Black Swan, A Redux
“I saw you coming down the stairs earlier and I thought you were absolutely beautiful. I would’ve never thought you were going through all this or felt this way about yourself.”
This was the first comment made in the Q&A period after my short documentary film, Though I’m Not Perfect, screened at the 2nd Annual BlackStar Film Festival in Philadelphia. People often believe eating disorders are about looks or are a choice, but in reality they are complex illnesses that develop for many different reasons. For too long, eating disorders have been known as only a young white girl’s illness. This is a myth. Eating disorders do not discriminate. While more research is needed in this area, we do know that the prevalence of eating disorders is similar among Non-Hispanic Whites, Hispanics, African-Americans, and Asians in the United States, with the exception that anorexia nervosa is more common among Non-Hispanic Whites.
Following my first ballet instructor’s recommendation, I started dieting at the ripe age of nine years old, with hopes that I would be accepted into the children’s company of the school I attended. She gave my mom a food plan for me to follow, which included foods like cabbage soup, cottage cheese and whole-wheat toast, none of which were appealing to my nine year old palate. In many instances I forewent a meal rather than endure the disgusting consistencies of foods like lumpy cottage cheese in my mouth.
This period was the first time in my life I felt like an “other.” I was angry, jealous, and alone; angry at my body, parents, and God for giving me the wrong genes for ballet, jealous of my friends who were able to eat whatever they wanted without it affecting their size, and incredibly alone because I didn’t want to be around others while they ate. I feared being tempted by foods I wasn’t allowed to eat and seeing others indulge in what I deemed “real food” simply made me fuming mad! I avoided being around other kids while I ate because I felt ashamed and didn’t want to explain what was “wrong” with me and why I needed to eat what I was eating. I also wanted to avoid being asked, “What is that?” while they donned the “ewww face.”
In addition to all those repressed emotions, I felt I had no choice but to endure this restriction of food in order to attain my dream of getting into that children’s company. After a couple weeks, my weight loss started to become noticeable to me as well as others. The compliments started rolling in from my parents, parents of my friends whom I was training with, and all my ballet teachers . . . except the one who had the power to put me in that children’s company. Months went by and she never said a word. She actually ignored me in class. After analyzing the situation, I remember my parents sharing their conclusion with me. None of the other students in her company looked like me . . . and I don’t mean in size. This was an issue of complexion. Most of the company members were White or Hispanic, and the few Blacks were more like a café au lait.
Devastation set in. I gave up my dream of being in this company and a ballerina altogether. Without worrying or even being aware of the consequences of developing Binge Eating Disorder, I literally swallowed my feelings with all the foods I wasn’t allowed to eat before. Though I gained the weight back, in hindsight, I believe my peers didn’t ostracize me because my appearance was that of someone who was “average weight” as opposed to “overweight” . . . at least in the “regular world.”
About a year later, a few months after turning eleven, I started attending a new middle school for “the gifted and talented.” I resumed taking ballet classes in middle school, but those classes didn’t compare to the rigor of the ballet training I’d previously received. Before deciding to leave my previous school, I had been on pointe for almost two years, taking hour and a half long classes five days per week, and an extra hour of pointe on the weekends. In middle school, classes were about forty minutes long—and there was no extra time given to change in and out of dance clothes.
Though I was dancing again, it was now just a hobby, not a career goal. However, during that time, I found out about a serious training program that was created to give Black people the opportunity to train and perform classical ballet. Needless to say, my dream lured me back in. I auditioned and was put in a beginner ballet class. With all my previous training, how was this possible? When my mom and I inquired, we found out that my acceptance into the class level I belonged in, the advanced intermediate class in the pre-professional program, was contingent upon me losing weight. I was up for the challenge because I’d done it before.
I endured the humiliation of going to a ballet class that was beneath my level for a year and a half, until my appearance was deemed acceptable to those I believed held the key to my dream. Even after being promoted, disparaging comments were made to me in front of my classmates about my weight. The underlying message was that I was still too big to be a ballerina, regardless of my dance abilities.
When the time came for me to start thinking about college, I realized that becoming a ballerina was a pipe dream and I needed to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. At this time, I was attending LaGuardia High School of Music and Art & the Performing Arts (the “Fame” school), as a vocal major, and was exposed to much more artistically. I was friends with a couple of drama majors and was bit by the acting bug when I had the chance opportunity to sit in on a few classes. When I made this known to some of my ballet teachers, I was met with discouraging responses because they believed I didn’t have the “ideal” body type to be in any aspect of the performing arts. I was advised to “focus on academics.” This advice only fueled my determination to pursue my new dream of being an actor.
