"If you are shouted at: 'It's youth, it's ?! It's a choice' - it's a sign that you're young!"
Established the Yarkon Bridge Trio years ago and well described the tendency of every adult generation to be shocked by the actions of the next generation of representatives.
The contemporary television series "Bnei Or" and "Alumim" (preceded by "Euphoria") should be seen as an illustration of that distinction. They claim to present the contemporary world of adolescents. The picture that emerges from them is gloomy and dark, and at times it seems that the whole purpose of their creation is to produce a click. Educational frameworks take the place of a life of violence and crime, and the void left by the dysfunctional family is filled by the ruthless criminal gang. The characters that inhabit them no longer have a head for long words or words at all. The right to speak is given to them by a 9mm Perblum member, and he, for a moment, does not shut up.
And not just in them.
It is difficult to break free from the feeling that more and more series have been created recently that do not seek to bury the violence but rather to glorify it.
The flickers of social criticism can also be found, here and there, in the "squid game," but they no longer serve as a fig leaf for the blood splatter that often flies in it.
If the creators intended to provide us with a poignant picture of what is happening on the fringes of human society, then their fondness for bloody scenes and their wallowing in alienation attest to their final choice to provide us with a never-ending chain of well-staged provocations.
In the absence of other works, television or cinematic, they provide a single and distinctly biased testimony about the mindset of the 21st-century natives.
It is very doubtful whether the great popularity of the series' winners indicates their ability to reflect reality, to tell its story.
Newspaper headlines, however, make it very clear that they directly contribute to its design.
The rise in recent school violence incidents must also depend on the problematic model posed by the home screen. The unbearable ease with which a charged dialogue takes place between students and hand fights is an inevitable result of making violence an integral part of the adolescent’s treasure trove of actions. The proliferation of serious incidents also stems from the challenge posed by the return of students to schools, after a year and a half of learning at home. The re-entry into multi-client frameworks, which tend to rub against each other, and the transition from the warm family bosom to a demanding system that seeks to lead the student to academic excellence, can provoke conflicts between students and teachers and between students and themselves.
In the corona-free years, the stay within the walls of the schools helped the young people to develop mature social skills, show solidarity towards another person and take, carefully and safely, the first steps in the journey leading to the big world.
In a corona-laden year, however, they sat in houses.
The presence and voices of other people could be eliminated by darkening the screen, the lesson for life could be easily replaced with a quick transition to Netflix.
Student, teacher, dear parent, on your shoulders now lies the task of returning from the frost to the educational tribal bonfire.
It's not easy to change habits acquired in 20 months of zooming, but if you succeed, it's a clear sign that you're young.