Stephen Graham has placed himself at the centre of an urgent conversation about young male violence towards women and girls. Adolescence, his Netflix show about a 13-year-old boy charged with the murder of his female classmate, was watched by 6.45 million people in its first week of release.
This makes it the largest audience for any streaming TV show in the UK in a single week – and a catalyst for a series of much-needed conversations about the online radicalisation of teenagers, the rise of rampant misogyny and the reality that a woman is killed by a man every three days in the UK.
It has therefore come as a shock to some viewers that last year Graham starred in Modi, Three Days on the Wing of Madness, a film directed by Johnny Depp, someone who recently stood accused of physical and sexual abuse by his ex-wife, Amber Heard. While Depp won his defamation lawsuit against Heard in the US, after she described herself as a ‘public figure representing domestic abuse’ in The Washington Post, he also lost his libel lawsuit against The Sun in the UK after the executive editor Dan Wootton called him a ‘wife beater’. The judge ruled in favour of the newspaper, finding that the allegations of domestic violence were ‘substantially true’.
The highly publicised Depp vs Heard trial took place between April and June in 2022. Despite the verdict being widely considered as a victory for Depp, the case unearthed evidence of violence in their relationship and misogynistic behaviour on Depp’s part. This included a text exchange between Depp and a fellow actor in 2013 in which he wrote, ‘Let’s drown her before we burn her […] to make sure she is dead.’ The actor told jurors he was ‘ashamed’ of the messages and that they were an example of his ‘irreverent and abstract humour’, inspired by a Monty Python sketch.
Are these not exactly the type of ‘jokey’ messages that Adolescence is trying to warn us about? Is online misogyny translating into real life violence not one of the show’s central themes? Is that not something Graham should have considered before working with Depp?
Not only did Graham remind fans of his friendship with Depp this week, sharing an Instagram story posted by Depp to promote their film Modi, but he was a vocal supporter of the Pirates of the Caribbean star during the trial. When Depp won his libel case against Heard in 2022, Graham reposted Depp’s statement which said, ‘the jury gave me my life back’, and added, ‘So much respect… so much love @johnnydepp.’
For Graham to have so much time and respect for Depp while simultaneously caring about the issues raised in Adolescence is something a lot of viewers, understandably, are struggling to comprehend. Many of whom are particularly confused and disappointed given that Brad Pitt, who stands accused of ‘years of abuse’ by his ex-wife Angelina Jolie and denies all allegations, also worked on the show as a producer.
‘Nice so turns out Brad Pitt produced Adolescence and Stephen Graham was in Johnny Depp’s film that he directed last year,’ wrote one X user. ‘Men are actually so sickening and self-congratulatory.’
‘Adolescence is a fantastic show about men’s hatred of women. It should be seen by everyone,’ reads another post. ‘But I can’t shake the bad feeling I have of the writer and actor Stephen Graham being close friends with Johnny Depp, and [redacted] Brad Pitt being a producer.’
A third echoed their concerns. ‘Adolescence is a fantastic series, and Stephen Graham is one of the best actors around, but his schtick about how the internet perpetuates misogyny rings a bit hollow given his vocal support for Johnny Depp,’ the user posted. ‘Not to mention the fact he got Brad Pitt to produce the series.’
They are right. Whichever way you look at it, the important subjects Graham tackles in Adolescence, and important subjects they are, are seriously undermined by his relationships with both these figures.
We are regularly reminded to take threats of violence seriously, to discourage men from ‘joking’ about harming, or killing, women, that a substantial number of domestic violence cases go unreported, and that fewer than 2% of reported rapes result in a conviction in England and Wales.
Which is it? Are we to take brazenly misogynistic messages seriously or not? Should we believe women with allegations of abuse knowing how rarely they are taken seriously? Does male violence start with their attitude towards women or not?
As Dr Nathan Eisenstadt – a senior researcher at the University of Bristol who teaches young people how to intervene in situations that pave the way for sexual assault – told the BBC in a conversation about Adolescence: ‘A murder doesn’t just happen. A person will have done a series of low-level behaviours. Maybe that’s comments which reveal their attitude about women.’
Adolescence is such a feat because it’s based in that truth – actions, behaviours and attitudes matter. Women already know this, they don’t have a choice. In failing to align the morals at the heart of his work with his Hollywood friendships, Graham stands accused of hypocrisy. It might be a record-breaking series, but perhaps he has a weaker grasp on the severity of its subject than we gave him credit for.
Nikki Peach is a writer at Grazia UK, working across pop culture, TV and news. She has also written for the i, i-D and the New Statesman Media Group and covers all things TV for Grazia (treating high and lowbrow shows with equal respect).