The Perfectly Imperfect

Hannah Cardozo

TYBA, 2021-22

“I felt it. Perfect. I was perfect.” – Nina Sayers (Black Swan, 1:38)

The tragic last words of an enigmatic protagonist. 

Swan Lake tells a story about a prince who falls in love with the Swan Queen but is deceived by her evil twin the Black Swan. The prince pledges his love to the Black Swan and the Swan Queen kills herself in despair. Nina Sayers was on her way to becoming a prima ballerina. She worked tirelessly and dreamed endlessly of the roles she would play. Her company director approached her with the opportunity to play Swan Queen in their esteemed production of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Swan Lake’ after the retirement of Beth, the previous prima ballerina. Nina was overjoyed. The only dilemma of the role was the duality of it. The Swan Queen was expected to have the personality of a pure innocent girl to play the white swan and simultaneously as the black Swan be sexual and immoral. This role explores the dichotomy of the Madonna-whore complex. A concept that was proposed by Freud, to symbolise the split vision of the male gaze. Nina was expected to embody both. Although it is not uncommon for women to inhabit both personalities, it was a challenge for Nina as she had been groomed to identify with only one. 

Throughout the movie we see Nina fight herself and the people around her to make sure she was perfect to fit this role, causing her to slip into delirium. The cameras beautifully captured her transition into delusion, to a point where the viewers themselves aren’t aware of what’s reality or her hallucination. Nina isn’t alone when it comes to her struggle to the dedication of her art. She represents a culture that is hidden in the shadows. A culture that has its foundation built on perfection and not passion. The director Darren Aronofsky describes it as such, “The film can be perceived as a poetic metaphor for the birth of an artist, that is, as a visual representation of Nina’s psychic odyssey toward achieving artistic perfection and of the price to be paid for it.” 

Nina, the Spanish word for ‘little girl’ perfectly explains the protagonist's personality. The 28 year old ballerina lived with her mother. Although culturally, this may not seem absurd to us, very rarely do adults live with their parents elsewhere. A room is one’s personal space and a reflection of themselves. Nina’s room showcased stunted growth. It resembled that of a child, with pastel pink wallpaper and concerning infantile decorations. Her mother’s room, on the other hand, resembles her transition into lunacy. There were obscure portraits of Nina hung up all over the walls. Almost like the transition seen in the self portraits of  Van Gogh and Picasso. This gives the audience a vague idea of what they are in for. 

A former dancer herself, Nina’s mother quit due to her pregnancy. We see this reflect on their interactions. Her mother treated Nina as an extension of herself. She made sure Nina remained dependent and tied down in order to avoid repeating the mistakes she made. Despite the knowledge of how the industry works, she didn’t care to warn or educate her daughter, but decided that sheltering her was the best option. As Nina chases perfection, we see her turn rebellious in order to break free from her joint identity with her mother. A common occurrence among most teens but very rarely with adults. We can draw parallels between Nina’s mother and Indian society. Women are raised to be ‘pure’ and ‘innocent’, an approach that is expected to keep them ‘safe’. But lack of genuine exposure to good education and knowledge about their own bodies has led to detrimental situations. The only thing that is promoted by stunting a woman’s growth, is rape culture and victim blaming. Because it automatically assumes that if a woman is promiscuous she will be a victim. 

That being said, Nina was constantly surrounded by ballet, that was all she knew. She had no social or romantic life. And thus, ballet was her life. She did not know how to solve problems with emotional maturity and that clearly reflects throughout the movie. She depended on her mother and dancing to get her through life. She tried to gain autonomy and that was a laborious process for her. Her boundaries were constantly violated and she had no semblance of privacy. It took Nina a while to realise the bubble she was living in but more importantly the value of her personal space. This is a reality for more women than we can imagine. Intentionally or not they are expected to not have any privacy and or personal autonomy. It speaks vehemently of the power hierarchies we have built around us. 

