13 Reasons Why
13 Reasons Why follows the story of the events leading up to and following the suicide of teenager Hannah Baker. She leaves 13 video tapes behind, each addressed to a person who is one of the 13 reasons why she killed herself.
The programme is timely and important, and divided opinion at its release last year.
It has been accused of glorifying teen suicide, but I strongly disagree. It does a great job of showing how it can negatively affect everyone around you.
This is what makes 13 reasons why so good though, teen suicide is a real issue, but most people, thankfully, only hear about it through social media or the news. This programme makes it very real and forces watchers to consider all of their actions. It gives people of all walks of life something to think about, high school students and parents especially.
It also has a very strong soundtrack including songs like The Night We Met by Lord Huron and A 1000 times by Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam.
Hannah went through an awful time, and her suicide is tragically understandable. I just couldn’t help but feel that the act of giving the tapes out was, for the most part, pretty sadistic. With some much deserved exceptions, I felt that some of the things that were done to her in the lead up to her dying didn’t warrant the punishment.
Some of the people were doing normal, petty high school things such as rumour spreading, but were subsequently told that they were the reason for her death. And not leaving any explanation for her parents was heart-breaking, but the way in which it showed her parents and classmates torment didn’t justify what she did in any way.
Although a strong programme in itself, with great performances from the actors, the message it carries is reason enough to watch it.
Series 2 is set to release this year.