'Adolescence' Creator Responds to 'Anti-White Propaganda' Claims
Jack Thorne, the writer and co-creator of Netflix’s buzzy single-shot-per-episode series Adolescence, has responded to recent criticism from online fans and Elon Musk that the show is “anti-white propaganda.”
Adolescence stars Owen Cooper as Jamie Miller, a 12-year-old arrested and charged with murdering a young woman in his class. As the series progresses, it’s revealed that Jamie’s crime may have stemmed from an online bullying campaign waged by the victim. The series poses a number of questions about the prevalence of knife crimes in the U.K. as well as parental culpability in such a case, but it leaves the audience to determine exactly what happened. Thorne has previously referred to the show as a “whydunit, not a whodunit” in an interview with the BBC in which he also said the point of the series was to start a conversation, not conclude it.
But that was too heady for some viewers, who have now derided the show as “anti-white propaganda” on social media. Ian Miles Chong, a right-wing affiliated commentator based in Malaysia, claimed in a post over the weekend that Adolescence was based on “a British knife killer who stabbed a girl to death on a bus, and it’s based on real-life cases such as the Southport murderer.”
The post continued: “So guess what? They 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. Just the absolute state of anti-white propaganda.” The commentary was apparently so compelling (to some) that even Elon Musk was moved to comment, “Wow,” on the statement.
Thorne responded to the criticism during an interview on the News Agents podcast, categorically shutting down any claim of “anti-white propaganda” and explaining that he and co-creator/star Stephen Graham, who plays Jamie’s father on the series, worked strenuously to avoid any real-life comparisons.
Related: Chris Hemsworth Reveals Why He Will ‘Never Be Friends’ With Billie Eilish
“They’ve claimed that Stephen and I based it on a story, and another story, so we ‘race-swapped’ because we were basing it on here, and it ended up there, and everything else. Nothing is further from the truth,” Thorne assured. “I have told a lot of real-life stories in my time, and I know the harm that can come when you take elements of a real-life story and put it on screen and the people aren’t expecting it. There is no part of this that’s based on a true story, not one single part.”
News Agents host Ian Sopel pushed Thorne further, asking how the screenwriter feels about the criticism leveled at his show. “That it should have been a Black boy?” Thorne asked incredulously. “It’s absurd to say that this is only committed by Black boys. It’s absurd. It’s not true. And history shows a lot of cases of kids from all races committing these crimes. We’re not making a point about race with this. 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.”
Adolescence is currently streaming on Netflix.