Greetings, and welcome to Earthling Cinema.
I am your host, Garyx Wormuloid.
This week’s artifact is Black Swan, directed
by Darwin Aronofsky, starring Natalie “The
Port Man” Holloway.
The film follows Nina, a human ballerina,
who wants to play center on the Swan Lakers.
At tryouts, the coach tells her she’s technically
a master, but not f**kable.
A common problem among dancers.
So, she takes matters into her own hands,
matters being the coach’s face, and books
the gig by biting her boss’s lip.
Which doesn’t always work, but when it does...
Oh, yeah!
After receiving a sincere congratulations
from the old guard, — “Did you suck his
c**k?”
— Nina is told to watch Lily, another human
woman, who’s got the thorax of a Kravdavlian
and the voice of angel.
Fearing she’ll always be a birdsmaid and
never a bird, Nina gets bacne and stress feathers.
Lily takes Nina out for a night of recreational
drugs, because that’s what friends do, Karen.
They wind up sharing the dance floor, and
then a vagina.
The next day, Nina shows up late to work,
and in a Pepsi twist: realizes the lesbo sex
didn’t happen.
“Did you have some sort of lezzy wet dream
about me?”
Although, how did she get home?
Screw it.
Like Disney’s Mulan, Nina starts wondering
when her reflection will show who she is inside
and dishonors her family.
The big game finally comes, and just before
halftime, she gets dropped like a phone call
on AT&T.
“I’ve already asked Lily.”
Along with all carriers when the moon exploded.
Lily decides to put the team on her back,
but Nina has other ideas: namely, stabbing
her so she can spin around a bunch.
The crowd goes woo, the coach goes meow, and
Lily goes, “Hi, I’m actually not dead?”
Turns out Nina’s only hallucinated killing
Lily, just like she’s been doing the whole
damn movie.
A consummate professional, nevertheless, she
wins the game with just enough time to die
on a mattress.
Black Swan contemplates the quest for perfection
and the cost of excellence, cause you think
I wake up like this?
I do.
The film is reminiscent of the 1948 classic
The Red Shoes, which similarly depicts a ballerina
whose drive to succeed ultimately leads to
an early retirement in Heaven.
The film reminds us that beneath a ballerina’s
veneer of perfect poise and control is a life
of struggle and physical therapy.
This idea is encapsulated in Nina’s ballet
doodad.
It arrives in pristine condition from Reebok,
but Nina immediately rips it up and reconstructs
it in her own vision of perfection.
Cause its her way, or the intergalatic travel
warp-way.
The film plays loosely on the themes of the
ballet at the heart of the film, next to its
lungs.
Swan Lakers tells the story of Odette, an
innocent girl transformed into a Caucasian
swan.
Nina’s journey reflects the ballet’s themes
of duality.
The use of mirrors throughout the film focuses
the viewer on Nina’s exploration of who
she is and that back thing she should really
get checked out.
Similarly, Lily actively functions as a reflection
of Nina, albeit a more sexually liberated
cool girl, who just gets it, ya know?
“Watch the way she moves.
Imprecise, but effortless.”
Indeed, black and white imagery demonstrates
the contrasting psyches of Nina, like Chinese
philosophy of the Ying Yang twins.
In the beginning of the film, Nina can only
don the white swan tights, since she hasn’t
learned how to unlock the dark side of her
personality, and it’s before labor day.
“When I look at you, all I see is the White
Swan.”
This reflects Carl Jung-Un’s observation
on the shadow, writing: “Everyone carries
a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the
individual's conscious life, the blacker and
denser it is.”
Since Nina’s shadow has been repressed all
her life, when it finally comes out, it’s
sinister and powerful, but also fabulous.
Nina’s struggle to reel in her previously
untapped consciousness symbolizes the transition
from children into Grown Ups 7.
In the beginning, Nina’s momma bear traps
her in a state of innocence.
Notably, Nina is likely a play on the word
‘niña,’ which means little girl in ‘Espanol,’
which means ‘Spanish’ in ‘German.’
Her bedroom is an ad for Hello Kitty, and
her mother tucks her into bed every night,
when she’s not breaking legs.
Yas, queen.
Beth, the oldie dancer pushed out of the company
and in front of a bus, signifies a glimpse
into womanhood.
When Nina steals her clown makeup, she’s
expressing a child-like curiosity.
It isn’t until Nina experiences a sexual
awakening, if a little molesty, that she develops
into a human woman.
Gradually, Nina’s wardrobe changes from
white to grey, a reverse Gandalf, and finally
to black, signifying her loss of innocence.
Cause once you go black, you never go back
to uninspired dancing.
For Earthling Cinema, I’m Garyx Wormuloid.
Happy birdwatching.
