Dr. Edward Dutton, the self-styled Jolly Heretic, recently took to Substack to skewer a new British TV series, Adolescence, with a critique as sharp as the knife at its narrative core. The show, a psychological crime drama that premiered on Netflix on March 13, 2025, follows 13-year-old Jamie Miller, a White working-class boy arrested for murdering his classmate, Katie Leonard—a mixed-race girl—in a single, brutal stabbing. Created by Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham, and directed by Philip Barantini in four continuous-take episodes, Adolescence has been hailed as a technical marvel and a gut-punch exploration of modern boyhood. Critics like The Guardian's Lucy Mangan have called it "the closest thing to TV perfection in decades," and it's already topped UK streaming charts. But for Dutton and me, it's something else entirely: a case study in what he terms "Reactive Overcompensation"—a deliberate inversion of reality, a Macbeth-like twist where "fair is foul and foul is fair," designed to brainwash British kids with an "anti-White racist" agenda.
Dutton's ire hinges on the real-world Southport killings, a horrific event in 2024 where a 17-year-old Rwandan, allegedly an Islamic terror sympathiser, stabbed three White girls to death. That tragedy, raw and unresolved, looms large in his mind as he watches Adolescence. The contrast is stark: in Southport, a non-White immigrant was the perpetrator, and White children were the victims; in Adolescence, a White boy from a struggling Yorkshire family wields the knife, and a mixed-race girl lies dead. For Dutton, this isn't just fiction—it's a calculated flip, a cultural counterpunch to the racial dynamics of Southport. He writes: "A 17 yr old Rwandan Islamic terror sympathiser massacres 3 white girls with a knife, so a TV series about a 13 yr old white working class boy knifing a mixed-race girl must be shown in schools. I believe this is known as Reactive Overcompensation." In his view, the show's push into classrooms—backed by woke socialist figures like Prime Minister Keir Starmer and MP Anneliese Midgley—isn't about education; it's about reprogramming, a forced ingestion of a narrative that distorts the truth. And, indeed, it is.
Let's step into Adolescence itself. The series kicks off with armed police storming the Miller family's home, dragging Jamie (played with haunting depth by newcomer Owen Cooper) from his bed. His parents, Eddie (Stephen Graham) and Manda (Christine Tremarco), are shell-shocked as their "normal" life unravels. Over four episodes, we follow Jamie's interrogation, the police investigation at his school, a wrenching session with a psychologist (Erin Doherty), and finally, a year later, his family's attempt to cope as he prepares to plead guilty. Each hour unfolds in real time, shot in a single take—a stylistic choice that amplifies the claustrophobia and raw emotion. The show doesn't flinch from big questions: Why did Jamie do it? What role did online misogyny, the "manosphere," and figures like Andrew Tate play in his radicalisation? Thorne and Graham have said they wanted to "look in the eye of modern male rage," and the series delivers, exposing the toxic brew of social media, isolation, and warped masculinity that can turn a boy into a killer. If so, they should have used a non-White male, like the Southport killer.
Dutton argues that Adolescence isn't just exploring these themes—it's weaponising them. By casting Jamie as White and Katie as mixed-race, he contends, the show inverts the Southport reality to push a message: that White boys, not immigrant youths, are the real threat. The call to screen it in schools, endorsed by Starmer after watching it with his own teens, only fuels Dutton's suspicion. "Anti-white racist brainwashing," we call it. This is the establishment overcorrecting—reacting to a crime committed by a non-White perpetrator by amplifying a fictional counter-narrative where whiteness is the villain. It's a Macbeth-worthy sleight-of-hand: the foul truth of Southport obscured by a fair fiction that shifts the blame.
Adolescence supposedly isn't based on Southport—Thorne has dismissed claims it's ripped from headlines as "ridiculous"—but it was inspired by real knife crimes, like the murders of Ava White and Brianna Ghey, where young boys killed girls. But that is truly hard to believe. Dutton's critique resonates with a deeper unease. If Adolescence is taught in schools, what lessons will kids take away? That White boys are ticking time bombs? That race defines guilt? The show's ambiguity—its refusal to tidy up the "why"—leaves room for such interpretations.
A parallel to Macbeth can be made. In Shakespeare's play, the witches' prophecy sets off a chain of paranoia and bloodshed, blurring moral lines. Adolescence doesn't prophesy, but it does unsettle. Its single-take intensity mirrors life's unrelenting messiness—no cuts, no easy outs. Jamie's guilt is undeniable (CCTV catches him in the act), yet his vulnerability lingers, making us question what we're meant to feel. Dutton sees this as manipulation, as it is. The truth, as ever, is murkier. Southport was foul—a visceral wound on the national psyche. Adolescence is foul as well—just plain old UK anti-White male brainwashing. I hope it backfires.
https://substack.com/@thejollyheretic/note/c-105588749
Here is the real anti-White reality of the modern UK:
"A woman who was jailed for two years after she tweeted about the Southport riots has been denied temporary leave to see her 12-year-old daughter and sick husband.
Lucy Connolly, 42, is currently serving a 31-month sentence for a post made last summer where she spoke of mass deportations and setting fire to asylum hotels 'for all I care'.
The comments came in the wake of the knife attack on a Southport dance class on July 29 in which three children were killed, and in the midst of false claims the attacker was an illegal immigrant.
Connolly's post, which she later deleted, read: 'Mass deportation now, set fire to all the f***ing hotels full of the b******s for all I care...'
She later added: 'If that makes me racist, so be it.'
The childminder, from Northampton, was subsequently arrested and put behind bars.
But now police chiefs are being criticised for denying Connolly temporary leave, as she has been waiting four months to secure release.
This is despite one prison expert describing her as the 'ideal candidate' for such a scheme.
Documents suggest Connolly has not yet been granted the leave due to concerns over public and media interest in her case as opposed to any apparent failure to meet the criteria for temporary release, the Telegraph reports.
Connolly had cited apparent deterioration in her daughter's behaviour at school, saying this was 'totally out of character'.
She also referenced stress being placed on her sick husband, Ray, a Conservative councillor for West Northamptonshire who is suffering from bone marrow failure.
The 42-year-old had taken her 'racist' post down within four hours when she uploaded it last summer but this was not before it had been viewed 310,000 times and screenshots taken.
She was interviewed by police on August 6 and charged three days later, remaining in jail since as she pleaded guilty before her sentencing in October.
Connolly has been eligible for release on temporary licence since last November, based on her prison time served.
The system is open to inmates as a way to 'rebuild family ties', allowing for up to two overnight home stays a month.
Only category A prisoners, many of which serve time for violent, terrorist and sexual crimes, those formally listed as escape risks, and suspects failing extradition are excluded under prison rules.