Would Jody Sawyer Have Gotten Into ABC? - The End of 'Center Stage' & Why It Matters
Ok, so hear me out…
I know analyzing, fan theory-ing and pontificating on details of movies/theater/TV/books/etc. has reached an all-time high, and possible saturation point. But I do think some of that pontificating can lead to wider discussions about important ideas that bleed off the screen to powerfully show up in real life. I think the end of CENTER STAGE is one of them. The awesome twist was unusual for what is basically a feel-good, fun dance film (though it does skim the surface of darker, deeper issues in the dance world,) and threw everyone for a loop in a great way. But it did leave a big unanswered question – one I think delving into might help us with when looking at artistic gatekeeping with a more critical, realistic eye.
Plus, honestly, who in the theater world doesn’t love CENTER STAGE and wouldn’t have fun overanalyzing it?
Not me!
So, here we go. Keep in mind, there are major spoilers ahead for CENTER STAGE as well as THE TURNING POINT and THE RED SHOES.
The Set-Up
So, to recap, the story of CENTER STAGE centers around Jody Sawyer – a bright, lovely, talented (albeit without the “ideal body type” (according to other characters in the film,)) young dancer who makes it into the senior class of ABA (the fictional American Ballet Academy, meant to be a stand-in for SAB – the real-life School of American Ballet.) ABA is the feeder school for the, also fictional, ABC (American Ballet Company, meant to be a stand-in for the real-life New York City Ballet (possibly with some American Ballet Theater thrown in for good measure.) She starts her year alongside some notable other students:
EVA – The only principal woman of color in the school, Eva comes from a challenging background (one that never gets delved into, but apparently there was a subplot that was cut involving her brother being killed (and possibly being a drug dealer in her home town? The details are a bit murky as none of this made it into the final film…)) Suffice it to say that Eva comes from the “wrong side of the tracks” but is naturally very good at ballet. She is street smart, tough, and has a massive chip on her shoulder. Though she does have an “ideal body type,” (again, according to the film,) she is disrespectful to authority figures, and it causes her a lot of problems. Here are two exchanges from the film that pretty much summarizes where Eva starts:
Upon learning that she got into ABA:
Eva: I don’t know, I’m thinking maybe I’m not going to go.
Friend: So what are you going to do?
Eva: There’s that new Hooters opening up, I could work there!
A little later in the film after all the new students have had their first class.
Maureen: Eva’s actually good – amazing extension. But her attitude stinks. Jonathan hates her already, thank God!
MAUREEN – Maureen is the girl who’s been at ABA since she was a child. She’s the star of the school and she knows it. The Queen Bee of the ballet world. There a lot more going on with her under the surface, but for our purposes, that’s the main thing we need to know.
CHARLIE – A super talented new male student.
ERIC – Another super talented male student (also the only principal man of color in the film.)
ANNA – A long-time student, she’s come up through the school with Maureen and is also very talented.
EMILY – Another long-time student who’s come up through the school with Maureen and Anna. Talented, but has been gaining weight (this is a major plot point.)
JONATHAN is the artistic director of the company and the head of the school. Elitist and kind of a jerk.
Ok. So, the driving force behind every major character for the whole film is:
Who’s going to be asked to join the company at the end of the year?
On the first day of class, Jonathan makes a rather depressing speech in which he says:
“At best I can take three boys and three girls.”
The Drama
Ok. Here we go. Now which male dancers get in honestly isn’t that big of a deal. We pretty much know from the word go and, with the exception of a bit of drama about ¾ of the way through the film, no big surprises there. (Even Sergei gets what he wants – which is to be at San Francisco Ballet with his girlfriend. Missing his girlfriend is his #1 character trait, other than being Eastern European.)
So, the drama is down to the girls.
Early in the film Maureen’s mother (think the mom from BLACK SWAN but turned down like 60 notches,) asks Maureen:
Mom: So you still think it’ll be you, Anna, and Emily?
Maureen: Yeah. Although, have you seen Emily?
They turn and look at Emily and are shocked that she’s gained weight.
