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Sally Bowles is a complicated character. She is the main character of Cabaret, but she is in no
way a hero. Her apathy towards the political climate around her enrages many, but there is so
much more to her character than her ignorance. Sally Bowles, first and foremost, is a severely
mentally ill young woman, or teenager, even, if you read Goodbye to Berlin. She struggles with
impulsivity, obsessive attachments to others, substance abuse, and fear of abandonment. All of
this leads me and many others to believe Sally Bowles has what would today be diagnosed as
Borderline Personality Disorder, or BPD. In this video essay I will look at the diagnostic criteria
for BPD, and how it applies to Sally Bowles from the hit musical Cabaret.
Disclaimer: I will not be looking at every criterion for BPD, as not all of them are applicable to
Sally as we see her in the musical. Instead, I will look into five criterion, which is the minimum
needed for a diagnosis of BPD.
Criterion One for BPD is “Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. (Not including
suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.)”. Sally can be seen acting irrationally at
the thought of abandonment in the beginning of the second act. When Cliff and Sally argue,
Sally threatens to leave. One may argue this is the opposite of avoiding abandonment, but to me
this behavior is very reminiscent of my own borderline behaviors regarding “frantic efforts to
avoid abandonment”. Sally lashes out at Cliff, threatening to leave. She does not, however,
actually intend to act on this threat; rather she is attempting to trick Cliff into arguing for her to
stay. She wants to scare Cliff and make him realize how much he wants her and therefore
persuade her to stay. This, to me, is a clear example of Sally frantically trying to avoid being
abandoned by her favorite person, Clifford.
Following from that, criterion two for BPD is “A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal
relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.” This is
possibly the most obvious of Sally’s BPD traits. Although we only see a limited amount of
Sally’s relationships, from what we do see, Sally clearly has very unstable relationships. At the
beginning of the show Sally references Max, saying he is only the man she is staying with “this
week”. The fact that she is living with him shows an intense relationship considering they
supposedly hadn’t known each other long. When Sally meets Cliff, however, she quickly begins
to hate Max and devalue him (referred to as “splitting” when talking about BPD). The way Sally
latches onto Cliff the moment she meets him is clearly atypical when compared to your average
person’s experience with interpersonal relationships. She moves in with him within 24 hours of
meeting, and acts as though she is in love with him already. Towards the end of the musical is
when we see Sally “split” on Cliff. When Cliff suggests moving away from Berlin and back to
his home country of America, Sally takes this as abandonment and quickly devalues, or splits on,
him. She acts impulsively and has an abortion. The love she previously had for Cliff is now
gone.
For the sake of segue I will be swapping the order of criterion 3 and 4 in this essay. The DSM-5
describes criterion 4 for BPD as Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging
(e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). (Note: Do not include suicidal or
self mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.) . This is probably the second most obvious BPD trait
that Sally shows. Her drinking habits are clearly problematic and impulsive, with her being
shown to drink frequently, especially when under stress. It is also likely that, like the majority of
characters in Cabaret, Sally is a recreational drug user. She also acts impulsively and recklessly
when it come to sex, having stated she has had several abortions, not to mention the whole, you
know, moving in with a man after knowing him for 24 hours? Yeah.
Moving onto criterion 3: Criterion 3 is Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self
image or sense of self. Sally states she “used to love pretending to be someone else”, she pretended
to be mysterious and different before realizing she is mysterious and different. This, to me,
shows an unstable sense of self. Sally did not know who she was and instead put on a mask of
who she wished she could be. Eventually, this mask became who she was and her understanding
of herself. While I cannot argue whether or not it is “marked and persistent” it is something.
Criterion 5-7, as well as 9, are hard to argue with the material we are given, but since only 5
criteria must be met to be diagnosed with BPD, I have decided to omit these and move on to
criterion 8 for the final section of this essay. Criterion 8 is Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty
controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights). This one
is a bit harder to explain when it comes to Sally, but hear me out. In the same argument scene
mentioned earlier, when discussing criterion 1, Sally shows a clear temper issue. She reacts to
Cliff with manipulation and anger, likely triggered by the threat of abandonment. She also shows
irrational anger at the end of the musical, when Cliff calls out her political apathy and suggests
moving to America. She reacts dramatically to this, arguing with Cliff, splitting on him, and
aborting the child they had planned to raise together. While these are only two examples, I think
they do go to pattern, and it is quite possible that Sally is a person who has frequent displays of
anger.
Now, with all of this being said, I obviously cannot confirm for a fact that Sally Bowles had
BPD, however, I think it is a theory worthy of further research and discussion. Hopefully this
video has made you think and consider the possibility that Sally Bowles is an example of a
borderline coded character in media. Thank you for watching and please consider sharing this
video and leaving a comment. Bye !