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Originally Posted by duga
Just wrapped up 13 Reasons Why...what an intense show. There's been a lot of backlash with people upset that it glorifies suicide. That just tells me people don't think too hard about what they are watching. It in no way glorifies suicide - in fact, I felt it took great pains to remain neutral about the topic, letting you form your own opinions about the situation. Every single character (even the really bad one) had aspects to their personalities that you could love or hate. I think the problem is that the show is incredibly realistic (both in how it characterizes high schoolers and how realistic the various traumas that happen to the characters are portrayed) and people just can't handle that. I would say this is the Netflix Original equivalent of Requiem For a Dream - watch it once, walk away incredibly depressed, never watch it again.
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Really? I found it incredibly unrealistic and ham-fisted in pretty much every way (though granted I only watched four episodes). Super cringey dialogue, too. Like an after-school special combined with a terrible indie film starring your standard, garden-variety broody nerd boy and sad quirky girl.
Most shows do an absolutely terrible job at portraying suicidal people and mental illness, though, particularly if they're marketed toward teenagers. An actual suicidal person is generally not going to have the energy to create an elaborate scavenger hunt + record an incredibly long, melodramatic monologue unless perhaps they're in the midst of a manic episode. Based on what I've gathered from both the show and the book it's based on, it just perpetuates the warped notions that the general public tends to have about the inner lives of suicidal people and Troubled Teens™. (Not that I expect a show or movie starring fictional characters to be 100% realistic, but I can't deal with bad, tedious writing on top of that.)