TV Show review
Review basis: 1 season · through March 13, 2025
March 13, 2025 · TV-MA · Ended
Woke Score
Lower is better
Review
Adolescence is a four-episode 2025 Netflix miniseries about a 13-year-old boy from a Northern English working-class family who is arrested for stabbing his female classmate to death. The story follows the immediate aftermath through police questioning, school investigation, family trauma, and sessions with a psychologist as they uncover how online content shaped the boy. It centers on exposure to misogynistic manosphere and incel ideas, bullying via social media, and failures by parents, schools, and society to address rising male violence against girls, with creators explicitly framing it as an examination of toxic masculinity and the need for radical cultural change around smartphones and gender norms.
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for Adolescence.
Woke representation / casting
Casting prioritizes authentic Northern English working-class accents and family dynamics with a white protagonist; includes visible diversity in supporting roles like the Black detective, consistent with casting director's inclusive approach.
Woke political dialogue
Multiple scenes and plot points directly depict and critique incel/red-pill online content, misogynistic attitudes toward girls and sex, and cultural radicalization of boys, with psychologist sessions framing these as dangerous ideological influences.
Identity-driven story themes
The core arc attributes the murder to the boy's immersion in toxic masculinity and manosphere ideas that blame women and distort gender expectations; heavy thematic focus on modern male identity crisis and societal accountability for boys' misogynist violence.
Western institutional / cultural critique
Portrays social media platforms, parents, schools, and government systems as complicit in enabling online misogyny and failing to protect girls; creators publicly call for radical interventions like smartphone restrictions and broader cultural shifts on masculinity.
Woke character or canon changes
Not relevant.
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Significant volume of right-leaning complaints that the show functions as anti-white propaganda by race-swapping real Black knife-crime cases to portray a white boy as the villain, demonizes white working-class boys and men through a toxic-masculinity lens, and advances woke gender ideology while distorting crime statistics.
Creator track record context
Co-creators bring experience with socially conscious UK dramas; Jack Thorne has a clear pattern of disability-inclusion advocacy including industry quotas and public support for trans perspectives, while Stephen Graham has focused more on class and violence themes with fewer explicit identity-driven statements.
Production
