My sister and I saw the movie Black Swan together over the holidays. As two survivors of mother-daughter sexual abuse, the underlying theme driving the story was glaringly obvious, but I suspect that the movie is much more of a puzzle for those who have not suffered from childhood trauma. I don’t see much yet over the Internet about the mother-daughter sexual abuse in Black Swan, so I wonder how many people are swept away by the truths in the movie without making sense of the logic.
The basic storyline of the movie Black Swan is about a talented but repressed ballet dancer named Nina (played by Natalie Portman) trying to access the passionate part of herself at the expense of her sanity. Nina is cast in the lead of the ballet Swan Lake despite the reservations of the director Thomas (played by Vincent Cassell). Thomas admits that Nina is a slam dunk for the White Swan part of the role, which is virginal, but he has concerns about the repressed Nina tapping into her passionate side to perform the Black Swan. (The same ballerina must perform in both roles.) The Black Swan is supposed to be passionate and seductive, which are two words that don’t come to mind when you see Nina.
The movie is completely from Nina’s point of view. She is a bit “off” at the beginning, but her efforts to access her inner passion are like a runaway freight train into madness. The audience has a hard time knowing what is real and what is in her head because Nina herself has no idea. The movie is like only being provided with half of the jigsaw puzzle pieces with no picture to reference. The movie provides you with just enough of the puzzle to come close to seeing what is really going on, but you have to provide the missing piece yourself for the picture to come into focus. I suspect that most people who go to see this movie won’t have that missing puzzle piece and will leave the movie feeling Nina’s emotional disturbance without the “aha” moment of the logic that ties it all together … and I suspect that is was the director was going for.
To my sister and me (both survivors of mother-daughter sexual abuse), the missing piece seemed pretty obvious. I will build my case below, but don’t read further if you plan to see the movie and don’t want any spoilers.
*** spoiler alert ***
Anyone can tell that there is something “off” in Nina’s relationship with her mother (played by Barbara Hershey). Nina is supposed to be in her 20’s, but she acts like a little girl in her mother’s presence, using words like “mommy” and “yummy.” Nina’s bedroom looks like a little girl’s room with lots of stuffed animals. Nina’s mother undresses her and treats her like a little girl. Her mother also chastises Nina for scratching herself (similar to cutting).
When Nina masturbates as “homework” to try to access her inner passion, she sees her mother asleep in her bedroom. This was a metaphor for her mother being connected to her sexuality, and Nina’s attempts to awaken her passion would also awaken her mother.
Fellow ballerina Lily (played by Mila Kunis) tries to befriend Nina, which connects Lily to Nina’s mother in Nina’s head. Nina perceives any effort to invest in her as sexual (as shown by Nina’s perception of sexual advances by both Thomas and Lily), and Nina is only able to climax (and, thereby, access her passion) by believing that Lily has seduced her in her little girl bedroom (which never really happened). Seduction must be followed by betrayal in Nina’s head, which causes Nina to view Lily as a rival trying to take away her role in the ballet. Nina can only become the Black Swan (again, in her own head) by killing Lily, which by extension is killing her mother. Only then can she be the Black Swan.
Just in case the audience needs confirmation that the mother was the cause of Nina’s issues, the mother is the focal point in the audience when Nina takes her suicidal plunge as the White Swan at the end of the ballet. Nina’s actions and reactions (in her head) are toward others, but her mother is the central focus of her mental deterioration.
Have any of you seen the movie Black Swan? What did you think? Do you agree with my interpretation? I think the movie makes so much sense when seen through the lens of mother-daughter sexual abuse.
Photo credit: Hekatekris
Blooming Lotus 
I am struck by the concept of needing the context to understand what the movie is about. “Tommy” by the Who is about trauma when I see it. It is about the effects and attempts to express. Uncle Ernie the pedophile and how he works his way into Tommy’s life to abuse other boys a textbook example of how pedophiles manipulate. The religious references all about how how authority sees things and how self is really what it is about.
I have never known the movie or the music interpreted this way other than by me. I have known artists that performed the “opera” on stage and had no clue it was about abuse.
I have sung “See me feel me” and “Behind blue eyes” in therapy. I did not know that until right now.
My gf and I saw the movie today. Not what either of us expected. I was never abused by anyone, but it’s funny how the author of this blog put her finger on the key to the movie’s main character but somehow missed the revealing scene, which was probably just a few seconds long.
It’s when the very sexy looking (or as sexy as she could be made to look under the circumstance) mother comes to the door and asks her daughter (Portman) if she is ready for her (“Are you ready for me?”). To me, a 62 year old male, there was no mistaking the context.
My gf, who was abused every way possible by her mother, got the same impression as we spoke about this afterwards.
I thought the movie was a tour de force for Portman who was in virtually every scene. A heavy duty performance from a great actress.
Hi, Bud!
OMG! I completely forgot about that part! This is why I want to go see the movie again. I had plans to go this week with a friend, but those feel through.
– Faith
It is also interesting how the Director of the company has the same posture and proximity to Portman as her mother. For me this is another layer which shows how, that what he is doing, is clearly sexual harassment, whereas at first we might not be that quick to label the mothers behavior as the same kind. A few scenes are very supportive of this. At first a mother is all in Portmans face as she comes home, and than at the company the Director does the same. Than the mother calls Portman her sweet little child and in the announcement speech for the new Black Swan Wensan refers to Winona Ryder as his little princes. In the end we see how Portman clings to him and his opinion the same as she does with her mother. At the same time she is exploring her sexuality but unfortunately with nothing but lunatics around her, except Lily, but her paranoia won’t let her be objective. Also I don’t know if anyone noticed that the mother was the first to ask her what is on her back, and in the scene there was nothing( if you look with an attention) Definitely a movie with much layers, and
to be seen more than once.
This is a great insight. Sometimes being so involved (especially in abuse) you can’t see the forest through the trees. I completely missed that, too.
But coming from someone so far removed from the situation (62 yr old male with no abuse history, like you said), there are glaring signals.
Thank you for having the empathy so see that, I am glad your gf has access to that powerful empathy to heal.
Yes I agree, about that scene, when I saw it there was no doubt what this movie was about.
That is exactly what I got out of that line too. I’ve never been abused either, but I definitely interpreted their relationship as sexually abusive. What I noticed the first time I saw the movie in the theater was, during the Lily/Nina bedroom scene, for a split second, when “Lily” looks up at Nina, she says, “Sweet Girl” to her, like her mother does and I could swear that I saw her mother’s face superimposed on Lily’s head. Did anyone else notice this? I came to the internet to see if anyone else thought this, but I haven’t found any reference to that particular part yet.
I just saw it for a second time, rented from my TV provider, and I paused it on that part and it’s definitely not Mila Kunis’ face in that second, but it wasn’t Barbara Hershey’s either. I thought maybe it was changed later because it was too controversial or something.
