TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY you ought to skip it?

Courtesy IMDb



*Appropriate for people above the age of 18 as language used in the post is strong (as I only recently watched Deadpool) and has content and facts that our laws absolutely want to keep away from those below the age of 18 and also because sex education isn’t a part of recommended mandatory syllabus. The post talks about consequences other than pregnancy while having sex. Hence use your discretion before proceeding to read further. Also Spoilers APLENTY!*

The world woke up to the news of yet another shooting incident at a school in Santa Fe, Texas on the 18th of May. The very day season 2 of the show was to premier. Netflix cancelled the premier on account of the shooting. I binge watched the show and I knew why the shooting affected the show. Please know that this review is my sole opinion on the show.

When I was writing the review for season 1, the reasonable part of me was expecting a trial. Obviously a girl is dead and a trial would have been the justifiable arch for the story. Season 2 derails during its course. The series basically lets everybody on the tapes have their side of the story told while Clay has hallucinations and starts questioning himself about Hannah.

Episodes 1 to 11 do an excellent job of portraying how a victim is treated. As in most cases of sexual assault a woman’s character plays a ‘main’ role. This has been the mindset for the longest time – ‘she was asking for it’. The story line tries its best to convey the meaning of “consent” across to the audience. In this season we get to see a side of Hannah from the perspective of the people mentioned in her tapes. As it is a trial, everything said by these people gets twisted out of context and leaves the audience frustrated.

I am not going to go into the whole “every woman faces this shit” rant. Every woman does. Period. What annoyed me most about this is the fact that nothing was said and done about giving the kids a safe place to seek help. Nothing about a helpline was mentioned. Nothing was said about drug abuse. Nothing was said about consequences of sexual activity without protection. For fucks sake we all know that babies are made when two people of the opposite gender are having sex but so many other things can go wrong – STDs, STIs and with some of these diseases there is no turning back once you have it and this is something that people need to talk about. Yes, people need to address sexual abuse but you also need to educate kids about everything else surrounding sex.

This was merely an attempt to milk the previous season’s worth. It doesn’t have a strong foundation. I hate how they always portray only one parent fighting for the cause. I hate how it is often portrayed that tragedies result in fracturing the relationship, ultimately leading to its demise. I hate how cheesy some of the dialogues were. I hate how a girl is portrayed as strong and then goes about destroying evidence that could very well have stopped the vicious cycle. I hate how the responsible adult chastises the student about leaving a photo trace but doesn’t admonish the act. I hate how every time it is the jocks who are portrayed as the bad guys. I hate how they polarized the students as jocks (Rapists) and non-jocks (Of course they wouldn’t rape. They need to be sportsy to rape.) amongst the boys and cheer leaders(Sluts) and non-cheer leaders (Nuns from your friendly neighborhood church.). I hate how Clay is portrayed as this flawless sweet guy when everybody else around him even when they are sweet have their own issues like anger, addiction, gun totting, cowardliness and other attributes that contributes to their inability to do anything right. I wanted to punch Clay. I mean who is he? Harry Potter? Even Harry Potter wouldn’t have survived without Hermione. Actually Harry Potter only had the spotlight because Hermione had all the brains and Ron had all the heart.

Bottom line is – kids need to be kids. If I were 17 and cradling a glass of whiskey at the end of a long school day, my mother would have kicked my butt and grounded me till I was 34. Just so she could re trace her steps and see where she went wrong in those 17 years and use the next 17 years of my life to make sure I get her ‘teaching’ right. Fortunately that never happened and in reality that can never happen.(The bit where people get a re-do)

This show had a good following. They could have taken advantage of it and addressed so many issues. They could have given kids tips on how to deal with abuse, whom to approach when bullied or abused, the court could have addressed the whole issue a little further. I wish we didn’t always have to end things with ‘money and clout always wins’. When a person is raped they live with that trauma for the rest of their lives, I mean even girls who have had their butts grabbed or slapped by random strangers find it really difficult to be in crowded spaces. If only boys knew the extent to which girls go in order to protect themselves or knew the amount of stress one is in if they are alone and have drunk 3 glasses instead of the standard 2 you’d know to back off or maybe not.

Just like its predecessor the final episode was jarring to watch and totally uncalled for and just like last time I absolutely hated that such graphic portrayal was made and I can’t un-see it now. The consequences of this incident only begin a new cycle, a cycle that could have stopped if only the adults listened to the kids.

WhatsApp Fwd


I remember a WhatsApp forward that was doing the rounds a while ago that summed up the concept of “it takes a village to raise a child.” I wish we reminded ourselves of it every now and then and were careful about our own actions and then maybe the kids would have a better chance at dealing with life.

My rating:1.5/5
Recommend:No.

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