No reason to be depressed

No reason to be depressed

A controversial scene in the Netflix drama 13 Reasons Why showing a teenage girl killing herself, has been removed, two years after it first appeared. Netflix said the decision had been made on the advice of medical experts. The first series of the show featured a graphic depiction of Hannah (Katherine Langford) taking her own life. The version now being hosted on the streaming site omits this three-minute scene and goes directly to a later scene in which her body is discovered. Netizens ‘welcomed’ Netflix’s decision. The makers of the series had been working with the streaming service’s UK team ‘to provide advice on the safe portrayal of suicide’.

The graphic scene in the finale of the first season showed Hannah cutting her wrists with a razor blade before bleeding out in the bathroom. The scene faced severe backlash with mental health experts voicing concern that it may have contributed to copycat suicides among teens. The episode had opened with a warning to the viewers that the instalment may not be suitable for younger audiences and included graphic depictions of violence and suicide. 

The new scene has now been updated on the Netflix site and features Hannah looking at herself in the mirror before cutting herself to see her parents’ reaction to her suicide.

“As we prepare to launch season three later this summer, we’ve been mindful about the ongoing debate around the show. So on the advice of medical experts including Dr Christine Moutier, chief medical officer at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, we’ve decided with creator Brian Yorkey and the producers to edit the scene in which Hannah takes her own life from season one,” reads Netflix’s statement.

Ahead of the release of the third season of 13 Reasons Why, Yorkey also took to Twitter to share the new development. He explained that the purpose of the show was to encourage young viewers to have empathy for mental health patients. He further justified that their creative intent in portraying the reality of suicide in such graphic detail in season one was only to tell the truth about the horror of such an act, and make sure no one would ever wish to emulate it.

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