Revisiting Hannah from Thirteen Reasons Why
Sometimes I wonder who Hannah from ‘Thirteen Reasons Why’ would have become, ten years later.
Book, not television show. I object on moral grounds to adapting this particular book into a tween-dedicated show with an antibullying message. I’m not sure why. I suppose because to me, this book has less to do with bullying and more to do with sexual violence. I suppose because all of the think pieces I’ve seen have ignored the fact that Hannah is a victim. I suppose because suicide still exists in the cultural imaginary as a decidedly abnormal coping strategy, an unimaginable reaction to demons inside someone’s head more than to life events. I suppose because “get help” is still the culturally appropriate response to someone’s confession of sexual trauma.
I would love some help, personally. I would love to believe that someone who has not themselves been victimized feels some investment in shifting the foundations of patriarchy. I would love to look out at the world and see a million faces willing to do some serious soul-searching to discover how they contribute to rape culture, every day in every way. That kind of help is not forthcoming. That being the case, I think it is important work to reframe what exactly ‘help’ means.
Because. Insisting that Hannah would have been perfectly fine if she had gotten help is an easy way to ignore so many realities.
The other day I read an essay written by a woman who was raped as a teenager. The rapist’s mother knew what happened, but covered it up. The victim did everything right. She went to the police. She told her parents. She filed charges. Two years later, the rapists got away. Because she could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she did not consent to being anally penetrated by a total stranger while hanging out with the rapist’s younger brother. If you’re a woman, the assumption is, maybe you want it. Maybe you consented. Maybe you would have consented if you were sober. Maybe the guy could have convinced you or manipulated you or coerced you to consent. As long as in the end you let him do it and didn’t stop him, it’s fine.
As long as you didn’t spontaneously combust to stop him, it’s fine.
That is not, of course, what consent means. But to men?
Hannah had the “best tits” in her high school freshman class, according to some boy she didn’t know. Hannah was an easy lay, someone else assumed, and groped her in a restaurant on what she thought was a normal date. Hannah hid in the closet at a party while someone raped the girl who used to be Hannah’s friend. By the end of the book, Hannah hates herself, hates her female feminine self, so much that she lets that same rapist do whatever he wants to her body. Rape culture is inside her. She doesn’t see the point of saying no any more.
At some point there is a boy who really likes Hannah. Hannah would have liked him back, before her community taught her she was worthless. He kisses Hannah but she is not sure what to do. Affection is a language she can no longer speak. She pushes him away. She runs. He lets her.
Affection is a language I have forgotten how to speak. I have seen too much. I have hurt myself too much. But before I started my self-destructive path, someone else, many someone elses, hurt me.
That woman who wrote the article about being raped when she was a teenager. She mentioned that everyone in high school blamed her for it. Or thought she was lying. Or thought she said yes, because of course there are high school girls who would have stone cold sober anal sex with a stranger while on a date with his little brother. And maybe there are. But I have yet to meet them.
I have not met a teenage girl who consensually sent naked photos of herself to groups of people for attention. But I have personally encountered a case where this happened nonconsensually. And read about many more such cases, of course.
I have also never met a woman or girl who made up an accusation of rape for attention but I have seen many films and watched many tv shows where this happened. This seems to be a thing that many men and boys think happens all the time. It happens in fiction all the time and I suppose they cannot tell the difference between that and reality.
It is left to women to tell the difference. It is left to little girls.
Hannah was the victim of all these boys who thought she was an object to use, “a toy to fuck in the park.” The badass character in ‘The Family’ says girls are not toys you can fuck in the park, and then she beats up the boy who tried to do this to her. But in real life, girls too often are exactly like toys that boys can fuck in the park. Who’s going to stop them? You?
Well?
Hannah was the victim of her entire community and by the end of the book, they killed her. She didn’t die because she didn’t have a good enough therapist. Therapy cannot cure rape culture, which is a disease that lives in us all. Getting therapy for being raped is like reading the story of how you got stabbed, over and over. It is useful to understand. The mind wants to understand. But reading and rereading the details is not going to change them. And every man has a knife all his own. Some choose not to use it. But too many of the men who choose not to use it, still congratulate the men who do. Or laugh at their jokes. Or think they’re ‘good guys’ at heart. Or apologize for them. Or excuse their behavior.
Rapists are often much more fun than their victims, I guess. We victims aren’t having much fun and we make it harder for the people around us to have fun too. And they blame our depression or lack of being properly therapized rather than blaming our joylessness on the men who stole our joy away.
I was a joyful girl, once. Before I became a sullen girl like Fiona Apple.
I was a loving girl, once. I even liked boys. Before they started hating me. Before they started practicing aggression in large and small ways. Before I became afraid. Because they taught me to be afraid.
Hannah killed herself in terror and grief. I don’t advocate for suicide (obviously) but if the only way to escape hell is to die then how useful is it to call the act of escape ‘incomprehensible’? Therapy cannot help someone adjust to hell. No one can adjust to hell unless they are willing to become a demon, a perpetrator or carrier of the disease. Or else remain a victim.
The only way to keep girls like Hannah alive is to alter the hell they live in. To name and shift rape culture. To stop trying to ‘save’ Hannah from the demons inside her own mind and start acknowledging that you put them there. Every time you laughed along or shut up so the rapist guy would like you more. Every time you mocked some girl for not being pretty enough to make you want to fuck her. Every time you treated girls like objects instead of people. Every time you hired the pretty one and told yourself the fact you wanted to fuck her meant she was more professional or more qualified.
Every time you treated fuckability like a qualification to exist.
Every time you ignored or mocked or silenced Hannah because what she had to say was not fun and because listening to her would have been inconvenient.
Rape culture is not all your fault, but it’s your fault that Hannah’s dead. It always has been. Maybe it always will be.
