What Lies Beneath: The Messages Children May Not Know They’re Hearing
Content Trigger: This article discusses suicide, mental health struggles, and the portrayal of these topics in media, including subliminal messages in cartoons and movies. Some readers may find the content distressing or triggering. If you are struggling or feeling overwhelmed, please reach out to a trusted mental health professional or contact a local support helpline. You are not alone, and help is available.
When was the first time you heard about suicide? How do we know that we are capable of taking our own lives? Do we inherently know we can take our own life?
No, not inherently like we know to breathe or blink. But as self-aware, meaning-seeking beings, humans learn, absorb, and imagine. And in moments of deep pain, the idea of death as a form of control, escape, or peace can surface. However, when we think about what causes suicide, we often look at personal pain, internalised pressure, or stress. But there is another hidden influence that we rarely talk about, the origin of the idea that when things go wrong, the solution is to eliminate the self.
Cartoons, movies, dramas, music videos, and social media reels: all of these are not just entertainment. They shape how we think, feel, and behave. Especially when we are young, we absorb these images without even realizing it. Some of them leave dangerous messages in our minds, quietly telling us stories about suicide that can feel beautiful, heroic, or even necessary.
When Tragedy Looks Like Art
In many popular movies and TV shows, suicide is shown in a highly emotional and dramatic way. The music becomes sad and slow. The lights turn soft and warm. The person who dies often leaves behind a beautiful letter, filled with deep and poetic words. After they are gone, people start crying, hugging each other, and remembering the person in ways they never did when that person was alive. The story makes their death feel important, almost like a meaningful sacrifice.
This style of storytelling can send a harmful message, especially to young viewers: that suicide is a way to finally be seen, understood, or even loved. For someone who feels invisible or hurt, this can be dangerous. It can make them believe that their death will be more powerful than their life. That they will matter only after they are gone. Research shows that media portrayals that romanticize suicide can lead to what is known as the "Werther effect", where suicide rates increase following intense or glamorized media coverage (Phillips, 1974).
Some shows go even further. They do not just suggest that someone died by suicide. They show exactly how they did it. The method is often shown in graphic detail: where it happened, what tools were used, and even how long it took. These visual and sensory cues can be extremely triggering, especially for viewers who are already struggling with suicidal thoughts. It can put ideas into their minds or validate the plans they were already making. This has been seen especially after the release of shows like 13 Reasons Why, which was found to be associated with a measurable increase in youth suicide rates in the U.S. shortly after its release (Niederkrotenthaler et al., 2019).
When suicide is shown as clean, planned, or poetic, it gives the false impression that this is a way to end pain with grace. But real-life suicide is not peaceful. It is messy. It leaves behind trauma, guilt, and unanswered questions. Families often suffer for years. Survivors wish they had noticed the signs earlier. But the media rarely shows that part of the story.
This is why mental health experts recommend using the "Papageno effect" instead. This refers to media content that shows characters overcoming suicidal thoughts through help, connection, and hope , not by dying (Niederkrotenthaler et al., 2010). When the media focuses on recovery instead of tragedy, it becomes a tool for prevention, not harm.
Cartoons and Children
When we think of cartoons, we think of laughter, bright colors, and silly characters. But if we look closely, some children’s cartoons carry messages that can be more harmful than they seem. In many shows, we hear characters say things like “I wish I were dead,” “Just end me now,” or we see them pretending to jump off cliffs, drink poison, or explode themselves for a joke. The audience laughs. The character comes back in the next scene, completely fine. Life moves on. No one talks about it again.
These scenes may seem harmless or funny to adults, but to a young child whose brain is still developing, they can plant quiet but lasting seeds. Children learn through imitation and repetition. If they see characters making jokes about death or acting like it’s something silly or reversible, they may begin to think that death is not serious or that it's something you can bounce back from. Research in child development shows that children under the age of 10 often do not fully understand the finality of death (Speece & Brent, 1996), and media can shape their beliefs in powerful ways.
Some animations go even further. They show characters dying and then returning as friendly ghosts or spirits. These ghosts often help the living, watch over their loved ones, or continue their adventures in another world. While these storylines are meant to comfort or entertain, they can blur the line between fiction and reality. For a child who is lonely or feels invisible, this may lead to a dangerous idea: that even after death, they can still be around, still be seen, still be loved. It makes death look magical, peaceful, or even empowering.
This romanticized portrayal can deeply confuse children who are struggling with emotional pain or who have been exposed to grief at a young age. In some cases, especially for children facing bullying, neglect, or trauma, these messages can distort their understanding of suicide making it seem like a doorway to a new form of attention or existence, rather than a tragic end.
Psychologists have long warned about how media can normalize or desensitize young viewers to violence, harm, and death (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2001). Repeated exposure to these themes even in a humorous or “fantasy” setting can reduce emotional sensitivity and increase risky behavior or mimicry in vulnerable children.
This is why responsible storytelling is so important, especially in media made for young minds. Children deserve content that teaches them how to cope, how to talk about hard feelings, and how to seek support not content that makes light of death or gives it magical meaning. Stories are powerful tools, and when we tell them carefully, they can shape the next generation in a healthy and life-affirming way.
What Media Leaves Out
Most movies and shows end the story at the moment of death. They don’t show what comes after. They don’t show the mother waking up and finding her child’s room empty still arranged, still smelling like them, but lifeless. They don’t show the father trying to act strong while falling apart inside, wondering what signs he missed. They don’t show the younger sibling who stops speaking, afraid to ask where their big brother or sister went.
They don’t show the silence that grows in the house. The birthdays that are no longer celebrated. The friends who carry guilt for years, asking themselves what they could have done. The school counselor who struggles to comfort classmates. The teachers who carry that one empty desk in their memories.
