‘13 Reasons’ deemed a ticking time bomb
Warning: This article contains spoilers.
A PERSON who committed suicide returning as a ghost. A student arriving at school armed with guns. A brutal rape in a school bathroom.
These are just three reasons Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why has reignited concerns over its content.
Chock-full of new trigger warnings, the series’ highly anticipated second season debuted bringing excited fans back to the fictional town of Crestmont and Liberty High School. The newest 13episode instalment revolves around the aftermath of 17-year-old Hannah Baker’s suicide.
The upgraded trigger warnings aren’t just for show. The new season, much like the first, continues to address sensitive topics. However, while the first season was a hit, becoming 2017’s most-tweetedabout show and currently maintaining an 80% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, the second season has not been as well received.
It has a 37% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has been described by multiple critics as “unnecessary”. A media watchdog group, the Parents Television Council (PTC), is also calling on Netflix to pull both seasons, describing season 2 as “a ticking time bomb” to teens and children.
“If you come into the series with feelings of hopelessness or depression,” wrote PTC programme director Melissa henson, “you’ll never walk away from the series feeling any better. And if you’re not feeling that way, the series will make you feel hopeless and depressed.”
Another subject the show’s second season tackles is gun violence in schools, an issue that has been at the forefront of people’s minds since the February mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead and, more recently, at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, where at least 10 were killed.
In the final minutes of the season’s finale, one of the main characters, a bullied teen named Tyler Downs, arrives at a school dance armed with guns. Instead of calling the police, the other characters confront Tyler, talking him into lowering his gun.
This is not the right message to be sending to students faced with a shooter, Phyllis Alongi, clinical director of the Society for the Prevention of Teen Suicide, told NBC.
“When someone has a gun, you don’t stay with the person and try to take gun away from them. You call the authorities.”
In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Brian Yorkey, the show’s creator, said he was interested in “trying to understand what goes into the experience of a young man who goes that route”.
But the thwarted school shooting isn’t the only part people took issue with. One scene in particular left mental health experts and fans concerned the show has taken things a step too far.
Before he attempts to shoot his classmates, Tyler is savagely attacked and sodomised by members of the school’s baseball team in a bathroom. The horrifying twominute-long scene is shown with full sound and begins with Montgomery de la Cruz, one of the athletes, slamming Tyler’s head into a mirror before repeatedly bashing his head against a sink.
He then drags Tyler to a stall and starts drowning him in a toilet bowl. Ignoring his pleas for mercy, two other members of the team hold Tyler down and Montgomery grabs a mop. What happens next was too much for many to watch. Alongi said she had to look away. “I do understand producers want to bring issues like this to forefront, but it was not necessary to be so graphic.”
On Twitter, those who did watch, said the scene left them in tears and feeling nauseated or traumatised.
One user wrote that it was the “MOST disturbing and heart breaking thing” she ever watched.
But, other fans of the show were quick come to its defence.
“The point of 13 Reasons Why is to promote awareness it’s supposed to be uncomfortable to watch,” a user tweeted. In a new after-show called 13 Reasons Why: Beyond The Reasons, people involved with the show discussed the new season and addressed concerns.
When asked about why Tyler’s sexual assault was shown in such a graphic way, Yorkey referenced a concept called radical empathy, which is the attempt to empathise with someone who is completely different from you. “It was important for us to try and bring the audience over to Tyler’s side a little bit,” Yorkey said. “As brutal as that scene is to watch, I defy anybody to watch it and not feel pain for Tyler.”
Yorkey told The Hollywood Reporter he hopes the second season will get people talking about the issues presented in the show.