Role Models

Every time I go near a keyboard to write about this series, several thousand words spill out sending me off down random rabbit holes whether that be the purely technical aspects of the camera work, or the range of masterful directorial decisions, or the quality of the acting. 

So I’ve started again. 

As a filmmaker, this series inspired me. It was perfection.

As a dad, it left me with a sense of stone cold dread. 

Because the series showed us one horrible truth; we spend all our time fearing our kids could be a victim, that we never stop to face the more uncomfortable possibility that they could be a perpetrator. 

We believe that our caring, nurturing influence or our careful imparting of wisdom will render our kids impervious to the influence of parasitic forces. But we could be blissfully unaware. 

Adolescence blames no one, but it does show how anyone is potentially at risk. Ashley Walter’s policeman and Stephen Graham’s dad are the same person. They both love their kids, they both work hard to the point of absenteeism to provide for them, they are both utterly unaware of the world their sons exist in. It could equally have been the policeman’s son being investigated. It could equally be ours, if we aren’t careful. 

The series comprises four episodes, but think of them as four mini plays, centred around a central event. I know people have criticised the fact that the murder victim is largely absent, as are her family. But think about it for a second and I’m willing to bet you can see that scenario with total clarity. We all know their lives are torn apart, we know the pain we would see if they showed them. It’s so implicit it almost goes unspoken. 

The film chooses not to look inward toward the victim, but to look outward at the external forces that lead to her death, and in doing so, hopefully shock society into addressing some of those factors.

We need to be honest with ourselves; we could fall prey to those factors. I know some folk have commented (almost copy and paste fashion) that the show race swapped the identity of the perpetrator. To give them the benefit of the doubt, I feel this is probably a way of telling themselves that it couldn’t happen to them. The fact is, this is a work of fiction, informed by a few real cases, involving murderers of all ethnic origin. But the choice of a white protagonist has two simple motivations; 1.) Stephen Graham is playing their dad, and he is 75% white; and 2.) it avoids the audience being able to “other” the character as in “oh that’s just a problem for black/muslim/whatever kids”. 

It  is not, it is a problem for us, now. 

Young boys and men are lost for role models. As Alex Mahon, CEO of Channel 4,  pointed out that “Boys need to see that strength, leadership, and ambition can be forces for good”. 

When we shame them for admiring those virtues they will secretly, in the quiet of their own rooms, turn to people who tell them it is admired to be those things, that they have been stripped of them by women who have used their sexuality to leverage themselves above men in the pecking order and men should take back power. 

My theory is that men who need to assert their masculinity are deeply insecure about it. Just as  people who feel the need to say how clever they are often lack intellectual confidence. The folk I know who excel in things very rarely ever mention it. It’s just like Tom Stoltman isn’t going to feel the need to convince Dave from Dunfermline that he’s really quite strong. He doesn’t need that validation.  

So we have two problems as I see it; 1.) limiting access to negative male role models and 2.) providing a more appealing alternative so our kids have a choice when faced with the negative options. 

In terms of 1.) We should absolutely follow Australia’s example and ban social media before the age of 16. Not just to prevent our boys doing harm to others but to stop them doing harm to themselves. There have been horrifying cases of teenage boys driven to suicide by people online (see here, here and here). Again, we don’t know which malign influences are acting upon them in the solitude of their rooms. 

In terms of 2.) we, as parents, need to offer an alternative option. 

Show them that you are not insecure, that you can like things that are deemed feminine and not feel that you need to hide that in case it makes you less manly. Also show them that you are tough and resilient and strong (unless you stand on a plug, in which case all bets are off). 

Or as my best man said in his speech about me at my wedding; 

“Rob is generally thought of as a man’s man; the physique, the accent and the propensity to wield sharp and heavy objects propel that idea,  but, let me tell you, there is much more to the chunk of meat than that.”

So my best hope is that my boys see better role models both in me and who I can serve up to them, firstly through my friends but also who I can point to as prime examples. 

There are the obvious ones; Jason Fox, Aldo Kane, Bear Grylls, Sean Conway, Ross Edgely, Lev Wood, Monty Halls, Steve Backshall, Gordon Buchanan, Simon Reeves, Tom Stoltman. Key to them is that they do undeniably tough things but are decent, respectful humans doing it. 

Steve Backshall for example; an absolute unit of a man who would tickle a T-rex’s testicals one moment, but would still be a teary eyed cheerleader for his Olympian wife the next. 

And just recently we had Jamie Laing, who was the perfect venn diagram of the male example. He did something undeniably hard, which would have broken other men, but he did it while being vulnerable. None of the Tates of this world could ever plausibly call him soft, or weak, or lacking in male fortitude. 

Fundamentally, we need to show them that they are free to be who they want to be, and not who a bunch of insecure dickheads on the internet want them to be. 

Rob is a former Aid worker and filmmaker based in Edinburgh. He produces films for a range of clients through his company Simmerdim and you can find, sporadically, on instagram at @stuffrobmade