When Netflix announced 13 Reasons Why, there was a collective hope that it might finally offer a raw and honest portrayal of adolescent girlhood, bullying, and sexual assault – topics often sanitized or misunderstood. Having read the book as a teenager and deeply resonating with Hannah’s feelings of isolation and suicidal thoughts, I yearned for this show to be the authentic reflection so many young girls desperately needed. The reality, however, was another disappointment. While much of the criticism surrounding 13 Reasons Why has focused on whether bullying alone causes suicide or deemed Hannah’s actions selfish, these points miss a more fundamental flaw. The real issue isn’t the plot mechanics of suicide and tapes, but rather the way the show constructs Hannah’s world and the characters within it. This ultimately fails teenage girls and squanders a crucial opportunity for genuine conversations about their mental wellbeing.
The ‘Perfect Outcast’: Hannah’s Unrealistic Portrayal
Hannah Baker, as presented in 13 Reasons Why, is not the ostracized, “weird” girl the narrative claims. She is depicted as possessing a conventional attractiveness, intelligence, and confidence that hardly aligns with the experience of genuine social outcasts. Hannah navigates high school with an ease that feels jarringly inauthentic. She’s shown wearing fashionable clothes, engaging in witty banter with the school jock, and receiving invitations to all the parties. This portrayal echoes the superficial “nerds” often seen in teen movies – characters whose supposed low social status is attributed to minor, easily rectified flaws like glasses or minimal makeup on otherwise flawless faces.
“As an autistic girl who was ‘weird’ in school and genuinely struggled with the rituals of adolescence, it stings to watch Hannah navigate it all with ease.”
While it’s undeniable that conventionally attractive girls can experience bullying, especially sexual harassment, 13 Reasons Why consistently employs the language of the “outcast,” the “loner,” the “weirdo” to describe Hannah. For viewers who genuinely were “weird” or “different” in school, who truly grappled with the complexities of adolescence, Hannah’s effortless navigation of social dynamics feels alienating. It reinforces a damaging message: even the most “unacceptable” girl mainstream media dares to portray is still impossibly out of reach for those who truly struggle to fit in.
The Madonna-Whore Complex: Purity vs. Impurity in Hannah’s Narrative
13 Reasons Why also perpetuates a thinly veiled misogyny by constantly contrasting Hannah with more conventionally accepted forms of femininity, particularly cheerleaders. The narrative consistently distances Hannah from cheerleaders, who are often depicted with misogynistic disdain. Sky’s sneer, “A cheerleader? I thought you were better than that,” when Clay is seen with Sheri, and Hannah’s barely concealed contempt when she reminds Jessica, “and then you became a cheerleader,” as if it were a betrayal, exemplify this. Furthermore, Jessica and Sheri, the two main cheerleaders, are black women. This casting choice is particularly troubling as black women’s bodies are already hypersexualized and rarely afforded agency. The repeated juxtaposition with Hannah’s pale, seemingly naive “purity” becomes especially jarring and problematic.
While the show offers lip service to the issue of victim-blaming, it’s overshadowed by a recurring message: Hannah’s youthful innocence is what makes the events that befall her particularly tragic and unacceptable. Our outrage at the upskirt photo and sex rumors spread by Justin Foley is heightened because Hannah’s sweet voice narrates the event as her first kiss. The photo of her kissing Courtney is presented as outrageous because it occurred during an innocent sleepover, both girls depicted as childlike in pale cotton bras, giggling innocently.
The list of “hot or not” names is unsettling, particularly Hannah’s “Best Ass” ranking, because we are led to believe no one has “touched that ass before.” This emphasis on Hannah’s purity is crucial to the show’s intended message and the devastating impact of Bryce’s assault – Hannah, we are told, did nothing “wrong.” But this begs a critical question: what if she had? Would the audience have the same level of sympathy if Hannah, like many real girls who experience sexual bullying or assault, had been sexually active? If she had been bisexual, had hooked up with multiple guys, been a cheerleader, gotten drunk, or used drugs?
The show provides a partial, disturbing answer when both Jessica and Hannah are raped by the same perpetrator. In stark contrast to Hannah, who retains control of her narrative even after death through the tapes, Jessica, the cheerleader (previously shown as sexually assertive, even provocative, as well as drunk and high), remains unaware of her own rape. Jessica spirals out of control, grappling with a trauma she cannot even identify. Hannah’s decision not to prevent Jessica’s rape or even inform her about it, instead choosing to reveal it publicly as collateral damage in her own story, is arguably one of the most unforgivable acts in the series. Yet, it is never acknowledged as such, further solidifying Jessica’s disposability and lack of agency compared to Hannah’s idealized victimhood. This implicit disdain for girls deemed less “pure” permeates the show. Even while condemning slut-shaming, Clay openly ogles the girl named “Best Lips” in the library, admiring her lip gloss application – a gesture clearly intended to differentiate her from Hannah’s supposed natural wholesomeness.
