**This post contains spoilers.**
I’m not any kind of expert on teen suicide. I watched 13 Reasons Why and felt the need to comment, not because I have special knowledge to share, but just because.
The show is the 13 reasons why Hannah Baker killed herself. Before she died, Hannah left behind 13 tapes describing the actions of 13 different people who she said drove her to suicide. The show is good storytelling, with a talented cast, a great script, and an appropriate amount of product placement.
Although Hannah’s descent into suicide drives the show, the protagonist is Clay Jensen, a classmate who feels personally responsible for Hannah’s death. We follow Clay as he listens to each of the tapes. Clay and Hannah had feelings for each other. Clay is the one with the least to hide of all the people Hannah blames for her death. The others don’t want the information on the tapes to get out and are afraid Clay will expose them. On top of that, Clay’s mother is the attorney defending the school district against a lawsuit filed by Hannah’s parents. Clay has plenty of reasons to keep quiet about the tapes, but he is driven to do justice to Hannah’s memory.
I may sound terribly out of touch here, but 13 Reasons Why plays out like most young adult fiction. There are stock characters: the evil-rich-kid-who-gets-away-with-everything, the jerk-jock-that-gets-away-with-everything, the ambitious-student-council-girl-who-runs-everything, the gay-artsy-guy-who’s-into-poetry, etc. There are some differences, the cheerleader gradually develops a conscience and so does the rebel-whose-mom-has-an-abusive-boyfriend. Many of the characters are raising themselves; their parents are gone for days at a time. Most of the adults don’t have a clue, although Clay’s mom suspects something is up. It’s a given that no high schooler will tell an adult anything. If you’re looking for a timely and frank examination of high school culture, I don’t think this is it.
It’s also important to remember that the events of the series had to be things that push Hannah to take her life. Some people say and do things that people don’t normally do in order to push the plot to Hannah’s suicide. The actions of Mr. Porter, the high school counselor, are the best example. I’m no expert, but those who are say that no counselor would say what Mr. Porter said to Hannah. But Mr. Porter had to say the wrong thing, otherwise Hannah wouldn’t have killed herself. No suicide – no story.
There are legitimate concerns about the show’s content. One is that the show both oversimplifies and glamorizes suicide. The show depicts Hannah’s suicide in detail. I’ll address suicide a little later. I was equally disturbed by the depiction of two rapes, both perpetrated by the same person. Neither are violent or sexualized, but I found them disturbing because the rapist acts out of a sense of entitlement; he thinks he’s taking what’s his to take. In the first rape, the victim is passed-out drunk. In the second, the rapist physically overpowers his victim, who is Hannah. It’s timely in a day when (1) the President of the United States can brag about grabbing women by their genitals and (2) a Stanford student can sexually assault an unconscious drunk girl and get only three months in jail. If this series starts a national debate about anything, it should include our attitudes about rape.
I have to agree with my friend Patricia Lund, 13 Reasons Why does a good job dealing with the damage social media can do to your reputation, cyber-bullying, regular bullying, and the average teen’s difficulty in understanding consequences. But it has little to say about teen suicide. I’m no better at spotting a suicidal teen now than I was before.
Here’s what I did learn.
The characters don’t want to face the things they’ve done. This includes Hannah. Clay is the only one who understands the only way to truly deal with something is to face it squarely. There are places in the story where Clay discovers that things didn’t happen the way Hannah described them. Her memories skew toward more hurtful scenarios. Ultimately we have to accept unpleasant facts about our circumstances. The 14th Reason Why is that Hannah wouldn’t face her responsibility for her feelings. The right thing is often the hard thing and avoiding it only makes life harder.
I kept wondering if Clay would kill himself. Suicides are frequently followed by other suicides. But while Hannah was pushing people away, isolating herself, Clay has a friend named Tony. Tony stays up with Clay while Clay listens to Hannah’s tape about him. Tony guides Clay through the process of listening to the tapes, as painful as they are to Clay. Hannah pushes people away, Clay accepts the help others offer.
Those are lessons we need to lift up to our teenagers. The right thing can be the hard thing. You’re surrounded by people who can help you, if you’ll let them.
But there’s one more lesson: I knew a lady in my church group who took her own life. I didn’t know her well, she was more of an acquaintance than a friend, but her death was a shock. In the weeks that followed, we wondered what we had missed. Were there clues we should have seen? Did she reach out to us and we couldn’t see? I don’t think anyone will ever know the real reasons she killed herself. Clay ends the show by saying that everyone let Hannah down and everyone could have done something to stop her. I hope I never deal with a teen suicide, but if I ever do, I will never say that. Our teenagers deserve better answers (like here) and the tragedy of teen suicide needs a more insightful treatment than 13 Reasons Why.
The Feral Deacon 