Discussion Worst depiction of suicide you've seen in any piece of media?

[ScaredOfMachines]

I've been reading a lot of things that contain suicides and learning about TV shows that contain them recently, mostly just out of curiosity. And some of them have been pretty bad. Most of those are just offensive or stereotypical, but there are some that are just a next level thing of awful or not wanting to rock the boat at all.

My personal favorite of the latter is a suicide attempt in S1 of Thirteen Reasons Why. A kid decides he's had enough and shoots himself in the head. He survives this somehow, I think the show says it's because the bullet passed through his skull cleanly or something. Despite this, he has no injuries or scarring from this incident the next time he shows up. The writers still wanted the viewers to know that he shot himself though so they made him walk around with a cane. No explanation for how shooting yourself in the head causes a leg injury is given.

I just wanted to know if anyone else has seen anything else similarly bad or accidentally hilarious. We can at least laugh at some of this stuff, hopefully.

 

[Loser1989]

Theres a Niel Breen movie, it's not a suicide but Neil's character thinks it is and he's cradling the guy and rocking him and he says in this monotone voice "I cant believe you did this, I cant believe you committed suicide" and it's so deadpan it makes me laugh every time.

 

[Forveleth]

I hated all of Thirteen Reasons Why so that I guess.

What really bothers me is when suicide is just throw in for "shock value". It sensationalizes the death and takes away from the (usually) years of mental health issues that lead up to that very difficult choice. If anything, I think it just increases the stigma but focusing on the dead body and not the tormented human that came before.

 

[jisi]

Theres a Niel Breen movie, it's not a suicide but Neil's character thinks it is and he's cradling the guy and rocking him and he says in this monotone voice "I cant believe you did this, I cant believe you committed suicide" and it's so deadpan it makes me laugh every time.

fateful findings!! i watch that film religiously lol. there's also that whole ending sequence where it shows the people in power, that neil supposedly exposed by saying a whole lot of nothing, just killing themselves in all sorts of ridiculous ways afterwards. it will never not be funny to me. i love that film.

 

[Loser1989]

fateful findings!! i watch that film religiously lol. there's also that whole ending sequence where it shows the people in power, that neil supposedly exposed by saying a whole lot of nothing, just killing themselves in all sorts of ridiculous ways afterwards. it will never not be funny to me. i love that film.

Yes that's the one!!!

"I'm the president of the bank" or something like that then they just shoot themselves and dumb stuff. I really need to find the whole series he did. He has a vision he will not compromise on, and I respect that.

 

[jisi]

Yes that's the one!!!

"I'm the president of the bank" or something like that then they just shoot themselves and dumb stuff. I really need to find the whole series he did. He has a vision he will not compromise on, and I respect that.

yeah! i can respect that too, but his lack of self awareness is astonishing to me hahaa. i fully recommend the entire film if you have literally nothing else to watch — it's so bad it's amazing. also, for anyone else who wants to know what im referring to, this is the entire scene:



(also cool profile pic, i love madoka magica)

 

[Loser1989]

yeah! i can respect that too, but his lack of self awareness is astonishing to me hahaa. i fully recommend the entire film if you have literally nothing else to watch — it's so bad it's amazing. also, for anyone else who wants to know what im referring to, this is the entire scene:



(also cool profile pic, i love madoka magica)

Yeah me too, he's such a goofball. I'll try to find it when I'm having an episode. Maybe the absurdity of it will pull me out of it haha.

Thank you, I love Madoka Magica too, Homura is my fave. Love your pfp too, Daria is cool as heck.

 

[Szarur-abi]

Probably thirteen reasons why, it felt sensational for the sake of it, suicide as a shock value, even Hannah CTB by most shocking method avaible and the least likely to succed (cutt wrist) So i felt like it was for the sake of shock value not to actually depict what suicidal person goes throught... Tho i do appreciate it for atleast bringing suicide out to general public to 'normal' people that never had to thought about suicide, it could do better job at it tho...

The best one i seen was in Bojack horseman probably, very nuanced and with many different examples in many different characters

 

[Green_leaf]

I saw you post and automatically thought about this:

Spoiler: Info: Album cover but graphic

https://lastfm.freetls.fastly.net/i/u/500x500/d4f1b04d6d7c52858d4e469577b513a7.jpg

I think it miserably fits in the category "Worst depiction of suicide you've seen in any piece of media?".

 

[sadalways]

Definitely thirteen reasons why, like the other users said. I watched it and i remember liking some of the episodes from season one (don't recall why, would probably find it weird now) but the whole suicide was definitely more for the shock value. Season two was just... really bad. Didn't even bother with the other seasons but yeah, that was the worst depiction for me.

 

[Forever Sleep]

For me, it's mostly when they just take a handful of pills. I've even seen programmes where they're eyeing up a single box of paracaetamol like- please don't make people think it's that simple! Both people contemplating it and others who likely would see suicide as 'the easy way out' if they saw that.