Instead, the screen fades to black. The music swells. The character’s pain is over. And to the viewer especially one who is already hurting suicide can start to look like peace.
But this is not the truth.
In real life, suicide is not the end of pain, it is the beginning of a different kind of suffering. A long, quiet sorrow that spreads through families, friendships, and communities. It leaves behind questions that never get answered. It creates a wound that time may soften, but never fully heals. Research shows that people who lose a loved one to suicide are at higher risk of depression, anxiety, and even suicidal thoughts themselves (Andriessen, 2009). The pain doesn’t end with the one who dies. It gets passed on, like a heavy weight, to those left behind.
When media only tells the story up to the death, it hides this truth. It protects the audience from the hardest part. But protecting people from pain is not the same as helping them heal. In fact, when we leave out what comes after the emptiness, the brokenness, the deep longing for a chance to say “Don’t go” we risk sending the wrong message: that death is escape, that it ends the suffering.
We must start telling the full story. Not just the fall, but the aftermath. Not just the darkness, but the people still reaching for light.
The Silent Weight among Nepalese Youths
In Nepal, student suicides are often spoken about only in whispers: a short news headline, a passing rumor, a school assembly held too late. But the truth runs deeper than what is seen or said. Every day, students carry silent weights: pressures, messages, and fears that they may not even have the words to describe.
They grow up watching dramas where dying for love is seen as the ultimate sacrifice. They see films where the hero ends his life and is remembered as noble, pure, and tragic, not as someone who needed support. They scroll through social media filled with quotes like “no one will understand until I’m gone,” which echo their own unspoken pain.
In cartoons, jokes about dying are passed off as humor. In school, “discipline” is sometimes delivered with fear instead of care. In families, conversations about mental health are often silenced by phrases like “you just need to be stronger,”“don’t embarrass us,” or “think about others.”
So the pain is pushed down. The questions go unasked. The loneliness gets wrapped in smiles. The desire to be seen, really seen, becomes buried under academic scores, responsibilities, and the quiet pressure to always be “okay.”
Many students in Nepal do not know that what they are feeling has a name: depression, anxiety, trauma. They do not know that the fog in their head, the heaviness in their chest, and the thought that “maybe it would be easier if I disappeared” are not signs of weakness, but signs that they need care. And most painfully, they don’t know where to find that care.
Because help is not always visible.
Mental health centers are too few. Psychologists are overworked. School counselors, if they exist, are not always trusted. And the fear of being labeled mad, unstable, or weak keeps many students from reaching out.
So they turn inward. They hide. They normalize their pain. Until one day, the silence becomes too loud.
But this silence can be broken.
If we teach students that emotions are not shameful. If we show them that crying is not a failure. If we make space in schools, families, and screens for conversations about real feelings then perhaps the story can end differently.
If you're reading this and feel heavy inside know this: you are not alone. There are people in Nepal and around the world who understand. Who want to listen. Who believe that your life matters not as a character in a sad story, but as a human being, still growing, still healing.
So What Can We Do as Viewers and Creators?
Don’t just take in the story. Ask questions. Why did the director show this scene like that? Why did they play music that made suicide look beautiful? What is the real message here?
If you’re watching something that deals with suicide, talk about it with friends, family, or students. Ask how they felt. Did they feel triggered? Did the show glorify suicide or offer hope?
We need more films and media that show mental health struggles with truth and care without romanticizing them. We need stories that show healing, therapy, survival, and the strength of asking for help.
Just like we teach math and science, we should teach students how to understand media. They need to learn how to protect their minds from harmful messaging.
Final Thoughts
When media fails to show the pain of those left behind, it creates silence. That silence is also a message and it tells young people that their pain isn’t worth talking about.
We must break that silence. Not only by talking about suicide after it happens but by being careful of the stories we tell, the way we tell them, and what we leave out.
Because someone is always watching. And what they see might be the difference between choosing life or giving up.
In case you or someone is struggling:
TPO Nepal: 16600102005
CMC Nepal: 16600185080
Kosis Nepal: 16600122322
Suicide Prevention and Mental Health Service Center: 16600122223
Tribhuwan University, Teaching Hospital Maharajgunj Kathmandu Nepal, Psychiatry Help Line: 9841630430
Tribhuwan University, Teaching Hospital Maharajgunj Kathmandu Nepal, Suicide Prevention Help Line: 9840021600
Kanti Children Hospital,Kathmandu Nepal. Child Psychiatric Help Line: 9808522410
References
Andriessen, K. (2009). Can postvention be prevention? Crisis: The Journal of Crisis Intervention and Suicide Prevention, 30(1). https://doi.org/10.1027/0227-5910.30.1.43
Pitman, A., Osborn, D., King, M., & Erlangsen, A. (2014). Effects of suicide bereavement on mental health and suicide risk. The Lancet Psychiatry, 1(1). doi: 10.1016/S2215-0366(14)70224-X
Speece, M. W., & Brent, S. B. (1996). The development of children’s understanding of death. Journal of Death and Dying, 33(2).
American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Public Education. (2001). Media violence. Pediatrics, 108(5) .DOI: 10.1542/peds.108.5.1222
Niederkrotenthaler, T., Voracek, M., Herberth, A., Till, B., Strauss, M., Etzersdorfer, E., Eisenwort, B., & Sonneck, G. (2010). Role of media reports in completed and prevented suicide: Werther v. Papageno effects. British Journal of Psychiatry, 197(3). doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.109.074633
Niederkrotenthaler, T., Stack, S., Till, B., Sinyor, M., Pirkis, J., Garcia, D., Rockett, I. R. H., & Tran, U. S. (2019). Association of increased youth suicides in the United States with the release of 13 Reasons Why. JAMA Psychiatry, 76(9). doi: 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2019.0922