I also came to the internet simply to confirm my interpretation of their relationship because when I discussed it with a friend, she didn’t get that about them AT ALL.
I am wondering if the movie has any meaning from the “Leda and the Swan” stories or paintings…
I was talking to a person who saw Black Swan and they said it was not what they expected. I said I heard it was about the abusive relationship between a daughter and a mother. It was replied that was not it that it was about a crazy lady who danced.
Hi, MFF.
That is exactly my point. The movie has truth but no logic unless you bring the missing piece with you, which is the element of mother-daughter sexual abuse. The daughter is the dancer who seems to be losing her mind, but it is really all her reaction to trying to access the sexual side of herself (her passion) to play the Black Swan. If you view the movie through the eyes of watching a dancer struggle with accessing her passion due to mother-daughter sexual abuse, it makes complete sense (well, almost complete sense — I am still a little confused about the very end).
– Faith
The main concept of the story really couldn’t be tied to the mother/daughter relationship, just to say. It’s supposed to be the story of Swan Lake, with it’s own twist on it. Just like what Thomas said, in the movie.
The ending is supposed to be the ending of Swan Lake; overwhelmed and distraught at what she’s done and what’s happened, the White Swan commits suicide. Overwhelmed and finally spent from what she’s been through, Nina is finally set free. By dying. So the ending is really just supposed to tie together the story by killing off Nina. I agree with you in that her mother is a large part of this, though, as the only person she concentrates on in the audience right before the ballet ends is her mother. And then she dies.
While I can understand your interpretation, and believe that it has its merits, I think that you are off in the statement that the movie has no logic without a mother-daughter sexual abuse component.
I felt a logic to this do to the mother’s overbearing drive on her daughter. There was abusive elements to the relationship but it struck me more as an obsessive compulsion in her need to live vicariously through her daughter.
I believe this feeds into Nina’s (Natalie Portman) need to succeed. The over-protected Nina is unfamiliar and fearful of her sexuality, which is born out of the fact that her mother’s career was cut short due to her birth. This leads us back to the point of her mother needing to live through her vicariously.
Ultimately, I think the movie comes down to the fact that you have malnourished, physically and mentally stressed individual, who, given from the early instances in the film of hallucinations, suffers from serious mental health issues. The culmination of which leads to her identifying solely with the character which she is portraying as she has no real identity of her own. As such, her only option is to live out the role. To the end.
I think that it is quite possible to see this from a perspective without sexual abuse although there are clearly abusive elements to the relationship between mother and daughter.
Sounds like a really great movie. Will have to go see it!
Lothlorien
i do agree with mr.michael western’s interpretation.since nina’s mother’s career was cut short due to giving birth to nina, she has the intense desire to fulfill her dreams as a former dancer through her daughter; the mother is also accountable for what had happened to nina’s maladjustments.
i thought michael western was a burnt spy. sorry i couldn’t resist it!!!
I have not seen the movie, but I definitely want to. I did check out the trailer, and to me, even the trailer suggests something very dark, beyond the “pressures” of being a ballerina of her stature.
It seems as though they are billing this movie as the young girl who buckles under the industries never ending demands; however, my sense is that you assessment rings more true to what the story may be trying to convey on a deeper level. The the public is not ready for that kind of honesty yet, so it’s being couched.
I’ll email you after I watch it and let you know if I still think this way about it. Thanks for the tip.
peace,
mia
Hi, Mia.
I look forward to hearing about your reaction to the movie. No, it is not just a woman trying hard to be a successful dancer. She is already great with the mechanics … what she lacks is passion. Trying to access her passion is what causes all of the emotional “crazy” fallout, and it all “dances” around mother-daughter sexual abuse.
– Faith
I saw the movie a couple weeks ago and I surely was shocked by all the things not mentioned in the previews. The mother-daughter relationship was totally weird and to those that don’t understand it, they didn’t notice all the little things that added up. I wasn’t sure that there was a sexual abuse history though. I more thought that the abuse was more in the form of intrusiveness (which alone is a completely traumatic experience) and that Nina was never able to be autonomous. Her mother pervaded everything leaving Nina unable to steer in the world. Nina became an extension of her mother, everything belonged to Mom and as Nina became aware of this intrusion she was left to figure it out without any emotional resources. It was an interesting movie, I would have liked to see the writers go a little further with a few of the story lines.
Hi, Tempy.
Interesting points about the narcicism.
Of course, I bring my own experiences to the movie, and they scream mother-daughter sexual abuse (mdsa). I saw it in the way that Nina viewed sex as a part of anyone’s investment in her. In her head, Lily and the director both came onto her when Lily clearly had no sexual interest in her (and I suspect the director did not, either). Nina only achieved orgasm through what I view as a reinactment of the mdsa (again, in her own head). She was lying on her back, like a little girl does when a mother performs oral sex on her with mdsa. After she achieved an orgasm (accessed her passion), she spiraled completely out of control and felt the need to “kill” the same woman who gave her the orgasm. I see that as transference from her hatred toward her mother (anger she could not express) to Lily (who she could more safely express her anger toward).
To me, the mdsa element was reinforced as Nina saw the old man on the subway. (I must confess that I broke into a laughing fit at that part.) Transportation in dreams represent the course of your life, and trains represent having no control (you go where the track takes you). I saw the old man’s sexual antics on the train as symbolic of others wanting sex from her as inevitable and that nobody, not even an old man on a train, is “safe.”
If you presume that Nina had serious issues with sex and want to look for the root, I found it telling that Mom was her focal point in a huge audition as she fell to her “death.” Nina succeeded in uncorking her passion and becoming the Black Swan, which caused her to “die” as she focused on her mother.
I would love to hear more thoughts on this movie from others who have seen it. I should warn you that the movie is triggering, especially if you suffered from mdsa.
– Faith
Hi Faith,
I really found your post interesting and thought-provoking.
Anyway, even if I agree with you about most of the comments, I think Tempy is right.
I sympathized a lot with Nina and felt what she was feeling. It was quite scary how much I understood her!
But I have never been abused by any of my parents.
I have a very overprotective and invasive family. I love my parents and know they did their best, but I am 32 and every time I visit them I have to breath in deeply and get ready to be the little girl who cannot be alone for a second.
I consider myself lucky, because I know that my parents don’t really understand the mistakes they made. Which weren’t as bad as the mistakes your mother made (can’t even imagine how traumatic it could be), still they had their impact on me and I am still fighting to get free from them.
Everybody surely agrees about the fact that in this movie the mother-daughter relationship is wrong. But I don’t think it must be true that there is sexual abuse.
I think the abuse can be only psychological.
