śrūyatām dharmasarvasvam śrutvā caivāvadhāryatām

ātmānaḥ pratikūlāni pareṣām na samācaret|

(The essence of Dharma and Shastras is this;

never do a thing to others that you do not wish to undergo yourself)

The Netflix mini-series Adolescence is making waves. As media educators and creators, we cannot help wonder though if these waves are of the sort that will bring about positive social change in society over issues like “toxic masculinity", technology, and “incel culture", or are mostly of a solipsistic, self-serving, and stupor-inducing nature.

This is not a criticism necessarily of anyone who has watched the show and is left feeling blown away by its depiction of what happens in the life of a young British boy and his family in the aftermath of a shocking act of violence. Nor does it diminish concerns about the issues raised in the series.

But the real question remains: what, in this wave of commentary (and hype) around this show, is actually helpful to our understanding of things, and our desire, presumably, to do something about such things? Is the show worthy of broadening the conversation on teens, technology and violence, or is it merely replicating a cliched and hurtful stereotype about boys somehow having to be rescued from their innately dangerous masculinity (as an Indian ad-maker’s video some years ago crudely showing small Indian boys pleading that they don’t want to become “rapists" did)?

Most of the commentary about Adolescence has been about the dangers of teen radicalisation from the “manosphere", a fear that parents don’t really know what their teen sons are up to while sitting alone in their rooms with their computers and phones.

Spiritual teacher Sadhguru though raised pertinent wider concerns in response to a question about the show recently. He drew attention to the alarming rate of student suicides in India and pointed out that each passing generation is growing up with less engagement with family members and more exposure to distant commercial forces mediated by technology.

But much of the discourse around the show, for better or worse, has been predictably political. UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke of how hard it was to watch the show as a father of two children, a boy and a girl. He welcomed a move to screen the show in schools and applauded the filmmakers. Meanwhile, critics of the show, including former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, mocked its premise. One criticism was the casting choices involved. Why was the murderer portrayed as a white boy, they asked, when some of the real-life teen murders in the UK happened to have been done by non-white teens? If misogyny was the concern of choice for fans of the show, race (or “reverse-racism") possibly was the issue for others.

It is not surprising, perhaps, that Adolescence provoked the same polarised responses as many issues involving identity and crime now do.........

© News18