But, basically, that’s where we start. The three favorites to get in the company are, as they have been for years, Maureen, Anna, and Emily (if she can get her weight down.) The two new competitors are dismissed as not being a threat – Eva because “her attitude stinks,” and Jody because: “She’s hopeless, she’ll never make it.”
Throughout the movie, these assumptions are questioned and challenged, most notably in our protagonist, Jody.
From the first moment in the film, we know that Jody has a “spark.” The opening line of the film, spoken by one of the school’s auditioners is:
“Not enough turn out. Bad feet. But look at her!”
Jody has physical limitations as a dancer. But she has something special. There’s a joy that radiates through her when she dances. She’s unique.
This comes up again, and again in the film. Midway through the year, Jonathan calls her into his office for a conference where he basically says that she needs to look at the realities of her becoming a professional dancer, and encourages her to apply to college while there’s still time. Jody is hurt and horrified. This is part of their exchange:
Jonathan: You’re not very turned out, so that needs work. And you don’t have great feet. And while you’re very pretty, you don’t have the ideal body type.
Jody: Margot Fonteyn didn’t have great feet.
Jonathan: When Margot Fonteyn was on stage you couldn’t tear your eyes away from her. That can’t be taught.
And that, basically, is the central theme of the movie – can uniqueness and passion win out against the “system?”
And that’s why the answer to “Does Jody get into the company?” becomes so important.
Especially because this is an issue that is VERY present in the real world of the performing arts – probably most measurable in the dance world.
The “ideal body type” is no joke, and it’s not really something that’s subjective – at least in classical ballet. Arguably the greatest ballet school in the world is the Vaganova Ballet Academy in Russia – the feeder school for the Mariinsky Ballet. The vast majority of the greatest ballet dancers who have ever lived have come from that school. There’s a wonderful documentary that was made about them in the 1970s called “Children of Theatre Street” where they talk about their admission process. Part of the process involves potential students visiting the school’s medical center where:
“The children’s bodies are judged against a mathematical index describing the ideal dancer. A computerized list of measurements predicts the proportion of the leg to the torso when the child is fully grown. Talent is considered worth measuring only when it occurs in the right body. And the index doesn’t measure the child’s desire to dance…”
They are not the only school that has such a requirement, but they are probably the most strict about it.
Jody Sawyer would never have gotten into the Vaganova Academy. Neither would Margot Fonteyn for that matter.
The way things pan out in CENTER STAGE is interesting when all this is taken into account.
Jody, wanting to “enjoy dancing again” sneaks away from ABA and takes a jazz class at the equivalent of Broadway Dance Center. It just so happens that Cooper, a star with ABC who, after a leave of absence, has recently returned and is making the transition to choreographer, is also in the class. He’s taken with Jody (personally and professionally,) and decides to cast her as the lead in the piece he’s choreographing for the student workshop (the workshop will, supposedly, be a big factor in who gets into the company…) This is good news for Jody as she doesn’t get cast in ANYTHING ELSE in the workshop…not even as a corps member standing in the back.
Eva isn’t as lucky. She does get cast as a corps member, but nothing else. As she says;
“No one will see me and I won’t get a job.”
Maureen gets the lead in Jonathan’s ballet.
Anna gets the lead in another big ballet.
Emily, by this point, has left the school because she’s getting so much harassment about her weight (and it’s basically implied that if she didn’t choose to leave she would have been kicked out.) That means that, if Maureen and Anna both get in the company there will still be one place left…
There’s a lot of talk about “I’m not dancing for them anymore, I’m dancing for me,” “Just feel it,” “Who cares what they think?” “Tomorrow’s just one more day I get to dance,” etc.
But let’s break down the reality.
Though Cooper does legitimately love Jody as a dancer (as he says; “I recognized your dancing before I recognized you”) by this point they’re also sleeping together. Jody is, at most, eighteen years old (God, let’s hope she’s eighteen!) And Cooper is an ADULT. His age is never specifically stated, but he was a principal with the company for a while even before he took a hiatus and then came back. Assuming he got into the company around seventeen/eighteen, and even assuming a meteoric rise through the ranks, he’s at least got to be in his mid to late ’20s. And the fact that he’s transitioning to being a choreographer, to me implies that he’s at least pushing thirty (most classical dancers (with some exceptions) stop dancing professionally by age forty at the most.) He’s also in a position of power over her, and at this point is her only chance to make Jonathan change his mind about her. Cooper is also the resident playboy and, as one dancer describes him; “screws every girl in tights.” This is in no way shapes or forms a healthy relationship. Yet keeping him happy is Jody’s only chance to get into ABC.