I am absolutely convinced that Nina’s mother is envious of her daughter having the chance she didn’t have, partly considering her daughter the cause of her own failure (pregnancy interrupted her own career) and partly seeing her daughter’s life as an extension of her own life, a way to redeem herself.
No doubt Nina is constantly thinking of her mother even in her most private moments, but this can be also due to a deep sense of guilt towards a mother who doesn’t want her to grow and be independent.
But I also thought that Nina could see Lily as the part of herself she wanted to repress, the dark side she has been denying all along. No surprise Nina kills herself when thinking of killing Lily.
I agree that the fact that Nina looks at her mother when she is about to die is not a coincidence; surrendering to the Black Swan indirectly caused Nina’s death…
But don’t you think that it could be seen also as a defiant act? Isn’t death for Nina the only way to get free from her mother?
Sorry, a lot of ideas and written in a messy way.
I will come back and read all the other comments =)
I completely agree with Tempy. The movie is definitely about Mother-daughter Abuse, but not sexual. At least from the clues presented in the movie, there’s no hint that there’s sex abuse.
But there’s definite mental abuse that Nina has to go through everyday. We have seen in the movie that the mom is very intrusive. She is quite crazy and unstable at times, like the time when she’s about to throw the cake in trash. And then Nina pretends to be someone she doesn’t wanna be just to calm her down. Another time when the mom loses it is just before Mila Kunis visits Nina’s apartment. The mom’s all like Hows your back? Take off your shirt etc. The Mom is also very intrusive and gives no privacy to Nina.
Because of the stress at home and at work, Nina starts to lose it in the real world. She becomes recluse and distant with other people even when they’re perfectly nice to her.
And then there are the halucinations…
Anyone who is linking the story with sex abusing, are adding their own views to the story. And, there’s nothing wrong with the, but I just feel thats not part of the story. You really are bringing your own extra piece, its not part of the jigsaw.
Another thing I forgot to mention is that the mother is not the most destructive character in the movie. Thomas is. He is the one pushing her to experiment, live a little, be free, lose herself. Guess what, in the end, she does lose herself.
I know this is an old post, but after seeing the movie multiple times and reading about it, I have changed my position. I now believe the most possible explanation for this movie is mdsa. While the makers of the movie did a good job of creating it like a puzzle and keeping the hints very subtle and short, if you see the movie 2-3 times, you can catch them; the scene “are you ready for me” being the most important clue.
Also, after reading a little bit about mdsa and the post-traumetic symptoms associated with it, it becomes quite clear that mdsa is the main theme of the movie. Nina, is in fact a text-book case of mdsa, she exhibits most symptoms in her behavior.
This movie is so…what’s the word?!?! I have no clue. I saw all the suggestions at mdsa as well, and found it triggering for another day…haha. I prepared my best for the movie and could just tell that i would be reflecting on it and how similar some things were at another time. I agree with your interpretation, Faith. what a confusingly jawdropping movie.
–Journal of Healing
I found the movie triggering in the aspect of self-injury…I pick at my hands constantly, and cut my carotid artery in the attempts to push it just a little more each time, a rush I suppose bloods is also a bonus…I suppose people with different vices and things they’ve overcome or struggle with see the different shades and the perspective from there own point of view, but thats the beautiful thing about humanity and pain isn’t it? We all have the way we see things and that does not make what said person a. sees any less valid then what person b. sees…
The drug aspect did trigger my need for some ephedrine, though only slightly, the madness of the entire thing though, the sex coupled with the repression of it, and the coming of age at the late stage in life really spoke to myself above all else…The mom issue really didn’t hit home for me as much as I’m ‘joined at the hip’ with my own mother, if anything my own mom is Nina and I’m the one thats not been killed off yet…*smirk*
~warning : spoilers and not pleasant themes
Hello Faith,
I think you have some very strong points.
No one can be sure of the real background story
of Nina but there is some very strong evidence.
– One : blood in the mouth
Remember the scene where Nina is pleasing herself
in the bathroom and got blood on her fingers ?
Just at that moment, she sees her mother with
blood in her mouth.
Coincidence ?
– Second : the lip’s cut
I have the impression that the lower lip of Nina’s mother is cut.
It’s very sublte, but we can see that briefly when Nina is
home and tells her mother that she got the role.
The mother’s lip is cut, just like Thomas’.
Yeah, Nina bite Thomas when he tried to kiss her but
strangely enough, the mother gets the scar.
If it’s confirmed, this is very upsetting, no ?
– Three : the self hate
I found the self hatred depicted in a very disturbing
way.
How can a girl hate herself so much ?
And why ?
Obviously Nina is a princess : she’s pretty, brillant and
everybody do acknowledges that in the movie (her teacher
repeats her she’s beautifull, she’s among the contenders
for the role of the queen swan…).
So how come Nina hates herself so much ?
What did happen to her that broke for her the image of perfection
she embodies so well for everybody else ?
– Four : a person negated
Thomas told her :
“Tomorrow is yours. Just give a great performance
and you won’t have to worry about Lily or anybody else.”
Basically, Thomas told that she doesn’t deserve happiness
or peace for herself.
And implies that she can’t be loved for who she is,
but only for what she achieves.
Nina doesn’t even exist as a person.
Her body is not made of solid flesh : it’s a vessel that betrays her
all the time.
Her body gets mutilated, wounded for no reason.
Her body that she worked on so much, her body that should be
her anchor in the reality is just a fragile and unreliable shell.
How come there is such a distance between Nina and her body ?
Nina, as a person, is negated the whole movie.
Her mind, her blossoming sexuality, her body : everything
is subjected to the ROLE(S) SHE MUST PLAY.
Her sexuality is not something she must conquer for herself but
only a way to achieve the role of the Black Swan (a role she wants
for unclear reasons, by the way).
Her body is not hers, it’s a tool, an empty vessel she inhabits
so little.
And, not very surprisingly, to be able carry the role given to her,
she even has to negate herself.
This behaviour is very symptomatic, don’t you think ?
So I think that you guessed it right, Faith.
By the way, did you notice that Thomas behaved as a little boy
when he got kissed by a newly assertive Nina ?
Managing to be the two swans, she completely reversed the roles
between her and Thomas. Another victory ? The real victory ?
The story told is so rich. I love this movie.
But it can be very upsetting.
I guess that all the girls that appreciate Nathalie Portman, and
ballet and romantic stories will have a hard time going
through this very dark tale 🙂
Take care,
Red.
PS : for the people who liked the film and are ready for more,
I can recommend ‘Perfect Blue’.
It’s not for the faint of heart, but this is a real masterpiece
It’s a japanese animated movie.
Aronofsky bought the rights of this japanese picture to remake a
scene in ‘Requiem for a dream’.
