Eating disorders are being looked at more and more nowadays in TV programmes such as Hollyoaks, and in part 2 of 9 in the groundbreaking teen drama Skins yesterday, we follow Cassie, a Sixth former suffering from, amongst other problems such as low self esteem and self-harm, anorexia. We follow her day as she wakes up at one of the all-night parties that the show was so popular for, and gently kisses Sid Jenkins (the virgin of the Skins gang, and, in my opinion, one of the most handsome boys I’ve ever seen), before going home, where she sees her parents going at it (eww) in the kitchen. They pay her very little attention and when Cassie announces that she’s fit enough to leave rehab, their “Wow, that’s great!” reactions are entirely reminiscent of a teacher saying anything to get a hated student out of the way.
Hannah Murray plays Cassie wonderfully. It could be so easy for a girl with mental illness, low self-esteem and an eating disorder to sink into the depths of farce, but she is completely realistic, despite portraying a character who’s obsessed with the words “wow” and “totally.” She is quite spacey and ditzy, but Cassie is also extremely intelligent (she can calculate mathematical sums quickly in her head), and above all, a kind person, and I was rooting for her throughout the episode. She’s just a breath of fresh air, lively, vibrant, in her own little world, and one of the few characters worth liking on this parade of smug teenagers with more STDs than Pete Doherty.
Cassie, like me, proceeds to get a bit of a crush on Sid, after he speaks to her during lunch, telling her that she should eat, and in a moment of brilliant girl power, she spills food on the twatty protagonist Tony (played by Nicholas Hoult, in a role more different from his breakout character in About a Boy than chalk is from cheese) because he is constantly saying that Sid smells and will never “pull”. Sid idolizes Tony and follows him about like a lost puppy, and also is infatuated with Tony
’s slutty girlfriend Michelle. She doesn’t deserve him. And in being obsessed with her (and also coping with a mad drug dealer who wants to get him), he misses out on the jewel right in front of him: Cassie.Throughout the show, Cassie receives texts saying “EAT!” from an unknown sender. She prays that it is Sid, and that it is him showing the interest in her, but in the bitterest of bittersweet moments, we discover that it was actually just her rehab driver. Or maybe, even, just a figment of her imagination. The episode yesterday was funny (the chavvy banter between the smug kids was fun to listen to), disturbing (watching two parents have sex in the kitchen where there baby son sits is not something I want to have to witness again), but
essentially, very poignant (witness Cassie desperately fingering a chocolate bar from a pile of many that she has stored, but can’t eat.) The show ends where her cab driver coaxes her into eating a burger, but the creators of the show don’t make it that easy for us; the show ends with the burger in her mouth. Swallowed or unswallowed, that is up to the viewers to decide, but all I know is that Cassie is one of the most wonderful creations in TV, and I hope she does get the happiness and good guy she deserves. Here's a Regina Spektor music video set to clips of Cassie:
Tags:
skins, 
channel 4, 
tv, 
anorexia. 
Marlon Brando
Alec Guinness
Tim Robbins
Jake Gyllenhaal
cute actors
Harry Potter
classic cinema
movies
films
cinema
acting
