What you SHOULD NOT learn from '13 Reasons Why'
I heard a lot of buzz around this new show on Netflix called '13 Reasons Why' which was about a teenage girl who sent tapes to kids in her high school explaining why she had killed herself. My first impression was that this was going to be teenage drama trash and I had no interest in watching it. I was certain that the critics were bang on with their assessment that this was a terrible show for teens and that it could be a contributing factor to the glamorization and misunderstanding of suicide that I have seen, having worked in a high school with a history of such tragedy.
The hub-bub was growing beyond your regular teen drama however, and as people started asking my take on the show, I began considering watching the series so that I could give an honest opinion. Throw in the fact that my wife was also curious and she and I rarely find a show that piques both our interests, and we had enough reasons to watch '13 Reasons' every night after our kids were in bed.
So let me begin with an objective assessment on the show from a purely entertainment view. The story telling is strong. They build tension and anticipation. Like protagonist Clay we have 13 episodes delivered to us in a bundle and we have to decide if we are going to watch them methodically or in one sitting like many of the other tape designates. The plot unfolds and brings the viewer on a journey with way more twists and turns than you would expect given that we already know how it ends. All in all it is entertaining which might be one of the reasons it is so controversial. If it were a stinker like I though it was going to be then maybe it would not have had such a polarizing impact.
The following are opinions that may also be polarizing. Most people in my profession have nothing but scathing reviews for this show with the argument that it will and already has precipitated the glorification of the very real and prevalent problem that is suicide in our youth. There is a contagion effect of suicide. At risk people become even more at risk when celebrities or prominent people in the community or their social circles die by suicide. That being said, in suicide prevention we teach that talking about suicide does not cause suicide. So which is '13 Reasons Why"? Is it a glamorized portrayal of how suicide can be the ultimate revenge on your enemies, thus enabling at risk youth to follow through with their ideations, or, is it the most effective suicide awareness campaign ever produced? I'll start with my criticisms.
What you should NOT learn from '13 Reasons Why'
That suicide is the inevitable or even direct result of bad things happening to you. If we accept or promote the notion that people kill themselves because of specific negative or traumatic experiences then we are not promoting the type of resilience and grit that is needed for human beings to recover and grow from difficult times. This isn't a video game where if you receive so many damage points you are doomed to pull the plug (insensitive euphemism but it fit the video game analogy so I'm keeping it). We do not want people to get the idea that there is a magic number of setbacks that make it expected that you will want to end your life. This is not to say necessarily that those who die of suicide lack resilience either, but this is not the lens through which we want our youth to be assessing the world. Those of us who survive the suicide of someone else are left to analyze the reasons why this person is no longer with us as we try and make sense of this inexplicable event. According to my limited training and experience on the subject (which is still far more than your average joe) often people who are suicidal might lack a real hard reason why they want to die, this leads them to feel shame. "Why should I have these thoughts when my life is better than most". This shame leads them further down the spiral of hopelessness. It is precisely the fact that there isn't a reason that most people would understand that makes their situation so isolating. Some people have reasons to die, many do not. How life experiences are cognitively filtered is more likely to have an effect that the experience itself.
That suicide is revenge. Death is a part of life and it's easy to use it as a dramatic device to tell stories but the reality of suicide is that it is usually unexpected, tragic, and heartbreaking for those who survive the suicide of another. Most people closest to that person are likely to create their own narrative of 'why' as they try and make sense of the tragedy and this likely includes a significant level of guilt. "I could have done X" or "why didn't I answer that call". Most of us are insecure enough and self-centred enough to take on some level of responsibility which can get in the way of mourning our lost loved one. Suicide hurts whether hurt was intended or not. But on that topic, no training or experience with suicide that I have received indicates that suicide is generally used as a way to strike back at an enemy. I have heard plenty of threats of suicide to manipulate another person (which I abhor. I take suicide seriously and crying wolf to manipulate another person is not only unhealthy interpersonal skills it actually detracts from and cheapens the cries of those who are genuinely at risk. Since we treat all threats the same, I would suspect that mental health workers spend more time with wolf criers than actual suicidal people which hurts everyone. I digress.) but when it comes to actual deaths by suicide, the literature's suggestion is that suicide as revenge is not the case. People who are suicidal feel so helpless that they think that people are better off without them not that their death will somehow be the ultimate comeback. Some people may interpret '13 Reasons Why' as a story of revenge and this is not the narrative that should be promoted.