I auditioned and was accepted into Syracuse University Department of Drama’s musical theatre program. About a week before graduating, I was offered a contract for an off-Broadway show. I became part of the stage actor’s union (Actors’ Equity Association) and was off to a running start. What was most surprising to me was that I was being hired mostly for my talent as a dancer. The physical aesthetic for dancers in musical theatre is not as strict as it is in ballet, but the emotional abuse I underwent during my ballet training made me feel like no one would ever be interested in seeing me performing any style of dance on a stage. This wasn’t the case.
After some years of doing only musicals, I decided to focus my energy on doing straight plays. My ultimate goal was to act in television and film, but, unfortunately, in my industry, musical theatre actors are not considered “legitimate.” My strategy was to book some roles in straight plays so I could diversify my resume, that way no casting director could pigeon hole me as a “musical theatre actress.” With a little pushing on my agent’s part and me learning how to say, “No,” to certain job offers, my strategy worked. If one were to look at my resume today, you will find musicals such as Legally Blonde and The Color Purple, straight plays at some of the nation’s top regional and Off-Broadway theatre companies, and television shows such as NBC’s new hit, The Blacklist, Law & Order: SVU, Gossip Girl, and Glee.
This is not to say that all my weight concerns vanished once becoming a professional actor. The mental conditioning I received as a child was still present in my thinking. In spite of my accomplishments, I hated my body and saw food as the enemy. When auditioning for roles I would always walk in the room wishing I were smaller. Many in my industry who were in positions of power reaffirmed these feelings. I remember an agent telling me in a meeting, “You have a leading lady face but a character body. You will always play the best friend, never the lead . . .your ass is just too fat!” Comments like these, and there were many, would always take me back to my nine year old self who believed that something was wrong with my body and, if I could only fix it, life would be grand. So I spent years trying to “fix” myself so others would like me . . . accept me . . . value me . . . love me.
After crossing paths with a holistic doctor, I started to become aware of this mental conditioning and realized that I had the power to change my thinking. It dawned on me that despite what my teachers taught me about myself during those formative years, I somehow managed to still be successful in an industry I wasn’t supposed to be able to make it in, because I was too fat. This epiphany inspired me to produce my short documentary, Though I’m Not Perfect, about the physical and psychological dangers of the ballet world on young girls, and the role teachers play in it. However, though I’d created this documentary film and was very willing to share my experience, I’d accepted the dysfunctional relationship I had with food and my body because I am in an industry where such dysfunctional behaviors and ways of thinking are, unfortunately, the norm.
Thankfully, this got tiring. By “this” I mean, the dieting, fasting, bingeing, purging, feeling like a failure, beating myself up, exercising excessively, hating myself, trying to please others, etc. I wanted it all to stop. Suicide was an option I considered, but deep down I think I knew that was a punk move. As a result of creating my film, I began developing a relationship with the National Eating Disorders Association. It was because of that connection that I sought out professional help for my body image and food issues.
It is only within the past year, after seeking professional help for my eating disorder, that I have begun to transform my relationship with my body and food. I have, in turn, shifted my relationship with the entertainment industry. I no longer allow others to define who I am. I walk in audition rooms with confidence, fully accepting every inch of myself, knowing that I can only be me, and if they’re not buying what I’m selling, then that job isn’t for me.
I recently went on an audition for a feature film and, in the audition room, was asked to read for a different part than I initially went in for. I was a little taken aback when I realized it was the part of a woman who was getting hit on by a man who was attracted to, “big girls.” For a moment, I took issue with the fact that I was being perceived as a, “big girl,” but then I realized that this was a blessing. Of late, it has become my mission to broaden the definition of beauty in my industry and this was a role doing exactly that. I booked the part and ironically enough, when I went to my costume fitting, I was told that the director loved my acting, fell in love with my face, but wanted me to wear padding because I was not big enough! Yes, I equaled not big enough. The gods had to have been laughing out loud, because I certainly was, as I said to myself, “This is your life Stacey Sargeant. Bwaaaah!”
Viewing my film at the BlackStar Film Festival, I was overcome with the type of emotion that comes when one reflects on all the obstacles she’s overcome in life, the type of emotions that, had I not gotten under control by taking deep breaths, would have turned me into a blubbering mess. While I know my therapist would say this is a good thing to be in touch with, this was not the time or the place . . . I had to speak on a panel in a few minutes. Nonetheless, watching my film, I could not ignore how I had turned the lemons in my life into lemonade, and not just for myself. Every time I share my story, whether it is via my film, written articles, my YouTube channel, or a one-on-one conversation, I see how my willingness to share gives people the courage to release the shame in their own lives, even if only for a moment, because they know they are not alone. It is my hope that my story will help other women and artists seek the professional help they need to investigate their own mental conditioning, ultimately leading them to the awareness that their true worth lies in who they are as individuals, and not in what they look like.
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