Nina’s mother wanted her to succeed, at the same time wanted her to fail; reminiscent of the fact that she never felt fulfilled herself. She had spent her life dreaming of being a ballerina and had to give it all up to raise Nina. She blamed Nina for the life she ended up with;  evident in her subtle manner of revenge towards Nina. It is not uncommon for mothers to pass down their burdens to their children; especially to their daughters. It is known as the ‘Mother wound’. Patriarchal societies make it easier for this to occur, since women themselves do not know how to handle or understand their injustices and pain, they pass it on to the next generation believing that it is best for them. It may not always be intentional. Another example of this would be from the movie Dil Dhadakne Do, where the mother never fought for herself and expected her daughter to go through the same unhappiness all for the sake of societal expectations and tradition. Women are expected to adjust, compromise and sacrifice in order to please others. And most of these expectations come from women themselves who have never had a chance or never found their voice to fight for themselves. They believed it was the only way they could live and thus passed it onto the next generation.

When Nina auditioned for the role of Swan Queen she was told that she could perfectly encompass the white swan but the black swan would pose a challenge for her. Unlike Lily, a newcomer, who was Nina’s ideal competition because she embraced her imperfections and her sexuality. The director of the dance company, Thomas initially refused to give Nina the part. He told Nina, “perfection is not just about control. It’s also about letting go”. However, she struggled to give up control. This was her dream come true and she had been trained to mirror perfection. And although perfection is a subjective concept Nina fell prey to it. Women have always carried this burden of perfection since they aren’t given a space for mistakes, they constantly feel the need to prove themselves and to meet these standards of perfection.  Nina was relentless in her pursuit. She went back to fight for the role and her docile behaviour made Thomas angry. He crossed the boundary of professionalism when he kissed Nina to get a rise out of her and she bit him in response. He gave her the role and forced her to find the same ferocity that caused her to bite him. This is where things start to go haywire. Nina began working really hard to achieve that ‘perfect’ to a point of oblivion. Thomas forced her to find her sexuality first by asking her to touch herself, then by forcing himself on her in private when she didn’t meet his expectations. She saw his harassment as a method of teaching rather than calling it what it is, Stockholm Syndrome; a psychological response to comply and accept the beliefs of a captor or abuser. The ballet industry has been found guilty of this on several occasions. The book  Pretty Little Things, now turned into a Netflix show, also explores this theme in greater detail. Patrons of the art, directors and instructors have used their positions of power to exploit dancers. The dancers see it as a barter system. But in reality it is simply a crime and an injustice to them. 

Nina in search of her alter ego befriended Lily. She then hallucinates of an erotic encounter between the two of them, clearly showing the sexual repression and the extent of control her mother had over her. But more importantly the internalised pressure she felt to be someone else. Although most women can certainly fit both roles, Nina had been raised by the people and institutions around her to believe that innocence was all she could encompass. The Madonna-whore complex studies the duality of womanhood and this movie further tests this concept when Nina was made to encompass both roles. The white swan came easy and looked elegant and beautiful but Nina did not know how to channel the other half. She knew her mother was holding her back in that aspect which is why every attempt at finding her ‘dark’ side was an act of rebellion. This led to her resorting to any means to attain perfection.

At this point Nina slowly started to realise that she was hallucinating and could not differentiate between reality and her mind’s deception. Nina begins to see herself transform into the black swan in small flashes of anger and resentment. The film takes several artistic liberties when it comes to representing her psychological descent. However, every symptom is crucial to understanding what she was up against. Pretty early on we see signs and symptoms in Nina of mental health problems. For example, Nina is seen tying her shoes over and over again. It is never blatantly addressed but this does show glimpses of her Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and anxiety. When her mother found her scratching her back she immediately said ‘not again’ signifying that it has been an issue in the past. Once she gets the role it is a whole new ball game. She transcends into a state of psychosis. She hallucinates her metamorphosis not just psychically through the growth of her wings and webbed feet, but also mentally through the dark persona she keeps encountering. Her visions start to get dark and erotic as time passes. The  battle of perfection is what caused her to kill Beth, and although one is not entirely sure if she did kill Beth or not, the motive was there. Nina saw her as a rival even though Beth herself was physically incapable of returning to that life. On her return her mother finally realized she wasn’t fine and forced her to sleep instead of letting her perform. Although this may be the right parenting move, it might also seem like her mother was trying to jeopardize her future since she never really noticed the delusion before.

