The uproar over ‘13 Reasons Why’
Why renewed Netflix series is so controversial
What is it about 13 Reasons Why? Teen suicide is not a new topic for pop culture, from ABC’s 1986 after-school special A Desperate Exit to the Tony-nominated Dear Evan Hansen. The cult-favorite film The Virgin Suicides is about five teen sisters who kill themselves. One Tree Hill and Buffy the Vampire Slayer have included episodes on the subject. Young adult novels from Jodi Picoult’s The Pact to By the Time You Read
This, I’ll Be Dead by Julie Anne Peters to the original Thirteen
Reasons Why novel by Jay Asher tackle the subject.
But there’s been a sizable uproar around the Netflix adaptation of Asher’s 2007 work about teenage Hannah Baker (Katherine Langford) who commits suicide and leaves behind tapes for the people she says are the “reasons” she did it. The show has been the subject of warning emails from schools, complaints from mental health professionals and concerns from parents — all the while gaining popularity on social media.
So what makes this show more volatile than the stories that came before it in pop culture?
“We’re in more sensitive times,” says TV historian Tim Brooks. “It’s not really a new subject” for TV, he says. But “the amplification of social media has made it more pertinent today than perhaps it was in the past.”
NBC’s Family Ties tackled teen suicide in the 1980s in an episode that focuses on Alex (Michael J. Fox) working at a suicide hotline, Brooks notes. Teen shows including My So-Called Life and Freaks
and Geeks have explored the severe consequences of bullying.
But because of social media, a seemingly never-ending social conversation around 13 Reasons has played out on Twitter and in comments sections. It continues to pop up not just in discussions by fans and critics, but in memes such as the popular, if somewhat questionable, “welcome to your tape,” in which people use the line in response to minor grievances.
The unique format also makes it “challenging and provocative,” says Ron Simon, senior curator at the Paley Center for Media.
“Obviously the book and the series were created to provoke a conversation,” he says. In past years, shows often addressed suicide in a “very special episode.” But 13 Reasons is “much more complex” and engaging, devoting its entire 13-episode run to the subject. Even movies with plot lines driven by suicide, including The Virgin Suicides and Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 Romeo + Juliet, aren’t as detailed as the series. “Certainly the mystery of it is compelling. That’s a new form of storytelling.”
Netflix releases every episode at once, adding to the intensity and impact.
“The whole idea that you can immerse yourself in this (show) ... is so different than in broadcast television where it would be seen over 13 weeks,” he says.
The show’s approach to suicide also has contributed to the backlash. “I think the fact that the storyline starts out with her already having taken her life is part of the setup for the problem,” says Christine Moutier, chief medical officer for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. “Those moments where we know prevention and intervention can really save lives (are left out).”
The depiction of the suicide has been called out by some mental health professionals as potentially dangerous. Moutier cited concerns about social contagion and copycat suicides because the episode shows the act in such specific detail. Swathi Krishna of Morehouse School of Medicine, who has written about the show for the American Psychiatric Association, has additional concerns about the scene, suggesting it romanticizes suicide.
“It doesn’t portray the suicide scene as painful,” she says. “They make it look almost peaceful. That’s so disturbing to me.”
“You don’t really know what’s in people’s heads. So people can think that (committing suicide) is easy,” she adds. “It kind of gives people examples of what to do in a bad way.”
Critics of the show also have pointed out that it ignores mental illness as a factor in suicide, and focuses on Hannah’s tormenters as the cause of her suicide.
“It’s kind of glamorizing putting people through this,” Krishna says. “Blaming all of these people and saying, ‘ You did this and this is the reason why. You know were my 12th reason. You were my 13th.’ ”
Netflix is countering this criticism by adding more warnings to the show and to graphic episodes, including a link to 13Reasons Why. info, which contains mental health resources. The show’s cast and creators have defended the portrayal in interviews, emphasizing that it’s meant to start a conversation. (Netflix declined a request to interview the creators about the backlash.)
Considering the volume of chatter about 13 Reasons, Moutier sees it as an opportunity to have that conversation in a responsible way.
“Frame this as an opportunity,” she says. “We’re willing to have these conversations now ( but we have to keep) front and center that suicide is preventable and there is always hope and that those resources are available for teens.”
“It doesn’t portray the suicide scene as painful. They make it look almost peaceful. That’s so disturbing to me.” Swathi Krishna, Morehouse School of Medicine