MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
A 13-year-old boy is arrested for the alleged murder of a classmate - a girl. Soon enough, it becomes clear that what he has been looking at on his smartphone could be used to implicate him. Now, that is the premise of a new Netflix drama called "Adolescence," which broke Netflix streaming records in March, in part because it raises really uncomfortable questions about the inner lives of teenage boys. But one viewer was Lisa Damour. She is also a clinical psychologist and author of the book "The Emotional Lives Of Teenagers." Lisa Damour, hi. Welcome back.
LISA DAMOUR: Thanks so much for having me.
KELLY: So you specialize in kids this age - the age of Jamie, the main character. What struck you about how this show depicts boys of middle-school age?
DAMOUR: I think it is the most nuanced and complex portrait of middle-school boys I've ever seen. It does an extraordinary job of laying bare all that they contend with in terms of feelings of shame and feelings of longing and also feelings of anger. And it also shows how boys are, in our culture, left feeling like they're not allowed to have a lot of vulnerable feelings. And so they are often instead showing all of their emotions through anger or pleasure at someone else's expense, which is something we've been able to document in the research. And then on top of that, this show depicts how that comes down to the main character through parenting and also shows how having such a limited emotional repertoire creates fertile ground for misogynistic content that can be found online and comes through influencers like Andrew Tate and others.
KELLY: Would you point us to a particular scene where what you're talking about is in evidence - a scene that you found particularly striking in the depiction of early teen boys?
DAMOUR: There's one long, extended scene where he is interviewed by a very skilled psychologist. And in the scene, you see moments where she very, very adeptly starts to move towards experiences that were very painful for him and very shameful for him. And then, you know, in a really quite remarkable piece of acting and writing, he becomes explosively rageful and scary and threatening.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ADOLESCENCE")
ERIN DOHERTY: (As Briony Ariston) Jamie, if you do not sit...
OWEN COOPER: (As Jamie Miller, shouting) I [expletive] sit down. You do not tell me when to sit down. You do not control what I [expletive]. Look at me now.
DAMOUR: And it's as apt and nuanced a depiction of how, for so many boys and men, they may get close to feelings that make them feel vulnerable, and then they don't know what to do and move back into the feelings that are most acceptable for them and probably more comfortable for them, which are to act out or to attack others.
KELLY: I know that you tackle some of the issues raised by this show in a podcast that you cohost - the "Ask Lisa" podcast. And this week's episode, you're talking about "Adolescence" - the show - and the role that families can play, that society plays in influencing boys. Tell us about the conversation that you wanted to have there.
DAMOUR: Well, this show, as much as it's about Jamie, I think it's also about his dad. This show does an incredible job of telling the father's story and telling what he himself went through as a child, how he's tried to be better as a father himself, and yet how he struggles with his own emotions and doesn't have nearly the facility with emotions that we would want him to have. And one of the things that we know from the research is that boys learn about handling their feelings from watching the men around them handle their feelings. And one particular challenge is that especially around elementary school and middle school, as boys are trying to figure out what it means to be masculine, a lot of them come to the conclusion that feelings are for girls. And then we see in the research that in two-parent, heterosexual homes, the person most likely to be talking about feelings is usually the mom, which, unfortunately, can have the effect of proving the boy's point. So one of the things that I took away from the research and took away again from watching "Adolescence" is that if we want boys to develop more emotional facility, especially around vulnerable emotions, it's the men in their lives who need to be modeling this and showing them how it's done.
KELLY: Psychologist Lisa Damour, thank you very much for joining us.
DAMOUR: Thank you for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF EL TEN ELEVEN'S "MY ONLY SWERVING") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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