The main themes of ‘Perfect Blue’ are : double, confusion,
show business, overprotective/ambiguous characters,
madness (obviously), violence and rape (no doubt about it, this time).
Suprise, eh ?
I’m sure this movie was a great influence on ‘Black Swan’. We’ll see
if the movie critics are able to pick it up.
The movie was directed by Satoshi Kon, who died months ago.
One more thing, as many japanese production, ‘Perfect Blue’ begins
slowly, so bear with it. And don’t get confused by the introduction,
it’s definitively for mature audiences.
Hi, Red.
Thanks for the additional insight! Now I want to go see it again. I missed the part about the mother bearing a scar on her lips. I also want to notice whether Lily is dressed as the White or Black Swan when Nina comes in late to the show and is fighting to go on instead of Lily as her understudy.
– Faith
I stopped reading all of these after a while but i did read quite a few. i am very suprized that nobody realized this. Lily was just a figment of Ninas imaginion. she was Ninas “black swan” Nina would have never had sex with her teacher but Lily would because she is ninas dark side. If you dont realize he comes around when all the madness hapends and not one person in the movie talks to her other then nina think about it its definetally my oponion!
I have seen black swan and read many post reviews about it. I have finally cracked this movie. The mother doesn’t existed. The mother images are past memories of nina’s childhood. Nobody ever met the mother nor did nina ever mention her mother to anybody. When nina friend came to the house and they was in the hall talking and the mother interrupted over and over I was waitting for the friend to ask “what’s with ur ” the friend never asked her about her mother even when she called nina. The friend never asked why does ur mother call so much
Hi, Gfield.
Now I have to go see this movie again! That is an interesting perspective and actually ties in with my theory of mother-daughter sexual abuse.
Try out this theory — Nina was sexually abused by her mother but got away (for whatever reason). However, her mother’s presence still dominates her life. She is “stuck” in childhood (symbolized by the little girl room). The aftereffects of her mother continue to interrupt her life, such as in the masturbating scene. She is mostly affected at home (which is why we see her so frequently there), but as the movie progresses, she “interrupts” even her professional life (symbolized by the phone calls, locking Nina in her room before the performance, etc.). Her mother is the focal point of her demise at the end.
All of her interactions with the other characters are affected by her relationship with her mother. When she bites the director, her mother’s lip is cut. She can only view the hand of friendship in a sexual way (the same position she likely was in when her mother abused her).
I think the movie makes perfect sense when merging our two theories together! I still don’t understand the very end, though. Did she, in fact, kill herself? She didn’t have the blood stain on stage but did when she fell. Was that real or in her head? If is was real, did she put something on the mattress to cause it? If it was in her head, why where the people around her reacting as she did?
I’ve got to go see that movie again!
– Faith
We see a small blood stain in the dressing room; Nina knows she has mortally wounded herself but feels compelled to go on. After dancing the wound has worsened- on the ‘cliff’ it’s bigger than in the dressing room and bigger still when she’s on the mattress; we know it’s real exactly because of the reactions to her wound. Also: in every moment of hallucination Nina is either alone or with one other person who fails to witness what she sees…
Also, right before the final performance, when the portraits her mother has painted of her, you can hear her mother’s voice saying “sweet child/girl” along with Nina’s voice(s), right before she starts to tear them down. Maybe a lashing out?
The Mom is real- it’s true that Lily doesn’t use words when the Mom interrupts Nina’s visit, but she does make incredulous “Geez, why are you so controlling/ clingy” sounds each time the Mom’s attempts to keep Nina home. Also: she calls Thomas to say that Nina is ill on opening night.
…I didn’t see the sexual abuse while I was watching the film so much as profound emotional (and by extension career) enmeshment between Nina and her mother. Her Mom’s encouragement contained palpable jealousy and rivalry…. Also, having heard that there was a same-sex sex scene in the movie I had anticipated that Nina’s sexual repression would be from having ‘nonperfect/ homosexual’ desires…
After Nina’s unveiled as the new Swan, Thomas remarks (something to the effect of ) Beth’s “wonderfully dangerous quality that makes her performances thrilling”… There’s a point in both the sex scene and when Nina tries to masturbate in the tub where she sees a face that disturbs her: I thought she saw Beth’s face momentarily between her legs (her “dangerousness” for Nina in being both sexually desirable and Thomas’ original/perfect Swan) in the former and Lily above her in the latter, hence my thought that she was afraid of desiring women…
The recurring bloody fingers supports the interpretation of sexual abuse, though, and better explains Nina’s sexual repression than being conflicted about her orientation.
She doesn’t really start bleeding until she pulls the glass out of her body.
I agree. The mother did not exist. I was waiting for that to be overtly revealed, but it never was. I believe the mother lived in her mind, not in that apartment. This was a very interesting movie. I had not thought of the MDSA, but I did think she had a very repressed relationship with her mom. Either that or her mom died when she was 10-12 years old.
actually gfield is incorrect… when the mother first interuppts the girls talking in the hall way lily smirks and says shes a trip and when the mother comes out the second time lily says jesus and shaking her head as if to say whats with her….at the bar with the guys she makes a smart refrence to the unusual overbearing mother daughter relationship by saying what are you going to do? run home to mother?…. lily is actually not really around when her phone rings as much…. the twist is st is lily rolled in the cab with her from the club… but to me its speculated that she got out of the cab right before she nodded off.. and from there she begins her fantasies of her and lily… i caught that when her mother and lily never spoke a word to each other about the coming in late and being drunk. I never realized the blood infusions in the movie… (flash of her mother in the tub too quick ) or mothers bit lip… however tomal had also a scar on his lip i might point out if you look at the end with the kiss…I personally dont feel that its a real im having sexual relations with my mother.. i just think that having an overprotected mother messed with her head to the point that when innocent lil girl is finally getting intouch with her womanhood here is mother supconciously popping up to make her realize that this isnt what her mother would approve of. I see the mother being someone who used to be obbsessed with dancing but after having nina found another obbsession with protecting her. and even though this role is a great thing for her daughter to acheive the same things that she did as a dancer she is aware of what outside influence may come ( her asking has tomal hit on her yet). i feel as there are things that the producers left for us to figure out.. she (nina) has already had a history of scratching her self even though the mother obbsession (pictures of her and dancers) is overbearing she knows what comes from taking that role and the deep desire to be black swan… mom, beth, nina… but then again thats just my opinion.
I hated this movie, everyone in the audience laughed through much of it, I was bored and thought most of it was laughable. Natalie did a great job but would not recommend this unless you like sick movies.
Hi, Ronda.
I think the movie resonates most deeply with child abuse survivors, which is why I blogged about it. If you have no history of child abuse or trauma, I would imagine that the movie would be very weird and nonsensical.
