I binged watched 13 Reasons Why in a weekend because I suppose the large amounts of Thai food eaten at that time lowered my testosterone via unusually high levels of soy to my diet.
I learned three things from that show:
1. No one cares if a nice, popular jock who goes out of his way to protect and build people up dies in a car crash.
2. The suicide of a girl who killed herself because she was voted "Best Butt" and chose to torture a poor, hopelessly in love beta is so tragic that it warrants lawsuits against every entity in which she was a part.
3. It's only not rape if you are given a notarized consent form prior, maintain a constant reaffirmation that "is this okay?" during, another notarized form the day after declaring that she has no immediate regrets, and lastly, another notarized form no earlier than one month after to allow sufficient time be given to consult with her girlies to confirm that the guy is not, in fact, a loser and therefore not a rapist.
Overall, 1/10. Could have received 3/10 if Clay wasn't the prettiest character (Hannah was pretty but others were almost distractingly ugly) and if the basketball star with the schollie didn't play like he was the MVP of the Special Olympics. That said, I watched it like an addiction and spent another afternoon reading about the show. I was part of the problem. To my slight shame.
On a more serious note, while the series attempts to shine a light on the unknown "hardships" that teen girls (and I'm genuinely not viewing this through a gender-based prism, the boys' issues -- drug dependency, poverty, parental neglect and abuse, their own suicidal thoughts -- are absolutely ignored) endure throughout their schooling in hopes of exposing teachers, admins, and parents to the ugly world of clandestine, subtle school-based bullying to prevent children from taking such drastic measures in the future, the exact opposite has happened. The National Association of School Psychologists issued nationwide guidelines and talking points to teachers for classroom discussion in order to PREVENT others from copying the actions portrayed in the series because many students have interepreted the events as a glorification of suicide.
I learned three things from that show:
1. No one cares if a nice, popular jock who goes out of his way to protect and build people up dies in a car crash.
2. The suicide of a girl who killed herself because she was voted "Best Butt" and chose to torture a poor, hopelessly in love beta is so tragic that it warrants lawsuits against every entity in which she was a part.
3. It's only not rape if you are given a notarized consent form prior, maintain a constant reaffirmation that "is this okay?" during, another notarized form the day after declaring that she has no immediate regrets, and lastly, another notarized form no earlier than one month after to allow sufficient time be given to consult with her girlies to confirm that the guy is not, in fact, a loser and therefore not a rapist.
Overall, 1/10. Could have received 3/10 if Clay wasn't the prettiest character (Hannah was pretty but others were almost distractingly ugly) and if the basketball star with the schollie didn't play like he was the MVP of the Special Olympics. That said, I watched it like an addiction and spent another afternoon reading about the show. I was part of the problem. To my slight shame.
On a more serious note, while the series attempts to shine a light on the unknown "hardships" that teen girls (and I'm genuinely not viewing this through a gender-based prism, the boys' issues -- drug dependency, poverty, parental neglect and abuse, their own suicidal thoughts -- are absolutely ignored) endure throughout their schooling in hopes of exposing teachers, admins, and parents to the ugly world of clandestine, subtle school-based bullying to prevent children from taking such drastic measures in the future, the exact opposite has happened. The National Association of School Psychologists issued nationwide guidelines and talking points to teachers for classroom discussion in order to PREVENT others from copying the actions portrayed in the series because many students have interepreted the events as a glorification of suicide.