By Muhammad Faiz
“You do not know what goes on in anyones life but your own. And, when you mess with one part of a persons life, you are not messing with just that part. Unfortunately, you cannot be that precise and selective. When you mess with one part of a persons life, you are messing with their entire life. Everything affects everything. – Jay Asher, ‘Thirteen Reasons Why’
New critically acclaimed Netflixs television series, “13 Reasons Why ” is getting highly praised from both professional reviewers and the audiences. The series spurs from a live adaptation of a book with the same title, written by Jay Asher. With 90% approval rating from Rotten Tomatoes and 9.2 out of 10 from IGN, the show is easily named as one of the best shows right now on television. The show is described as “a very powerful and hard-hitting series.
When I was watching the series, it was emotionally draining and exhaustively deliberating throughout the seasons. The plot of the series, which are mostly with flashbacks and the process involving the main characters to figure out the real situation was engrossing. It kept my eyes glued to the screen. The overall performance of the cast of the show that astounds me the most is that they explored the characters in depth with their emotions, traits and the story lines.
The show follows a story of a high school student, Clay Jensen when he finds a package at his doorstep. In the package, it contains 13 audio cassettes made by his friend Hannah Baker. However, the package in front of his doorstep came from an unknown sender. His friend, Hannah Baker died by suicide due to being bullied, humiliated and sexually assaulted during her high school years. In each of the audio cassettes, she explained the 13 reasons why she committed suicide.
When Clay began to listen to the audio cassettes, he got surprised by some of the disturbing secrets regarding Hannah and a few of his classmates. However, when he was going through the audio cassettes, he was scared to find out where he fits in the whole situation. The show also portrays the other end of the situation – the people who made her commit suicide and the people attempted to keep the whole ordeal about the audio cassettes hidden from the school management and authoritative figures.
The show ends when the cat got out of the bag. All of the disturbing truths from his classmates are finally out in the open when they confessed their faults. Two of them, instead of confessing their faults ends up trying to commit death by suicide and running away from town. At the very last scene, it ends up with Clay reaching out to one of his friends and classmates when he realises the scars on her wrists.
One of the most amazing points from this show is the stellar story telling process. In the book, the story was only told from one point of view, which is from Clay. However, in the show, the story was not only told from Clays point of view, but from the other characters’ point of view such as Jessica, Justin, Alex, Sheri, Ryan, Bryce, Tyler, Courtney, Marcus and Zach. Besides, the show also included the struggle story of a mother and a father who that recently lost their daughter to suicide. By providing different point of views, it provides well-rounded perspectives on the situations, as we all are well-informed that there are two different sides to any story.
Secondly, another amazing point of the series is how real they portrayed all of these heavy issues. The heavy issues included bullying, cutting, sexual assaults and rape. Not only that, the series also depicted every struggle from each character with poignant clarity. We can see the background of the characters handling their own struggles. It does show everyone has his or her own battle that no one knows about. Even with anxiety attacks, they tried to portray it as real as it could possibly be. The same goes with the acts of committing suicide. They aim to trigger a conversation, a discussion on a topic that people tend to shy away from it rather than talk about it.
Third, the series highlights the notion that words do matter and action does have its consequences. The most highlighted theme in the show is the butterfly effect as one of Hannahs monologue in the show is, œYou’ve heard of the butterfly effect, right? That if a butterfly flaps its wings at just the right time in just the right place it can cause a hurricane thousands of miles away. From the monologue, we can conclude that the butterfly effect can cause either massive blessings or an ordeal of troubles. It only takes one person in the world that can say one thing that could completely drag somebody down and it only takes one person to say something positive or even carve a smile that could help to pick oneself up.
Thus, kindness and to be positive is vital and crucial for the world to be a better place. As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Be the change that you wish to see in the world”, so let’s be the change we need for the world to be a better place. ***