13 Reasons Why: Netflix's Most Controversial Show and Its Problematic Legacy

Almost a decade on from its initial release, the teen drama series 13 Reasons Why remains Netflix’s most controversial show of all time. In hindsight, the series about fictional high-schooler Hannah Baker’s suicide seems more and more ill-conceived with each passing year.

It isn’t that it was badly made or suffered from lackluster performances. On the contrary, the acting and production on the show are arguably too compelling, given how badly the difficult subject matter at hand is dealt with. 13 Reasons Why is still regarded as Netflix’s most divisive show because of its catastrophic mishandling of sensitive and upsetting themes.

At the same time, what made the series so controversial is also what attracted so many viewers to it initially. With millions of eyes on it, there was no incentive for Netflix to turn it off, even though there certainly would have been had the show been made today.

The character deaths in 13 Reasons Why, in particular, are a catalog of harrowing tragedies which the series takes far too lightly. In a sense, they wouldn’t feel out of place in a longrunning, low-rate telenovela. Yet, no telenovela would flaunt graphic violence and psychological trauma this gratuitously, either.

13 Reasons Why Was One Of Netflix's First Global Sensations

Still, if we rewind the clock back to 2017, it’s worth remembering that 13 Reasons Why was renewed by Netflix after its controversial first season. In fact, the drama series was renewed three times in total, before bowing out after season 4, without ever getting canceled.

Netflix’s continued faith in the show, despite the backlash it received from mental health professionals when it was initially released, stemmed from positive critical reviews and audiences responses to season 1. Even when criticism began to snowball during season 2, the viewing figures were still good, as there were people tuning in to see what the fuss was about.

The old adage, there’s no such thing as bad publicity, undoubtedly applies to 13 Reasons Why’s successful run on Netflix. There were even those who continued watching to the bitter end, as they’d become invested in finding out what happened to each of its characters.

There’s no question that the series went downhill once Jay Asher’s literary source material was exhausted after season 1. Nevertheless, it wasn’t a complete writeoff, and kept hooking viewers in with melodramatic plot twists right up to its 49th and final episode.

According to the streaming data site FlixPatrol, the first two seasons of 13 Reasons Why remain among the top 20 most viewed TV releases in Netflix history. Of the seasons released in the 2010s, only Stranger Things season 3 and The Witcher season 1 are ahead of them. This teen drama truly was the biggest streaming sensation of its day.

13 Reasons Why Was Heavily Criticized When It Came Out

As well as it did in terms of viewing figures, 13 Reasons Why was controversial from the moment it first appeared on Netflix. The show was accused of glorifying suicide, responsibilizing other characters for Hannah’s decision to kill herself, misrepresenting serious mental health problems – as well as crimes such as rape – and taking a reductive approach to assessing psychological wellbeing.

There were even concerns raised by mental health specialists that Hannah apportioning blame to each person who pushed her to take her own life in an audio tape would lead to copycat suicide cases in high schools around the world. Netflix actually cut the graphic depiction of Hannah’s death after advice from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP).

Overall, the show indulged in far too much morbid cruelty to be taken seriously as an examination of bullying and mental health disorders among teenagers, and seemed instead to play on our instinctive fascination with lurid depictions of misadventure and tragedy.

With each passing season, its cohort of ill-fated adolescents became more and more unbearable and less and less redeemable. Even when some of them, like Bryce Walker, get their own redemption arc in the story, it’s impossible for us to sympathize with them.

The fact that 13 Reasons Why isn’t a complete disaster in aesthetic terms arguably makes how unpalatable it is as a piece of drama even worse. There are the makings of a genuinely impressive show in there somewhere, but they’re buried under a barrage of richly deserved criticism.

13 Reasons Why's Approach To Mental Health Was Not Ideal

It’s not that 13 Reasons Why doesn’t accurately portray characters with a mental illness. It’s more that the series crudely and idealistically presents mental illness as the direct result of specific actions, which can be atoned for in the form of vendettas from beyond the grave.

Rather than rendering this overly simplistic perspective through stylized genre tropes, in order to indicate that it’s a caricature of real life with a kernel of truth to it, the show tries its utmost to convince us that we’re watching real life. In this way, it effectively miseducated millions of teenagers about the nature of mental health.

Thanks 13 Reasons Why’s romanticized depiction of suicidal vengeance, there was a proven correlation between the show’s release and a surge in online searches related to this topic. No other Netflix series has managed to have such a negative social impact.

A Show Like 13 Reasons Why Would Not Get Made Today

In a sense, we have 13 Reasons Why to thank for no other show having made similarly damaging missteps since its release. Throughout its four seasons, there’s a succession of examples not to follow when you’re representing the real-life struggles that teenagers around the world endure on a daily basis.

13 Reasons Why’s portrayal of Justin’s death from HIV/AIDS in season 4 was just as horribly misguided as its handling of Hannah’s suicide. It’s safe to say that neither of these storylines would have made it to the screen in the same way if the series were being produced in 2026.

Netflix was only four years into making original shows when 13 Reasons Why became its biggest hit in 2017. With Selena Gomez and The Wire director Tom McCarthy onboard the project, it’s understandable that the streaming platform saw it as a bankable teen drama. But the decision to double down after season 2 is a mistake they wouldn’t make today.

Sources: FlixPatrol; American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP)