You’re a Real Sarah Bernhardt

As a child, whenever I became emotional or voiced a strong opinion, my parents told me, “You’re a real Sarah Bernhardt.” I had no idea who she was but the message was clear. As a girl, I was to keep the drama to a minimum and comply with whatever was expected of me.

Friends who also grew up in the 50s and 60s have shared that they were told the same thing whenever they expressed their feelings. All of us assumed Sarah Bernhardt was an over-the-top actress our parents saw in films when they were growing up. Not so.

Sarah Bernhardt was a French actress who died in 1923, the year my mother was born. It is more likely my grandparents who saw her silent films and admired her stage performances, many of which included dramatic death scenes designed to wring tears from the audience. Bernhardt was the illegitimate child of a Jewish, high-class prostitute who had little to do with her. Although Bernhardt was educated in convents and once aspired to be a nun, her mother was Jewish, making her Jewish in my grandparents’ eyes and therefore someone they admired for her fame and fortune. She has been called the first international stage star.

Since there was no way members of the Greatest Generation would have seen her perform, the practice of branding emotional outbursts Sarah Bernhardt behavior must have originated with my grandparents’ generation. All I knew as a child in my parents’ home was that any angry outburst or expression of emotion or opinion that contradicted my parents would result in the label, which I hated without really understanding its origin.

It was clear to me that if I protested drying the dishes because I needed to study for a test or became upset about anything said at the dinner table, one of my parents would play the Saran Bernhardt card. My reaction was to flee in tears, slam my bedroom door, and cry. No one came to console me. The rules of the game required me to emerge, apologize, and comply with whatever it was that set off the storm in the first place.

I was surprised to discover how many women my age went through the same ritual. And then, I wondered how being labeled “a real Sarah Bernhardt” influenced my friends and me as a women. When we shared our feelings or became emotional, did we think on some level we were not entitled to express them? Did we learn to try to suppress emotions or strong opinions or worry that once we had lost control, irreparable harm might follow? Is this why I am so guilt prone and feel the need to apologize so often?

Over the years, I have learned to embrace the Sarah Bernhardt in me. Rather than seeing it as being undesirable, a drama queen, I see it as having the courage of my convictions and the ability to stand up for what I believe. I’m glad that my daughters felt they could speak freely and emotionally. And I love that my granddaughters will never have to hear this label and lock themselves in their rooms to cry.

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