– Faith
I completely agree with you Faith. As a surviving of child sexual abuse, I was also able to pick up certain connotations from the movie. A person who has not experienced abuse may not be as vigilant or notice those little things. For us survivors, this movie holds a lot of meaning.
This movie is clearly an upsetting movie.
But it’s a rewarding movie : the more you think about it, the more you discover about the characters, the relation one’s can have with others (mother, lover, rivals and of course with oneself) and maybe yourself.
The movie is a disturbing journey, but each step is rewarding. The story is well told, the acting is sound and the cinematography is beautiful.
This movie belongs to the same family of movies as Mulholland Drive (obviously), Jacob’s ladder, Cronenberg’ movies, Barton Fink, Platoon, or even Solaris
“Black swan” is a dark jewel of cinema.
Everyone laughed? Are you a teen watching with other teens? Anyone who laughed during this movie is really immature, felt really uncomfortable, or doesn’t have the ability to process it.
People laughed in the cinema I went to as well. I think it was their inability to handle it. It wasn’t like funny laughing, it was more like nervous laughter. I think people just didn’t know how to take a lot of it so the best defence (and easiest) is laughter.
Sue, I agree completely! PLEASE, someone, tell me WHERE the FUNNY parts are in this movie? I couldn’t believe it when I read Ronda’s post …
There are some funny parts, like in some of Nina’s interactions with Thomas or when Lily asks if she was good in bed…
Ronda, I do not see how any of this movie could be funny, at all. The point of the movie is that it is a “sick” movie. It’s not just cinematic fluff, like many movies that come out nowadays are. Watching this movie, especially for me, was like being strapped in a chair, punched in the face and forced to remember that everything isn’t always wonderful. It is a movie that makes you think and ponder everything from life and sexuality to the true value of friendship. It is definitely a movie that many people would not be able to handle, but that in no way makes it a bad film.
i have seen it twice and i have to say i immediately picked up on the mother daughter sexual abuse element. i think that the mother really existed because lily says “what are you gonna do? run home to mommy?” so–yes, she does get acknowledged.
when lily and nina spend the night together the last thing ‘lily’ says is something like ‘sweet girl’, which is what her mother says. so it made me wonder–since clearly lily really wasn’t there–if that was the mother. and when she woke up the next morning, the barricade on her door had been removed. again, since lily was never there, unless nina moved it, it had to be the mom.
i don’t know if she killed herself in the end. perhaps she broke free of her mother. the fact that her mother is the last person she ‘sees’ in the audience is telling to the psychological damage she inflicted.
I completely agree! I think the mom was alive the whole time. I think Lily never came to Nina’s house the night they got drunk together which would explain why Lily never acknowledged the mom at that time. I think the mom was having sex, a serious relationship with her daughter Nina, and reality from outside their world was just too much for Nina to handle.
yes, exactly my interpretation of that bedroom scene. I agree with both of your posts, orange13 and Shay.
Hi,
This is what I thought also! It makes sense! Also, how the mother kept saying “you are sick” “I knew you weren’t ready for this”. I also found it strange how Nina was crying when she told her mother she had gotten the part. If this was a mother daughte sexual abuse, what did Beth have to do with it? Nina says to Beth “I’m sorry, I know how exactly how you feel now”? Was Beth abused too?
DEFINITELY Mother-Daughter Abuse.
Confirmation
In the screne where Nina is imagining she is having sex with Lily, after the oral sex, Lily calls Nina “her sweet girl”. (But Lily was never there at the apartment.
The next day, Nina’s mother calls her “sweet girl”, confirming that was a pet name that her mother uses for her, and whomever Nina had sex with, in her mind or in reality, is the same person who uses that term.
i noticed this too… actually thought it stood out particularly strongly, i’m astonished no-one else has mentioned it until now… i took that to be total confirmation by the filmmaker of the maternal sexual abuse…
I don’t think it’s necessarily a sign of sexual abuse, but definitely a sign of the emotional abuse and impact her mother had on her. I think this movie is clearly one of much emotional abuse which can take identity of “Impure thoughts make you a naughty girl” and “don’t touch yourself, that’s naughty”. I think hearing “Lily” say those things could have been a projection of Nina feeling guilty and impure about what she had done and having her mother be a part of her psyche as her guilt. I mean, who else to make you feel the guiltiest than having your mother pop up somehow in your fantasies.
yes, it stood out the most for me too. Did anyone else notice that Lily’s face actually changes when she looks up to say “sweet girl?” Spooky.
And at the bar Nina says: My hands are ready. (rembere the scene before were mother is sitting in her room doing something with her hands and making “noises” after that comes into Ninas room saying: Are you ready for me?).Then Lily arives and Nina starts to cuddle against her.
I definitely picked up on it, but I feel like Aronofsky hinted at it without confirming it for a reason. I saw it twice, and I feel like the first time through, I was in awe. So weird, so good, so artistic. That’s all I could think. I mean, I did pick up on the strange behavior between Nina and her mother. I thought it had an element of abuse, but also though it could be more like Nina just didn’t have control of her life. When I saw it the second time, I though it seemed much darker than it did before. I think that abuse serves as a reason for Nina’s strange relationship with her mother and Nina’s loss of control. I think it was hinted at enough for some people to pick up on it, and for others to just think something was strange. I’m sure it was intended, but since it was not specifically mentioned as a part of the plot, I think it’s just Aronofsky’s way of spooking us some more. All in all, I think it was an amazing film. I hope to see some of its nominations turn into awards.
As for you and your sister, I appreciate you both sharing your insight. I am sure it is none of my business and that I am out of line, I’d like to extend my sympathy and prayers.
Thanks, Tori.
I will take sympathy and prayers anytime! :0) I am thrilled that mother-daughter sexual abuse is being addressed, even in a veiled way, because too few people acknowledge that it happens. I want my friends to see it so they can appreciate how much more emotionally healthy I am than Nina after the fact! :0)
– Faith
This makes perfect sense. I watched the movie and just thought the mother was overbearing and a weird, but the way she is connected with Nina’s sexuality makes sense.
Glad I found this blog. I was looking online for some discussion concerning this because it became that this was not merely just a mother living vicariously through her daughter. The part that confirmed it for me was after the orgasm where Lilly says, “Sweet child.” If the scene was real, there is no doubt that Nina conflated Lilly for her mother as she has done with Beth and herself. I’m sure it was no coincidence that Lilly would say this, in fact, this term of endearment is the mother’s favorite having been said at least three times prior to this scene. Still, we can only conjecture whether Nina was actually sexually abused.
I was blogging about this movie a bit too.
Anyway, I think the scene where Lily is getting ready as understudy has her dressed as the black swan.
I do think especially the thing with Lily seeming to say “sweet girl” is very telling.
