“THIRTEEN REASONS WHy” and the “GOOD STORY PROBLEM”

Art, Capitalism, and Story Structure

First, a disclaimer, or perhaps a statement of intent: to consider works of popular fiction, we must do so through the lens that these are products just as much as they are artistic vision. After all, such is the reality of living under a capitalist society. For a television show or movie to appear on your screen, it does so based on the assumption by its financiers of its ability to make a profit. This is a simple fact of life; it is also one that is fundamentally at odds with the principles of artistic expression — especially in mediums as mass market as TV shows and movies. To produce a story at a major studio is also to make concessions in order to ensure the greatest possible audience. 

What this means practically is that one can find certain structural elements that a majority of mainstream cinematic mediums abide by. Much of these ideas can be traced back to Syd Field’s Screenplay: The Foundations of Scriptwriting, a book considered formative in Hollywood’s widespread adoption of the Three-Act structure. Field’s Three Act Structure consists first of a first act set-up, which “establishes character, launches the dramatic premise” and “illustrates the situation”, followed by a second act of confrontation, where “the main character encounters obstacle after obstacle that keeps him/her from achieving his/her dramatic need”, and ending with a third act that is “the unit of action that resolves the story.” (Field 21-26)  On its face, it’s easy to see why this structure is useful —the building tension keeps the audience’s engagement, up to a cathartic release/ending that often satisfyingly resolves the central point of conflict one way or another. 

There is an argument that the Hollywood structure emerges from a certain universality of storytelling — Field, for example, cites Aristotle’s “three unities of dramatic action”: time, place, and action. We might see something similar in Freytag’s Pyramid, which charts a story as a function of tension — a series of escalating actions leading up to a central climax. Likewise, this structure bears similarities to Joseph Campbell’s theory of the monomyth or “Hero’s Journey”: a call to adventure, several increasing challenges that lead to an “innermost cave”, and a return after being transformed. Some, like Christopher Vogler, have argued that the three-act structure emerges out the “universal elements” of the Campbellic monomyth. As Vogler claims in The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers: “All stories consist of a few common structural elements found universal in myths, fairy tales, dreams, and more.” (Vogler 12)

However, this argument for the presence of universal structural elements in storytelling is one that remains firmly rooted in a Western-centric, deeply individualistic perspective of the world. Matthew Salesses notes in Craft in the Real World that central to the Western model of storytelling is the notion that stories are organized as “a string of causation in which the protagonist’s desires move the plot forward”, which “can often be boiled down to A wants B and C gets in the way of it.” But as Salesses writes, story structure can often differ wildly in Eastern cultures — he cites, for example, the “kishotenketsu” structure, where “the twist is not confrontation but surprise, something that reconfigures what its audience thinks the story is “about.” (Salesses 28) There are no universal structures within storytelling, Salesses says; there are only expectations. 

Yet for the purpose of this essay, what is important is the fact that the highly structured format is one that Western audiences have come to expect— and, as a result, it is one few works outside of more niche, experimental ones stray from. But the need for this standardized structure (and narrative functions that its elements serve) in the typical Hollywood story structure comes at odds with accurately portraying the reality of adolescent depression. Within subject matter as sensitive and fraught as mental illness, the clash between creating a marketable product and the need for ethical representation can have disastrous consequences. And nowhere is this more clear than in Thirteen Reasons Why. 

Thirteen Reasons Why and the Fallacy of Narrative

The first season of the Netflix original series, based on the novel of the same name by Jay Asher, centers around the suicide of high school student Hannah Baker, who, before her death, recorded thirteen tapes that detail the reasons why she chose to take her life. And from a purely dramatic standpoint, the premise is an intriguing one. According to Sandra de Castro Buffington, the director of Hollywood, Health, and Desire Program, the large amounts of conflict present within mental health narratives is one reason why these kinds of stories are interesting to so many — as Syd Field writes, “All drama is conflict.”

 We see the story through the eyes of Hannah’s classmate Clay Jensen as he digs through the tapes and subsequent web of events that surrounded Hannah’s life in her final days. The show, in essence, functions almost like a kind of reverse murder mystery: Who killed Hannah Baker? Was it Justin Foley, the fling who spread inappropriate photos of her? Was it Clay, the quiet, well-meaning protagonist who still inadvertently hurt her? Was it Bryce Walker, the rich football player who raped her? 

This structure has two functions: first, the way the series spaces out each tape over the course of the season unfolds its central mystery slowly, encouraging its audience to continue watching each subsequent episode. It is highly engaging, bingeable— an aspect highly prized for a company whose business model depends on keeping viewers watching for extended periods of time. 