The Male Gaze and Hannah’s Lost Agency
This subtle yet pervasive misogyny is perhaps inevitable, given that the show’s storytelling is essentially the male gaze made literal. Hannah’s narrative unfolds entirely through the perspective of Clay Jensen, a character presented as impressively bland. Clay is portrayed as nerdy and socially awkward, while Hannah is beautiful and cool. He believes she would never date him, despite his “Nice Guy” persona, and instead projects judgment onto her sexual choices. This dynamic sets the stage for latent misogyny. However, Hannah’s death grants Clay’s gaze unprecedented control over how we experience her. Even flashbacks of Hannah when she was alive are filtered through Clay’s memory. His infatuated, soft-focus lens and his tendency to define Hannah in opposition to other girls are succinctly captured in a cliché scene where Clay discusses Hannah with Tyler, another self-proclaimed “lover” of Hannah. Tyler confirms the tired trope, “girls like that don’t go for guys like us,” and then contrasts Hannah with “other girls [who] pose when you put the camera on them… Hannah was just there.”
While the show commendably addresses the harm of overt, jock-like sexism, it struggles with more insidious forms – the ways in which seemingly less aggressive boys still “consume” girls. Ultimately, 13 Reasons Why becomes a show about consuming girls: their bodies, their beauty, their narratives, and their tragedies. Tyler and Clay’s quiet entitlement to observe and fantasize about Hannah’s body, Clay’s sense of ownership over Hannah and her story (listening to the tapes at his own pace and disregarding her explicit wishes), and his “revenge” being directed more at men who were romantically interested in Hannah than those who committed actual crimes, all point to this consumptive gaze. Zach, whose mistake is arguably the smallest but who dared to ask Hannah out, bears the brunt of Clay’s aggression. Clay assumes control of Hannah’s narrative, his reactions to her flashbacks dominating screen time and overshadowing her own story. His obsession with her perceived beauty and innocence replaces any sense of a genuine personality in the glimpses of her we see through his memory.
“Hannah’s character is prevented from ever developing a convincing identity free of Clay’s gaze”
The other male characters may have objectified Hannah as a “slut,” but the airy, manic-pixie-dream-girl nothingness that Clay and Tyler’s memories evoke is merely the other side of the same sexist coin. When Hannah briefly deviates from the charming, “not-like-the-other-girls” trope Clay has constructed for her by showing interest in a jock, Clay reacts with vicious slut-shaming. He, like the men who reduced her to “Best Ass In Class,” doesn’t want her to exist as a three-dimensional person. This sense of entitlement, romanticization, and possession felt by certain boys towards socially marginalized, mentally ill, or slightly unconventional girls will resonate painfully with many young women who have sought solace and friendship in kind, quiet boys only to have it cruelly withdrawn when they displayed agency or complexity. In 13 Reasons Why, this translates to Hannah’s character being literally unable to develop a convincing identity independent of Clay’s gaze. In real life, it compels vulnerable girls to shrink themselves to fit into the impossibly small boxes where men will still accept them.
Fleeting Glimmers of Realism: Missed Opportunities
Despite its flaws, 13 Reasons Why does manage to get some things right. It assigns a significant and lasting impact to slut-shaming and objectification, directly linking them to sexual assault – a positive and rarely seen portrayal. Even with the problematic dynamics of bullying and the wasted potential for mental health discussions, the depiction of a world collapsing under the weight of seemingly minor, insignificant actions is compelling. Many can relate to the struggle of articulating the cumulative effect of bullying, where isolated incidents seem trivial, but the larger, devastating story remains unspoken. 13 Reasons Why partially unravels the intricate webs of teenage social dynamics, illustrating the profound impact of these seemingly small, cumulative events.
The show also features a diverse cast, organically representing a range of ethnicities, sexualities, and family backgrounds, largely avoiding harmful stereotypes. However, this diversity primarily serves to highlight the blandness of the central narrative. Glimpses of more vibrant, underrepresented backstories are frustratingly pushed aside in favor of focusing on Clay’s tedious and uninteresting nuclear family life. A more impactful show could have explored Jessica’s narrative about her rape and its devastating public revelation, Justin’s impoverished upbringing and its influence on his relationship with Bryce, or Courtney’s internalized homophobia and fear of social ostracization due to her gay fathers. These brief glimpses into the lives of supporting characters hint at a diverse realism that the show barely scratches, leaving the audience ultimately unsatisfied.
Hannah Baker: A Constructed Character for Palatability
Ultimately, 13 Reasons Why appears to have been crafted to make its sensitive topics as accessible and palatable as possible. It seems designed for viewers with no personal experience with these issues, resulting in a failure to depict a complex reality. This approach produces Hannah Baker: a composite character, constructed for broad appeal rather than depth and authenticity.
My overriding feeling after watching the show was sadness. Teenage girls’ inner worlds are rarely taken seriously, and 13 Reasons Why presented itself as a rare opportunity to explore these worlds in all their messy complexity. It could have given voice to genuinely “weird” or “unattractive” girls, delved into the fraught dynamics of female friendship and sexuality, and fleshed out the hollow high school stereotypes of frigid geeks and promiscuous cheerleaders. This was a chance to portray teenage girls as dynamic, vibrant, multifaceted, and unapologetically real. Instead, in its attempt to appeal to a wider audience, 13 Reasons Why falls victim to the very misogyny it aims to critique. It devolves into the story of a dead girl told through the eyes of a dull boy, whose infatuation reduces her to a pretty, blank slate. It becomes, in the end, the story of a dead girl told through a dull boy.
