Topics: Advice, Celebrity, Life, Netflix, Parenting, TV And Film, Tyla Recommends, Adolescence
Stephen Graham, the mind behind hit new limited-series Adolescence, has issued a seriously harrowing warning to parents after the 'disturbing' show dropped on Netflix last week.
Graham, who is no stranger to gritty dramas after starring in the likes of This is England, Boiling Point and Line of Duty, stars as father Eddie Miller in the four-part series alongside his 13-year-old son, Jamie.
Now, without giving away too much about the show, the series explores topical issues that are extremely relevant today, tackling subjects like misogyny, incels and the online 'manosphere'.
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The 51-year-old British actor, who co-created and wrote Adolescence alongside Jack Thorne, revealed that the story was inspired by news reports of stabbings of young girls.
"I read an article about a young boy stabbing a young girl," Graham told the Independent. "And then maybe a couple of months later, on the news there was [another] young boy who'd stabbed a young girl, and if I'm really honest with you, they hurt my heart."
Noting that the series, which has since received a 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, delves into a number of complex subject matter, Graham warned that parents need to be 'mindful' of the impact external influences may have on their children.
He continued: "It's just being mindful of the fact that not only we parent our children, and not only the school educates our children.
"But also there's influences that we have no idea of that are having profound effects on our young culture, profound effects, positive and extremely negative. So it’s having a look at that and seeing that we’re all accountable."
Explaining why he wanted his on-screen son to come from an 'ordinary family', Graham shared: "We wanted to be mindful from the very beginning that there was no way you could point the finger.
"Dad wasn't particularly violent in the house and didn't raise his hand to mum or the boy or his daughter. Mum wasn't an alcoholic. Jamie wasn't abused sexually or mentally or physically."
Due to this, the A Thousand Blows star noted that the series poses the question 'Who is to blame? Who is accountable?' - something which may not be entirely straightforward to answer.
"Maybe we're all accountable - family, school, society, community, environment," he added.
Speaking of the 'microcosm of the home' against the 'macrocosm of the world outside', Graham pointed out that such a separation no longer existed.
Reflecting on his own coming of age, he carried on: "When we were kids, if you got sent to your room or if Kenny Everett was on the telly, and it got a bit racy, you'd be sent to your room and then you couldn't watch it.
"But today even within the context of that home, when lads and girls go to their bedrooms, they have the world at their fingertips."
"The kids aren't watching Andrew Tate," Thorne added. "They're watching a lot more dangerous stuff than Andrew Tate. We were trying present a portrait of complexity of this kid that had been made by all sorts of different influences and the thing about incel culture is there's a logic to it."
Adolescence is currently available to stream on Netflix.