I also do think there’s a lot besides the sexualized aspect of their relationship in addition–the narcissism, that scene where Nina doesn’t want much cake and her mother gets angry and throws it away–lots of things that add up to a very distorted mother daughter relationship on every level.
I’m pretty sure that Aronofsky intentionally implied that there was a sexually abusive relationship between mother-daughter. I base my claim on following scenes from the film:
1) just after we see mother crying while painting images of daughter, and just after daughter experiments with barricading her bedroom door, mother walks in room late at night while daughter is in bed and asks, “are you ready for me”. ((<- BTW, I googled "black swan 'are you ready for me'" in hopes of finding proof of this theory of sexual abuse and found this blog.)) What is their nightly ritual? why might daughter experiment with barricading just before said ritual?
2) during daughter's sexual fantasy/hallucination/dream involving dance partner, just after moment of orgasm from cunnilingus, dance partner speaks the phrase "sweet girl", an obvious ode to mother's 'pet phrase' for daughter and, double-entendre for the actual 'taste of the act', if you will. This, 'tying taste to tongue, with words from mother's mouth', as it were, does enough in my mind to establish a motif of sexual oppression linked closely with mother. From this, it isn't much of a leap to presume that mother's perversity extends into the sexual realm.
I also like RED's comments about the use of blood and scars to VERY subtly suggest the same above. I hadn't thought of that. Good eye!
Both #1's and #2 above have been previously mentioned by the good people of this thread. The additional point I'd like to contribute to this conversation is: though I honestly believe that Aronofsky meant to allude to some sort of sexual abuse, he also intentionally left this same motif as purposefully ambiguous; that is to say, this movie isn't 'about' mother-daughter sexual abuse, per se, but is rather more of an exploration of the entire process of psychological, emotional, and physical breakdown as exacerbated by a dogged pursuit of artistic perfection for the thrill of an "moksha-like" artistic transcendence (think "muga" in zen buddhism &/or Samsara in Hindusim–Aronofsky loves that sort of stuff). He tried to do this same sort of thing in "The Fountain", but fell short in the eyes of most audiences.
"Black Swan" is Aranofsky's way of broaching on his favorite existential themes while at the same time, 'throwing his sword into the audience', while barking, 'are you not entertained?!?'
Another commenter of this threat suggested that the mother may have simply been a fictional, mental construction of the daughter. This might be a defensible point. I however, would choose not to focus on such, "I've cracked this case" conclusions. In stead, I'd focus more on the realization that–as viewers–we cannot know for certain what was actually 'real' in this/a film/performance. In stead, we are challenged to 'just experience' it, along with our protagonist. How did YOU feel when the screen faded to white? What did YOU think when you were glued to your movie-theater seat at credit roll? It's amazing what happens in the blink of an eye… (augenblick! For those who Heidegger…)
This is no "Sixth Sense" thriller folks! This one is the real deal! Bravo to all involved in the making of this picture!
I didn’t like the movie. the cake scene was gross with the mother’s gross finger gesture. The mother was gross. Her mother had sex with her. the friend said my good girl during the sex scene. I made it through the movie. But my mother was over a few nights later with a bunch of other family who was talking about the movie (none of them made the sexual connection between the mother and daughter). My mom said she wanted to see it. I wanted to fly across the table and kill her.
Hi, it’s Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain Radio; I just did a movie review of Black Swan which I think falls in line with some of what you are saying, I think you might find it a worthwhile looksee – and I just wanted to express my very deepest sympathies for the terrible abuses you experienced at the hands of your mother…
Thanks, Stefan!
Everyone — This is an excellent review of the movie. It includes clips from the movie that might be triggering, including self-injury and female offender sexual abuse. Proceed with caution if these are triggers for you.
– Faith
Wow! fantastic review Stefan!
Ok, ok, I think I’m ready to say, “this film is ‘about’ a sexually abusive mother-daughter relationship, and an exploration of the resulting emotional turmoil in the psyche of the abused.”
I’m still going to hold on to my whole, “artistic transcendence thing”, though.
1) it is tragic that she was abused and oppressed. 2) the film is a tragedy because she passed away at the moment that she seemed to break free. Maybe she was finally ready to begin healing after, “reaching perfection”. Or maybe madness had then completely confounded her. This unknowable is perhaps the most vexing part of the movie, no?!
As the son of a woman who succumbed to her own emotional turmoil (a turmoil greatly influenced by a sexually abusive father-daughter relationship early in life, in fact), I find this picture to be a courageously candid look at the inner life of a troubled mind seeking lucidity. Furthermore, as one who has at times suffered from the effects of PTSD, I find a sort of joy from stories that deal earnestly with the darker side of the human experience.
Though the topics explored in, “Black Swan” may be ‘gross’ and ‘sickening’, I wholeheartedly argue that they are worth exploring. After all, grappling with suffering while searching for peace and liberation may be at the very core of what makes us human beings. I think we can all agree on this, whether you are a survivor of, amputation, rape, extreme poverty, political turmoil, war, racism, or simple abnormal normality.
Thanks to Faithallen for bringing this subject to the net. You have allowed me the appropriate forum to contribute a few thoughts on topics very dear to me, and for that I am grateful.
Stefan Molyneux of freedomainradio.com does a great review of the film that focuses on the mother/daughter abuse.
Here’s a great analysis of the movie’s mother-daughter sexual abuse theme:
Seems you’re not alone in your analysis.
you know what else. When the costume lady is doing the final fitting. She doesn’t see the si on her back. I dont know why this upset me afterwards. Probably cause its how it is. Nobody wants to see it- nobody acknowledges what’s happening. Its as if she is invisible. She really isn’t important.
i saw this movie. and was horribly shocked. i walked out of the theater and was so troubled i coudln’t speak. my husband of 2 months was surprised, and still at my reaction today 3 days later. never in my life, have i had a reaction t o a movie where i couldn’t really talk for an hour.
i felt the mdsa from the mother. it is my understanding and memory, i never suffered from that in my childhood. but i did have a grandfather that sexually molested me when i was young, we suspect in therapy he did to my mother as well. and i was ‘diagnosed’ with being exposed to childhood sexual abuse.
is it possible that is why i hated this movie so much? made me sick to my stomach. i could not fathom the hatred i felt. and disgust. and total remorse for Nina. to me i understood. death was her only way out, her only way to peace.
Hi, Deb.
Oh, wow! Now I get the ending! Thank you! :0)
I have an offline friend who remembers some sibling abuse (sister on sister abuse) but not details. She has many aftereffects common to women who suffered from sexual abuse by female perpetrators (hating her breasts, etc.), but I don’t think she has conscious memories of being sexually abused by her sister.
We were going to see this movie together, but I had some concerns about her seeing it, so I sent her the eight-minute movie review posted in the comments here. She had a panic attack from it and had to take Xanax to calm down. I talked her down by phone and felt really badly about triggering her but grateful she didn’t go see the entire movie.