But this organization also provides a clear, linear path through Hannah’s downfall for the audience to follow. Though the story is told as a series of flashbacks, it’s quite easy to map her story upon the traditional three-act structure — Hannah’s story begins with her having just moved to the town; her desire is much the same as any other newcomer: to fit in and find a sense of belonging. But a series of incidents derails this desire, which steadily increase in their intensity, first beginning with rumors that destroy her friendship with new friend Jessica, then escalating to events like inadvertently causing the death of fellow classmate and a graphic depiction of sexual assault. As the pressure and pain builds to its climax, Hannah takes her own life. 

But the issue with this structure, however, according to the National Association of School Psychologists, is that it is an inaccurate reflection of the typical causes of suicide. In an article released soon after the show’s release, the organization stated that “the series does not emphasize that common among most suicide deaths is the presence of treatable mental illnesses. Suicide is not the simple consequence of stressors or coping challenges, but rather, it is most typically a combined result of treatable mental illnesses and overwhelming or intolerable stressors.” Framing suicidal ideation entirely as a result of interpersonal conflict, mental health advocate Mark Henick writes, may make for a simple and easy-to-follow story, but “putting it in the context of Hollywood plot line,” he writes, “is rarely, if ever, the way that suicides really happen.”

Here, we see the conflict between the conventions of mass-market storytelling and the reality of portraying adolescent mental illness: absent from the show’s portrayal of a person’s life leading up their suicide is any real mention of depression, anxiety, or any one of the mental illnesses that are associated with the overwhelming majority of suicide attempts. Hannah at times exhibits depression-like symptoms, but the story frames her death entirely as caused by the cruelty of others.  It is a simple explanation, one that fulfills our desire for a clear resolution within stories, neatly divided into thirteen cassette tapes for those Hannah has left behind to listen to. But causes for depression and suicide are not simple; it is an irrational act, with risk factors that include the presence of other mental health conditions, social environment, financial state, race, and family history. The story of a person’s depression cannot be easily categorized into a fixed, linear structure because depression is not a linear disease. Those suffering from clinical depression often experience peaks and valleys with the severity of their condition; others experience it seasonally or as a temporary response to stressful periods. In simplifying the narrative in this way, Thirteen Reasons Why minimizes the lived experience of those that suffer from depression and suicidal ideation. As crisis hotline worker and video essayist Tim Hickson puts it, “The climax is the highest point of tension in the story, so we might think to use the worst suicidal episode a character has ever had…the reality is that the worst suicidal episode someone has is almost definitely in the middle of their mental illness, not the end.”

Likewise, the recontextualizing the irrationality of suicide into a logical, linear plotline also makes Hannah’s decision seem like the only real choice. Throughout the course of the season, we see the reasons pile up, until at last Hannah goes to see the school’s guidance counselor, Mr. Porter, in one last-ditch attempt to find a reason to keep going. But Mr. Porter dismisses her concerns, even insinuating that her sexual assault was her own fault. To Hannah, (and the viewer), the message is clear: she has nowhere left to turn. Suicide is the only option. 

It goes without saying, of course, that this isn’t true. Yet the show presents Hannah’s perspective (though the frame narrative is of Clay listening to the tapes, the tapes themselves are narrated by Hannah in the first person) without any sense of alternative perspective. We are meant to feel her pain, to understand her reasoning. The show’s narrative structure is designed entirely around Hannah giving her reasons for suicide — the title of the show is Thirteen Reasons Why, after all. There is no counter argument here, no alternative option. Mike Cadden writes of this dynamic in his article “The Irony of Narration in the Young Adult Novel.” The use of first-person, Cadden writes, makes it easy to “intentionally communicate to the individual reader a single and limited awareness of the world that the novelist knows to be incomplete and insufficient” — in this case, the view of suicide as a reasonable remedy to Hannah’s problems. Of course, representation does not equal endorsement, but there is an inherent irony in the voice of an adult masquerading as the voice of an adolescent — the writer possesses some measure of authority over the adolescent viewer by virtue of the fact that they are often much older, by the fact that their work is professional and published and sold as a product. Without an alternative perspective, Cadden argues that the prevailing narrative becomes “dominant and didactic.” For adolescent viewers — many of whom may be suicidal themselves and be more susceptible to agreeing with Hannah’s perspective— to push back on Hannah’s argument for suicide when the narrative itself is designed around validating it makes Thirteen Reasons Why seem like the opposite of an anti-suicide narrative.

Suicide and Sensationalism

But above all, there is one scene for which Thirteen Reasons Why has become infamous. It occurs midway through the season’s final episode. In it, Hannah Baker takes her life. In the interest of safety, I will refrain from describing the scene in detail; what is important to note is how visceral, detailed, and extended the scene is. The scene plays out the step-by step process of Hannah committing suicide in full detail; the camera lingers on the gruesome images so long it almost comes across as self-indulgent. 

