The glory here is that the show itself never falls victim to it. Every time Baker is bested by the male gaze, the show is careful to avoid using the gaze itself. Hannah's classmate Justin (Brandon Flynn) shares an upskirt image of Hannah with the entire school. We barely see the image — instead, we hear about it. When Hannah is convinced she's being stalked by a photographer, the viewer rides alongside Hannah as she goes about her day, paranoid that someone is following her. (In this case, the male gaze would be the POV of Tyler the photographer.) When a barely conscious Jessica is assaulted by Bryce (Justin Prentice) at a party, the camera shows us the event through a lace curtain, because Hannah is hiding behind a lace curtain, horrified at what's happening to her friend. Finally, when Hannah herself is pushed against the concrete wall of a hot tub, we see next to nothing of the actual rape. (Granted, this could be for reasons of violence, but given the graphic nature of an entirely different scene in this show, that argument is tenuous at best.) The episode that features the rape begins with a shot of Hannah's downturned face. Audio of the assault plays over the shot. Footage of the actual event features primarily Hannah's face, pressed against the ground. Throughout the scene, we are guided by Hannah's voice over, saying this: "The way I see it, there are two different kinds of death. If you're lucky, you live a long life, and one day your body stops working and it's over. But if you're not lucky, you die a little bit, over and over, until you realize it's too late." Effectively, Hannah is telling us about her rape. We aren't experiencing it as a third-party observer or, God forbid, from the POV of Bryce, the rapist. We're seeing it from the female gaze.