Millions have been gripped by a story of toxic masculinity in children that’s been called a ‘wake-up call’. But is it a moral panic, and how should we respond?
There is a scene in the Netflix super hit Adolescence, about an elfin-faced 13-year-old boy who stabs to death a female schoolmate, motivated by a fear and loathing of women apparently fuelled by his exposures online, that is not – relatively speaking– very tense.
The lead investigator, DI Luke Bascombe, played by Ashley Walters, is roaming the children’s bleak, grey high school searching for clues as to the murder weapon and the motive. His own son, Adam (Amari Bacchus), a gangly, bullied senior, takes his father aside into a room of stacked chairs and blue-tinged light. He wants to help him understand.
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