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Netflix’s series Adolescence faces backlash for casting a white actor as the main character, despite the story being based on Black man Hassan Sentamu. Critics call it dishonest and misleading.
The casting of Adolescence has created a controversy amongst the far-right in the UK as well as the US. (IMAGE: X)
Adolescence, the limited drama series by streaming giant Netflix, has earned the ire of a section of netizens who are enraged over the race-swapping of the main character.
The show’s makers have faced flak for casting a white actor as the main character even though the drama is based on the story of Hassan Sentamu, a Black man who last week was jailed for life for the murder of a 15-year-old girl when he was 17, in September 2023.
Jack Thorne and Stephen Graham have told media outlets that the series about a young British boy accused of murdering a classmate is about “male anger, male rage” and actor Graham told magazine GQ that self-avowed misogynist Andrew Tate also had an impact on the storyline.
Despite the show earning a mention by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, with him even saying that it should be screened in the UK parliament.
Race-switching a murderer in your show to change the topic from immigration to toxic masculinity is so deeply evil and dishonest I have trouble properly expressing my rage. Hunter Ash (@ArtemisConsort) March 20, 2025
But certain netizens have slammed the makers and said the portrayal of Owen Cooper who murdered his classmate Katie Leonard, as 13-year-old Jamie Miller, a teenager from a conservative British family, is “deeply dishonest”.
“This is how Netflix portrays a 13-year-old knife murderer in the UK. Second image is the person it was based on,” Irish “Far-Right Ideologue” Keith Woods, whose X posts have been reposted by platform owner Elon Musk, said.
He posted an image of Jamie Miller, the main character played by white actor Owen Cooper, alongside a picture of Sentamu, now 18, falsely asserting that Sentamu’s killing of Elianne Andam was the sole inspiration for Adolescence.
Sentamu’s Ugandan origins remain a point of contention for the British far right. He relocated to London at around three years old.
“Race-switching a murderer in your show to change the topic from immigration to toxic masculinity is so deeply evil and dishonest I have trouble properly expressing my rage,” X user Hunter Ash said.
“Unfairly demonizes white working-class boys,” Patrick Christys, a presenter of GB News said.
- Location :
London, United Kingdom (UK)