Shaping the way teenage girls see

For teenage girls, measuring weight can mean measuring the ability to fit in, make friends, be poular. SARA KEATINGon a new drama that explores those issues with teenage audiences

IN HER LANDMARK 1978 study, Fat is a Feminist Issue, psychoanalyst Susie Orbach was the first to suggest that women's relationships with their bodies broke physical boundaries, that problem eating was about problem feelings. Orbach's later books, and the books of social psychologists that followed her theories, suggested that women's relationship to their bodies was cultural, indeed historical, and that the ultimate way for women to overcome what manifested itself as a deeply personal problem was to politicise, to take ownership of their emotional identities.

In the first decade of the 21st century, Orbach’s title manifesto is still vitally relevant, in many ways more relevant, as “fat” has become the ultimate anti-feminist issue. Culturally, the body has become the nexus of self-identification for women, the site upon which desires for self-perfection or tendencies towards self-loathing are concentrated. The physical form has become the socially acceptable measure by which women are judged and, more importantly perhaps, by which they judge themselves.

Since the late 1960s an androgynous trend for the ultra-thin has defined popular cultural iconography and discourse, especially as it applies to women. It is evident in the hipless, concave figure of high fashion that trickles down to the high street; in the fetishisation of flat stomachs and large breasts in young pop stars, and in the constant speculation about over-dieting among celebrities, which is more a celebration of the skeletal than a genuine expression of concern.

As Britney Spears sings in Piece of Me, a surprisingly perceptive pop parody of the way in which her public image has negated her sense of self-identity, "I'm Mrs Lifestyles of the rich and famous,/ I'm Mrs Oh my God, that Britney's shameless,/ I'm Mrs Extra-extra, this just in,/ I'm Mrs She's too big, now she's too thin/ (You want a piece of me)."

As a female public figure, her body image is an essential part of how she is defined and judged by the media.

HOWEVER, AESTHETICS AREnot even an ounce of the real issue that surrounds the obsession with body image in popular youth culture, as a new play by Audrey O'Reilly, for Team Theatre, Ireland's leading theatre-in-education company, explores. With a specific target audience of young teenage girls in the 12-15 age bracket, Skin and Blistersexplores how weight has become the matrix of a series of cultural, social and psychological anxieties.

Its protagonist is 13-year-old Ella, who is about to start secondary school, a rite of passage that marks the transition between childhood and adolescence. For Ella, measuring her weight is measuring her ability to fit in, to make new friends, to be popular, to be accepted. Starving herself is a way of stifling her emotions, while her secreting of daily meals is a way of guarding her privacy, of separating herself from the control of her parents, a grieving mother and an absent father. In the school world where everything is surface, superficial, pretence, Ella realises that “you can bluff rich, pretty, popular; you can bluff anything except thin”. Being thin is embodied rather than faked; it becomes an essential, the essential, aspect of her identity.

One of the major strengths of O'Reilly's play is the way in which it elicits the complexity of the eating disorder. The dramaturgy may not be subtle, but theatre in education is, at the core of its creativity, designed to be instructive. In Skin and Blisters, the media is not responsible for Ella's illness; instead, her sister's similar fate, her parents' separation, the culture of the schoolyard, the desire for individuality, the appalling imperative of fitting in, all play their role in contributing to her emotional instability. Indeed, in many ways, popular cultural representations are the least of the driving forces behind Ella's difficulties.

What the media is responsible for, however, is making emaciation culturally acceptable, even desirable. Marcus Costello’s clever set for the production, which has been touring secondary schools in Ireland for the last two months, underscores this vital point, with its poster-laden walls reversed as Ella reaches the crux of understanding her own problem. Glossy photos of Keira Knightley, among others, are dramatically revealed as mere millimetres from a far less glamorous reality. It is the kindness of good lighting, the talent of a photographer re-touching a cover shot, which separates the super-thin model from the walking corpse.

The pastel hue of Costello’s set also effectively evokes Ella’s emotional immaturity, revealing how much of a child she is despite her food-related assertion of her independence. In much the same way, the androgynous figure of the anorexic suggests a resistance to growing up, despite the postures of autonomy that the eating disorder often assumes.

Meanwhile, the circular shape of the set suggests the self-enclosed psychological world of the troubled teen, the barriers that Ella draws up around herself but also the self-absorption of adolescence. However, an eating disorder is not a "phase" and, despite the play's neat resolution, Skin and Blistersdoes not trivialise it.

While Skin and Blistersuses drama to raise consciousness through theatrical fiction, the real work of Team's drama-in-education programme is done in the classroom, through the excellent resource material provided to teachers. But educating students on eating disorders is only one small strand of the programme, which anatomises cultural causes as well as the symptoms of illness. The resource materials even suggest preventative measures, addressing the multitude of means through which teenagers can empower themselves, through critical engagement with media, dialogue with peers, and fostering self-esteem. This range of approaches also helps to bring the company into line with the curriculum for SPHE (Social, Personal and Health Education). Students are encouraged to recognise that how they perceive themselves can be influenced by external factors, and to see that beauty is a fluid term, with diversity vital not just for variety but for the very survival of the human race.

The educational aspects engage with teenage interests too, through a potted history of beauty and fashion. Students examine how fashion has manipulated women through the centuries, literally shaping the way they see themselves. They learn how, in the 1800s, corsets imposed the hourglass figure and internal problems on women, whose lungs were often constricted to the point of fainting; or how vinegar and cat dung dissolved the hairlines of the social elites (the “highbrows”); or how leeches and lead helped women achieve pale complexions, with an order of blood loss or poisoning on the side. If these measures now seem absurd, so, in the future, will contemporary trends such as injecting dangerous bacteria and cow fat into lips and cheeks, painting our bodies orange, or binding our feet in perilous high heels.

THE WORKSHOPS CONCLUDEin a similar way to Orbach's most recent book, Bodies, by arguing for a holistic identity grounded in our emotional lives rather than our physical ideals. Our struggle is to re-imagine, to "re-corporealise" our bodies, Orbach writes, "so they become a place we live from rather than an aspiration always needing to be achieved".

For information about Skin and Blisters, see teamtheatre.ie. For information about eating disorders, see bodywhys.ie