We need to talk about Jamie Miller

Not since Lionel Shriver’s novel ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’ has a work of fiction provided such a confronting and disturbing insight into the adolescent mind.

Netflix’s latest series,Adolescence shines a light on toxic masculinity and the role social media plays in shaping our young people.

Jamie Miller looks as if butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. He is clean cut, bright eyed, the picture of innocence – a boy barely out of childhood juxtaposed against the very confronting and confusing adult world of a forceful police raid.

He is taken from his family and processed by the police, enduring a strip search before being interrogated. The audience is left horrified by the way Jamie is treated and yet he is an assumed murderer of school friend, Katie Graham. Adult crime, adult treatment.

This highlights the fact that the internet has blurred the divide between children and adults. Children are now exposed to content and ideas that would once have been kept from them until they had the maturity to deal with it.

It is perhaps surprising that when Jamie is arrested it is his father, Eddie he wants with him. Clearly father and son have a strong connection. While it may be natural for a teenage boy to turn to his father rather than mother for support and advice it still feels strange that in this time of heightened emotion he turns to his father.

As further evidence is revealed, the viewer begins to question their real relationship. Does it perhaps speak of an underlying misogyny and the manosphere? Does Jamie believe his father will be easier to manipulate than his mother? Does he feel the man code will protect him? Is this father / son relationship a positive one, or one based on toxic masculinity, a world in which men have their own language, expectations and code?

This is further suggested by Detective Inspector, Luke Bascombe, who says that his son, Adam always calls him to ask for a day off school rather than his mother, seeing him as the soft touch. Given the obvious physical strength and masculinity of his father, (and the later awkwardness of their relationship), this seems quite surprising.

Jamie remains adamant throughout his police interview that he is innocent – even when confronted with video footage of the killing. His refusal to accept his part in the incident is horrifying, as if he can separate himself from the event. Perhaps, in his mind at least,  the Jamie who committed the killing is the on-screen persona rather than the real life version.

In episode two, Detective Inspector Bascombe and Detective Sargeant Frank visit Jamie and Katie’s school. Here the behaviour mirrors that of the prisoners in the cells at the police station. The halls ring with loud, obnoxious comments, anti-authoritarian attitudes and complete disdain for any rules, let alone any suggestion of learning. The weary teachers are doing all they can just to maintain some form of order and survive, frequently resorting to videos to hold their students’ attention. Welcome to the modern world of education.

Here the generation gap is all to obvious as the police and teachers try unsuccessfully to talk to the students and understand their world. It is DI Bascombe’s son, Adam who explains the hidden meanings in emojis, the incel movement, and the accompanying symbols such as the coloured pills that represent how deeply immersed you are in the ideology. It is clear that Bascombe and his son exist in parallel lives and that this conversation is an extremely rare – and awkward - occurrence. This scene could not fail to make any parent feel uncomfortable and wondering how oblivious they really are to their child’s life.

The interviews with the children’s friends reveal the trauma of adolescence, the lack of self-esteem, poor body image and confusion regarding personal identity and relationships. Katie’s friend Jade is devasted by her loss, believing Katie was the only person who ever really liked or understood her, or indeed ever will. Jamie’s friends, Charlie and Ryan refuse to talk to the police, engaging in a bro-code of secrecy and unity.