Adolescence: A McSweeney Ploy
Strike one for the Centre for Countering Digital Hate
“The one thing I thought Morgan learnt from that time was the importance of delivery” - Nick Lowles, CEO of Hope Not Hate
Before starring in ‘Adolescence’, Stephen Graham’s breakout role was in ‘This Is England’, a 2006 film which depicts a group of teenagers in the early 1980s coming under the influence of a malign, older, authentically racist skinhead called ‘Combo’, played by Graham.
Like with most depictions of virulent racism on screen, Combo entreats us to a flurry of articulate monologues which convey a series of beliefs which the writers are appalled by but do not feel they have the intellectual resources to rebut; Combo decries mass immigration from Pakistan while there is unemployment in Britain, he believes the Falkland intervention to be a waste of blood and treasure and believes his country is being sold out. Some of the aforementioned teenagers break away from his views on the grounds that they are bonkers, in one scene, driving back from a National Front meeting, ‘Pukey’ asks Combo: “Do you really believe in all that shit?”, earning himself an impromptu beating. My response would have been more taciturn: “Call that an Argument, mate?”
His key points are never contested by another character - instead they are delegitimised by the insinuation that they come from a place of deep psychological trauma. In the final scene of the film, Combo launches into a violent flurry against a young Jamaican man when he becomes jealous of his intimate family life. A childhood absent plantain barbecues is apparently an ingredient for vile extremism. Much the same explanation for racism is given also in the film ‘American History X’ (1998) - where it is implied that Derek Vinyard had been drawn to Neo Nazism because his father was murdered by African Americans while trying to put out a fire.
Vinyard, unlike Combo, is given a redemptive arc in the film. He is sent to prison where he chafes against the incumbent leadership of the Aryan Brotherhood, leading to a brutal session of anal rape. In what has to be the most darkly amusing scenes in cinema history, we are then shown Derek Vinyard having to lie prostrate on a hospital bed on his front, reading various untitled ‘books’ which convince him away from racism. “It’s all bullshit”, he tells his brother, Danny Vinyard, to turn him from a path of Nazi activism. ‘Why is it bullshit, Derek?’, should surely have been Danny’s response - some sort of intellectual rebuttal that the viewer could follow along with. The racist Danny Vinyard believes that Mexican immigrants are putting his friends out of work and that they are costing Californian taxpayers billions - the nonracist Danny Vinyard just knows from reading offscreen ‘books’ that this is not a problem. Even a tepid attempt at ‘lack of Investment’ would suffice. It is poorly executed propaganda, plain and simple.
Which returns us nicely to Stephen Graham’s latest piece of work, ‘Adolescence’. This television series and the contrived press-political frenzy around it has to be one of the most transparent attempts to manufacture consent for authoritarianism of my lifetime; Sir Keir Starmer KC taking to the floor of the House of Commons to declare that yes, he has been watching it, and it’s not just Brilliant but also, Important. The idea that sexual assault was invented by Andrew Tate on TikTok two years ago and that if nothing is done all white teenage boys will be driven to murderous rampages is designed to spur on the din of voices calling for mobile phones to be banned in schools, at first, and then to eventually restrict such devices for anybody under 16.
There is no reason that arguments about algorithmic radicalisation should apply less too teenagers than young adults, after all - Jake Davison was 22 when he perpetrated the Plymouth mass shooting in 2021 after being radicalised by incel ideology - and so once the principle that the State can restrict free use of the internet for certain parts of the population this will be expanded further and wider. The end result will be that you will only be able to interface with the limitless networks of knowledge which exist in cyberspace with the permission of the State, imprisoned forever by the weary giants of flesh and steel. This will facilitate a return to the hell of the mid 20th century, where dodgy graphs were unpublished at the connivance of state censors and the population was stupefied by Jimmy Savile and James Corden, but without any of the relieving inheritances of that period; a highly educated and literate population, reasonable economic growth and a more pleasant demographic picture. Chunkz and Narstie, Narstie and Chunks, forever, and ever, and ever.
Why is Keir Starmer feting the Brilliance of ‘Adolescence’? Look no further than his wicked advisor, Morgan McSweeney, whose ‘Centre For Countering Digital Hate’ draws from the same poisoned well of anti-internet and anti-freedom ideology. He, and his mates at Hope Not Hate, would love nothing more than an excuse to severely curtail the rights of individuals to communicate freely with one and other, under the guise of protecting children from Dark Algorithms. That the so called ‘Online Right’ is focusing it’s fury on Nigel Farage whilst the most powerful man in the country is essentially a paid up member of Antifa shows that they are as credulous as the mainstream right; bamboozled as they are by the masquerade of “Blue Labour”.