Why we need to look closer to find the Hannah Baker of 13 Reasons Why?
13 Reasons Why, a wildly popular as well as critically acclaimed show on Netflix last year, pressed on some fine nuances of a very serious issue that exist a lot more frequently than talked about: Bullying and its various consequences like depression, anxiety, etc. Desperately, waiting for the second season, hopefully they will tell how to tackle such issues and the laws exist in order to protect someone. Although, a lot is written in the psychological literature, a more glamorised version exists in the popular media.
What I really loved about this show is how beautifully they break the glamourised version and educate on the finest nuances weaved into excellent story-telling.
And what I found really disappointing is that, how most people missed those little things, and the entire attention went to the fact that the story was placed in a high school context, full of teenagers. What a waste of the 14 episodes!
Of the many conversations I had with my friends when this show was trending, was about how already vulnerable people should really avoid watching this, that this leads to sucidal thoughts, it is about teenage high school drama, a misunderstood teenage girl, the pressures of high school today is compelling students to take extreme actions, etc. So, one day after not much motivation, but a lot of popularity, I decided to give it a try. I was glued to the bed for the entire weekend binge-watching. First of all, I would actually highly recommend the victims and vunrealable people to watch this show, instead of avoiding, because it actually educates you on what’s happening. And secondly, I want to congratulate the team for the brilliant film-making which made this so popular inspite of the heavy content.
A lot of victims, do not know that they are being bullied, because the versions of bullying and harassment we see in popular media are very limited and frankly quite misleading.
I, myself didn’t know for a very long period, that I was a victim. I felt the may be, I am not fit for this place, or my time is not right. May be all that is also true, who knows. But when a well-informed friend told me that, what ever is happening is actually called bullying, it felt like “so, why was I blaming myself all this while?” Like some heavy object is lifted off my chest.
More than a victim of bullying, I was a victim of ignorance.
In my understanding, bullying was what they show in the cartoons, where a bully is like a villain as a big fat guy with his mean kid followers attacking usually beating up or intimidating by his (usually male kids are shown as kids as stereotype, as physical bulling is shown) physical power over the weak, usually the nerdy kids. I am sure, that’s what most of us thought before watching this show. Although, there are the mean girls movies, where a very limited viewpoint of this show is shown, but it’s been shown as ‘mean girly drama’, that girls always bitch behind each other’s backs and that lead to all the fights. It isn’t clearly defined as bullying, and in reality it isn’t so black (bad) and white (good), people are shades of grey, like a set of personality traits. Even the most evil ones will have some good traits. In that respect, I owe big time to Netflix for bringing such nuanced knowledge to the common masses with a powerful medium of story-telling since very rarely one will see a documentary or read about such things on their own.
What was shown in the show was in a high school context, but it can happen in any context, like in your extended family, your work, your friends, social circle, etc. Bullying can happen in anywhere human beings are, and to anyone.
Usually, people think that the victim might have done something wrong, that’s why people are disliking him/her, but that isn’t the case. That’s our idealistic self disregarding the brutal reality and convincing ourself of the ideal: good wins over bad; which we have always been taught throughout childhood and while growing up, through fairy tales and other stories. Bullying actually goes against these ideals and the bad guy has the upper hand and the good guys are victims (usually). Bullies can be otherwise charismatic and/or popular, clever, extremely social and/or good with people politics. They can be far more complex, difficult to identify and held accountable than their glamorised versions. (Read my previous article to understand why are we drawn towards the bad).
But what comprises of bullying? Although the show does a marvellous job of stating the finest nuances of bullying and its grave consequences (the show describes it beautifully, so I won’t be getting to that here in detail due to the over-flowing length), it limits the viewer’s understanding via a high school context where the such issues are already frequently talked about. But other contexts like intellectual spheres, workplace, social gatherings, home , etc., aren’t much shown in mainstream media, let alone a glamorized version!
By this I mean the adult bullying is much less known issue and yet so much around us. We overlook such behavior, because we don’t even know that it is wrong. Ignorance causes more people to fall victims to such behavior.
To explain adult bulling, here are a couple of the most relevant, frequently experienced but lesser talked about kinds of adult bullying. (refer to the links for further reading)
Intellectual Bullying: (the most hidden of them of all)! Usually we identify the below mentioned behaviour as intellectual behaviour because it is so glamourised that way, but in reality, it is a form of bullying:
“By intellectual bullies, I mean people who are indeed smarter (have a higher IQ), who have more knowledge in a certain field, and generally carry the sense of entitlement to be dismissive, disrespectful, mean and emotionally abusive, and play tricks/pranks on others. [And, curiously] we glorify people like this in TV shows, and we don’t consider [it] a form of bullying.” (Quora, “Do We Show More Leniency Towards Intellectual Bullies Than Physical Ones?” 2014)
Adding another dimension to this phenomenon is Joe Bouchard, who remarks: “The intellectual bully specialises in condescension. Their insecurities are masked in large words and aloof, arrogant sentences. Their offence consists of a belief that they are smarter than the competition. They enjoy making others feel inferior.” (“Ranking Bully Types,” corrections.com, 2010).
Passive-aggressive or covert bullying: This is a less frequently mentioned form of bullying, but in some ways it’s the most insidious. With many bullies, you can see them coming because they are quick to make they’re intimidating presence known. A passive-aggressive or covert bully, however, behaves appropriately on the surface, but takes you down with subtlety.
The most common example of covert bullying is in the workplaces:
According to an article in the Guardian, “Those studies and surveys, when taken together, cast light on the surprising dynamics of bullying — the belittling, repetitional attacks, gossip and elbowing that make many modern workplaces unbearable. While victims are usually targeted due to their social incompetence, on some occasions bullies can possess high levels of social ability. Due to their social competence, they are able to strategically abuse coworkers and yet be evaluated positively by their supervisor. Instead of punishing the bullies, many workplaces reward them. A research paper in the Journal of Managerial Psychology found that bullies tend to be very good at office politics — or at least, kissing up to the boss and using gossip through office social networks to attack those they consider rivals.”
In a nutshell, a bully is a person who does not know how to handle his/her insecurities and projects them on others by de-humanising behaviour.
But the line between a bully and a mean person is quiet blur. In my opinion, if a person performs dehumanising behaviour once or twice with a well-thought off motive, would be a mean person. By repeating such behaviour time and again, is what differentiates a bully.
The victims often face social isolation due to loss of reputation, leading to loss of confidence and thereby depression and escapism from the particular context. Social manipulation and people politics is such a thing. It is terrifying when it happens to you. Somedays are so bad, that you can not even stand in front of the mirror and face yourself. The worst is when you start believing all that shit and give up.
Please watch the show for more, I couldn’t describe this part better than the filmmakers themselves. Also, read in Part-2.
What I saw in 13 Reasons Why, was not just a misunderstood Hannah Baker, but an individualistic society who doesn’t have time to care for anyone enough, to be able to look closer. Nobody looked close enough, nobody cared to listen to her side of story, until they were forcefully made to (via those tapes). We need to look more carefully (read: not prying), we need to care for people around us, to find the silently suffering Hannah Baker(s) among us. And for that we need a more realistic understanding of depression, importance of reputation (which is closely related to self-confidence), where again the popular and glamourised versions are quite limited and usually misleading.
Please click on the links in the article for deeper understanding. And some references for further reading:
