Does anyone out there find the concept of a 13-year-old "incel" completely overwrought? I grew up in a beach town in Florida and there were kids who were "pretty fast" - quoting The Knack. But they were exceptions to the norm, as I suspect is still the case. My familiarity with the term is that it is more apt to describe young men (meaning, not minors and likely in their 20s) who are experiencing anxiety overy their virginal (or semi-virginal) status, a condition that I know tends to resolve itself. I don't think film producers do anybody any favors by inducing such anxiety among 13-year-olds.
70s/80s new wave rock group. 'Pretty fast' is from the song 'Good Girls Don't' which has the line 'cos you'e heard she's pretty fast..' Googe it, it's a classic.
I have posted this info on other sites. But the message should get out. I was in the court system for three decades and read thousands of reports about defendants (police reports, probation reports, psychological work-ups...). Single mother households provide a staggering amount of grist for the criminal court mill. Maybe it is too hard to "face facts" for most people. Maybe the real problem just seems too intractable and we want ready solutions. Sometimes the police who have to deal with it all the time develop a gallows humor attitude of "Hey, gotta thank God for full employment!"
This may seem derivative but is central: there is no such thing as “toxic masculinity” in the same way that there is no such thing as a (circa 1900 USA) “dirty” Italian, Irishman, Polish (or any other immigrant.)
It’s the slick, vile technique of the famed Schoolyard Bully to combine a vague pejorative (“toxic”) with the immutable trait of their victim (“Italian,” “Irish,” or “MALE”) in order to inflict harm to their very sense of personhood.
In this instance we may be talking about “incels” as the cultural fad du jour, but there have always been males who do no do well socially (Rob adroitly cites Autism spectrum predominantly males) which in yesteryear were called “nerds” (today, a positive) and rather than receiving empathy and instruction on how to be more capable of finding the love all people seek, are labeled “incel” and further ostracized - its disgusting.
I raise this because it would be easy to get lost in the intentional quagmire of Adolescence’s misleading “love it!”/“hate it!” choice, and miss the real moral lesson as a viewer, that combining a pejorative with an immutable trait is the oldest abusive trick in the book.
Every human in their immutable traits has the right to try to find love, be loved and love others, even males.
True but all this incel talk is a distraction from the fact that British society now harbors a lot of young men who hate the people and the culture that welcomed them. Those are the people who use knives to settle disputes. Knife crime was never part of British culture. Nor was it common in Germany until recently.
The thing is... this type of crap just widens the distance that young men are experiencing. What in hell does anyone thing this does to improve anything?
We are all seeing that the sift to the "caring" matriarchy is just a ticket to hell.
“Toxic masculinity” — what’s the toxic part? Interest in following nature’s drive to reproduce with a female? Seems perfectly wholesome me, in an evolutionary sense. The dicey fact being danced around so emphemistically is this: sex is the most intensely competitive thing most teens will ever feel. Again, perfectly natural. Mammalian species fight over mates, and blood is spilled. Some (perhaps most, in some populations) never get to reproduce. Take it up with Mother Nature, but to me it seems like a good thing … for the species, if not the for hapless contestants.
No question, it’s abnormal. Defeated stag wannabes drift off to the edge of the herd and cause no trouble. Fighting back out of a sense of wrongly withheld dignity is uniquely human, clearly enabled by a zeitgeist of entitlement for just showing up. Nothing to do about that except call the police … as Adolescense chronicles so well. No, kiddo, you are NOT entitled to a female who accepts you as a likely father for her child. You are either selected, or you aren’t. If you can’t deal with that, then go to jail. Society has decided that normal people will be protected from angry losers.
To say that “Adolescence” got certain things wrong is to imply that the producers intended to produce an accurate depiction of their subject matter. Netflix’s goal is $$$. And their craft in making a hit dramatic series involves tapping into the zeitgeist. Of course, embedding the sensationalized drama in a realistic context is all part of it. While riding the wave of doomsday sentiment, especially in an area that has such a strong “media etiology”, they rake in the money by throwing a little more fuel on the hysteria fire.
The incel demographics are pretty close to precisely the same as for my misandrist female friends when I was in my early 20s. None were autistic. They also weren’t incels by a long shot.
The purpose of the Art is not to be abstract, and unconnected to the reality of the era. The real goal is to be a modified rendering of the reality, a storytelling session, or a warning for a potential future development in the real life of a community, or a country. What we are seeing, now, around us, in terms of lunacy, is far from what was happening decades ago. What was shocking us then, is now a minor fact. What was disgusting us then, it is now a normal experience.
Who can accurately predict, based on the actual research, polls, and studies, what more aberrant facts the future has in the bag. Nowadays, the mind of the kids, pre-teens, is more and more abused by detrimental information, that is like the mind viruses. Mind control techniques are destructive weapons, and the population is not immune, and is not prepared for such a pressure. So, we are channeled to hope for the best and to settle for what is above the lowest of the results.
Wouldn't expect anything less from western establishment that aside from treating a fictional story as though it were apt to real life, also wants us to believe a man is a woman by words alone.
For starters TV shows never follow statistics (serial killers anyone??)
This show hit a real nerve among parents. While the main character is not fatherless in the actual sense, he may be “virtually fatherless” (and perhaps figuratively motherless as well). The father is physically absent (working nights) as well as emotionally absent. In the internet era I think this is something a lot of families can relate to.
As far as the crime, as Dave said earlier, I think the idea is to see this as the “tip of the iceberg”. Like a school shooting, it is a rare occurrence but reveals something about deeper problems.
"Adolescence" is neither improbable nor misleading. There are news stories almost every day about males who murder women who won't have sex with them, or who used to have sex with them, or who the male wants out of the picture so he can have sex with some other woman. Aggrieved manchildren who see women and girls as objects or property are a dime a dozen in our society, no matter the male's background, race, religion, or political party. Society and the men within it who act like femicide is some strange violent outlier are laughable, as they're either extremely naive or in extreme denial.
You missed the point of the show. It's about the issues around incel culture, a new and pernicious phenomenon as you detail with your statistics. The horrible and unusual act of violence serves not to make a point about violence but to highlight the crisis of young men who may become incels with all the associated problems.
Agree about adults but a 13 year old boy killing a 13 year old girl for saying no is probably very rare. I hope the show is a wakeup call to parents about the dangers of social media and social pressure to their sons and therefore to girls and women.
It’s not white British boys with two parents that exhibit stabby behavior. But let’s blame the phones. Or the knives. Blame anything but the people actually stabbing people.
Are there? Statistically I think very few do this in Western cultures, though our media have the actions a population of millions to choose events from. Yes it happens sometimes.
Does anyone out there find the concept of a 13-year-old "incel" completely overwrought? I grew up in a beach town in Florida and there were kids who were "pretty fast" - quoting The Knack. But they were exceptions to the norm, as I suspect is still the case. My familiarity with the term is that it is more apt to describe young men (meaning, not minors and likely in their 20s) who are experiencing anxiety overy their virginal (or semi-virginal) status, a condition that I know tends to resolve itself. I don't think film producers do anybody any favors by inducing such anxiety among 13-year-olds.
The Knack?
70s/80s new wave rock group. 'Pretty fast' is from the song 'Good Girls Don't' which has the line 'cos you'e heard she's pretty fast..' Googe it, it's a classic.
Make a show about a Muslim honor killing and see what Keir Starmer and the like say about it.
I have posted this info on other sites. But the message should get out. I was in the court system for three decades and read thousands of reports about defendants (police reports, probation reports, psychological work-ups...). Single mother households provide a staggering amount of grist for the criminal court mill. Maybe it is too hard to "face facts" for most people. Maybe the real problem just seems too intractable and we want ready solutions. Sometimes the police who have to deal with it all the time develop a gallows humor attitude of "Hey, gotta thank God for full employment!"
wHaT? But the British Prime Minister said it’s a ‘fantastic documentary’.
This may seem derivative but is central: there is no such thing as “toxic masculinity” in the same way that there is no such thing as a (circa 1900 USA) “dirty” Italian, Irishman, Polish (or any other immigrant.)
It’s the slick, vile technique of the famed Schoolyard Bully to combine a vague pejorative (“toxic”) with the immutable trait of their victim (“Italian,” “Irish,” or “MALE”) in order to inflict harm to their very sense of personhood.
In this instance we may be talking about “incels” as the cultural fad du jour, but there have always been males who do no do well socially (Rob adroitly cites Autism spectrum predominantly males) which in yesteryear were called “nerds” (today, a positive) and rather than receiving empathy and instruction on how to be more capable of finding the love all people seek, are labeled “incel” and further ostracized - its disgusting.
I raise this because it would be easy to get lost in the intentional quagmire of Adolescence’s misleading “love it!”/“hate it!” choice, and miss the real moral lesson as a viewer, that combining a pejorative with an immutable trait is the oldest abusive trick in the book.
Every human in their immutable traits has the right to try to find love, be loved and love others, even males.
True but all this incel talk is a distraction from the fact that British society now harbors a lot of young men who hate the people and the culture that welcomed them. Those are the people who use knives to settle disputes. Knife crime was never part of British culture. Nor was it common in Germany until recently.
The thing is... this type of crap just widens the distance that young men are experiencing. What in hell does anyone thing this does to improve anything?
We are all seeing that the sift to the "caring" matriarchy is just a ticket to hell.
