Tiny Pretty Things

Plays up drama of teens' lives, making everything look much more exciting, sexy, beautiful, mysterious than it is in real life. Bullying and competition are central to plot, with dancers competing endlessly: who's the thinnest, who gets the most attention in class, who gets the best roles. Characters are constantly chided about weight: too thin, not thin enough. Dance world emerges as cutting and cruel, dangerous for people who make a living in it, on many different levels. 

Mothers and other female authority figures chastise female dancers to eat or not eat; dancers exhibit eating disorders. A suspicious death begins the series, as a dancer does a routine on the edge of a four-story building then falls/is pushed. We see her hit the ground (no blood, until later when we see faint stain on sidewalk). A character in a dream tightens a vise on her foot until it bleeds and looks like it cracks. A character vomits on the toilet, then writes "BAD" in a food diary in scene referring to eating disorder. A dancer loses a toenail, cries as she bandages her foot. 

Cursing includes "f--k," "s--t," "damn," "tits," "hell," "ass." Dancers are competitive and insulting with each other; characters call each other things like "trash" and "petit rat."