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Speaker 1: Everyone is talking about this new Netflix series Adolescence. Have

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Speaker 1: you seen it? The four part series is about a

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Speaker 1: teenage boy who kills a teenage girl. And we're not

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Speaker 1: spoiling the series here, by the way by telling you

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Speaker 1: that this happens right at the start of the show.

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Speaker 1: It highlights the major issues for a generation growing up

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Speaker 1: basically being reared partly on social media. South Island's Saint

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Speaker 1: Kevin's College has done an unusual thing. They have recommended

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Speaker 1: that parents watch it. The principal is Joe Walsh and

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Speaker 1: she's with me now, good afternoon.

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Speaker 2: Good afternoon.

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Speaker 1: Why have you recommended people watch this?

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Speaker 2: Ah? Where do you start? I've recommended people watch it

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Speaker 2: because it's an incredibly important piece of art. I think

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Speaker 2: it's something that's going to stimulate an enormous amount of conversation.

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Speaker 2: HiT's something that is probably going to get through to

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Speaker 2: people in a way that's going to be a lot

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Speaker 2: better than people like me standing up and telling families

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Speaker 2: not to allow the young people to have social media.

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Speaker 2: That's really getting a nutshell.

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Speaker 1: It's talking about boys in particular. It features Andrew Tait,

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Speaker 1: who's many people, many people say has some quite toxic

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Speaker 1: traits to his the way that he delivers his content online.

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Speaker 1: For people who don't know, is he quite influential with

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Speaker 1: young boys in.

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Speaker 2: Your experience, Yeah, he is, and he's not the only one.

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Speaker 2: They talk about the menosphere. So this is this idea

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Speaker 2: that there's this online community of young men who are

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Speaker 2: disenfranchised in the world. They lay a lot of the

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Speaker 2: blame for that at the feet of women, and there's

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Speaker 2: just this kind of culture about how you survive in

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Speaker 2: a world that doesn't want you because you're a man.

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Speaker 2: So you take it to the absolute extreme and you

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Speaker 2: become this sort of I don't know, I guess it's

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Speaker 2: the twenty first century of this urban men which where

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Speaker 2: you're just incredibly dominant. My daughter told me the other

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Speaker 2: day that she'd watched a video where a man was

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Speaker 2: telling young men on the internet how to dominantly order

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Speaker 2: a coffee. So yeah, it's definitely out the end, definitely

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Speaker 2: influencing people.

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Speaker 1: Why are boys being influenced by this? You know what

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Speaker 1: has changed that they are wanting to watch this content?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think one of the things that I pointed

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Speaker 2: to in my blog was the fact that there's thirty

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Speaker 2: percent of young men in New Zealand growing up without

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Speaker 2: a death or without any significant male role model, and

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Speaker 2: I think that BET has got to be having some

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Speaker 2: kind of an effect. I also think kids are entertaining themselves.

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Speaker 2: People give access to kids to social media and the

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Speaker 2: world of the internet without any real breaks or without

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Speaker 2: any real monitoring, So of course you're you're going to

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Speaker 2: look at all the things that you know you're not

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Speaker 2: supposed to, so that excess is just so incredibly easy.

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Speaker 2: And I think also a really important part of this

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Speaker 2: conversation is that young men I'm looking for something to

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Speaker 2: identify with and to identify themselves there, and I think

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Speaker 2: that perhaps we've taken a bit of that away from

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Speaker 2: them in the world today. I think we sort of

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Speaker 2: we talk about things like toxic masculinity, and you know,

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Speaker 2: we've had a discussion about this with our teachers at school,

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Speaker 2: and if you think about that phrase and the wrong way,

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Speaker 2: it's almost as if masculinity is toxic, and we actually

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Speaker 2: don't want that message going out to our kids. We

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Speaker 2: want how young men to feel proud of being a

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Speaker 2: young men, enjoy their physicality, enjoy those traditional male sports,

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Speaker 2: and not have to sort of be apologetic about that.

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Speaker 2: But I think there's been a bit of a shift

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Speaker 2: in recent years where we've sort of we've seen anything

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Speaker 2: that young men do or that they've traditionally done, as

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Speaker 2: somehow wrong because it's sexist towards women, and so we've

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Speaker 2: got this huge reaction going back the other way, and

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Speaker 2: I think that that's part of all of this as well.

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Speaker 1: Did we overcorrect post feminism?

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Speaker 2: Probably, yeah, probably, you know, we've we've we've got a

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Speaker 2: when we're talking about the equality of the sexes, we're

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Speaker 2: not talking about people being the same. You know, A

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Speaker 2: man's life is different from a woman's life. A men's outlook,

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Speaker 2: the way he experiences the world is different from a female.

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Speaker 2: And I think that that's fine, that that doesn't have

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Speaker 2: to be one or the other. We have to celebrate both,

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Speaker 2: and we have to celebrate them enjoying being whatever gender

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Speaker 2: they are in a way that's not relent on subjugating

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Speaker 2: the opposite gender. And I just think we're in a

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Speaker 2: really weird position right now in the world in terms

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Speaker 2: of how we think about all of that.

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Speaker 1: Joe, thank you very much for being with me. Joe,

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Speaker 1: whilst principal of Saint Kevin's College in the South Island

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Speaker 1: and talking about adolescents, the Netflix show that everyone's watching.

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