“Toxic masculinity” — what’s the toxic part? Interest in following nature’s drive to reproduce with a female? Seems perfectly wholesome me, in an evolutionary sense. The dicey fact being danced around so emphemistically is this: sex is the most intensely competitive thing most teens will ever feel. Again, perfectly natural. Mammalian species fight over mates, and blood is spilled. Some (perhaps most, in some populations) never get to reproduce. Take it up with Mother Nature, but to me it seems like a good thing … for the species, if not the for hapless contestants.
But most of the time the males fight each other, rather than kill their potential mates. Doing that sounds like a great way to extinct-yourself.
No question, it’s abnormal. Defeated stag wannabes drift off to the edge of the herd and cause no trouble. Fighting back out of a sense of wrongly withheld dignity is uniquely human, clearly enabled by a zeitgeist of entitlement for just showing up. Nothing to do about that except call the police … as Adolescense chronicles so well. No, kiddo, you are NOT entitled to a female who accepts you as a likely father for her child. You are either selected, or you aren’t. If you can’t deal with that, then go to jail. Society has decided that normal people will be protected from angry losers.
To say that “Adolescence” got certain things wrong is to imply that the producers intended to produce an accurate depiction of their subject matter. Netflix’s goal is $$$. And their craft in making a hit dramatic series involves tapping into the zeitgeist. Of course, embedding the sensationalized drama in a realistic context is all part of it. While riding the wave of doomsday sentiment, especially in an area that has such a strong “media etiology”, they rake in the money by throwing a little more fuel on the hysteria fire.
Marxist propaganda masquerading as art. Gobbels would be proud.
The incel demographics are pretty close to precisely the same as for my misandrist female friends when I was in my early 20s. None were autistic. They also weren’t incels by a long shot.
And how often do misandrist women slaughter men and boys?
The purpose of the Art is not to be abstract, and unconnected to the reality of the era. The real goal is to be a modified rendering of the reality, a storytelling session, or a warning for a potential future development in the real life of a community, or a country. What we are seeing, now, around us, in terms of lunacy, is far from what was happening decades ago. What was shocking us then, is now a minor fact. What was disgusting us then, it is now a normal experience.
Who can accurately predict, based on the actual research, polls, and studies, what more aberrant facts the future has in the bag. Nowadays, the mind of the kids, pre-teens, is more and more abused by detrimental information, that is like the mind viruses. Mind control techniques are destructive weapons, and the population is not immune, and is not prepared for such a pressure. So, we are channeled to hope for the best and to settle for what is above the lowest of the results.
Thank you for this note. Ncessary
We need to prepare another piece of Art, reminding that another reality is near us with another averages and etnic patterns.
Wouldn't expect anything less from western establishment that aside from treating a fictional story as though it were apt to real life, also wants us to believe a man is a woman by words alone.
For starters TV shows never follow statistics (serial killers anyone??)
This show hit a real nerve among parents. While the main character is not fatherless in the actual sense, he may be “virtually fatherless” (and perhaps figuratively motherless as well). The father is physically absent (working nights) as well as emotionally absent. In the internet era I think this is something a lot of families can relate to.
As far as the crime, as Dave said earlier, I think the idea is to see this as the “tip of the iceberg”. Like a school shooting, it is a rare occurrence but reveals something about deeper problems.
"Adolescence" is neither improbable nor misleading. There are news stories almost every day about males who murder women who won't have sex with them, or who used to have sex with them, or who the male wants out of the picture so he can have sex with some other woman. Aggrieved manchildren who see women and girls as objects or property are a dime a dozen in our society, no matter the male's background, race, religion, or political party. Society and the men within it who act like femicide is some strange violent outlier are laughable, as they're either extremely naive or in extreme denial.
It’s completely improbable that a 13 year old with two parents deals with his angst by stabbing a girl.
This.
You missed the point of the show. It's about the issues around incel culture, a new and pernicious phenomenon as you detail with your statistics. The horrible and unusual act of violence serves not to make a point about violence but to highlight the crisis of young men who may become incels with all the associated problems.
Highlight = make up a narrative. That our author points out doesn’t track with reality. It’s you who has missed the point.
Really not an "unusual" act of violence, considering there are usually daily news stories about men killing women who told them No.
Agree about adults but a 13 year old boy killing a 13 year old girl for saying no is probably very rare. I hope the show is a wakeup call to parents about the dangers of social media and social pressure to their sons and therefore to girls and women.
It’s not white British boys with two parents that exhibit stabby behavior. But let’s blame the phones. Or the knives. Blame anything but the people actually stabbing people.
Are there? Statistically I think very few do this in Western cultures, though our media have the actions a population of millions to choose events from. Yes it happens sometimes.