FUCK HANNAH BAKER!!!

Hannah Baker, 13 Reasons why, Netflix

Everyone makes that joke about 13 Reasons Why being our own 13th reason, but I'll be honest: my first time getting a finger shoved up my ass by my doctor is probably the thing that'll bring me closest to the warm blanket of self immolation. It was in a bar and he wasn't my Doctor but apparently he's a literary scholar.

The show is just dogshit, which is fine. I am in the midst of watching Euphoria religiously, so bad shows are not the issue. The problem lies in thinking it's important. With the way it desperately clings to any sort of dark subject matter throughout the show while also not understanding how to treat them is just insulting. 

Selena Gomez created such a mean-spirited show that beats you over the head with how morally righteous it is, without seeing that it's more of a problem than a solution.

I was in middle school when 13 Reasons Why started coming out. I'll promise one thing and one thing only: After it came out, there were 20 girls who I now knew, without a doubt, had a Tumblr. 

During that fad, I remember this one girl who, during the 5 minute passing periods between classes, would watch the show sitting down in front of her locker. That has to be possibly the worst way to watch anything, it was a purely performative “Look I'm watching the important show adults watch.” Not realizing that she was already the primary audience.

That seemingly tangentially related anecdote is pretty crucial. The show is doing the same thing. It's pretending to be an important show and doesn't realize it's for actual stupid people (kids). 

Selena Gomez, your solution of stopping suicide, which is essentially just babying people you suspect to be sad and definitely making them feel like a burden, yeah that, it sucks. 

Ladies and Gentlemen, I propose a real solution to suicide, and it doesn't take 4 seasons and a feature length series finale. 

Suicide is gay. If you're in a relatively normal state of mind at the moment, imagine sitting on your bed saying that gay shit to yourself “uhhhrmm everybody hates me errrrrm!” And you're like crying and shit, y'know, all gay-like and you're sitting on your bed thinking about how you let some random dude at a bar finger you just because he had a PhD. God damn it.

Anyway, the show gives wrong lessons while pretending it's better than you for coming up with them. It also doesn't realize that it is genuinely portraying harmful stereotypes. Almost every gay character in the show is just like, an asshole or a piece of shit. 

I'm aware that gay attitude is real but holy shit it's actually a constant in this show. I'm also aware the show does try to portray everyone as a complicated bad person, but with the gay folk, Ryan or Monty, for example, their gayness is usually deeply rooted in the terrible things they do.

It seems like, I can depend on this show for passive homophobia more than I can depend on it for actually being good! And for a show that thinks it's hip with the movements, that's surprising.

I'm gonna defend gay people for a second, this idea that gay people do bad things because they're gay, is generally not true. I've had enemies with gay folk, I've met really mean gay dudes, but I'll promise this: Them suckin’ themselves off in their bathroom is not why I made enemies. If a straight fella did it I would be just as much of an enemy. Maybe with like, 4 less insults but enemies nonetheless, but not even, if you really think about it.

I'm using their weird issues with gay people as an example to paint a picture. All of the show comes from this false “understanding” of these issues that they're trying to solve, but the solutions ultimately come down to the things people have always said. “Smile more.” “Don't sigma.” “Be nice.”

If that shit worked I wouldn't have felt the need to get fingered at a bar by some dude. I would've been content with who I am.

Hannah Baker is not a nice person. If I was in school and I was assigned to make a project with Hannah Baker, I would take the teacher aside and plead. The show is trying to have nuance to make sure Hannah isn't just some perfect lady who got pushed to suicide, so they made her genuinely unlikable.

I can't think of one scene in that original season where Hannah didn't find the worst route to take in the conversation. Clay is a twink simp so he's just taking the beating like “Haha Hannah…” but it's like, dude, she's actually bullying you.

In season two they kind of hint at this idea but it gets tossed aside pretty quickly, since they made Hannah such an asshole in season one they had to backtrack and give us good stories of her.

She was a bully, and rude, and it's not like she's a bad person, but since we have simp Clay being the force that keeps moving through the story, it's all in this weird lense of “I don't care that Hannah banged a bunch of dudes while leading me on, she loved me!” The show doesn't actually address Clay being a simp, but after learning about Hannah's multiple secret boyfriends, he did get schizophrenia. Sick.

It's just a bunch of moving parts here that I will have to cover in the MONTHLY UPDATE!

3/13.

-Bryan