I suspect that both you reacted so strongly because there could be more beneath the surface. I am not a therapist and cannot diagnose you, but I see red flags for a reaction toward the same parts that triggered and fascinated me as a survivor of mdsa. (I think my friend’s older sister and not her mother did the abusing.) I strongly suggest talking with a qualified therapist about your reaction to the movie.
I find it interesting that a reader with no memory of being sexually abused is the one who could explain the ending to me. Even my sister and me, who were both sexually abused by our mother and have been in therapy for years because of it, couldn’t figure it out.
– Faith
I think that her death at the end is definitely her chance for freedom because that is also the ending of the ballet. The swan kills herself and finds death in freedom, before killing herself she looks to the prince heartbroken then kills herself and finds freedom. This is the same for Nina, she looks at her mother, the one causing her oppression and then kills herself to find her own freedom. Or at least thats my interpretation of the ending
I completely agree about the ending, but I don’t think Nina necessarily chose to die consciously. The more I thought about it, the more it reminded me of when I learned in psychology about those war pilots (I think it was during WWII) who developed night blindness because subconsciously they really did not want to go on nightly air raids. They could not refuse orders blatantly, so somehow their bodies responded to their inner desires so they could avoid doing that which they despised.
Nina isn’t strong enough, or brave enough (through no fault of her own), to tell her mother to stop abusing her, so her body responds to her subconscious wishes and hence she kills herself.
I understand the symbolism in the death, but I don’t see how she could have literally killed herself considering there is pretty much a complete absence of blood and then suddenly she’s soaked at the end. The stain visibly grows way too quickly to be real. I always just saw it as the death of the repressed, white version of Nina.
Hi, Jackie.
If your theory is correct, I wonder if perhaps she “saw” those reactions because the change inside of herself was so profound that others “had to have noticed.” She knows that she has killed off this repressed part of herself and experiences it as a “death,” but she doesn’t yet know if it is a “good” death or a “bad” death — only a profound one that is such a huge shift inside of herself that she would expect it to be visible to all. Interesting…
– Faith
And that is the awfull truth. Not only this movie but many other suggest that the “victims” only way out is by ending his/her life. Just compare with the ending from Sleeping with the Enemy …
Everything makes so much sense to me after reading this blog. One question though, does anyone know, or think they know, if Lily was actually having sex with the director? Or was that really Nina? Maybe again dissociating from the situation. Because Nina tells her he will have a pet name for her (cannot remember the name) after they become involved sexually, and then after that scene where she see’s him having sex he calls her that name. Any insight on this?
Hi, Jen.
I think the sex was with the mother. Watch the YouTube video that some people posted in the comments. I think that is a good take on that scene.
– Faith
Hi, could you explain that for me? The video is no longer online.
Hi, H.
The video is here:
– Faith
He called her ‘little princess’, right?
Interesting theory, I was wondering what was up with that sex scene between Thomas and Lily. I’m still confused about that. I really want to figure this movie out, though. I find it kind of haunting.
I wish that youtube video still existed, would really like to see it, but it was removed due to copyright laws. The more I read here, the more sense it makes. I so identified with Nina, because during most of my 22 year marriage, i was frigid, could not perform, especially in the area which they show Lily and Nina…have experienced the self-mutilation or self hatred of body through bulimia… so many ways to look at this. There were so many sexual innuendos between the mother and Nina, more than even I saw but some that were obvious, like the mother making Nina lick the frosting off her finger. Or undressing her, way beyond what a mother would do when daughter is a young woman. A controlling and sexual moment even there. And Nina’s confusion of everyone wanting sex with her, because of her own sexual abuse makes it seem, that is the only way to be loved. I have definitely explored this topic through therapy, and there are some great books out there, e.g. The Wounded Heart: hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual abuse by Dan Allender.
Before I found this blog, I was really upset that I had seen this movie… but now I feel more at peace with the subject matter and what the real point was. It certainly has opened my eyes to what CAN happen when you don’t get help.
http://www.blip.tv/file/4616227
Sorry, my review was removed from Youtube, you can see it on Blip though:
http://www.blip.tv/file/4616227
Hi, Stefan.
Great! Thanks for sharing the link. I loved the review!
– Faith
I’ve posted your movie review to my facebook with a direct link, I find it very interesting and well done, thanks so much!
also I’m not sure if this was said yet but after Nina and Lily have that (pretend) moment in bed Lily says “Sweet girl” which is what her mom always says and the pillow goes over her face which one can say is Nina covering her face in shame after being abused by the mom. I’ve seen in 3 times and now need to see it again for this new perspective as haunting and difficult as it is.
thanks Stefan. your review was amazing. just put it all together, especially the end list of characteristics. so true.
I DEFINITELY agree with you interpretation! I like how you mentioned that you can almost see the whole puzzle but unless you have a certain key, you don’t quite understand. I myself have not been sexually abused but I just finished my psychiatric nursing rotation and Nina exemplified many survivors. There was an analysis on freedomain radio’s youtube channel that really spells it out but its owner has since had to remove his video. Probably because he used clips from the movie. His explanation really his the nail on the head in my mind…Actually nevermind, he contacted you. Just noticed. Weird!
Anyway, your post was nicely written. I’m glad to see I wasn’t the only one with these suspicions.
While I’m not a survivor of sexual abuse, I’m surprised more people didn’t catch that as the critical theme of the whole movie and the reason for her breakdown. I was immediately suspicious of the mother from the beginning. Having been raised by a controlling parent, I could tell there was another layer there that felt very strange. My suspicions became more solidified during Nina’s “homework” scene, when her mother appeared in the room. I was sold on it when she began barricading her door. I will even go as far as to say that her quest for perfection had little to do with wanting to achieve excellence in her field, and rather wanting to get back at her mother in the only way she could – by upstaging her.
Wow, Jessica, I totally agree and appreciate your interpretation of Black Swan and I especially appreciate this blog post.
On the more general movie forums, I tried to bring up the issue of sex abuse in the movie, but some people really were invested in shutting this particular conversation down (and I was even accused of being a *f…-up* individual for thinking this), so I decided to leave it alone. I know what denial/rage/resistance sounds like, and obviously some folks are just not ready to talk about this type of sex abuse.
I wonder if the problems in mentioning mother-daughter-sex-abuse is not just tied to the incest taboo but also the same-sex element as well as the discomfort with seeing any portrayal of less-than-perfect mothers? Which is why few critics comment on this underlying theme in Black Swan.
At any rate, I did want to pose a question about the movie. I decided to watch a second time and noticed this time around how there was so much emphasis on the scratch marks on Nina’s back (which is where her “black swan feathers” begin sprouting).
