RE: ’13 Reasons Why’ is problematic, June 21-July 25
The Netflix show 13 Reasons Why sparked a conversation that no one seems to want to have, but that we should be having. The show, which recently released its second season, touches on mental health and social issues that have spread with contagion in high schools across North America, such as depression, suicide, and sexual assault.
When such issues are depicted on screen as a sort of psychosocial exotica, it certainly can be tempting to avert your eyes, or even to profess that the show is innately harmful to those who struggle with mental health issues who might be triggered by the show’s content.
But is it really more favourable to ignore the sense of looming crisis that pervades the subculture of individual high schools in North America, for the sake of our own individual perversion to frightening depictions of mental health issues?
The fact is, the show doesn’t just portray these issues, the writers also detail (albeit woven sparingly through the plots of both seasons, so you’d better be paying attention) what those who play a role in a high schooler’s life can do to be a better friend, a better parent, and a successful support system.
The remedy to the lack of trust or group kinship that inflicts life-or-death anxiety upon an entire group of people and drives Hannah Baker to take her own life in the show are actually fairly simple. Tell the truth (even if it’s not easy), and listen to people (especially if you’re their high school guidance counsellor). Above all, if you see that your community is inherently broken, don’t resort to nihilism.
Instead, rise up in an attempt to remedy its brokenness by noticing its failings, and fighting for the manifestation of your own ideals.
High school students are no strangers to sharing a community with peers whose personal belief systems have been broken down and who, in response, have resorted to absolving themselves of any personal responsibility. The show provides a plethora of characters who emulate this, like Justin, who turned to heroin addiction and homelessness after witnessing the rape of his girlfriend Jessica, rather than confronting her rapist or reporting the encounter to the police. Or Tyler, who destroyed the school’s football field using spray paint as a way of confronting his issue with the school jocks.
Through the main character Clay’s capacity for continually seeking out justice and clarity amid rampant nihilism, viewers witness how an individual acting compassionately and allowing himself to be honest and vulnerable in the face of injustice ultimately leads to an improvement in dealing with mental health. This is a system of behaviour that real high school students can and should follow the example of.
Some school boards, like the Peel District School Board, have even gone as far as banning students and teachers from discussing the show. I know this from firsthand experience as a former student under this board. When I attempted to discuss the show with a faculty member, I was told they were not really allowed to discuss this.
This seems to me to be a jaded attempt at censoring the show’s message regarding high school boards’ negligence of sufficiently addressing issues like bullying and mental health. If the show’s on-screen portrayal of school and guidance office policies did not ring true in the slightest, school boards should be fully capable of defending the way they have adapted their policies to accommodate the growing mental health crisis in high schools. If this is the case, what is the point of banning the show?
On the other hand, if school boards are worried about the show inspiring students to behave similarly to the show’s characters, then they have failed to understand that the show, while heavily dramatized, is already modelled quite realistically after real high school students and their behaviours.
Infantilizing teenagers, who are more than capable of understanding the show’s message, seems counterproductive. Instead, school staff and administration should take full advantage of the opportunity the show provides to start a conversation with students about the reality and consequences of lying, enacting revenge plots, bullying, sexual assault, and depression, among other things.
The show’s writers attempted to pull out from under the rug a horde of issues that afflict too many high school students across North America, and instead of continuing to ignore these problems and allow them to fester, we should follow in their example by having a conversation about what we can all do to rectify them.