During her performance on stage a small part of her ‘perfect’ act fails. Nina fights herself in a confusing scene that leads to her ending her act as the ‘white swan’ by performing her rehearsed death and falls to the ground. As everyone surrounded her she said “I felt it. Perfect. I was perfect.”, while bleeding out from stabbing herself. This almost symbolizes menarche, her white costume with spotting blood, her transition into a woman, from naivete to maturity. She finally got what she wanted: an audience, the attention and Thomas. Nina’s fantasy was to find perfection in the imperfection of losing herself to inhibitions. All her life she had been forced to fit the ideal dancer. Ballet is all about technique and performances are crucial to the reputation of dancers. But as she followed this ideal almost religiously she realised her growth as a performer was absent. Nina isn’t alone in this battle of perfection and performance. She might have been a dancer but most women live their lives pursuing ideals of perfection to only truly portray a performance of perfection. Take Instagram for example, it is known for the fake lives that people post about. The photoshopped pictures, the ‘perfect’ feeds, the quintessential life, all a façade. Yet this is an ideal that people live up to, conversations with young women have proven  that beauty standards set by Instagram models have been harmful. We have all seen people around us trying to mimic this ‘perfect’ and at the cost of what? Nina’s ending was fatal. The difference between reality and make-belief has been blurred, only increasing this craving of perfection.

The most unanticipated part is that through it all we see no genuine care for what Nina was going through. We rarely see her eat and in the instances that food was given to her she immediately rejects it. She is seen throwing up at intervals but the cause is never underlined. The bitten nails, scratched back and loss of weight should have been alarm signs of anxiety, delirium and eating disorders. But it was overlooked because everyone around her was busy either repressing her true personality or pushing her to be someone she was not. She did not have any support, her mother was too busy in her own delirious way and she had no real friends. The only person she could really trust was herself. But now even that was failing her. The people that saw her only cared for her performance, not for the person she was besides that. She didn’t know who to run to for help and the pressure she felt to be perfect didn’t help that. 

‘Black Swan’ tells a dramatised version of a story that is common in ballet. According to ballet psychologist Nadine Kaslow, “It's all about perfection and you can never be perfect, but the demand for it is off the charts." The world of ballet is known to cover up many secrets keeping the business going. Whether it be the number of dance directors that used their students for sexual favours and in return manipulated them to believe that it was dedication to art. Or the image of beauty and perfection that was built up for them. Nina’s eating disorder is something that is extremely common in the world of dance. Being petite is praised and the lengths to get to it are seen as dedication not torture. This is why no one batted an eye but rather praised her for the weight loss. Nina’s illness was normalised.

Although this film was created by an all-male entourage, it surprisingly depicts the struggle of being a woman quite well. Aronofsky states that, “Dancers are always looking at themselves, so their relationship with their reflection is a huge part of who they are.  Filmmakers are also fascinated by mirrors, and it’s been played with before, but I wanted to take it to a new level.  Visually, we really pushed that idea of what it means to look in a mirror.  Mirrors become a big part of looking into Nina’s character, which is all about doubles and reflection.” This shows that the pressure and expectations were an internalised concept. Nina fought the person she was for the idea of who she wanted to be. Her constant alternation of the good and bad side of her was still unfortunately from a man’s perspective of what good and bad is, innocent versus immoral. The extremities of innocence and impurity through sexuality, using the colours of white and black is a perfect example of the dichotomy of the Madonna-whore complex and the symbolic representation that the colours hold. It promotes a polarized view of who women should be. In this film we can see Nina struggle with that concept. She changed who she was and craved to be ‘perfect’ for the male gaze. She was made to believe picking a side would help, until the dedication to her art made her question it. Not everyone can relate to being a ballerina and truthfully not everyone will relate to the stages of psychosis that Nina encountered either. But the idea of perfection and pressure to fit into a mold is something everyone can draw parallels with. Thus a regrettable epiphany one has towards the end is that Nina was never allowed to just exist, without any expectations.

References

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Image Credits

Hughes, J. 2018. Black Swan [poster]. mondoshop. https://mondoshop.com/blogs/news/new-poster-release-black-swan-by-jack-hughes epik=dj0yJnU9SzFlQkIwTEdpMjBJVXJnUDlIWXR2dHFfNmJ6dS16UkgmcD0wJm49Yk9ZSlFiOGQ1bjVGSG0zb3ZqNlBnZyZ0PUFBQUFBR0dVbkRv