Black Swan and the Female Experience

Last week, I finally resolved to watch Black Swan, directed by Darren Aronofsky. It had been on my bucket list for a while, but I had always been intimidated by the psychological thriller genre, being afraid the film would give me nightmares. When I actually watched it, though, I was surprised that I did not fear the film’s protagonist Nina, but held a sense of deep affinity for her.

The film’s plot follows Nina, a ballerina, in her preparation for the ballet Swan Lake. The artistic director Thomas Leroy has chosen for her to interpret both the role of the White Swan, for which she is perfectly suited and that of the Black Swan, for which she is consistently told that she is inadequate. Nina collapses into madness in an attempt to become perfect for both roles at the same time.

Many have seen in Black Swan a warning about the downfalls of perfectionism. I see what they mean. After all, Nina expresses her desire for perfection from the beginning to the end of the movie, both through her words and her actions. She spends days exhausting her mind and body with rehearsals and destroys herself chasing after a role. However, Nina’s perfectionism is not what made me feel for her so deeply. The movie has many layers of interpretation. For me, the yearning for excellence was only one of them.

Nina made me feel seen because a lot of her experiences are those that have marked the lives of many women, including me. Her entire identity is built on her reputation as pure and innocent. Her mother calls her “sweet girl”, and shelters her, hoping that she will never stop embodying her childlike naivety. It is also this same immaculate image that lands her the role of the White Swan. However, Nina gets mistreated for her childlike essence. The artistic director consistently scolds her, calling her boring and pushing  her to change. Nina's mother simultaneously creates and takes advantage of her daughter’s sweetness, using it as a weapon to control her further. Both these figures violate her bodily autonomy and take advantage of her defenselessness. 

As a girl immersed in many different contexts, I have often felt much of what Nina did. Many young women are praised for their ‘innocence and encouraged to preserve it like a precious jewel. This same ‘jewel’, however, often makes one more vulnerable to exploitation. In addition, as much as it is praised in certain contexts, it is also viewed as a weakness in others.

The relationship between Nina and Lily, her rival dancer, also has very realistic elements. The two look very similar. However, unlike Nina, Lily represents the prototype of the Black Swan. She is sensual and carefree. Nina, just like many girls who are told that their value is in their innocence, views her counterpart as an enemy; Lily represents an unexplored part of Nina. We all have repressed elements of our personality, and it is frightening to see someone else embody them so freely. A significant portion of Lily’s hostile behaviour towards Nina is imagined or hallucinated by the latter. Indeed, the problem is not Lily as an individual, but what she represents and the shadows that Nina associates her with, something that is elicited in the film’s conclusion. Nina gets into a brawl with Lily, only to then realise that she is not fighting with the other ballerina, but with her dark side. Nina’s house is pink, fluffy, and girly, yet something is unsettling about it. Wholesome pictures hang on the walls, but, if one looks closely, one notices that the eyes of the subjects creepily move, following the ballerina as she walks through her house. The disturbing aftertaste of Nina’s sweet light is connected to her shadows. There is something going on within her, forces that are pushing to get released. 

The beauty of Black Swan lies in its multilayered nature, and I look forward to watching it again so that I can discover some other, equally compelling shades of meaning.

Illustration by Isabelle Holloway