The British Netflix drama Adolescence, which explores the impact of online radicalization, toxic masculinity, and screen addiction among teenagers, will soon be used as an educational tool in French secondary schools. French Education Minister Elisabeth Borne announced that selected excerpts from the series will be shown to students aged 14 and above as part of a new initiative to raise awareness about digital violence and misogynistic online content.
British Netflix drama Adolescence - which has sparked widespread debate about the toxic and misogynistic influences to which young boys are exposed online, can now be shown in French secondary schools - a minister has said.
The initiative follows a precedent set in the UK.
The producer of the series broadcast on Netflix has "opened up the rights to us" and the French education ministry will "offer five educational sequences to young people based on this series", Education Minister Elisabeth Borne told LCI TV late on Sunday.
These excerpts from the mini-series are "very representative of the violence that can exist among young people", Borne said.
She added that they would be shown in secondary schools to children from the age of around 14 onwards.
Such materials are intended to help raise awareness of the problem of "overexposure to screens and the trivialization of violence on social networks", as well as the spread of so-called masculinist theories misogynistic spheres which advocate violence against women, said Borne.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the move to screen the show, in which a 13-year-old boy stabs a girl to death after being radicalized on the internet, "an important initiative" which would help start conversations about the content teenagers consume online.
Adolescence, which was released on March 13, follows the aftermath of the schoolgirl's fatal stabbing, revealing the dangerous influences to which boys are subjected online and the secret meaning youngsters are giving to seemingly innocent emojis.
The series has resonated with an audience increasingly disturbed by a litany of shocking knife crimes committed by young people and the misogynistic rhetoric of influencers like Andrew Tate.
As of June 1, Adolescence reached a total of 141.2 million views, making it Netflix's second most watched English-language series ever, according to industry magazine Variety.
With AFP
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