I want to talk about the character of Emma on the new CW teen drama, Red Band Society. Emma is hospitalized for anorexia. Ignore the fact that it makes no sense that an anorexic is in a general hospital pediatric ward instead of an eating disorders facility. Most of the series makes no sense. Look instead to the positive and appealing light with which anorexia is being portrayed in a show targeted to young female viewers. While none of the characters seem all that sick (aside from the missing leg....) I don't object to the other portrayals because one cannot be influenced into getting cancer or having a bad heart, no matter how cool it appears on television. Anorexia is different. It can be appealing if pictured as something sexy and desirable. Though most people won't have the mindset to find it so, many of the young girls who are the target audience for this drama will. You can play with anorexia, try it out. For some people it quickly becomes addictive, like alcohol or drugs. And like alcohol or drug addiction, anorexia is at worst deadly and at best, a life long struggle.
Emma is played by actress Ciara Bravo, who is quite tiny but appears very healthy. Which is good. I am NOT advocating hiring someone who actually suffers with anorexia. However, make-up and costuming should be used. Anorexia is neither pretty nor sexy. Your hair falls out. There are dark circles under your eyes. You are always cold and often your muscles ache and cramp because they are eating themselves away. Your skin is sallow and even if your face is round, your cheeks are hollow. There is a scene in the second episode where the camera lingers over her abdomen, breasts and arms. She looks hot. Like a model. There are no protruding bones or atrophied muscles, just a gorgeous young body. Her hair is long, lustrous, and so very shiny. Her eyes are bright and engaged and her cheeks are rosy. She has a great sense of style, even when dressed in a hospital gown. It is all very appealing, attractive and alluring. If that is the face of anorexia, I am all in.
In interviews, the actress states that she has not suffered from an eating disorder (though she has been, in the perverse world of Hollywood, accused of having one). To be perfectly clear, you do not need to have experienced something in order to inhabit a character. Most actors are not murderers, rapists, or super heroes. What is required, especially if you are going to talk about it, is understanding. In a Celebuzz interview, she says "something that I like about Emma is how she doesn't let that [living with an eating disorder] get her down too much. She's still incredibly driven and she's so smart and she's very witty..." What she doesn't understand is that anorexia takes up your entire being. It is eating away at you; when you are studying, at school, at a movie, out with friends, running your tenth mile though you have eaten only an apple and a one inch cube of cheese, and when you are trying to sleep but can't because your stomach acid is eating you alive, your mind is constantly torturing you and you cannot, no matter how many sweaters you pile on, get warm. You feel all of the weight that you don't have, do one hundred sit-ups to counter calories consumed in the extra skim milk you put into your coffee, you compare yourself to every person that you come across. In an article on TheTVPage.com she says, " an eating disorder isn’t something that consumes your whole life. You are still a person and you still have school to focus on and being a teen. I think Emma does a really good job of portraying that." Wrong. Dead wrong. That is exactly what a eating disorder does. It consumes your whole life, defining you. It destroys your body, mind and spirit.
I think that the fault here only partially lies with Ms. Brava. While she should be more careful with her talking points, and perhaps more complete in her research, she does say positive things about raising awareness and points out that Emma is getting help. She is a young actress who has been given a script, both on and off camera. She doesn't have control over the show's styling or script. The producers, writers and directors are a different story. I understand television. Actors on the CW are by definition hot young things. That is the network's product and demographic. However, if part of the raison d’etre of the show is to raise awareness of the perils of anorexia, show a hot young thing whose body and soul is being destroyed by this obsessive and fatal disease. Show her hair falling out and her deadened eyes. Show her having a heart attack or seizure. The media is constantly under assault for setting unrealistic expectations for young girls by showcasing models. This is more insidious because though they are claiming she has the disease, none of the effects of it are visible. The final ridiculous element is the major plot point of the show: the romantic entanglements between Emma and the two lead cancer boys. The likelihood of an anorexic being at the middle of a love triangle is almost non-existent. Anorexia can be (though not always) about staving off sexuality and sexual relationships.
The CW can’t have this both ways. If they want to raise awareness of anorexia, (while raising ratings) they have a responsibility to do so honestly, by depicting what actually happens. Characters don’t smoke on television any more for this very reason. The target audience is too susceptible to suggestion. Anorexia is not someone with a type A personality who won’t eat a cookie. It is the most fatal mental illness, by suicide or organ failure, there is. To portray anything else is reckless and stupid.
