There was nothing abnormally wrong in the home environment of the child killer on Adolescence; other than he slammed his door and spent long hours at his computer. (Photo: Screengrab/Netflix)
Mar 23, 2025 07:20 IST First published on: Mar 23, 2025 at 07:20 IST
In Adolescence, the immersive Netflix show that leaves the viewer reeling between anger and despair, jeering tweens spew abusive language, taunt teachers and, overall, seem to be an unnervingly menacing bunch. Historically, there have been strict hierarchies between adults and children, but one of the rare downsides of a more liberal world is that these lines are increasingly blurred. In Western societies, the good old days where propriety dictated that students respect their elders or face dire consequences are long gone. The grand Indian tradition of guru-shishya parampara still lurks somewhere within us, so students here respect authority a little more. However, Adolescence is a frighteningly realistic portrayal of middle schoolers everywhere. Instagram has diminished cultural boundaries and the way teenagers communicate, through emojis and memes, aren’t vastly different based on geography. The haunting narrative moves fast between a 13-year-old killer and the havoc his actions wreak on his family.
The main theme of Adolescence isn’t new; of lonely, lost boys hiding their festering confusion, exhausting tough-guy bravado driving their feelings underground. Several centuries ago, the original boy in crisis, Hamlet, struggled with understanding masculinity and fared no better than Ophelia. He was wracked with self-doubt, unable to articulate his anguish, acted impulsively and died a tragic death. In this day and age, it would be apt to paraphrase Shakespeare’s eternal words, “frailty, thy name is woman“, to frailty, thy name is also man. Exploring the headspace of agitated youth, how algorithms insidiously guide them to other alienated figures who find solace in the spiteful tirades of Andrew Tate, is one part of Adolescence; almost imperceptibly, the storyline shifts to showcase the arbitrariness of existence and the full extent to which randomness rules our lives.
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There was nothing abnormally wrong in the home environment of the child killer on Adolescence; other than he slammed his door and spent long hours at his computer. Should his parents’ imaginations have run to the possibility of him getting radicalised by misogynistic thought? That they should have been more vigilant about the content he was consuming applies to every parent today. Easier said than done. Unless one is willing to disable the Internet at home, switch back to the old-fashioned Nokia and spend your day chasing your kids, there is no way out of this rabbit hole. Parenting issues are largely the same, so it’s inexplicable that one specific couple is destined to spend their remaining days processing one cataclysmic event that upended their lives.
Whenever the universe metes out a cosmic injustice — which it does routinely and over a lifetime, no one is spared — a wholly natural reaction is, why me? Even if, intellectually, one may be acutely aware that it’s just a stroke of damn good luck that so far we’ve avoided the devastating adversities that hit others. Actually, the sobering if deflating question to ask is, why not me? The truth is bad things happen for the same reason anything happens: randomly. You could make yourself crazy trying to link events to your own mistakes, or by looking for the intended lessons in suffering. Alas, we’re a meaning seeking species with a natural proclivity for defining good and bad but we’re stuck on an indifferent planet that will go on for eternity while wars, famine and fires make most of humanity miserable.
Yet, the weather is fine, the skies are blue. Spring is rearing its cheery head; in this season, at least, absolute pessimism can be kept at bay. To see the world more innocently requires giving up the illusion of control, but living consciously. After spending his entire career studying spiritual practices around the world, Aldous Huxley, the author of Brave New World came to the philosophical conclusion that he hadn’t learnt anything about making life easier. Huxley’s only advice, “Try to be a little kinder.”
The writer is director, Hutkay Films
