Expert: Mel - 4/13/2007

Question
Hi,I'm from Spain so my english is not very good! I'm a writer and for that time i'm on a book about madness in films. One of the chapters are about eating disorders. I read that in season 9 Gina has BULIMIA. I am very grateful if you could make me a summary with this theme.
Thank you very much!
Beatriz Vera

Answer
Hi Beatriz,

I'm glad to help out for your book.  During the course of the series, there have been 3 characters with some degree of an eating disorder: Gina Kinkaid (9.24-9.26), Kelly Taylor (3.18-3.25), and Amanda Pacer (1.13).

I will focus on Gina, as she is who you asked about.

Gina was Donna's cousin from out of town and a professional ice skater.  She arrives in L.A. to do a show, then promptly loses her job and agent.  After moving in with Donna (whom she secretly resents/envies), Gina's life becomes consumed by her non-committal, often drug-addicted, first boyfriend, Dylan.  It takes some time for her to find a real job and genuine friends, so, needless to say, her life is ripe with stress.

However, it's not until the last 3 episodes of the 9th season that this stress comes to a climax and we find out about her bulimia.  

Initially, Gina just complains of a toothache.  Kelly overhears and offers her the phone number of a good dentist -- her former step-dad, Mel Silver (also David's father).  At the appointment, Mel informs her that her teeth have lost a lot of their enamel, and asks how long she's been bulimic.  He warns her of damage to the esophagus and severe vitamin loss.  But she brushes him off, saying, "I don't know what you're talking about.  I feel fine."  "You look fine", he says, "but you could drop dead tomorrow from heart failure."  She leaves, but not before joking that it would be a relief, given the difficult week she's been having.  What she's referring to is the fact that she and Dylan broke up recently, because he confessed to having slept with Kelly.

And in comes Kelly, arriving at Gina's workplace to suggest that she either find a new place to live or accept her apologies for sleeping with her boyfriend.  Despite throwing out her lunch earlier and claiming that she can't eat because of all the dental work (a filling came out), Gina takes out a pastry and proceeds to "binge" right after this meeting.  

Later, after witnessing her impulsively throw out some food and hearing about Mel's concerns, Kelly tries to reach out to Gina.  "I know about eating disorders ... first hand", she says.  "Bulimia isn't about controlling your weight; it's about controlling your life".  Gina dismisses this statement, saying that it just sounds like 'psychobabble'.  She used to know other skaters that "did things" to lose weight, but she had never been one of them.

That talk didn't end well and neither does the one she has with Dylan, when he comes by to apologize for his earlier comment to David ("You can have her").  Basically, Gina continuously feels used in this relationship because she knows Dylan's still in love with Kelly and he's proven his ability to move on quickly after their break-up, regardless.  This meeting has the feel of them breaking up all over again, even without getting back together.  So she says goodbye and then goes to the bathroom to throw up.

Before answering the door, we saw Gina throwing away a whole assortment of empty chocolate bar wrappers, evidence that she had "binged" just beforehand.  The bathroom scene here marks the first time we actually see/find out that she has a problem.  The calm and discreet manner in which she enters, kneels down, and ties her hair up in a perfect ponytail suggests that these actions are routine.  

They're repeated once more in the next episode, as Gina runs into Dylan at the Peach Pit diner and they talk.  Having finished a large meal (Nat, the owner, jokes, "Where does it all go?"), she leaves Dylan to go to the restroom.  She simply can't deal with her feelings for Dylan and the pressure of an upcoming skating audition.  In the end, Gina passes out on the bathroom floor at the event, much to a confused David, who had been going to her rehearsals and lending emotional support.

A very reluctant hospital patient, Gina pushes David away at first.  Then, she comes to his house ready to admit that her falling unconscious for 2 whole minutes wasn't due to an "electrolyte imbalance".  David sweetly insists that she can tell him the truth.  She explains that when she was 12 years old, she was the top-ranking ice skater in the U.S.  Then, she grew up and got curves, which inhibited her performance.  Wanting a different body, she began to occasionally purge after eating.  Then it began to happen all the time.  To this day, she always feels 'not good enough', always second-best.  In a later conversation with David, she acknowledges that her relationship with Dylan reinforces all of this, and wishes she could stop "wanting" to be in such a  position.