There are no real plot-related reasons why this scene exists — the series itself is predicated on the fact that Hannah Baker has already died by suicide. The method of doing so is irrelevant; what is important is the fact that she has killed herself. Nor is there a reason for the scene to be so detailed, so lengthy — perhaps that morbid side of our brain is curious about the method used, but that still doesn’t explain how horrifically graphic the scene is. A single shot of razor blade would convey the same information to the audience. The reason why the scene exists, therefore, is simple: to be shocking, cinematic, entertaining. After all, that is the function of a television show above all else: to be a good story. 

But as as Brit Trogen writes in The Atlantic: 

“One complicating factor when it comes to creating art about suicide is the fact that many of the features that make for a ‘good story’ are also those known to contribute to suicidal behaviors: heightened emotions, heroic or sentimental portrayals of suicidal characters, and, above all, depiction of the suicide itself.” 

 In a statement defending the scene, series showrunner Brian Yorkey said,

“Our creative intent in portraying the ugly, painful reality of suicide in such graphic detail in season one was to tell the truth about the horror of such an act and make sure no one would ever wish to emulate it.”

Yet this excuse conveys at best a deeply uninformed notion of the social nature of suicide and at worst a willful ignorance of potential harm in the service of peddling made-for-sharing shock value to a young, social-media savvy audience. 

Suicide is socially contagious. And vast amounts of research has shown that graphic depictions of suicide heightens this effect. So it’s no surprise, then, that after the release of Thirteen Reasons Why, there was a corresponding increase in suicidal ideation among adolescents. Experts have also worried about the possibility of the show catering to the “revenge fantasy” of suicide — that the the show might further encourage the idea that taking one’s own life (and blaming those perceived to have hurt them) will give some sort of retribution. Netflix added graphic content warnings to the show and included a suicide prevention PSA in text at the end of the series. But against the way the series brings us inside the mind of a person considering suicide (and the way the story fails to push back on the reasoning behind Hannah taking her own life), these warnings seem like little more than a weak, legal liability-clearing afterthought. 

And the powers that be at Netflix were indeed well aware of the possible negative effects of the suicide scene — and the show as a whole. Dan Reidenberg, a pyschologist and director of Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, claimed that he was consulted by Netflix on the show and told them to not release the series due to its potential for harm, in particular singling out the scene as a potential catalyst. The company released it anyway. 

Did Netflix choose to include the scene out of some principle of commitment to Yorkey’s artistic vision? It’s possible, certainly. But consider the value of publicity in the highly competitive streaming landscape. Would Thirteen Reasons Why would have garnered as much public interest — and therefore views — without the highly controversial suicide scene? It’s impossible to know whether or not this was the kind of calculation those in charge of the show were making. But as the PR adage goes: there’s no such thing as bad publicity. And so, after years of public criticism, Netflix finally removed the scene in 2019, far after the controversy (and public attention that followed) had faded. 

But later seasons of the show support the notion that Thirteen Reasons Why includes reckless depictions of sensitive subject matter simply to provoke its audience, to generate viewers interested in the controversy. The first season of the show follows the plot of the novel to its conclusion; the three subsequent seasons shift the focus to exploring the lives of many of the characters from Hannah’s tapes in Season 1. Asher’s original novel is a standalone and the original novel is a completed story which involves the death of its most important character — the existence of the later seasons of Thirteen Reasons Why, therefore, exist solely in an attempt to continue to profit off the original series’s popularity. 

These later seasons continue to depict hot-button societal issues. There is a graphic rape scene. Multiple seasons involve active shooter situations. One undocumented character has his entire family deported by ICE. Yet there is no attempt by the show to explore these issues beyond showing how traumatizing they are — indeed, the visceral depictions of drew more controversy for how triggering they may be to survivors of sexual assault. 

The deportation scene in Season 3, for example, comes not as an attempt to explore the injustices of being undocumented, but as a result of a personal conflict between characters — the family is reported by Bryce Walker’s parents as payback for the son Tony’s role in getting Bryce tried for sexual assault. Instead, the topics that the show claims to explore are used simply for their dramatic value, to use the issue du jour (suicide, mass shootings, and even AIDS) as a way to heighten the stakes of the story and attract more viewers through the show’s supposed social relevance. The presence of these misrepresentations retroactively makes the first season all the more insincere; what may have seemed originally like a misguided but potentially genuine attempt to explore adolescent mental health now is just another storyline within a standard teenage drama. Over and over again, Thirteen Reasons Why shows its willingness to forgo ethical representations of sensitive topics in search of viewership. For Netflix, it’s shock and awe over all else.

Read the next essay here: “The Profound Hollowness of Dear Evan Hansen"