13 Reasons Why (Netflix)
May. 1st, 2017 03:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroWhy did Hannah Baker kill herself? Clay has just received a box of cassette tapes she recorded as a suicide note, and he's going to learn why. Hannah wasn't the only person who was hurt, and she's not the only one who's going to be.
SPOILER WARNING
I understand the thematic reasons for making 13 episodes, but stretching each of them out to 50-55 minutes was probably a mistake. We see basically the same scenes of Clay's parents trying to get him to talk to them, Clay being pissy at Tony, and Hannah's parents mourning over and over again. This series is on Netflix and obviously intended to be binge-watched; we don't need to see the same scenes repeatedly to remind us of things.
I appreciate that they give a lot of indicators of what's a flashback and what's the present time (including both cinematic indicators like the different filters, and character cues like the bandage on Clay's forehead and Hannah's mom's hairdo), because otherwise it would be really hard to keep track.
The “adults are useless” trope is out in full force. The Principal and Counselor are clearly lawsuit-fearing, incompetent chowderheads. (The fact that Porter has no training as a counselor and manages to say all of the wrong things to Hannah when she finally comes to him is an indication that he should have been fired before the series events even began.) The fact that Clay's parents don't steal and listen to one of the tapes within the first three days of Clay listening to them obsessively but refusing to talk about anything seriously strains my suspension of disbelief. Maybe I'm just working off an old “helicopter parent” script, but the idea that they would put in such obvious time and rebuffed effort and not do at least a little snooping is hard to believe. Especially after the disappearing, drug bust, and getting beaten up.
On a related note, I do not understand how Clay's mom representing the school isn't a conflict of interest. Even if Clay never knew Hannah and was completely unconnected to the case, he still attends that school. Why would her firm be so stupid to assign her? If the school loses the case—and it seems they're likely to, because they're grossly incompetent—what stops them from turning around and blaming her lack of impartiality?
I have no problem with the teenagers' actions, mind you. Teenagers doing stupid things out of fear, carelessness, uncontrollable emotions or just general ignorance? That's realistic. Courtney and Marcus do terrible things to cover up relatively small involvements in the events on the tapes, but I remember being 15 and it feeling like something I realize is unimportant now would be the most important and terrible event of my life.
And, of course, no matter how realistic the high school experience presented is, it certainly wasn't the one I had: Alcohol flows pretty freely; the characters who aren't sexually active appear to be the weirdos and outliers; Hannah bounces through a dozen different social circles that somehow all seem to overlap. Granted, I grew up in New York and live in New Jersey, but the easy access to guns in the later episodes is staggering.
I didn't realize it was Jeff, but I caught the early line about, “losing two students this month” and knew that someone else's death would be popping up on a later tape. Which also helps explain exactly how messed-up Clay is: He'd had previous psychological issues (at the very least, nightmares he'd been medicated and received talk therapy for), then a friend dies, then the girl he had a crush on inexplicably rejected him and then killed herself. It's totally believable that by halfway through the series he's fucking hallucinating!
When Clay calls Tony “unhelpful Yoda,” I think that also sums up my opinion of the character. Yes, they try to present a good explanation of someone who thinks he's doing the right thing and honoring Hannah's wishes, but especially with Clay (who is clearly going through serious psychological distress from the tapes), maybe a little bit of warning and clarification could be helpful?
I was surprised, in retrospect, at how pat the ending is and how little twist there is to it. It's made clear in the very first episode that Hannah is a puppetmaster on the levels of David Xanatos. She plays Justin like a goddamn fiddle. (Which should be your first important warning that there's some unreliable narrator going on here.) Then I think the note to Zach is the first hard evidence we get that Hannah isn't necessarily telling the whole truth. But nothing really comes of that: The audience and the majority of the characters are lead to accept Hannah's version of things (mixed with Clay's recollections) as gospel. I suppose there are inconsistencies in the stories that can be chalked up to the vagueness of memory or word choices intended to evoke emotion (Hannah is apparently an accomplished poet), but the signs are there that she included at least one major lie to manipulate Clay/Tony/etc, and that never gets paid off.*
The thing is, this story is a suicide revenge fantasy (“when I'm gone, they'll all be sorry”) mixed with a polemic about how bullying is bad and high school is hell. Hannah's skills as a manipulator drive the series (via the tapes) but not her actions during most of the flashbacks.
And I think it says something important when Clay and Tony both go “off script” at the end and start doing things they aren't supposed to by Hannah's rules. Which might well have been her original intent, but at least reminds us that, whether or not Hannah has gotten revenge or justice, she's still dead, and there's nothing she can do any more.
* I suppose it's a workable theory that Bryce didn't actually rape Hannah in the way presented, but she put it on the tapes that way to cast him as more of a villain and provide solidarity/ammunition for Jessica. But that's trickier storytelling and breaks the moral center of the show that the creators were trying to present—and the clear-cut “reason” that audiences will accept for why Hannah killed herself. Despite the realism of a “death of a thousand cuts” depression and suicide, audiences want a clear triggering event and a pure-evil villain. If Hannah, already in the depths of despair, had consensual sex with Bryce out of an attempt to feel something, but then lied on the tapes, it's arguably a better story but a much more complex and even more controversial one. And nobody who would make this series is dumb enough to put a girl lying about rape into it.
Overall: This is dark and hard to watch, but fascinating. It skirts the edge of a misery parade for multiple characters, but if you like teen drama, it's probably for you. HELLA TRIGGER WARNING.
