Mr Potter : “How Did you get these tapes?”
Clay Jensen: “Because I’m number 11.”
Netflix’s latest TV series “13 Reasons Why” has been discussed among all movie lovers for the past couple of weeks. Knowing that another Netflix’s series “Stranger Things” did not fail me, I intended to watch this one as well, naturally.
After being absorbed in a distraught family drama called “Shameless USA” (7 seasons), I finally got my hand on these ‘high school type drama’. Most of my friends said that this has a very emotional message, which is something that I always like from a movie.
‘13 Reasons Why’ took us to a dead-girl, Hannah Baker. A seventeen years old girl who killed herself and left something after she died. Just before she slashed her own wrist, Hannah made thirteen tapes (recorded tapes, like the old ones) to tell people the reasons why she decided to end her own life.
As it’s title, the series consists of 13 episodes, where each episode is revealing one tape at a time. When I started to watch it, I could not help to notice that it was probably just another teen movie, with a bunch of showing-too-many-skin-cheerleaders and a pack of school athletes showing their muscles. The pace of story that was pretty slow for the first five episodes (5, people!) made it worse. Then I was wrong.
“13 Reasons Why” might seem to be just-another-boring-but-with-many-beautiful-faces teen drama, but the message is extremely powerful. Things were revealed layer by layer per episode. My emotion was critically fluctuated, especially after the 9th episode. This is an absolutely mind blowing young adult movies/TV Series.
Okay, I will tell you what the main idea is.
One word.
BULLYING.
One word that everyone knows but rarely aware. Hannah Baker is a high school teenager girl who tried so hard to fit in everyday and failed. She got bullied because of one person. An inappropriate picture of her was spreading throughout the school and not so long after that, almost every guy in the school called her slut and treated her unrespect fully.
Hannah might be you or I. Just someone who is trapped in a bad situation. She was smart, yet she did not have friends to be with. Friends to spill secrets with and to share everything with. She did okay in the beginning but somehow lost track somewhere along the way. She tried very hard to fix everything but people called her ‘drama queen’ instead (including me at the first episode, hiks hiks).
I remember that almost in every class I teach, there usually one or two students that seemed to be lost. They sat in front of me, listened to whatever shit I delivered, and somehow I know that their minds were not even there with me.
Through many stories from my students, I learned that being an adolescent is rough. They live complicated life. Their parents’ demands, society’s demands and school demands. Countless teenagers and young adults (age 13-22 years old) confessed that they did not like what they had in life. They hated their parents for always insisting them to do something. They detested school’s regulations and education system that most of the time is not really helping them.
And having friends are not as easy as it may seem. Tell me about it. Even at this age I am still trying to figure out what to do and how to react to my friends, sometimes. Humans are complicated, the relationship is even more.
Overall, “13 Reasons Why” is a kind of series you need to watch if you really want to understand how teenagers face their life every day. The series depicted the life of American high schoolers, yet, the message is similar. It could happen to anyone, any teenager on earth, whatever language and culture they have.
Watch it.
Be good to other people.
That’s it.
Irma Susanti Irsyadi 