Trigger warning: Discussion of violence, suicide, mental disorders.
Spoiler status: Basic plot points.
When I saw season two of pop on Netflix, I grabbed some popcorn, turned off my lights, and prepared to have this show take over my life just like it did during the first season.
That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I do think it’s impossible to watch this show without getting really absorbed in it. It centers around nearly every dark topic you could think of - suicide, rape, drugs, bullying, and other forms of violence. As much as I love scaring myself with horror movies and twisted thrillers, watching this kind of real-life stuff can get to you, and I definitely take precautions when watching “13 Reasons Why.” Before I get into my thoughts on the show, here are a few of my personal methods for viewing shows like this in a healthy way.
I only watch the show at night, which definitely wouldn’t work for others, given how night can be a time wrought with fear and anxiety if you're prone to those feelings. But for me, watching a show with dark themes then having to go about my day is even harder than the comfort of being able to just go to bed after.
I make my room a comforting place when watching it by turning the lights off, lighting some candles, and having a favorite snack. If you think this sounds like the routine of getting a kid ready for bedtime, you’re right. But making sure you feel comfortable while watching something dark can really help alleviate some of the negative feelings the show may put on you.
Don’t watch parts you know will mess with you. I had read on Twitter that there’s a particularly graphic scene in the last episode about 38 minutes in. Rather than skipping it entirely, I turned the sound off and just looked down at my phone until the scene was over. I personally don’t believe that media has a responsibility to avoid all graphic content; after all, they’re showing the sad reality that many individuals face, and it’s your choice to watch it. That being said, it is important to know what you can handle, and if you have a weak stomach or just don’t want to be exposed to something upsetting, it is absolutely, 100% okay to skip it.
Now that we got that out of the way, I’m going to break down what I think the show does right and where it fails or could be better. There is literally SO MUCH to talk about with this show, so here are (briefly) four aspects in which I think the show succeeds.
Depictions of PTSD. A large part of the season’s storyline focuses on Jessica's sexual assault that occurred in season one, including a gut-wrenching scene where she has a panic attack in a store fitting room. Throughout the season, viewers see Jessica refuse to name her rapist (even though everyone who’s heard the tapes knows it’s Bryce), struggle to regain physical intimacy with boys, find solace in a friend who is also a rape survivor, then finally feel strong enough to tell her story. Throughout this journey, we see Jessica experience flashbacks of the attack and feel afraid to sleep in her own bed, where the attack occurred. I want to emphasize that I am definitely no mental health expert, and my knowledge of PTSD is limited. But showing the continued toll the attack has taken on Jessica emphasizes the fact that victims can’t just “move on” on from what happened to them. (PTSD is also an element of Alex’s storyline, who is recovering from his own suicide attempt.)
Female compassion. The relationship between Jessica and Chloe (the girlfriend of Bryce, Jessica’s rapist) makes for some of the most profound interactions of the entire show. After learning that she was raped by her own boyfriend (courtesy of Polaroids snapped by the rapist baseball team), Chloe decides to come forward and testify about who Bryce really is. When she goes back while on the stand and insists that the encounter was consensual (it clearly wasn’t; she was unconscious in the photos, and the fact that this isn’t recognized in the trial is majorly WTF-inducing), the group turns on her… except Jessica, who explains to the guys that as soon as Chloe admits what happened to her, her world comes crashing down. Jessica has a lot to gain from Chloe coming forward about Bryce (maybe people will finally believe her), but she is the only one who has compassion on Chloe's hesitation. Another moment between the two that actually brought tears to my eyes occurs after the whole school learns about the tapes (which Clay put online because he is trash - more on that later). Chloe has a lot to lose now that the tapes are out; after all, everyone knows her boyfriend is a rapist. When she goes into a bathroom stall and sees graffiti slut-shaming Jessica, she whips out a marker. I held my breath, bracing for whatever she was about to add. When she leaves the stall and Jessica goes in, we see that Chloe didn’t add anything; she scribbled out what was written about Jessica. This is a major turning point showing that Chloe has gone from defending Bryce and casting Jessica as a lying slut (as she did earlier in the season) to defending Jessica and maybe realizing that Bryce isn’t who she thinks he is.
Recognition of double standards. For all of its problematic takes on mental health, the show is relatively enlightened when it comes to gender. In the episode she narrates, Jessica muses that boys get to create their own stories while girls are cast in whatever they light their peers choose for them. Sherri puts protagonist Clay in his place when he expresses confusion at why girls “get themselves” into bad situations, telling him that “Girls don’t get themselves into bad situations. Guys make the situations bad." (Clay is a jerk and I stand by this opinion!!!)
In addition to double standards of gender, the show touches on race and class privilege in the mildest of ways, but ways which still deserve to be recognized. Bryce is the definition of “white male privilege,” which allows him to ultimately escape consequences for his actions, from a school coach and principal that blindly support him to the money that allows him to promise his girlfriend (who he raped) a trip to Italy to absentee parents that turn a blind eye to the type of son they raised. Privilege is also a factor in Jessica’s initial reluctance to come forward about Bryce, demonstrated when she surmises that if the trial casts Hannah Baker (who is white) as a slut, what would they do to Jessica? The show barely touches on intersectionality, but these small instances demonstrate some sense of awareness and shows how certain characters face different consequences based on their race and/or class.
4. The process of grief. A storyline that actually struck me as realistic focused on Mrs. Baker and how she deals with her daughter’s suicide. In a particularly horrifying moment, she and her live-in friend (who isn’t fully explained? Like I guess she’s helping Mrs. Baker get through the trial but she’s always just there) find a dress covered in red blood stains, which Mrs. Baker explains is the dress she was wearing when she found Hannah dead. When the annoying friend has the dress cleaned, Mrs. Baker has an outburst, telling her she had no right. The blood stains, while horrifying to an outside viewer, were all Mrs. Baker had left of her daughter. This moment (and other elements of Mrs. Baker’s storyline) shows the complicated process of grief.
The show has a ton of problems. I’m not even going to discuss its depiction of mental health issues (the depression Hannah presumably had, even though this is never specifically named, for example), because I don’t feel well-versed enough on the issue to have an opinion on it and I don’t want to make uneducated claims. The general consensus is that this show falls short on depicting issues that teenagers face (or at least lacks a complete view), particularly on mental health, but I do think the show deserves credit for what it does right and its undertaking of these difficult topics in the first place.
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