By Michael Winsall
The following contains discussions of suicide, mental illness, and sexual assault.
It also contains major spoilers for 13 Reasons Why.
13 Reasons Why follows the story of high school teen Hannah Baker. Or, more specifically, the story of the end of her life. The show opens about two weeks after Hannah committed suicide. One day, Hannah’s friend Clay Jensen receives a package of seven audio cassettes narrated by his late friend, with each side holding a message for someone in her social circle on what they did to make her decide to end her life, for a total of 13 reasons. Go figure.
However, this is where we run into our first two problems: firstly, the tapes themselves. The trope in media is that when somebody decides to commit suicide, they would leave a suicide note. But in the real world, only about 25% of people will leave any kind of note. Some studies have this number at about 17%, or one in six. Only one in six families and friends of victims will receive that closure. But the tapes from the show aren’t about closure. At least, not for those they address.
Instead, Hannah uses the 60-minutes-a-side tapes to describe in detail all the ways that they have done her wrong. She talks of times she was humiliated, when rumours were spread about her, or when her trust is betrayed by those who should know better. In two of the later tapes she explicitly describes witnessing the rape of one of her friends, and later her own rape at the hands of the same man. But this message is incredibly dangerous to the teen audience the show is aimed at: it tells vulnerable people watching that there can be some kind of post-mortem retribution. It tells them “hey, don’t worry about them. If you leave a note, that’ll show them. They will have to listen then!”
The other problem with the premise is that of premeditation. In one Mexican study, 61.8% of suicide attempts were impulsive – only 9.7% were premeditated. The remaining 28.5% contemplated for 3 hours or less before their attempt. However, Hannah spends a week collecting her thoughts, organising her plan, and recording the tapes. The show presents this time as the time her friends could have helped her. The time you could be saved. Or that you could save your friend. In reality, that window rarely exists. The people that need help, they need it before they get to this point.
Now, there is an argument to be made that the series intends to critique the idea of committing suicide, that it shows those who might be thinking about it the dark reality of doing so. However, simply showing an act does not automatically produce criticism or commentary. This is still true regardless of whether or not the person committing the act is shown to be “stupid” or “doing the wrong thing”. Criticism is not generated if the setting is one where we expect these sorts of things to generally happen; school is a rough place, and teenagers can be unendingly cruel. The portrayal of any heinous act as we collectively understand it to happen in the world is not criticism, it is reproduction.
For example, if we see Tony Soprano killing a man for being late to pay back a loan, and we all collectively agree that when you are late to pay back a loan to a mobster you are killed, no criticism has been generated, we have simply reproduced a situation that we understand to possibly exist in the world. The lack of presentation of a viable alternative for Hannah within the show is a big problem. Alongside the show, Netflix also released a 30 minute special called Beyond the Reasons, wherein cast and crew discuss the problems of teen depression and suicide. But for the time between finishing the show and watching the special – which is listed as its own entity in the Netflix library, not part of the episode listings for the series proper – they have created a situation where Hannah’s decision is considered normal.
In the 13th and final episode, we see that Hannah gave life one more chance. She went to see the school counsellor and told him that she wanted her life to stop. She described her rape to him, and he blew her off. In this, Hannah knows what she must do. We are shown in graphic detail, her death. We see her final tears as she leaves this world, but we also see the tears stop. We see her find the peace that she so desperately sought. To end on this, and then have to seek out a separate show to explain to us why this is not the way to go is irresponsible. You would never watch Stephen Colbert play the role of a conservative and racist talk show host, and then have to switch the channel to find him out of character detailing the reasons that racism is wrong.
The concept of “suicidal contagion”, the idea that the depiction of suicide in media – especially one as graphic and gruesome as that in 13 reasons – temporarily increases suicide attempts, is very real and very distressing. Thanks to this show, people will die. People that could otherwise have been helped.
Perhaps that should be the premise for Season 2.
If you or someone you know needs help, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Headspace on 1800 650 890.
Another moral panic with the fear being propagated by those who think they know all the answers. This show is one model of one person’s suicide, it never makes any claim to be representative of anybody else, real or otherwise, but hey it gives all the holier-than-thou’s a chance to deliver their faux concern about young people and mental health in a bid to make themselves feel superior. I am so sick of the fear that surrounds discussion about and depictions of, suicide. Schools and governments are so scared to even acknowledge that it is a problem that they label any narratives around the issue as being irresponsible, which is ridiculous. By attacking the program, we can conveniently avoid doing anything about the reasons why young people might choose suicide – such as bullying, physical/sexual assault – which are addressed in the show. Bullying is rampant in schools, but instead of doing anything about it, apparently it is better to spend time and energy attacking a television show that dares to alert us to the fact that we are making no effort to combat bullying and abuse.
I disagree Mister C. I work in schools and even before this show came out we’ve continued to work on a taskforce to address student mental health and suicide. When someone dies of suicide it normalizes the behavior. Schools are always on hightened alert after a students dies of suicide because of the contageon effect.
There are many things wrong with the show. First of all being there is no blatant and strong wrning about the shows content before watching it. Parents and teens would need to do research to learn just what they’re about to encounter when they watch the show- something people rarley do when parusing through Netflix looking for something to watch. Yes, it can open a well needed dialogue between parents and their children but it may be more harmful than helpful. Two examples- a memorial is created at Hannah’s locker- spreads the idea that people will like you and remember you, you will be “popular” after your death. Hannah chooses to slit her wrists from wrist to elbow- most teems and young adults attempt and cut side to side which has a much higher chance for survival that. So suicidal teens who may have survived an attempt may now not be so fortunate because of the show’s modeling.