I want you to undertand something. I hated the 1st season of 13rw, I really did. I thought it didn’t show properly a depressed person and instead glamorized suicide and a relationship that wasn’t even a real thing, Hannah put the blame on this peaople and iy wasn’t even acknowlegded cause “Clay loved her.” HOWEVER. The second season is amazing.It fixes all of these problems, and i’ll tell you why this problematic series deserves the fame it got. With spoilers, so watch out.
Hannah gets called out by a lot of people that cared about her and how fucked up the whole situation was. It demostrates that this is just plain mean, and she did it for revenge, and no matter what these kids did to her, pointing someone after you KILLED yourself is something a toxic person would do. Hannah wasn’t perfect, what she did its not something to romanticize.
How Slut shaming was the THEME in this season- Now hear me out, I’m a feminist, and I cannot stress enough how fucking amazing was to see Hannah be a sexually active girl, everyone calling her out on it, even Clay (his supposed love, we’ll get to that later), and fucking JUSTIN giving us a lesson on slut shaming. It was powerfull. We never get that in a show, its only girls doing it. And the fact that a fuckboy can understand that better than boy-next-door-Clay made me feel better about the whole thing. Because:
Everyone is problematic, ALWAYS. It was shown every episode with Hannah being on trial, and new things coming up every day. Does it mean she deserved to be dead, after what she did? She was kind, and funny, and she bullied a girl for a year so bad she had to drop out. She did drugs, and got drunk, and had sex, and kissed a couple of people. Nobody has a clean record, like Clay liked to think. Which again takes me too:
The protagonist is problematic himself. Clay spent the whole series believing he was the only saviour, her only friend. Then gets upset when theres things she didn’t tell him. He slut shamed her, was jelous all the time, fucked up a lot because of his emotions, got himself in a relationship with an mentally ill girl when he was inestable himself. BUT IT WAS SHOWN IN THE SERIES. WE’RE SUPPOSED TO LIKE HIM, the show makes it that way, BUT EVERYONE IS ALWAYS POINTING OUT THE FUCKED UP THINGS CLAY SAYS OR DOES. And im here for it, because no one is perfect, and we can learn.
How the show managed the rape situation. Many people are saying they were triggered, and its understandable (even tho the show did a good job of putting trigger warning when they were needed). I believe we need shows like this, that show how horrible rape can be. The scene with Tyler shocked me, as much as the next person, obviously. But it was needed. Boys get raped too. The scene at the court, with all the women talking about sexual assautl WAS POWERFULL. Every girl I’ve met has a story, some a worse, somethey call nothing. IT WAS NEEDED. Especially right now with the times uo movement taking place.
We need to talk about skin color and how it was dealt with. I don’t like Selena Gomez, she has proved she is a little sexist, and said something about BLM not being of importance. And while the racial situation could have been showed better, the show did a good job. Jessica straightening her hair and having people come up to her saying how pretty she looked like that is a thing many girls understand. When you have your natural hair out, people call you unprofessional, or messy. And you straighten your hair on important ocassiones so they think you “put on a little effort.” Not only that, but Jessica pointing out Hannah was white hence why the would belive her more than her, and the instantly saying they could get Justin instead is a callout to the US law. They won’t believe a black girl when she says a white boy raped her, and that’s just facts.
The Privilege of the White Rich Boy. Fuck Bryce, and how he gets way with it. BuT AGAIN, IT WAS NEEDED. To show what happens in real life, girls get raped and boys walk out with a slap in their hand, because “it ruined their future”. Oh, and Justin? hE’S POOR HENCE HE GETS MORE TIME BECAUSE THE LAW DOESNT WORK IF YOURE NOT RICH AND WHITE, THATS HOT THIS SHIT WORKS. And it was awesome they did it on the show.
Diversity, man. In most shows, it feels like they put the token black, asian, latino friend. In here, it works so flawlessly you dont even question it. They don’t have dramas about their skin that so many white people like to put on shows and that aren’t real, just plain unnecesary. Everyone plays their role good. Their sexualities aren’t a thing unless they need to be, like they are in real life. Also, Im lookin for Bisexual Panic!Alex next season, and this time it doesnt even feel like queerbait, it feels like its just there.
The crude, raw, scenes. This show has its good amount of them. And you like to call them problematic. It is. Have you ever heard of the book Marques de Sade wrote? The word Sadism was invented because of him, that’s how fucked up he was. You read the manuscript and you don’t go in thinking “yes, this is the way people should behave.” you read it and youre disgusted the whole way down, and THATS how problematic works are done. You pick a theme, and you show it and people are supposed to understand that whatever is happening is WRONG, so if people decide to romanticize the actions in the series, that is their problem. We are supposed to see Suicide isn’t pretty, its sad, and angry, and messy. And rapes need to be shown, the victims and how they act on it, because unless you are sexually assaulted you never understand how they feels. And as human, we need to see this shit, because it happens everyday, we need to be able to understand the aftermath (with Tyler) and how it would probably not go away for a while (Tina and Jessica) because these conversations need to start. And if we’re not able to stand a show where its barely showed, how do you think rape victims feel?