Also, that “chance” is not in doing classical ballet, but doing contemporary ballet. She’s freaking amazing at it, but it’s not why she went to ABA. She says later in the film “All my life I wanted to be a member of the American Ballet Company.” She says about Cooper’s choreography, “The piece is so not ABC.” Contemporary ballet, contemporary dance, and modern dance have traditionally been places where unique, talented dancers who don’t necessarily have the “ideal body type” thrive.
By this point in the story, Eva has also mellowed a bit. She’s started to find her place within this rigidly structured world and figured out how to work within the system (while still maintaining some great wisecracks on the side) without letting it break her spirit. But I would like to point out that this only happens after Juliet (Eva’s main teacher) takes her under her wing which includes giving her the sadly true, but horribly problematic advice that boils down to “Jonathan’s awful and a total jerk. But every choreographer and artistic director is like that so if you want a career you’d better learn how not to piss them off.”
Maureen, in the meantime, is confronting the fact that she doesn’t actually want to be a ballet dancer. She naturally has the facility but was basically pushed into it by her mom who always felt like she missed her chance to be a dancer and didn’t want that to happen with her daughter. Maureen is also finally admitting to having a long-time eating disorder and, in a big twist, decides to quit ballet and, without telling anyone, gives her lead role in Jonathan’s ballet to Eva. Jonathan is shocked to see Eva onstage, but…she looks great and people are commenting about how good she is – and how good she makes Jonathan’s choreography look.
In the meantime, Anna kills in her ballet, so looks like she’s a shoo-in for one of the spots (side note, I have a theory, based on this film, that every movie/show/etc. has an “Anna.” Anna starts CENTER STAGE as one of the top girls in the school. She keeps being amazing. She skips all the drama and then gets into the company at the end. Look closely at any story – there’s always some background character that starts out great, bypasses all the bad stuff, and ends up great…)
Also, right around this time is the “twist” with the guys. Eric is supposed to be dancing with Charlie and Jody in Cooper’s ballet. But at the final dress rehearsal, he gets injured, taking him out of the number and “ruining his career,” forcing Cooper to step in and dance with Jody. But Eric gets into the company anyway. YAY! This actually isn’t as out there as it sounds… injuries in dance are very common and, while there are times that an injury does seriously affect someone’s career, or moves an artistic director’s attention away from them, losing them roles and promotions, in situations like this a minor injury wouldn’t be enough to stop someone from getting hired (it is just a sprain…) For example, former NYCB soloist Kathryn Morgan got seriously injured her last year at SAB…but the artistic director knew her, liked her, and, though it meant her acceptance into the company was potentially delayed, basically as soon as she was healed she got her contract.
So now there are two female spots open in the company and we’re all expecting a happy ending where Eva and Jody get in, right?
How We End:
Well, that’s just what happens to Eva. She gets called into her meeting, schooled for stepping into the role without telling anyone, but ultimately Jonathan decides to take a chance on her and she’s over the moon. She’s mellowed on her attitude to better fit in (though she does still talk back to Jonathan even in this scene, which is great,) but let’s not forget – she has the ideal body type. She has amazing extension. And she made Jonathan’s ballet look FANTASTIC. She’s so talented in fact that Maureen was intimidated by her on DAY ONE and it was only ever her attitude that called her future into question. She got in because she learned to play the game.
We see girls come out of their meetings crying (it seems to imply that they’re having meetings in alphabetical order of students…meaning Jody is toward the end) and while that’s happening Cooper tells Jody he’s getting funding to start his own company and he wants her to join – starting as a principal. “You have to be in my company. You’ll be its star!”
And just at that moment, Jody gets called in for her meeting with Jonathan and Juliet (the wonderful Donna Murphy.) She doesn’t give Cooper her answer.
She walks into her meeting. Keep in mind, Jody brought down the house with her performance. She was the star of the evening.
