Haven’t seen the show itself, but between the critical commentary on it and the way it seems to get referenced by officialdom and its press, apparently actual policy and approaches to policing are now being framed under the influence of, and with reference to, a fairly pure work of fiction - which, insofar as it is based on „real events“ at all, actually inverts their natural „narrative valence“?
Seems quite ominous. A few years ago friends and I used to joke about the constant references to Harry Potter and various comic book movies (fittingly if crudely categorized as „capeshit“) in the public reception of real events, but there actually were real events.
This feels more like a complete retreat into pure simulacra, a world view formed through and expressing itself in a closed-off feedback loop with itself.
It’s been interesting watching the show as a resident in Plymouth, where the word “incel” has something of an awful resonance, following the killing spree of Jake Davison here a few years back. I recall the “debate” and “discussion” being had around that time following a similar course (how a whole generation are one click away from going on a killing spree etc etc …) except — as in that example, so with Adolescence, the truth and the real world are not quite so straightforward. In the end no one could even really make up their mind if Davison was actually an incel after all. It turns out people who go on killing sprees may be subject to incredibly complex histories that cannot be simply explained away by saying that there is an entire generation of mythic young men who are killers in waiting and are only waiting for Tate et al to provide them with an instruction manual as to how. It turns out that HL Mencken was likely right (once again) when he said that for every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
>Having failed to find a sufficient supply of the kind of villain we want, we wrote a fantasy of him on the back of a napkin, and then handed that to the Judge to be entered as evidence.
Exactly. The whole Incel/Andrew Tate/manosphere/terrorism narrative never had any basis in fact so this show has been seized upon in lieu of proof. But the objective remains the same - shutting down dissent.
I'd forgotten about the boy in the DIY centre. To be honest, he would have made a better casting decision for the message they were going for than the too normal looking and sounding one they tried to cast as the weird incel.
Haven’t seen the show itself, but between the critical commentary on it and the way it seems to get referenced by officialdom and its press, apparently actual policy and approaches to policing are now being framed under the influence of, and with reference to, a fairly pure work of fiction - which, insofar as it is based on „real events“ at all, actually inverts their natural „narrative valence“?
Seems quite ominous. A few years ago friends and I used to joke about the constant references to Harry Potter and various comic book movies (fittingly if crudely categorized as „capeshit“) in the public reception of real events, but there actually were real events.
This feels more like a complete retreat into pure simulacra, a world view formed through and expressing itself in a closed-off feedback loop with itself.
It’s been interesting watching the show as a resident in Plymouth, where the word “incel” has something of an awful resonance, following the killing spree of Jake Davison here a few years back. I recall the “debate” and “discussion” being had around that time following a similar course (how a whole generation are one click away from going on a killing spree etc etc …) except — as in that example, so with Adolescence, the truth and the real world are not quite so straightforward. In the end no one could even really make up their mind if Davison was actually an incel after all. It turns out people who go on killing sprees may be subject to incredibly complex histories that cannot be simply explained away by saying that there is an entire generation of mythic young men who are killers in waiting and are only waiting for Tate et al to provide them with an instruction manual as to how. It turns out that HL Mencken was likely right (once again) when he said that for every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
>Having failed to find a sufficient supply of the kind of villain we want, we wrote a fantasy of him on the back of a napkin, and then handed that to the Judge to be entered as evidence.
Exactly. The whole Incel/Andrew Tate/manosphere/terrorism narrative never had any basis in fact so this show has been seized upon in lieu of proof. But the objective remains the same - shutting down dissent.
I'd forgotten about the boy in the DIY centre. To be honest, he would have made a better casting decision for the message they were going for than the too normal looking and sounding one they tried to cast as the weird incel.
I was laughing so hard during that bit I actually struggled to get the notes down. Yeah I agree though on the casting