As Netflix continues to produce new original series, our culture goes through phases in which some shows are hot, popular, and viewed by a large audience. This summer Stranger Things was one of the most talked-about series but now it seems audiences have become attached to a different show with a more controversial premise. Based on a novel, the series 13 Reasons Why tells the story of a girl who committed suicide but left behind tapes explaining the 13 reasons why she chose to end her life and how different persons were deeply involved in this choice. While the show has received much positive feedback, some audiences have opposed this series and have criticized the show for many reasons.

You may ask: why criticize a series that aims to promote awareness about suicide and end-of-life issues? Although the aims of the television program are to promote life and increase an awareness that each individual person can have on the lives of others, there is a growing fear of the danger in the way that the show handles these issues. While it is important to show the great impact of our actions, it is another situation to popularize a show that glorifies suicide as a way to gain a voice in the world. Though this series is opposed to such a phenomenon, this unfortunately might be the exact premise it promotes.

Whether or not you are a fan of 13 Reasons Why, the more important question that this series raises is how our culture continues to view life and handle issues that put life in danger—especially in our entertainment. To suggest that one can speak from the dead and continue his or her voice on this earth can be a tempting idea—but in reality this is a fiction. A fiction, I might add, that has been perpetuated in our culture for a long time. An example includes stories about vampires (from Bram Stoker’s Dracula to our present vampire literature) as these stories are entertaining and entice audiences because of the fiction of being able to avoid death and live forever in an earthly realm. Though it may not seem that a show like 13 Reasons Why fits this category, there is a great possibility that shows that inadvertently glorify death can suggest death and an abuse of life as an attractive option for an individual.

Asking questions about 13 Reasons Why helps us to recognize that our culture too often promotes death, most dangerously when it comes in subtle ways. When we entertain fictions related to the afterlife, it is best that they remain in the world of fiction and not bleed over into entertainment that concerns reality. While still perpetuating the fact that life-issues should be discussed openly to prevent unnecessary death, our culture should put the utmost respect for human life first and build our writing, our artistic ideas, and our advocacy around this respect for life. When we start to combine our entertaining fictions with realistic situations, there is a danger making entertainment out of situations that do not lead to their intended, romanticized consequences in reality.

Protecting life starts with choice, and we turn our backs on the importance of choice and responsibility when we promote entertainment in our culture that justifies suicide and death through the fault of others. While it is not acceptable to blame persons for their suicide when their mental health led to that outcome, it is also unacceptable to promote the idea that life is free of responsibility. There is a need to reevaluate our entertainment industries and ask what we aim to promote, not only in the content of our entertainment, but in the way we carry through these endeavors.