Jonathan starts to speak and Jody stops him. This is what she says:
Jody: For ten years all I’ve wanted was to be one of American Ballet Company’s perfect ballerinas. I’ve wanted to be you Juliet. But I’m not you, and I’m not perfect. I’m just me, bad feet and all, and I’m starting to think I like that even better.
Jonathan starts to speak again.
Jody: No, please don’t. Because if you’re not going to offer me a place in the company, then I don’t want to hear it. And if you are…I might not have the strength to say no. And then I’d be spending my best dancing years in the back of the corps waving a rose back and forth…and I’m better than that. So, thank you, Jonathan, for turning me into the best dancer I can be. I appreciate it more than I can say, really, because the best dancer I can be is a principal in Cooper Nielson’s new company.
She leaves. Jonathan and Juliet look shocked (I think partially because they’ve never had someone turn THEM down, and partially because this is the first they’ve heard about Cooper having his own company.)
The moment is meant to be empowering, and it is. Jody is choosing her own destiny. She’s successful on her own terms. She’s found her “niche.” She doesn’t have to conform to someone else’s standards, and what’s unique about her will be celebrated.
But…
Was Jonathan going to let her into the company?
We never find out. And I think it’s an important question.
Because I think there’s an important reason the filmmakers ended Jody’s story the way they did.
They could, theoretically, get the same message across by having Jody change Jonathan’s mind about her, and finally get her dream of being in ABC.
But they didn’t.
And I think that’s because that’s a fantasy. Sadly, it’s not how the real world works.
Jody had one, really successful night. At this moment, she’s “hot.” But if Cooper wasn’t starting his own company, her being the “it” girl probably wouldn’t last the week.
The horrific, sad reality is you can’t change the system by “believing in yourself more.” We have a 42ND STREET fantasy in this industry that if you’re talented and work hard enough, stardom is your due. And if you don’t get it it’s because you didn’t want it badly enough. (ARGH!) It’s no coincidence that the heroine of 42ND STREET’s name is Peggy Sawyer, and the heroine of CENTER STAGE is Jody Sawyer. Part of the point of CENTER STAGE is that, while you can still have a happy ending, that fantasy of “deserved” stardom for perseverance and hard work isn’t the way the real world often functions. The few, real-life examples of a young musical theater performer coming from nowhere with no background to suddenly become the star do not go according to the Peggy Sawyer myth. Sutton Foster, long held up as a real-life Peggy Sawyer since she was plucked from the ensemble to play the lead in THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE only to go on to win the Tony, isn’t exactly accurate. Sutton Foster had immense training. She’d done Broadway tours. She might have been unknown, but she was primed and ready for her break. There are other stories of young people being put in a similar situation who crashed and burned. And those are the very rare examples of an unknown getting a big break in the first place.
It’s even worse in the ballet world.
There’s another exchange in CENTER STAGE:
Eva: News flash, there’s more to being a great artist than perfect technique!
Maureen: Try dancing to “Swan Lake” without it.
She’s not wrong.
But even if she were…
Gatekeeping is a big deal. Artistic directors like the kind of dancers and the kind of bodies they like, and “really wanting it” and “working hard” isn’t going to change that. And yes, it is very problematic having people’s careers be based on the personal preferences of one person. But that’s the way it is in a lot of the industry. And it’s awful.
And that’s part of what CENTER STAGE is trying to say, while still having a happy ending and giving us potentially more realistic hope.
It would have been a huge downer to have Jody walk into her meeting, have Jonathan tell her that, while she did a great job in the performance, he still feels the way he’s always felt, and he doesn’t have a place for her in the company. Fade to black.
Instead, what I think the film is trying to tell us is that our dreams are valid, and hard work and uniqueness do pay off, but it involves doing the work to discover what your niche really is, and what you most enjoy doing. Jody, like a lot of dancers, probably started dreaming of being a “perfect ABC ballerina” because she saw the company at a young age, had an “ah-ha!” moment, and her passion to dance became inexorably linked with THAT company.
