm not an actual parent, but I'm an adult, so I can be a collective community parent. How are we speaking to our kids? Are we putting guardrails on things like social media? As someone who didn't get social media until high school because it didn't exist until really I was in high school, these kids just have way too much access. And I think we do want to give our children the opportunity to see what else is out there. But there are no guardrails, and people are just allowing their kids to go in their rooms and shut the door because, "Oh, they're safe." In particular, here in the States, we have gun violence and things of that nature, but they're unsafe in so many other ways. So I'm hoping that people do begin bridging the gap. 

I'm of the mindset that this is kind of like the fall of an empire, where we're sitting right now. I think if you fall, you can rebuild — and hopefully we can rebuild in a much better and healthier way. And we have to really start talking about how this isn't the 1950s, gender roles are very different, women are making their own money. But you can see that there's really been a try to turn back time, to say that you can't get a no-fault divorce, to say this, to say that, to say that you don't have access to health-care as a woman. And we have to talk about why that is and really what's going on. 

You can listen to the full discussion from today's show on CBC Listen or on our podcast, Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud, available wherever you get your podcasts.

Panel produced by Stuart Berman.