Could TV series reach places where politicians fear to tread? Does the runaway success of shows like Adolescence tell us something about the public’s growing disenchantment with those in parliament? Has the balance shifted too much to a situation where politicians seem more influenced by showbusiness than policies and manifestos? 

The power of Adolescence 

When Adolescence launched on Netflix, its timing felt eerie. This hard-hitting series about the malign influence of the “manosphere” appeared just as news broke about a horrific triple murder. A 26-year-old man had killed his ex-girlfriend Louise Hunt, her sister Hannah, and their mother Carol – having searched for Andrew Tate’s podcast hours before committing the crime. 

Creator and actor Stephen Graham conceptualised the project following a disturbing pattern of adolescent male violence against young women. Graham sought to interrogate “What’s going on in our society where this kind of thing is becoming a regular occurrence?”. With writer Jack Thorne, he crafted a drama that stares unflinchingly into “the eye of male rage.” 

The gritty, emotionally charged result follows a Yorkshire family, whose world is torn apart when 13-year-old Jamie is arrested for murdering a female classmate. This isn’t about who did it, but why. We are led into a teenage world that is lived primarily online, where Jamie falls under the corrupting influence of misogynistic online figures. Branded an incel and bullied by his peers, he retreats into a digital echo chamber of extremist content, hidden away in his bedroom. 

The show asks what we are teaching boys and how we expect them to navigate this increasingly toxic world when our concept of masculinity still seems to depend on (and be defined by) boys and men doing so alone. Importantly, the story never loses sight of the victim – a marked reminder of the human cost whilst society struggles to catch up. 

From programme to policy   

The show’s impact has been explosive, with 24.3 million views in just four days. It topped Netflix charts across 71 countries. One police force called it a “wake-up call for parents.” 

TV series, like Adolescence constitute an accessible, perhaps more digestible, interface between the private and public spheres. They make possible a new way of educating the viewer and creating an understanding of topics that they might not otherwise be aware of or open to knowing about.  

Labour MP Anneliese Midgley has called for Adolescence to be screened in parliament and schools to help counter violence against women and girls. Prime Minister Keir Starmer backed the idea, saying he’d watched it with his own teenage children and acknowledging that violence against girls was “abhorrent… a growing problem… we have to tackle it.” 

This isn’t exclusively for adults to tackle; children need education too. Netflix is now screening Adolescence in classrooms for free, with a guide to “support teachers to use the drama in a sensitive and age-appropriate way.” 

It’s clear that the creators of Adolescence set out to explore the dangers of social media and the insidious influence of misogynistic figures like Andrew Tate. However, the complex ecosystem in which such problems develop and the systemic challenges facing our educational institutions – chronic underfunding, staff shortages, and insufficient resources for mental health support – remain largely unexplored.  

This omission raises important questions about whether the very schools being tasked with implementing solutions are equipped to address the sophisticated manipulation techniques employed by online predators and extremist communities. 

The Post Office precedent  

The impact of Adolescence may feel unprecedented, yet it’s not the first time TV has moved the dial. In January 2024, Mr Bates vs The Post Office ignited such public fury that within a week, the government announced new legislation to exonerate hundreds of wrongfully convicted sub-postmasters. A £450 million compensation package followed. 

As we now know, the scandal was caused by modern technology, not the people involved. Horizon – owned by tech giant Fujitsu – was installed to streamline accounting, but many postmasters encountered a bug showing large cash shortfalls. Despite this happening to hundreds of workers, the Post Office insisted individuals were to blame. People lost businesses, homes, marriages, and reputations. Over 700 workers were prosecuted, 230 went to prison, and 60 died before justice was served, some by suicide. 

And for years, no one seemed to care – until ITV’s miniseries. The outrage became so loud, so impossible to ignore that less than a week after it aired, then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised justice for those affected. 

The human connection  

How did these dramatisations manage not only to captivate nations but bring about real and meaningful change? Primarily, they’re excellent shows – well-acted and well-written. Seeing the lives of everyday people upended made it impossible to watch without feeling fury on behalf of those affected. 

Television series provide common reference points for ordinary conversations and political debates. They become shared representations of moral reasoning and feelings, arousing ethical reflection in viewers.  

TV series, previously seen as either mind-numbing or ideologically driven mass-market products – or as guilty pleasures for those in need of entertainment – have come to be sites where artistic authority is reinforced and re-appropriated, and where spectators are empowered through uniquely familiar experiences. Actors from popular shows are as recognisable to us as our neighbours. These aren’t distant statistics anymore but people just like us. 

Television as a force for change  

Whilst we might celebrate these success stories of television driving social change, we should also recognise the troubling reality they expose. It shouldn’t require dramatic recreations for us to address troubling injustices. That sub-postmasters and mistresses spent 16 years fighting for recognition before a TV drama finally triggered action represents a damning failure of our institutions. 

Similarly, that it takes a Netflix series to galvanise meaningful conversation about online radicalisation when experts and victims have been sounding alarms for years should give us pause. When entertainment becomes our most effective path to justice, it reveals dangerous deficiencies in our political and judicial systems.  

These shows shine a spotlight not just on their specific issues but on our collective failure to respond to injustice without the emotional catalyst of dramatisation. They raise uncomfortable questions about why we require familiar faces and compelling narratives before we’re willing to confront uncomfortable truths.  

As we applaud the power of shows like Adolescence to drive change, we should simultaneously demand more from our institutions. A functioning democracy shouldn’t need fictional portrayals to recognise real suffering. That it repeatedly does suggests something fundamentally broken in how we govern ourselves and how we assign value to different voices in society. 

Perhaps in our troubled times, the most effective path to justice sometimes runs right through our living rooms, or perhaps the real revolution won’t be televised after all – it will be when we no longer need television to make us care about injustice in the first place. 

Cover image credits: Bedford Giving