That adults can't or won't help. As a school counsellor I think I was hit the hardest by the portrayal of the inept and unethical guidance counsellor, Mr. Porter. After seemingly being at the end of her rope, protagonist Hannah Baker decides to reach out to Mr. Porter who completely misses her cries for help (he keeps answering his phone as she makes her bid for assistance). He is sloppy in his attempt to assess her level of risk, all while getting caught up in her accusation of a sexual assault rather than attending to her well-being. He makes a number of ethics blunders which could easily be perceived by an adolescent audience that ultimately adults don't get it. In my high school counselling experience, kids can and want to tell their peers everything while it can takes months of relationship building to disclose the same information to an adult, even one who promises confidentiality. This series endorses this concept which may dissuade some teens from reaching out to adults for help and although peers are highly important to an adolescent's well being, they are still technically children and it is adults who have the responsibility of keeping children safe.
That being a victim makes you a hero. One of the most motivating psycho-social needs for an adolescent, or adult for that matter, is to feel significant. Adolescents especially tend to be egocentric in their view of life and the world in general. Who am I? How do I fit in this world? In our society one of the simplest and most effective ways to gain sympathy and identity from your peers is to have something extraordinarily difficult happen to you. The average teen feels stressed about school, insecure about romance, and rejected by peers. While these hardships are challenging they are not seen as unique and therefore do not garner much sympathy. At a time when I felt socially insignificant I was blessed with a seemingly serious accident that left me unconscious, convulsing on the ice in front of the entire school body. Luckily I wasn't seriously hurt, but even more luckily my peers saw it and worried about me. Any press is good press. Kids throughout my school were asking who I was and all of a sudden when I came back I was known. I was significant. In our society we honour those who have struggled and I'm not against that but many adolescents find themselves unable to reach significance without resorting to infamy. The name of the game these days is gaining significance which is measured by views, follows, and retweets, whatever means necessary. I fear Hannah Baker will be seen by many teens as a martyr and exemplar as to how to gain rockstar level significance rather than as a tragic and troubled youth who couldn't see the support available to her when she was in her darkest moments.
That the blame from suicide rests on the shoulders of the survivors. Most people who have watched 13 Reasons do not have a direct experience with suicide but those who do will have likely had at least some level of cringe regarding the guilt felt by the tape recipients. Survivors of suicide will often harbour guilt about what they could or should have done differently. If only I had responded to their text or if I had been there sooner etc. This show could heighten the struggle of grief and guilt for survivors of suicide by playing into the narrative that the blame lies solely on others.
That when you're suicidal there is nothing that can be done. One of my biggest bones to pick with the show from the perspective of the promotion of public safety was that there is little to no mention of any sort of coping mechanism that could have helped Hannah. I suppose the whole point of the story is that she didn't have such tools and that is why she succumbed to her suffering but knowing that there are and will be thousands of vulnerable people watching this program who are not characters but real life people who struggle with suicidal ideations, I would have hoped for at least some mention of coping mechanisms that could help them if they feel that way. There is one scene where Clay imagines what he could have said the night of Jessica's party that could have given Hannah a proper outlet but that plays into my previous point of blaming the survivor. Pretty much everything for Hannah Baker that could have gone wrong, went wrong and I think the show does a good job of helping us viewers develop sympathy for her as a character but in real life, we need to know what to do if faced with those feelings. This show offers us little to nothing in terms of helpful suggestions to prevent or avoid suicide attempts.
but then again... maybe that's the point. Maybe her counselor being a loser and her best friends being self-centered, and her abuser getting away with his crimes and the ending of the series being harsh and devoid of hope are all poignant examples of the very worst that exists in our society today. Like the mock car crashes we see in most high schools, this series is meant to show us a compilation of the worst case scenarios that plague our youth.... which leads me to my follow up post...
What you SHOULD learn from '13 Reasons Why'
The hub-bub was growing beyond your regular teen drama however, and as people started asking my take on the show, I began considering watching the series so that I could give an honest opinion. Throw in the fact that my wife was also curious and she and I rarely find a show that piques both our interests, and we had enough reasons to watch '13 Reasons' every night after our kids were in bed.
So let me begin with an objective assessment on the show from a purely entertainment view. The story telling is strong. They build tension and anticipation. Like protagonist Clay we have 13 episodes delivered to us in a bundle and we have to decide if we are going to watch them methodically or in one sitting like many of the other tape designates. The plot unfolds and brings the viewer on a journey with way more twists and turns than you would expect given that we already know how it ends. All in all it is entertaining which might be one of the reasons it is so controversial. If it were a stinker like I though it was going to be then maybe it would not have had such a polarizing impact.
