Thirteen Reasons Not To

Another round of Thirteen Reasons Why has dropped and left in its wake another round of controversy.  The first round of the show invited some students into the original book where they could get to know the characters a bit more, relate to the ideas a bit better, see the back story a little more clearly.  Books invite questioning and conversation.  TV shows watched in private on iPads tucked into bedrooms at night do not.

This second set of episodes strays from the book and moves into its own territory.  The new set of episodes is rife with missteps, especially when considering the audience. I give you thirteen reasons I have issues with this season of the show:

1.   The pretense that it's made for high school kids, when in reality it's appealing to a much younger audience that is intrigued by what it means to be a teenager.  According to this show, being a high school student means lots and lots of nonconsensual (and consensual) sex, lying, betrayal, gun play, and thoughts of killing others.  Young teens crave a map to what is coming as they grow, and a show like this does not provide an accurate nor healthy one.
2. The focus on and fascination with teenage sex permeates the entire series and is so problematic.  I understand that the main conflict is the rape that goes unreported and unpunished in the first series, but in this second series, the focus on teen sex feels gratuitous.  The sexual relationships between the young people -- both consensual and nonconsensual -- is described in constant verbal detail, is shown in close-up shots, is preserved in the Polaroid pictures that are the linchpin of these episodes, and is the focus of many of the episodes.  Knowing that it's adults who wrote, acted in, and filmed each scene gives this constant focus a creepy, voyeuristic feel.
3.  The ever-present violence is also troubling.  Of course, the rape is the first kind of violence.  Nearly all of the female characters are assaulted as is at least one of the male characters.  Clay is constantly getting beaten up and spends the entire season bruised.  Another character is in anger management classes (even though his rage seems absolutely out of character for him).  Another character releases his stress by shooting guns (and he gets his best shots when he envisions his enemy's faces on the glass bottles); it suggested throughout the season that he will perhaps do something catastrophic with his collection of guns.  Teenagers threaten one another with death by gun. This leads to . . .
4.  The connection into the recent epidemic of school shootings.  We all know it's on the news weekly, and that we need places to talk about all of this.  Is an ostensibly entertainment show the place to do it?  Is the way this show presents it the way to do it?
5.  Liberty High School is filled with absolutely cliched high school students:  the emo punks with too much black make-up and hair dye, the rich kids with everything except parental love and attention, and the flamboyant gay characters.  Add to that the cliched adults:  earnest teachers who insist students overshare as part of class, the ex-hippie parents who cover and protect their kids at all cost, poor, drug-addicted parents who abuse their children.  No one in this show is a unique individual; they are all cut-outs of what adults think high school and the people who populate high schools are.
6. The show venerates athletes and their coaches in an unhealthy way.  Monty, a peripheral character until the end, expresses that sports is all he's got and the potential of losing his status as an athlete is what drives him to do horrible things.  Coaches allow the male athletes to use performance enhancing drugs.  Athletes get away with poor behaviors simply because they are athletes.  This portrayal of athletes also perpetuates harmful stereotypes.
7.  The show is not subtle in suggesting that all women are victims of sexual misconduct.  In the final episode, a parade of girls and women come forward to talk about their own sexual assaults.  These anecdotes are real and do leave indelible marks on the victims, but it is also true that not every single woman has been victimized.  It is also true that casting high school girls and adult women as constant victims does not help anyone get justice or equality.
8.   The women in the story are portrayed as being fairly weak.  In fact, only when the girls are encouraged and supported by the boys and men in their lives are they willing to stand up .  It is the men that are going to "stand up for" and "stand with" the girls who have been assaulted.  The women need rescuing and protecting.  Not a good message for young girls -- and probably not for the boys either.
9.  Hannah is a selfish character.  The audience is made to understand and empathize with the desperateness which led to her suicide; that is where her story should have stopped.  Continuing her involvement is where the selfishness comes into the story.  All I wanted throughout the second season was for Hannah Baker to just go away so that the people left behind could begin to move on with their lives.
10.  Related, the constant focus on Hannah and the orbit she created when she died furthers the idea one way to get attention is to do something drastic like suicide or a school shooting.  The idea that someone gets to continue to participate in life events (or get justice or control events) after death is already a common fantasy, not just for teenagers, but for humanity.  Perpetuating this myth does not help students know that the only way to deal with issues is right now, not in some make-believe after life.
11. There is an unfair insinuation that the school is to blame for what happened not just to Hannah Baker but to all of the victims of the assaults.  With limited resources (especially counselors or social workers), a school cannot possibly identify, rectify, and "fix" every single issue students bring with them to school.
12.  It wasn't enough that the show dealt with rape, suicide, and the aftermath of both.  In the second season, it adds heroin addiction, child abuse, a connection to the #MeToo movement, and an exploration of god/religion/the afterlife.  It's emotionally exhausting to watch as an adult; I can't even imagine what a middle or young high school student thinks as they try to process all of this.
13.  Just the acting and dialogue throughout is wooden and so earnestly "message" driven.  An adult viewer can sense the IMPORTANCE the producers/writers/actors wanted to impact to every moment of the show.  But there's also the overlay of a plot driven story that is making enough money to generate yet another season.  Towards the end, new characters, new (and even more horrific) assaults are committed, and new "oh-my-god-what-now?!" plot lines are introduced.  Because this show has gotten such wide viewership, the producers have full permission to continue to make more of them.

I do understand that high school and growing up is filled with hardship and struggle.  I know that high school students are not kind to one another.  I know that sexual assault is real and happens to far too many people.  I'm just not sure that a show presented under the guise of tackling these difficult subjects head-on but which ultimately panders to our culture's voyeuristic tendencies is the way to open dialogue about these critical issues and face challenging truths.

Maybe try reading and discussing any one of these books, all of which deal with some of the same issues presented in the show, instead:
Not That Bad:  Dispatches from Rape Culture edited by Roxane Gay
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
Montana, 1948 by Larry Watson
Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabela Quintero
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis