The Series '13 Reasons Why' as an Example for a Failed Personality Development

Seminar paper from the year 2022 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Other, grade: 2,3, University of Cologne, language: English, abstract: This paper deals with the topic 'The Series '13 Reasons Why' as an Example for a Failed Personality Development'. When talking about adolescence, personality and identity development play a very important role. Development per se has an impact on a kid's future. Adolescents must manage many stages in life to become independent adults. Through the rapidly changing and complex society the adolescence gets difficult. They have a lot of challenges to manage. Such as peers, friends, family, self-orientation and school. Teenagers encounter social problems like gender role, sexual orientation, facing mobbing and discrimination all due to their outer appearance. Klaus Hurrelmann's theory includes the model of productive reality processing, the development task and the ten maxims. His frameworks deal with the adolescents, their challenges and development of their identity. It is significant to be aware that adolescents go through a personality development which lead to certain behaviours. In order to understand them and give them support they need, it is important to help improve their development positively. The first part of this term paper deals with Hurrelmann´s theory. After that, significant fragments of a film and series analysis will be explained. Nowadays, television series and movies address social issues especially Netflix productions. It is an online platform where people can watch series and movies. It is also highly regarded especially by the young audience. '13 Reasons Why' is a Netflix series based on a novel by Jay Asher. It also deals with problems in adolescence. Therefore, this series analysis will focus on the function of the genre, an intensive figure analysis with relation to theoretical frameworks of Hurrelmann. Moreover, values and norms will be analysed.