Now if the film had gone into more depth about WHY Jody was so obsessed with ABC, and it had something to do with really being the place she would be most fulfilled as a dancer, that would be one thing. But that’s not what happens. From the moment she gets to the school she feels out of place. It’s only when she leaves the school and goes to a jazz class that she starts to get in touch with her love of dance again. She is perfectly suited to a contemporary ballet style – but more than that, she seems to LOVE it. She comes alive doing Cooper’s piece, and that “spark” that’s so special about her, that we’ve seen dim more and more over the course of the film, comes back with a vengeance. And it’s made very clear that she joins Cooper’s company, not because of him, but because of the work. When she tells him she’s decided to join his company, he tries to kiss her. She pulls back and responds:
“Cooper, you’re a great dancer, and an amazing choreographer but, as a boyfriend, well, you kind of suck.”
Whereupon she greets her fellow students and is celebrated, while Cooper is all but ignored in the background, looking rather impressed that Jody stood up to him like that.
On a side note, assuming Jody was going to get into the company I would love to see a sequel where Jonathan has to go to a dancer he rejected, be like “so…someone else turned us down, so, actually, do you want the spot?” And then watch her first year in the company where she knows she wasn’t wanted but has to navigate being there anyway…
CENTER STAGE is notorious for lovingly referencing just about every major dance film that came before…but it turns the endings on their head.
In THE RED SHOES, our heroine is a slave to her art, so much so that pursuit of perfection leads to the devastation of her personal life, and ultimately herself. She ends the film by throwing herself in front of a train, her last words are her begging for her pointe shoes (“the red shoes”) to be taken off. It’s implied that this is a pattern – young girls killing themselves to be the “perfect ballerina” until it destroys them and the torch is passed to someone else. This seems to be the path Maureen is headed down until she chooses another narrative.
THE TURNING POINT asks “can you be both an artist and a ‘real person.’” It follows two dancers – one who gave up her career to be married and has always questioned how good she could have been, the other who gave up everything to be a star and now, at the end of her career, feels like she’s been left with nothing. The former woman has a daughter who is just starting her career, and the two women wonder if things can be different for her. It seems to imply that it’s possible for the next generation to learn from the mistakes of the past – something I think CENTER STAGE brings to fuller fruition in some ways, though it is a lighter more “fun” film.
The question of whether Jody got into the company is ultimately the question “Do artists have the power to change the way gatekeeping happens in their industry?” And I think that’s a great question. It would be too easy to imagine that Jody would have gotten into the company just like it’s too easy to cover up the real problems in our industry by saying “if you work as hard as you can you can break down any door!” I think it’s important that Jonathan says, on the first day of class “If you work as hard as you can, every day, this school will make you the best dancer you can be. That may or may not be the kind of dancer I have a place for in the company.” Hard work will make you into the best artist you can be. I believe, and I think the film is saying, that that will make you ultimately far more fulfilled than getting what you may think you want. There is a perfect place for you to be fully and uniquely yourself, and that may ultimately be a place where you will be far more fulfilled rather than being where you think you should be.
And on a random, separate note, I have a headcanon theory that the universe of the wonderful T.V. show FLESH AND BONE (also set in the ballet world) is a dark sequel to CENTER STAGE. It is also set in a fictional “American Ballet Company,” features many of the same cast members who are now older and jaded, and tracks along a timeline that makes sense if you imagine this is the same ABC as CENTER STAGE 10-15 years later (the artistic director says he founded the company with a partner who died. Is that Jonathan?) The choreographer for FLESH AND BONE was Ethan Stiefel – the artist who played Cooper in CENTER STAGE (did Cooper come back to choreograph for ABC?) It’s a silly little theory but I think it’s fun.
And, tying everything together, Sarah Hay, the star of FLESH AND BONE has shared that, because of her body type (namely that she has larger breasts) she couldn’t get a job with any major ballet company. She ended up dancing for the Semperoper Ballet in Germany – a company that welcomed dancers of diverse body types. While there she was cast as the lead in FLESH AND BONE and now she is a celebrated dancer who everyone in the ballet world knows and she loves the career she has.
That’s what I think CENTER STAGE is trying to talk about…
And, of course, there’s always the hope that, in time, gatekeepers will be a little less like Jonathan, and a little more like that auditioner who let Jody into the school because they saw a spark in her.