Good art, it is said, should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable. I don’t know if that is true but I suspect it is – and furthermore, I suspect, that in our mad and worrying modern world never has ”good art” been more needed to provide succour and support for the soul or guidance and awareness in our moral and social responsibilities. And of all art forms literature and poetry are often the most powerful means of comforting or disturbing our sensibilities. The works of Dickens increasingly pricked the consciousness of his Victorian age, and amongst many others, John Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” and his “Of Mice and Men” profoundly impacted upon my own beliefs about the nature of society and our moral responsibilities within it.
In today’s societies it is television and films that carry many of mankind’s messages, reflections and truths that can, or must, mould or change opinions for better or for worse. It is TV and films that bring the world in all its glories and failings into our living rooms and our lives and occasionally – very occasionally – it doesn’t just entertain but crashes into our consciousness, "disturbs our comfort." And as Rushdie said “stops the world going to sleep”.
Sadly, although Dickens, Steinbeck, Owen and Rushdie and the rest have produced numerous books and poems to awaken us to mankind’s discontents and failings TV and films do so only rarely – but when they do, they can be both life affirming and life changing in a way that perhaps books and poems can never be.
As I sit here writing this I can recall vividly the impact that the BBC play “Cathy Come Home” - a tale of a young couple’s descent into poverty and homelessness - had on “swinging 60s” Britain. The outcry didn’t solve the problems highlighted in the play; in many ways they are still with us – but it changed the game, opened up discussions – in short, disturbed our comfortable mindset. A few years later another BBC offering in the early 1970s pricked the nation’s conscience as we followed the travails of “Edna, the Inebriate Woman” as poor, elderly, vulnerable and alcoholic Edna was shuffled through the Kafkaesque Social Services system in an endless downward spiral. Ten years later in the early 80s not only did the nation get another wake up call, it got a new catchphrase for the national vocabulary. “I can do that…Giz us a job” – Yosser Hughes’ plaintive and achingly desperate plea for work so that he could feed and keep his crumbling family together became a national cri de cœur heard on street corners, in pubs, school playgrounds and football stadiums. The series “Boys from the Blackstuff” touched a nerve as few programmes have ever done and brought home to the comfortable - people like me - the impact and desperation being felt by many in Thatcher’s 1980s Britain. Yosser Hughes and his fellow out of work and desperate tarmac layers became alternative and unlikely national heroes. Such was the power of that series, and such is the power of a story; not only retelling a narrative but in moulding the national consciousness by, as Wilfred Owen reminded us just before he died, "telling the truth". Last year the long running UK scandal involving Post Office employees wrongly accused of theft by their employers suddenly became a front page event and forced government, the Post Office and the legal profession to examine their collective consciences and responsibilities after the ITV series "Mr Bates and the Post Office" was broadcast. The outcry at the exposures about faulty computer systems and potentially criminal actions of the part of the Post Office, Fujitsu and others put the government on the back foot and within weeks an issue that had dragged on for years was suddenly acted upon by those in power.
And so to the latest – and for me the most compelling and worrying. A story for our times. “Adolescence”, a series produced by Netflix is harrowing in the extreme, desperately worrying and above all important. [‘The younger me would have sat up and nodded’: Adolescence writer Jack Thorne on the insidious appeal of incel culture | Television | The Guardian ] The story of teenage boy, Jamie, accused of murdering Katie, a teenage girl, it tracks Jamie's arrest, the police investigation, the work of psychiatrists and the disintegration of a family. It pulls no punches but has a grim inevitable everyday reality about it that we can all recognise and in doing so dread. We can feel for all the characters, and we can fear for them because underpinning and running through it is a message, both overt and covert – "This is us, this is you, your family, this is your son, this is your daughter now – today, in the 21st century"; it holds a mirror up to contemporary Britain. It made my wife and I shiver and wipe tears from our eyes. After each episode we were in bits, silent, embarrassed to say what we felt and to feel what we wanted to say - as we thought of our own children and grandchildren and the “underworld” of teenage social media. Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube and the rest, filled with twisted "Internet Influencers" backed up by the sordid and faux philosophies of pseudo/self proclaimed intellectuals like Jordan Peterson spewing their perverted messages and regurgitating ill informed fake facts and hate; perniciously eating into the lives, thoughts and actions of our young people. We learned about the world of the insidious and mind corrupting Incel culture, of Andrew Tate and his evil messages. And we were afraid; finding it impossible to get the words, images and messages out of our minds as we lay in bed at night after each episode, looking at the ceiling in the dark. The series is grim, hard hitting, a desperate watch - but never sensational – and that is its power: it reflects back at us, our children and our society, forcing us to acknowledge what we knew was there all the time but refused to accept, believing that it could not happen to us, to our family, to our children……. except, except......it could.
