Last week, I saw The Black Swan with a friend. I was excited to see it due to all the hype, but I didn't do any research going in to this experience. Boy, was that a mistake! Great film, great metaphor! Nasty, nasty to watch!
Why so feminist? Natalie Portman plays a ballerina in NYC named "Nina". Nina is super sweet and always wear white and pink. She's really good but not "bad ass" enough for some of the darker roles. While casting for Swan Lake, her boss tells her that she's the perfect white swan (virginal, nice twin, etc.), but not the black swan (slutty boyfriend snatcher twin). Sound familiar? Hello, which "Mary" are you???? What's a ballerina to do?
Actually, Nina struggles with this same issue at home. Her crazy mother desperately wants Nina to stay a little girl, sweet, and a virgin (there is a super disturbing scene where Nina masturbates only to see her mother asleep in a chair next to her bed). Nina doesn't want that but she loves her weirdo momma. Her boss also sexually harrasses her and wants to sleep with her. She doesn't seem to want that either. Is there no middle ground?
What does Nina do? She mutilates herself literally. She literally scratches, peels, and cuts off her own skin! Super nasty to watch but also awesome. I say awesome because in a world where women and girls are pressured, abused, and told be skinnier, happier, whiter, etc., it's an awesome replication of real life. Nina tears at her own skin because of all this extreme pressure. What better example than through a ballerina who has extreme demands for body type? I thought it was genius!
I won't explain the end but I will say that Nina drives herself so fiercely to perfection that some bad shit happens. At first I felt it was too violent but afterward I thought about how many stories we hear about women and girls physically and emotionally hurting ourselves that go unnoticed! To see it on film like that really brought the message home.
I loved this film but I definitely had to look away at times. I think if we really looked at the damage being done to women and girls on a big screen like that, we'd all be forced to acknowledge it. So easily we move on or down play abuse of women. Street harassment is not only ignored but EXPECTED!
Overall, I loved this movie. Now let's do something about it!
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