Black swan
Characters: Nina ( main character) Lily (side character) Thomas (ballet instructor)
Mental Disorders: In the movie black swan we see many hints that Nina (the main character) has an eating disorder. It is known in the ballet community that there is an obsession with having slim and slender bodies. Nina's constant struggle with this need to be perfect correlates with all aspects of herself. At the start of the film we see, Nina and her mom sitting at breakfast, she is handed half a grapefruit and a hard-boiled egg. Later in the film after Nina has gotten the role of black swan, her mom buys her a cake and Nina immediately freaks out when her mother wants to give her a big piece. Another hint that Nina has an eating disorder is that she constantly tries to make herself throw up. Near the end of the film, as Nina is getting her white swan outfit fitted, the seamstress tells her she has lost weight. Then she follows by saying "Good" and we see a slight smile on Nina's face hinting that Nina is happy with this and she is getting influenced by others to think that being underweight is a good thing. Nina engages in restrictive eating, severely limiting her caloric intake to maintain a slim figure. People with eating disorders struggle with eating at all and they try to maintain their calorie intake to a shallow level, Nina represents those who struggle with not wanting to gain weight and have anorexia or another form of eating disorder.
Pressure and Obbession:
Nina has an obsession with being perfect, this drives her crazy because she is overworking herself. In the beginning, we see that N vina struggles with letting go and actually feeling the performance because she is too focused on perfecting her moves. She is told by many that she needs to relax and make it look effortless. Nina struggles with this because she is obsessed with making her movies perfect. Nina constantly seeks validation she is doing a good job, after messing up in the audition, nina goes home to practice the "coda" but she ends up harming herself, she still wants Thomas to see her as perfect so the following day she goes to his office to tell him she finished the move even though she didn't. He tells her "In four years every time you dance, I see you obsess getting each and every move perfect", to which she responds with "I just wanna be perfect" w2323. . Nina wants to be perfect so badly it drives her mental state to deteriorate, she begins stealing things from the previous "perfect" dancer because everyone praised her for being so perfect Nina wants everyone to do the same with her. Nina has a psychotic episode and begins to hallucinate and she "becomes a black swan", in doing so Nina is finally able to let loose and really feel the performance. She continues dancing even tho she has stabbed herself due to the episode, and she gives the performance her all with powerful, emotional, raw energy. This is when Nina is finished and everyone is praising her for her amazing work nina says "I felt it- Perfect". Nina's obsession with perfection and the rigorous discipline of ballet both play a part in her mental and emotional decline. The movie looks at the toll that pressure like this can have on a person's mental health and the sacrifices that are often made to achieve artistic excellence.