In the final episode the sobbing, well meaning, frightened and regret filled parents cling to each other, as we all would to gain some respite, consolation or virtue from the horror that they find themselves in, “We did our best….we were not bad parents,…..you can’t watch your kids all the time can you……?” they sobbed. And it’s true – but that doesn’t alter the reality of what is. In days past when a child misbehaved he or she might have been stood on the “naughty step” or sent to his/her bedroom where they can calm down, think about their actions in solitude and perhaps regret. We like to think that we are being good, enlightened parents by giving our children responsibility and independence - be grown up and go with their mates into town, have a room of their own where they can "chill", listen to their awful music and do their homework in a quiet, secure and safe atmosphere - but we were wrong. Our well meaning and, enlightened actions were and are false Gods. The secure welcoming bedroom just right for chilling, the naughty step, the lounge, the street, school, or the school bus are not, in 2025, private and secure, nor are they now safe. Creeping, insidious technology is always there, intruding, always available, ever with them; in their pocket ready at the flick of a finger on the touch screen to open up different and dangerous worlds with worryingly, frighteningly different values, vocabularies, and ideologies; threats to young immature minds. As I sit writing this it is late afternoon and passing my office window in our quiet little road the village's teenagers are walking past my window on their way home from the school bus. These are “good kids” from “good families” and every one (yes I mean every one) is walking gazing into their mobile phones furiously texting, perhaps soaking up – or sending - the bile, the misogyny, the racist comments and the emojis prevalent on Snapchat, Instagram and the rest. Emojis, not as I previously thought, fun childish things, little innocent cartoons to brighten a text message but each one in the sub culture inhabited by many on Snapchat and Instagram carrying a subtle but clear and frightening meaning, a pernicious and demeaning message, to worm its way into the subconscious of its immature and pliable recipient.
We cannot turn the clock back, we cannot unsee what is here. The world of mobiles, laptops, tablets, social media, fake news, AI, and the rest is today’s reality; they cannot be undone. But within them there is another reality potentially making all of our young people victims. Katie, the girl murdered in the play was a victim but so, too, was the murderer – and by association his and her families - his mind, reason and virtue (what a quaint and twee word that sounds in this harsh, modern age!) twisted by the hidden sub culture of the cyberworld made possible by the Elon Musks and Mark Zuckerbergs of this world and driven by Andrew Tate and Hamza Ahmed and other high priests of the smartphone and YouTube "Manosphere", all pushing their divisive and dangerous agendas and hate filled ideologies: envy, rage, violence, misogyny, fear, retribution, lies, and evil dysfunction to their millions of young followers. And all largely hidden from parents, teachers and other responsible adults. We cannot change the world that we have built but as adults we have the responsibility to ensure that the young do not fall prey to it. Jamie’s father so agonisingly sobbed “We can't watch our kids all the time, can we?” but as adults we have a greater imperative – to take care of our children and young people no matter what. But taking care of our children to ensure only their physical safety is not enough. As this series illustrates so tragically we must, too, ensure their emotional and mental well being - their virtue; none of us want our children to turn out to become emotionally crippled monsters with no awareness of basic humanities like empathy, sympathy and simple goodness. Anything less is a dereliction of our duty as adults.
The other important plays that I mentioned at the top of this post – “Cathy Come Home”, “Boys From the Blackstuff” etc. were vital in raising society's awareness and in changing attitudes. But for most of us they were removed from our worlds. I watched “Cathy” and was angry, upset. But it wasn’t my world, I had a good job and nice house – "Not me" I breathed as I watched. I followed Yosser Hughes and the unemployed tarmac layers in 1980s Liverpool and ranted and wrote letters to The Guardian newspaper haranguing Thatcher and her evil policies. But, again, it wasn’t me or my family - it was somebody else, somewhere else. I watched the Post Office scandal and was delighted when it had such an impact. But then, I had never been falsely accused of theft - it was interesting, worrying even, but removed.
“Adolescence” is different – it’s about us, about the way in which technology is impacting upon all our lives and in the case of young people their vulnerabilities. If you haven’t watched “Adolescence” then you should. You might not have children, you might (and you would be completely wrong) think “My kids aren’t like this”. You might not use social media but whether you like it or not, use it or not, social media now frames and in many respects forms our world; it's a play for our troubled times. It's a hard watch because it spells out in big bold letters the world we are living in; to coin Wilfred Owen's phrase, it "tells the truth" and, sadly, the truth, when we are in denial or unaware is tough to accept and acknowledge - and that is why it's so powerful and important.
No comments:
Post a Comment