1–it’s the usual snarky dialogue that is spoken by 40-yr-olds, not kids. If students had this much knowledge of thing to be snarky, I would drive fast to school and up the cynicism levels to 11 (a reference that everyone in 13 Reasons Why would understand, but not any of my students).
2–it’s too pretty. Yes, the lead kid has a scar, and people get beat up and raped here and there, but can somebody have some acne? Even the wrong side of the town is pretty nice.
3–the actors are ancient. This is just one reason why they don’t need Clearasil. The one kid who looked young actually was 19. The other sophomores and up were 20 and up. Guess they got held back in snark class.
4–it’s 11 hours plus. Granted, the time element gives it more validity than an Afterschool Special, but that’s a lot of time for the payoff.
5–it’s a rainbow of colors. There are some black folk, home Hispanic folk, and an Asian is the star basketball player. Only one Jeremy Lin, people. If you’re going to include everyone, then the Indians, Native-Americans, Eskimos, Filipinos, Sri Lankans . . . you get the picture.
6–you will get really tired of characters being told they have to “listen to the tapes.” Even though everyone except TWO people have.
7–you will get a false sense of hope for music. Did you know that Hispanic disc jockeys in this town spin Lord Huron for their slow dances? Well, they do. My students listen to rap and EDM.
8–you will get a false sense of hope for work ethic. The two leads both work in a movie theater.
9–it’s too tame. For a show that revolves around high school–and, in this case, the David Lynch clean version of its seedy underbelly–kids have parents and cars and live in houses. They do cuss a lot, and there is the raping and hitting of people, but then they get in their cars and go back to their houses.
10–these kids know stuff. There’s even a Bukowski reference.
11–it’s cute how all the disparate kids mix together, but disparate kids don’t mix together. I get it–the dead girl brings them together, but that wouldn’t last long in real life. Stoners don’t hang out with hipsters, unless they’re stoners, which they’re not. Kids trying in school and going to Harvard don’t hang out with jocks. Come on. Go to any school during lunch and look around.
12–parents have no clue. Hey, folks, when your kid shrugs, or gives you the big eyes, and says it’s not a big deal, it’s a big deal. Your kid suddenly starts listening to a Walkman? You better believe I’m going to know what’s playing on that sucker if that’s my kid.
13–it is predicated on the fact that most everyone knows what happened, are in a small enough town, and everyone keeps the secret. Really? There’s tapes of a dead girl giving her 13 reasons why, the male lead starts wearing headphones everywhere, and only his parents question him? It is assumed that 11 others heard the tapes before him. They’re cassettes. Didn’t that raise some eyebrows when a bunch of high school kids were listening to a cassette (and we already ruled out the mixtape of rap music, since the soundtrack is void of it). No parent, no counselor, no teacher, and not one student blew the whistle on this? Only one person can keep a secret, and that does not apply here.
But 13 Reasons Why, despite all of the above, does do a few things right. The best is something that Freaks and Geeks always did well, which is show how awful high school is. There’s the cliques, the awkward periods, the sexual tension, and those kids you remember from high school that you didn’t like very much. The dead girl is pretty, articulate, works, has parents, seems to get along with people of all shapes, sizes, and sexes, yet she kills herself. And she’s one of the likeable characters.
And, as a teacher, a parent, and a human being, even I often forget that students can be having a terrible time in life. High school isn’t always the best place to work things out when students are in a bad way. Our current principal used to talk about that fact during faculty meetings–that we have to be kinder because we don’t know how bad some of our students have it. We are old and understand things (kind of), but I have students who can’t navigate a grammar worksheet and don’t have the skills or life experience to defeat the adult world.
I will not be nicer in class–everyone gets the treatment–but I know my students can always come to me. Whether I help or not, I will be honest. And, to end with some snark, if they come to me I could play them some Lord Huron and the world will be better. Maybe I’ll have Kendall Jenner send over some Pepsi just in case.