SPOILER WARNING
I understand the thematic reasons for making 13 episodes, but stretching each of them out to 50-55 minutes was probably a mistake. We see basically the same scenes of Clay's parents trying to get him to talk to them, Clay being pissy at Tony, and Hannah's parents mourning over and over again. This series is on Netflix and obviously intended to be binge-watched; we don't need to see the same scenes repeatedly to remind us of things.
I appreciate that they give a lot of indicators of what's a flashback and what's the present time (including both cinematic indicators like the different filters, and character cues like the bandage on Clay's forehead and Hannah's mom's hairdo), because otherwise it would be really hard to keep track.
The “adults are useless” trope is out in full force. The Principal and Counselor are clearly lawsuit-fearing, incompetent chowderheads. (The fact that Porter has no training as a counselor and manages to say all of the wrong things to Hannah when she finally comes to him is an indication that he should have been fired before the series events even began.) The fact that Clay's parents don't steal and listen to one of the tapes within the first three days of Clay listening to them obsessively but refusing to talk about anything seriously strains my suspension of disbelief. Maybe I'm just working off an old “helicopter parent” script, but the idea that they would put in such obvious time and rebuffed effort and not do at least a little snooping is hard to believe. Especially after the disappearing, drug bust, and getting beaten up.
On a related note, I do not understand how Clay's mom representing the school isn't a conflict of interest. Even if Clay never knew Hannah and was completely unconnected to the case, he still attends that school. Why would her firm be so stupid to assign her? If the school loses the case—and it seems they're likely to, because they're grossly incompetent—what stops them from turning around and blaming her lack of impartiality?
I have no problem with the teenagers' actions, mind you. Teenagers doing stupid things out of fear, carelessness, uncontrollable emotions or just general ignorance? That's realistic. Courtney and Marcus do terrible things to cover up relatively small involvements in the events on the tapes, but I remember being 15 and it feeling like something I realize is unimportant now would be the most important and terrible event of my life.
And, of course, no matter how realistic the high school experience presented is, it certainly wasn't the one I had: Alcohol flows pretty freely; the characters who aren't sexually active appear to be the weirdos and outliers; Hannah bounces through a dozen different social circles that somehow all seem to overlap. Granted, I grew up in New York and live in New Jersey, but the easy access to guns in the later episodes is staggering.
I didn't realize it was Jeff, but I caught the early line about, “losing two students this month” and knew that someone else's death would be popping up on a later tape. Which also helps explain exactly how messed-up Clay is: He'd had previous psychological issues (at the very least, nightmares he'd been medicated and received talk therapy for), then a friend dies, then the girl he had a crush on inexplicably rejected him and then killed herself. It's totally believable that by halfway through the series he's fucking hallucinating!
When Clay calls Tony “unhelpful Yoda,” I think that also sums up my opinion of the character. Yes, they try to present a good explanation of someone who thinks he's doing the right thing and honoring Hannah's wishes, but especially with Clay (who is clearly going through serious psychological distress from the tapes), maybe a little bit of warning and clarification could be helpful?
I was surprised, in retrospect, at how pat the ending is and how little twist there is to it. It's made clear in the very first episode that Hannah is a puppetmaster on the levels of David Xanatos. She plays Justin like a goddamn fiddle. (Which should be your first important warning that there's some unreliable narrator going on here.) Then I think the note to Zach is the first hard evidence we get that Hannah isn't necessarily telling the whole truth. But nothing really comes of that: The audience and the majority of the characters are lead to accept Hannah's version of things (mixed with Clay's recollections) as gospel. I suppose there are inconsistencies in the stories that can be chalked up to the vagueness of memory or word choices intended to evoke emotion (Hannah is apparently an accomplished poet), but the signs are there that she included at least one major lie to manipulate Clay/Tony/etc, and that never gets paid off.*
The thing is, this story is a suicide revenge fantasy (“when I'm gone, they'll all be sorry”) mixed with a polemic about how bullying is bad and high school is hell. Hannah's skills as a manipulator drive the series (via the tapes) but not her actions during most of the flashbacks.
And I think it says something important when Clay and Tony both go “off script” at the end and start doing things they aren't supposed to by Hannah's rules. Which might well have been her original intent, but at least reminds us that, whether or not Hannah has gotten revenge or justice, she's still dead, and there's nothing she can do any more.
* I suppose it's a workable theory that Bryce didn't actually rape Hannah in the way presented, but she put it on the tapes that way to cast him as more of a villain and provide solidarity/ammunition for Jessica. But that's trickier storytelling and breaks the moral center of the show that the creators were trying to present—and the clear-cut “reason” that audiences will accept for why Hannah killed herself. Despite the realism of a “death of a thousand cuts” depression and suicide, audiences want a clear triggering event and a pure-evil villain. If Hannah, already in the depths of despair, had consensual sex with Bryce out of an attempt to feel something, but then lied on the tapes, it's arguably a better story but a much more complex and even more controversial one. And nobody who would make this series is dumb enough to put a girl lying about rape into it.
Overall: This is dark and hard to watch, but fascinating. It skirts the edge of a misery parade for multiple characters, but if you like teen drama, it's probably for you. HELLA TRIGGER WARNING.
no subject
Date: 2017-05-02 03:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-05-02 03:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-05-02 03:12 pm (UTC)But really, this isn't aimed at seriously depressed/actively suicidal teenagers. I think it's aimed at people who don't know what suicidal depression looks like, and teenagers who are doing okay but whose friends/classmates aren't.