The following are opinions that may also be polarizing. Most people in my profession have nothing but scathing reviews for this show with the argument that it will and already has precipitated the glorification of the very real and prevalent problem that is suicide in our youth. There is a contagion effect of suicide. At risk people become even more at risk when celebrities or prominent people in the community or their social circles die by suicide. That being said, in suicide prevention we teach that talking about suicide does not cause suicide. So which is '13 Reasons Why"? Is it a glamorized portrayal of how suicide can be the ultimate revenge on your enemies, thus enabling at risk youth to follow through with their ideations, or, is it the most effective suicide awareness campaign ever produced? I'll start with my criticisms.
What you should NOT learn from '13 Reasons Why'
That suicide is the inevitable or even direct result of bad things happening to you. If we accept or promote the notion that people kill themselves because of specific negative or traumatic experiences then we are not promoting the type of resilience and grit that is needed for human beings to recover and grow from difficult times. This isn't a video game where if you receive so many damage points you are doomed to pull the plug (insensitive euphemism but it fit the video game analogy so I'm keeping it). We do not want people to get the idea that there is a magic number of setbacks that make it expected that you will want to end your life. This is not to say necessarily that those who die of suicide lack resilience either, but this is not the lens through which we want our youth to be assessing the world. Those of us who survive the suicide of someone else are left to analyze the reasons why this person is no longer with us as we try and make sense of this inexplicable event. According to my limited training and experience on the subject (which is still far more than your average joe) often people who are suicidal might lack a real hard reason why they want to die, this leads them to feel shame. "Why should I have these thoughts when my life is better than most". This shame leads them further down the spiral of hopelessness. It is precisely the fact that there isn't a reason that most people would understand that makes their situation so isolating. Some people have reasons to die, many do not. How life experiences are cognitively filtered is more likely to have an effect that the experience itself.
That suicide is revenge. Death is a part of life and it's easy to use it as a dramatic device to tell stories but the reality of suicide is that it is usually unexpected, tragic, and heartbreaking for those who survive the suicide of another. Most people closest to that person are likely to create their own narrative of 'why' as they try and make sense of the tragedy and this likely includes a significant level of guilt. "I could have done X" or "why didn't I answer that call". Most of us are insecure enough and self-centred enough to take on some level of responsibility which can get in the way of mourning our lost loved one. Suicide hurts whether hurt was intended or not. But on that topic, no training or experience with suicide that I have received indicates that suicide is generally used as a way to strike back at an enemy. I have heard plenty of threats of suicide to manipulate another person (which I abhor. I take suicide seriously and crying wolf to manipulate another person is not only unhealthy interpersonal skills it actually detracts from and cheapens the cries of those who are genuinely at risk. Since we treat all threats the same, I would suspect that mental health workers spend more time with wolf criers than actual suicidal people which hurts everyone. I digress.) but when it comes to actual deaths by suicide, the literature's suggestion is that suicide as revenge is not the case. People who are suicidal feel so helpless that they think that people are better off without them not that their death will somehow be the ultimate comeback. Some people may interpret '13 Reasons Why' as a story of revenge and this is not the narrative that should be promoted.
That adults can't or won't help. As a school counsellor I think I was hit the hardest by the portrayal of the inept and unethical guidance counsellor, Mr. Porter. After seemingly being at the end of her rope, protagonist Hannah Baker decides to reach out to Mr. Porter who completely misses her cries for help (he keeps answering his phone as she makes her bid for assistance). He is sloppy in his attempt to assess her level of risk, all while getting caught up in her accusation of a sexual assault rather than attending to her well-being. He makes a number of ethics blunders which could easily be perceived by an adolescent audience that ultimately adults don't get it. In my high school counselling experience, kids can and want to tell their peers everything while it can takes months of relationship building to disclose the same information to an adult, even one who promises confidentiality. This series endorses this concept which may dissuade some teens from reaching out to adults for help and although peers are highly important to an adolescent's well being, they are still technically children and it is adults who have the responsibility of keeping children safe.
That being a victim makes you a hero. One of the most motivating psycho-social needs for an adolescent, or adult for that matter, is to feel significant. Adolescents especially tend to be egocentric in their view of life and the world in general. Who am I? How do I fit in this world? In our society one of the simplest and most effective ways to gain sympathy and identity from your peers is to have something extraordinarily difficult happen to you. The average teen feels stressed about school, insecure about romance, and rejected by peers. While these hardships are challenging they are not seen as unique and therefore do not garner much sympathy. At a time when I felt socially insignificant I was blessed with a seemingly serious accident that left me unconscious, convulsing on the ice in front of the entire school body. Luckily I wasn't seriously hurt, but even more luckily my peers saw it and worried about me. Any press is good press. Kids throughout my school were asking who I was and all of a sudden when I came back I was known. I was significant. In our society we honour those who have struggled and I'm not against that but many adolescents find themselves unable to reach significance without resorting to infamy. The name of the game these days is gaining significance which is measured by views, follows, and retweets, whatever means necessary. I fear Hannah Baker will be seen by many teens as a martyr and exemplar as to how to gain rockstar level significance rather than as a tragic and troubled youth who couldn't see the support available to her when she was in her darkest moments.
That the blame from suicide rests on the shoulders of the survivors. Most people who have watched 13 Reasons do not have a direct experience with suicide but those who do will have likely had at least some level of cringe regarding the guilt felt by the tape recipients. Survivors of suicide will often harbour guilt about what they could or should have done differently. If only I had responded to their text or if I had been there sooner etc. This show could heighten the struggle of grief and guilt for survivors of suicide by playing into the narrative that the blame lies solely on others.
That when you're suicidal there is nothing that can be done. One of my biggest bones to pick with the show from the perspective of the promotion of public safety was that there is little to no mention of any sort of coping mechanism that could have helped Hannah. I suppose the whole point of the story is that she didn't have such tools and that is why she succumbed to her suffering but knowing that there are and will be thousands of vulnerable people watching this program who are not characters but real life people who struggle with suicidal ideations, I would have hoped for at least some mention of coping mechanisms that could help them if they feel that way. There is one scene where Clay imagines what he could have said the night of Jessica's party that could have given Hannah a proper outlet but that plays into my previous point of blaming the survivor. Pretty much everything for Hannah Baker that could have gone wrong, went wrong and I think the show does a good job of helping us viewers develop sympathy for her as a character but in real life, we need to know what to do if faced with those feelings. This show offers us little to nothing in terms of helpful suggestions to prevent or avoid suicide attempts.
but then again... maybe that's the point. Maybe her counselor being a loser and her best friends being self-centered, and her abuser getting away with his crimes and the ending of the series being harsh and devoid of hope are all poignant examples of the very worst that exists in our society today. Like the mock car crashes we see in most high schools, this series is meant to show us a compilation of the worst case scenarios that plague our youth.... which leads me to my follow up post...
What you SHOULD learn from '13 Reasons Why'
"In our society one of the simplest and most effective ways to gain sympathy and identity from your peers is to have something extraordinarily difficult happen to you." This line stood out for me the most in this entire post. I remember back as a teenager contemplating on the idea of death, (not thinking about my funeral) but how it significantly affects people around you. I think the biggest game changer during adolescence is how one deals with mental illness and how depression may lead to suicide. Maybe I'm just oversimplifying things by mentioning mental illness but if that was also a factor, I'd have an easier time sympathizing with the character. Not to say that people who don't suffer from that are less sympathized but I just think it adds more believability. I've never watched this show but I've read some reviews that say the same thing about glamorizing suicide on tv, particularly about using suicide as revenge. I don't think it's a new concept but this show has taken it to another level where the victim Hannah Baker has made her death more tragic than it already is. I think the show's trying to emphasize on the fact that in order for one to fix a problem, there's really only one solution and that's a permanent one. But leaving something behind for people to see so that they're forever reminded of what they have caused is just plain wrong. I hope the youth today doesn't use this is as a lesson to find some fulfillment in their life.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comment. I remember watching the series and after a few episodes I was thinking, she is having a tough time but nothing out of the ordinary, she does not appear suicidal at all or that she is suffering from mental illness at all. Eventually there are some events that really put her in a spiral that become more believable and relatable. She only really looks depressed until the very end. I suppose a character who was actually, visibly depressed probably wouldn't make for great television because people don't want to see a teenage girl stay in her room and shut everyone out. I'm glad you brought up mental illness though because it is definitely a factor that increases one's risk but it's also worth mentioning that many people with zero history with mental illness will still attempt suicide.
DeleteI echo your hope that youth don't use suicide as a way to find fulfillment but I'm working on a post that will show how I think we can use 13 Reasons to educate kids and hopefully prevent more harm than has been caused. Thanks for your comment. :)