When Netflix’s “13 Reasons Why” debuted in 2017, the show precipitated a flurry of concerned reviews. Mental health strategist Mark Henick called it “dangerous,” and the New Yorker’s Jia Tolentino wrote that it made “a smarmy spectacle of suicide.”
Counselors and psychologists warned that rather than shedding light on real teenage issues, as the show’s creators said it did, “13 Reasons Why” glorified suicide.
Now, a study appears to offer some evidence to back those claims. Published Monday, it found that in the month after the show’s release, teen suicide rates leaped to a 19-year high: 190 U.S. teens and pre-teens committed suicide in April 2017. And in the nine months following the show’s March debut, there were 195 more youth suicides than expected, considering existing trends.
This doesn’t mean the show made almost 200 people imitate its protagonist, a teenage girl who kills herself after undergoing bullying and sexual assault. The study could confirm only correlation, not causation. But critics weren’t wrong to call “13 Reasons Why” dangerous.
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Just as shootings tend to beget shootings, suicides appear to beget other suicides. Another study found an association between actor Robin Williams’ 2014 suicide and an uptick in self-inflicted deaths. Mental health experts worry about “copycat suicides,” which can be inspired by celebrities — think Williams, Kate Spade, or Anthony Bourdain — or media, such as “13 Reasons Why.”
But executive producer Selena Gomez said the show is meant to be an “honest” depiction of difficult issues. “I think that stuff is uncomfortable for people to talk about, but it is happening and hopefully it opened the door for people to actually accept what’s happening and actually go and change it, talk about it,” she said.
Netflix has also added advisory PSAs to the beginning of each season (there are two, with a third on the way), where actors say the show addresses difficult topics and encourage viewers to call a help line or reach out to a trusted adult if they’re struggling.
Even so, “13 Reasons Why” preaches the wrong message. Its treatment of suicide and mental health feels more skewed toward drama than realism or dealing with issues, with protagonist Hannah exacting revenge on her bullies through posthumous shame and emotional manipulation.
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The entire point of the show is to depict Hannah as a victim, whose only option after a series of abuses is to end her own life. The message of the show appears to be that if you kill yourself, you will become a tragic hero with the capacity to exact revenge on your enemies so you can use your death to enact sweet justice. In real life, there are so many real solutions to high schoolers’ problems, which tend to be magnified beyond anything realistic in the hormone-addled teen mind.
Even if the show is not directly responsible for an uptick in suicides, “13 Reasons Why” is certainly not a show for anyone struggling with mental health. It’s meant to start a conversation, but its portrayal of suicide ideation offers all of the wrong answers.
