Based on the novel of the same name by Jay Asher, 13 Reasons Why was released on March 31st and has since then, gained quite some momentum. This Netflix Original has only been out six days and it’s already trending on social media and I for one, cannot stop praising its pure genius.
The show follows Clay Jensen and how his life turns upside down after his crush, Hannah Baker, commits suicide. Hannah leaves behind a series of thirteen cassette tapes, each tape containing one reason why she took her own life. These reasons have to do with several classmates, the different ways Hannah was bullied and tormented, and with her own emotions of feeling lost and a burden. The plot intensifies as classmates worry about keeping their secrets buried, but the truth of Hannah Baker’s life, and more specifically why it ended, is one that will damage you.
There are many things I want to mention about this show, but I’ll start off with the obvious: it raises awareness about teen suicide. According to The Jason Foundation, “More teenagers and young adults die from suicide than from cancer, heart disease, AIDS, birth defects, stroke, pneumonia, influenza, and chronic lung disease, COMBINED”. I’m sure there are those people out there that think millennials crave attention and thrive on being overdramatic and making a big deal out of little things. But is it really over dramatization if those “little things” can compel you to take your own life?
On the show, you can see that Hannah was a bright girl. She had a great sense of humor and she was beautiful, and it hurts knowing that she’s not going to be able to experience the rest of what life has to offer, to think about all the opportunities she’ll never have. It hurts. It makes you think: if only someone was Hannah’s friend, if only people weren’t the wretched beings they are, if only someone had told her she was loved and she mattered, she would still be alive. But that’s not true. Like one character said on the show, you can’t love someone back to life. But we can control how we treat others. The things we say and do have an effect, and mental health is not something to mess around with.
The next thing that makes this show so fantastic is the craftsmanship. The cinematography is absolutely divine and I love how it plays with time. With different lighting and tones, the transition between the past and present is stunning, and I personally thought it was brilliant to play it off as if Clay himself were watching past events unfold right in front of him, as if he were right there with Hannah, which I guess he was while listening to the tapes: it made it feel as if she were still alive and with him. As for the acting, I was blown away by Kate Walsh’s performance as Hannah’s mother. I have no idea what it’s like to have a kid, let alone be able to live with the fact that that kid committed suicide. And while I love her as Addison in Grey’s Anatomy, the emotion she let out in this show was so raw and heavy that I could actually feel her pain.
But the thing that I love the most about this show was the dose of truth it delivered. One of the trending scenes from the show is where Hannah talks about how we’re suddenly expected to make the biggest decision of our lives when we turn eighteen when we’ve basically been taught how to think our whole lives. I remember being in high school and having these exact feelings when I was figuring out my college plans, and it was unbelievably stressful. It shows one of the many messed up parts of our society. The show displays the privilege of rich white boys thinking the world is all theirs, that us girls are merely there for pleasure. It shows the truth of how society reacts, getting told you should just move on or blaming the victim when horrible things happen to you. It accurately exhibits the over-glorification of jocks in high schools (this can actually be applied to to college as well. I’m talking to you, student athletes). It shows the truth of what it’s like to mourn over death. But most importantly, it demonstrates the truth of what it’s like to be depressed, something that really hit home for me. The way Hannah described what it was like to feel nothing and feel everything, to feel alone and full of self-loathing was poetic and bittersweet and the only thing I could do in those moments was relate.
13 Reasons Why is one of those shows that you will not be able to stop thinking about. I finished it days ago and my heart is still heavy. It shows how beautiful life can be, and how destroying pain can be. It is irrevocably heartbreaking and soul crushing, but you’ll love every minute of it. What are you waiting for? All you have to do is press play.PSA: If you need help, please reach out to someone. No matter what is going on, I promise you are worth something.
