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Call to action to entertainment industry over 13 Reasons Why
Author(s) -
Knopf Alison
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
the brown university child and adolescent psychopharmacology update
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1556-7567
pISSN - 1527-8395
DOI - 10.1002/cpu.30532
Subject(s) - copycat , commit , retributive justice , action (physics) , girl , entertainment , legal action , criminology , psychology , history , advertising , sociology , law , political science , business , computer science , developmental psychology , cognitive science , physics , quantum mechanics , database , economic justice
The research is in and has been for some time: The first season of the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why , which dramatizes a book of the same name in which a girl who committed suicide leaves a tape giving the 13 reasons why she did, led to copycat suicides. Among its most obvious and predictable and completely wrong messages is the one that people can leave a history after they commit suicide, getting retribution and at the same time justifying their act. Once you are dead, there is no retribution; you have lost your life and future, your loved ones have lost you, and then they mourn and eventually recover. But this false message romanticizing suicide, and suggesting that suicide will “teach them a lesson” — is promoted in the book and the Netflix show. And tragically, the message got through; suicides went up.