David thanks her for telling him and they spend a friendly night playing cards and dominoes.  Whenever food is around, Gina assures him that she'll be fine and directly asks whether all these games are meant to distract her from wanting to throw up. "No, I'm just really good at 'Old Maid'!", he jokingly exclaims.  "Besides, I thought you said you could stop."  "... I can.  It's just going to be a major accomplishment.  Your diversions are really helping me along", she responds.

Of course, Gina gets back together with Dylan shortly thereafter, but her disorder is never mentioned.  In season 10, she learns (among other things) that her uncle is really her father, he dies, she leaves town, and her eating disorder still does not present itself.

What does?  The Season 10 love triangle between David, Dylan, and Gina.

Kelly's eating disorder plotline lasted much longer (back in Season 3), came about quite naturally and yet kind of 'snuck up on' the viewer (well, if that viewer was 11 yrs old, at least, like me).  She simply started eating less, for about 5 weeks.  Then, concentrated in only 2 episodes (nearly one - 3.24, "Perfectly Perfect"), she heavily abused diet pills ... eventually passing out on the bathroom floor of the Peach Pit.  Also, she obsessively exercised and had one instance of "binging".  But she never threw up a meal, and landed herself in the hospital almost immediately.  So I feel the story didn't go as far as it could have, as future struggles are also never hinted at for this character.

Stressful events in Kelly's life at the time include:

Parent's Divorce (again)
- Worried about her mom, and that she may start using cocaine again
- Perceived loss of step-family members

Graduation
- Unsure what she wants to do with her life

Selling of House/Moving Out
- Too much changing at once; her home was the one thing that always remained "through [her mother's] three husbands and two boyfriends"

Estrangement from her best friend, Brenda
- Because Kelly's dating her ex-boyfriend, Dylan.  Guilt over this ...

Death of Dylan's father
- Both perceived and actual estrangement, not knowing how to be there for him when their relationship is so new
- Fear of break-up
- Fear of the struggles and vulnerability of a real relationship, seeing as Dylan was the first to respect her/take her seriously

Strong desire to no longer "be Kelly Taylor"
- Intense frustration with how she's been seen and treated all her life, the need to break free of this and become who she really is ...
- At the same time, the pressure to live up to her social role (beautiful, perfect, etc)

Yeah, she certainly had motivation for her story arc.  Ultimately, it was necessary for her to have some sort of breakdown in order to start building an honest relationship with Dylan, and this is one way the eating disorder plotline was used. Dylan protests that he loves her without condition and wants a full, long-term relationship.  Also, Kelly and her mom enter counseling ... but this is done off-camera.

It should be noted that Kelly's mom (a former model) is pre-occupied with her appearance and Kelly, as a child, would rebel against her by gaining weight (5.07).  "At 5, I was so brainwashed I wouldn't even eat birthday cake", she recalls of other times.  In Season 5, Kelly becomes very protective of her 3 year old step-sister when her mom takes her to a Mother-Daughter photo-shoot, and is initially resistant to becoming a model herself later in the season.       

Amanda Pacer:  Single episode (Season 1), diet pills and starvation (Anorexia), much the same.  She was an old friend of Kelly's who came to Brenda's slumber party.  She bullies the girls into sharing their darkest secrets during a game of Truth-or-Dare because, as they find out later when pills drop out of her purse, she has one of her own.  Kelly exclaims, "Why are you doing this to yourself?" and tells her she needs to stop, accept that she's beautiful the way she is, and stay at the party.  At the urging of the others, she does, and even (for one night, at least) eats chocolate chip cookies.  The ending is very "cute", for better or worse.

Good luck with your book!  

Let me know if you need clarification.

All the best,

Mel