In TV, being a dead girl looks great.
Just consider Hannah Baker, the troubled teen who kills herself after being raped and slut-shamed on Netflix’s recent hit “13 Reasons Why,” leaving behind 13 tapes, each dedicated to a person who wronged her. Or Laura Palmer, the eternal teenaged dead girl. After 25 years, she’s reappearing on the May 21 premiere of “Twin Peaks.” An entire fictional community mourned her, and real-life viewers of the show became enamored with the girl who was both the homecoming queen and a cocaine-addicted Canadian prostitute.
The characters may have had problems in life — and wow, they had a tremendous number of terrible problems — but in death, they’re glorified.
Sensitive teenage boys pine for them, as fictional teenage boys have been doing ever since the Lisbon sisters killed themselves in “The Virgin Suicides.” The people who wronged them? They are finally exposed for the monsters that they are. Sometimes that means heroic lawmen bring them to justice (“Twin Peaks”). Sometimes it means that everyone throws rocks through their bullies’ windows (“13 Reasons Why”). Either way, the girls are no longer shamed as they might have been in life, and their aggressors get what they deserve.
There’s nothing new about this trope. Dead girls have been romanticized since “The Lady of Shalott.” In her hit 2010 song “If I Die Young” Kimberly Perry imagined that if she were to perish at an untimely age, “maybe then you’ll hear the words I been singin’ / Funny when you’re dead how people start listenin’.”
In death, the girls will be forever young, beautiful and beloved. They have the power to shape the story of everyone else’s lives. They are heard. They are avenged.
All they have to do is stop breathing.
Which is a truly terrible message to send to teenage girls at one of the most vulnerable, emotional and sometimes powerless times in their lives.
Especially during an age when the suicide rate is at a 30-year high, according to the CDC. The group most affected is women. And, perhaps most troubling, the suicide rate among girls 10-14 has tripled since 1999, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.
It’s easy to assume young people know that TV shows shouldn’t influence their life choices. However, a paper on “Media Contagion and Suicide Among the Young” published in American Behavioral Scientist suggests there’s a causal link between young people seeing fictional dramatizations of suicide and attempting the act themselves. The phenomenon goes back to Goethe’s 1774 novel “The Sorrows of Young Werther” about a protagonist who takes his own life in the name of love. The book caused so many young people to attempt suicide that it was banned in some countries.
Little wonder then that the Department of Education has sent a letter to city parents, cautioning them about the show “13 Reasons Why.” City officials’ concerns echo those of the group Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, who claimed, “The show actually doesn’t present a viable alternative to suicide. The show doesn’t talk about mental illness or depression, doesn’t name those words.”
Showing suicide on screen, as “13 Reasons Why” does, is often considered dangerous by suicide-prevention groups. This is particularly true because the show doesn’t present the numerous options — from therapy to medication — available for those suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts.
It certainly does make early death seem like a way to punish your enemies, though.
Parents can’t stop their kids from watching “13 Reasons Why.” But they can point out to their teens that in real life, if they kill themselves, they will not get to watch the lumber mill observe a moment of silence in honor of them, like Laura Palmer. They will not get to see their crushes suffer for not being nicer to them, like Hannah Baker.
They will not get to see anything, because they will be dead.
And there is nothing romantic about that.
If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, reach out to National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text “help me” to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.