Featured Image Credit: Netflix/Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Topics: Adolescence, Elon Musk, Netflix, Social Media, Twitter
Niamh Spence
Topics: Adolescence, Elon Musk, Netflix, Social Media, Twitter
It's not been available to stream for a month yet, but already Adolescence on Netflix is raising important discussions and being praised everywhere.
The four-part series dropped last month (13 March) and it's still comfortably sitting in the streamer's 'Top 10 TV Programmes in the UK Today' ranker.
Featuring a star-studded cast - including This is England's Stephen Graham, Top Boy's Ashley Walters, A Thousand Blows' Erin Doherty and of course, TV newbie, Owen Cooper - Adolescence follows 13-year-old son Jamie (Owen Cooper) who gets arrested for the violent murder of his female classmate.
The series has received a heap of five-star reviews, gleaming critical acclaim, and a mountain of praise on social media.
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The four episodes have viewers hooked, not just for their unique filming style but for confronting topical subjects, including misogyny, toxic masculinity, children's safety online, incel culture, and the online 'manosphere'.
However, since the series launched it's been widely discussed, and not everything said about it has been factually correct.
Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has made 'absurd' claims that the series features knife crime in the UK which 'is only committed by Black boys'. The claims have been rubbished, but Musk has also claimed online that the show creators changed the ethnicity of the main character to make the show’s killer white. Musk wrote on his own platform X as he accused Thorne of 'anti-white propaganda' with the series, as he falsely claimed the creators 'race swapped the actual killer from a black man/migrant to a white boy and the story has it so he was radicalized online by the red pill movement.'
Now, one of the show's co-creators has hit back at Musk's comments.
Jack Thorne, who created the series alongside actor Stephen Graham who stars in it, has slammed Musk as he shared: "We’re not making a point about race with this."
He spoke toThe News Agents podcast as he added: "We are making a point about masculinity. We’re trying to get inside a problem. We’re not saying this is one thing or another. We’re saying this is about boys."
After receiving rave reviews online and an avalanche of praise on social media, Netflix has now revealed that it is making Adolescence 'available to all secondary schools across the UK through Into Film+'.
"Additionally, healthy relationships charity Tender will produce guides and resources for teachers, parents and carers to help navigate conversations around the series," the streamer announced on X (31 March).
UK prime minister Keir Starmer recently hosted the creators Adolescence in Downing Street, as the decision to make the show free to watch in all secondary schools was made.
Starmer told the roundtable that 'as a dad, I have not found it easy viewing', adding that the series was so powerful because it shows the events in it 'could almost happen to anyone.'
"It instantly connects with the fears and worries, not just of young people… but also frankly the fears and worries of parents and adults across the country," he said.
He also asked: "Perhaps there isn’t one silver bullet response, some policy lever that can be pulled, it’s actually much bigger than that, almost a cultural issue."
Adolescence is available to stream on Netflix now.