Netflix's Adolescence, about a 13-year-old boy's murder of a female classmate, is a master class in how to cheapen otherwise excellent art through over-determination and ideological politicization

In Adolescence, the much-discussed Netflix drama released last month , a 13-year-old committed the premeditated murder of a female classmate who was bullying him online.

Frida Ghitis : There is potential value in the prescient treatment of the online right and the plausible effects of the misogynistic “manosphere” on an average-looking pubescent boy.

Ghitis says traditional masculinity and the traditional family are breeding ground for, rather than a bulwark against, toxic masculinity.

Michael Hogan: Adolescence is "all-too-plausible fiction" but “unavoidable fact” He says the number of 13-year-old boys from two -parent homes plotting and planning to stab girls is vanishingly small.

In progressive fantasyland, evil is not endemic part of each individual’s human nature, but an omnipresent, amorphous outgrowth of patriarchy as manifested by Western men.

Contra Adolescence and its progressive fans, evil is the opposite of systemic. Just like each individual’s human experience, which is what great stories are supposed to convey. The fictional Jamie is a complex, tragic character ensconced in a compelling, vivid ecology. That could have made for such an insightful, evocative tale. If only Adolescence had just told it..