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| Natalie Portman as Nina |
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| Kim Novak as Judy as Madeline |
Watch these films! Attn: may contain spoilers...
The film Black Swan is a strange one. One moment it is a B horror flick, and the next a psychological thriller. But I think it is provocative as a depiction of the performance of a beauty ideal. The main character, Nina (literally "little girl"), played by Natalie Portman, is surrounded in pink. Her bedroom and the apartment she shares with her mother is a kaliedoscope of pink and mirrors. In these reflections and under the stern watchful eye of her mother, she dutifully practices and practices, her feet bound up in smooth pink ballet shoes. I think all this practicing in pink can be read as a metaphor for the performance of gender- that of being a woman. She punishes her body with purging and endless practice as struggles for the sought after part, the part that she just can't get right. It seems the director of the company, Thomas, needs a dancer who can portray both the light and dark swans. Sound familiar? How about trying to perform the classic female trifecta: Madonna/ Whore/ Virgin?
And here's where the spoiler comes in....of course, her pursuit of perfection in this performance (which I read as a gender performance of what society tells us a "woman" should be) spirals her into a dreamlike state, one in which she and the viewer don't know which way is up. Her frantic performance is one that is wildly applauded. Through the sacrifice of herself, she performed what society was looking for, and after the climactic fall, as she bleeds, she says, "I was perfect." This perfectly captures what many young women put themselves through to achieve perfection in that part- the part of appearing as the woman that society approves.
Here's the trailer for Vertigo
Now, if you haven't seen Vertigo, please watch it! If you haven't seen it in years, treat yourself to a stiff bourbon, some semi-sweet chocolate, and a viewing. In Vertigo, there is a similar idea. The poor sap who suffers from the dizziness of vertigo, Scottie, is played by Jimmy Stewart. He falls in love with a performance of a woman who doesn't exist. Judy is the wrong-side-of-the-tracks girl who played the part of Madeline to try to cure Scottie of the dizziness that he suffers from. Madeline is mysterious and perfectly beautiful. One problem, though- Madeline only exists in his imagination and disappears like a will o' the wisp. Too bad, too, because a real woman, Midge, just isn't enough for him when he imagines a woman like Madeline might be out there somewhere...
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| Midge, a real woman |
When he finds Judy, He tries to fix her up to make her back into Madeline. This is a spot-on representation of how our society demands women try to embody an imaginary image of a woman- images that we see in movies and magazines that are not real. They are airbrushed, plasticized images that do not exist. Here is the scene where Scottie tries to make Judy into his ideal:
But that, of course, is not the end. And no, they do not live happily ever after. Both female protagonists die in these films- both literally and metaphorically.
Both movies provide a moving depiction of how harrowing it can be to be a modern-day woman. So get your lady friends together, drink a bunch of wine and watch them post haste!