We’re told from the get go by Nina’s mother that this is “evidence” of Nina’s self-mutilation. But watching the scene a second time, I started wondering if the scratch marks on her back was the actual evidence of the sex abuse?
As in Nina’s mother is the one who put them there (I had started wondering why someone would unconsciously scratch themselves on the back – self-mutilation seems to be done in areas that are more easily accessible: scratching yourself on the back, while not impossible, just seemed strange. It’s the one aspect of your personal self that you don’t really see, especially when gazing in the mirror, so I just thought: how odd!)
A second viewing just made me wonder if it was the actions of Nina’s mom herself, but of course she’s in denial or maybe her own psychosis erased the memory of what she did to her own daughter?
Just thought to mention this, as the focus on the scratch marks on Nina’s back was highlighted throughout the film (and like I said, was the origins of her symbolic transformation into the black swan).
Hi, Corinna.
What wonderful insight! I think you are correct about the scratches on her back, but I did not even think about that possibility until you mentioned it. I was bothered by the self-injury (SI) being on her back just because that isn’t typically what you see with SI. I am not going to judge another person’s form of SI (and we have discussed much more “bizarre” forms of SI on this blog), but it didn’t really sit right with me, either.
Man, I have got to go see this movie again! I want to take notes on all of these comments and look for them.
Re: other forums — I saw a review on a Christian website about the movie and was appalled by what was said. Just seeing the tag line of “psycho-sexual thriller” and the R rating should be enough to clue people in that this isn’t a family-friendly film. I have no problem with saying don’t bring your kids to it and that it might not be your cup of tea if you don’t like dark movies.
However, the review went much farther, making a judgment about the traits of the “secular” people who would actually like it, and I took offense at that. I am very active in my United Methodist Church, and I think making sweeping judgments about the type of person I am based upon my interest in and take on this movie is completely off base.
– Faith
Hi Faith,
I believe I saw that review (on a Catholic movie website?).
It was utterly judgmental and uncalled for (considering the Church’s own sex abuse scandal).
I hope you do see the movie again! What’s especially helpful in watching a second viewing is that you go in already knowing something about Nina and Erica.
And watching it by giving Nina the benefit of the doubt in thinking that the “crazy” in the movie may be Erica more than Nina really opens you up to different angles and interpretations.
I totally agree with your interpretation. I have only seen the movie once… but the next day, when discussing the abuse theme (my own interpretation, as well) with one of my friends that saw it with me, she told me about this blog.
It’s amazing I caught as many of the inuendos that I missed. Here are a few I came up with:
1) her anorexia (which I formed by her overall appearance, and the subtlties in not wanting the cake), is a common theme with the sexually abused. It is a way to have total control of your body.
2) she was mutilating her back, because that is where the “Black Swan”, was coming out. (There was always the dimpling of her skin shown, whenever they showed her scratches). Nina was in this phsycological battle with not wanting to surrender to her passion (passion/seduction was needed to be the Black Swan).
3) she killed herself (although this is just one interpretation…I also like Deb’s…as death was the only way out), because she finally gave into her passions and became the Black Swan…it was too much for her to take.
One last thing, you mentioned that she wasn’t bleeding on stage, that she didn’t start bleeding until she fell. I thought she was bleeding a little on stage, but it was just a small spot.
I thought Natalie Portman did an exquisite job. Mila Kunis was also good (so different from, “that 70’s Show”). Barbara Herhsey’s facelift added to the creepiness of her roll. And the dancing was very impressive. I, too, need to see it again, because there was soo much that slipped by.
[…] people read it in a day. Now, it is consistently averaging well over 1,000 page views in a day. The Black Swan blog entry alone has had over 2,000 page views at the time that I am writing this, and rather than celebrate […]
I think the problem with the interpretation of this film is that it is confused with “perfectionism” within the field of ballet and what strains it puts on young women. While I will not argue that the world of ballet is wrought with problems like anorexia and “stage parents”, etc, this movie is definitely about sexual abuse by a parent and the mental illness that may ensue as a result.
Here are the questions I pose for those who doubt:
1)Nina was beginning her decent well before she landed the lead role. Why?
2)Erica, did not demand Nina to practice more, etc. I do not recall her telling Nina that she was too fat, or too lazy, or didn’t practice enough; all things that are usually typical of controlling stage parents. In fact, Erica had the opposite reaction; telling Nina that she was the most dedicated in the company and… she even encouraged Nina to eat cake. (and in a really creepy way, with the licking of the finger, right?) This sentiment of her not wanting Nina to perform was especially evident during the day of the opening of “Swan Lake”, when Erica called the company and said Nina was too sick to perform. Why, if she’s such a controlling stage parent would she do that? Why?
3)Erica’s portraits (shrine) indicated that the pictures were of both herself and of Nina, and all the while Erica was crying while painting. Why?
4)Nina has a vitriolic dance at the end with red eyes as the Black Swan, aimed at the mother in the audience. Why?
5)Nina commits suicide in the end. Why?
Hopefully this will lead to more discussion on the matter. (#2, is the most significant to me.)
I am thoroughly convinced that sexual abuse is one of the main themes in the film, but I am not sure it can be said that it is THE main theme.
At the end of the film after Nina has dived onto the mattress and is lying there bleeding, Thomas asks her what she did. She says “I felt it. Perfect. I was perfect.” I can’t link that to the sexual abuse but I can link that to her passion throughout the whole film for perfection.
Nina exhibits signs of an eating disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder (the scratching) throughout the movie. She is a longtime member of the company who hasn’t had a major role until the director picks her for Swan Lake. Her obsessive compulsiveness could be an extension of her quest for perfection to land that role, or any role, and then to embody that role.
There was also an implied rivalry between Nina and her mother. When they were talking about Thomas coming onto Nina her mother said she didn’t want her to make the same mistake she did. Her mother left ballet to have Nina, there must be some resentment because of that. When Nina ran out of the room to perform she yelled at her mom that she was the one that never got the part. This could be why she never made Nina practice, encouraged her to eat cake etc., she was sabotaging Nina’s career because she herself could never have one.
In the end when Nina was focusing the dance on her mother it was a middle finger to her for smothering her, saying look at me! I am everything you never let me be!
There is a whole lot more to this film than I think any one person can see. All great art leaves itself open to interpretation and it’s amazing to see the different views people have after watching and discussing. I love that I found this blog because it gave me a different viewpoint that I never thought of while watching the film the first time, but explains a few things that were strange i.e. the finger licking cake part, the “sweet girl” sexual connection.
Hi, Bridie.
I agree that true art can be viewed on many levels, and this film is true art!
I just wanted to tell you (in case you don’t already know this) that perfectionism, OCD, and eating disorders are very common aftereffects of child abuse. The scratching is a form of self-injury, which is also a common aftereffect of child abuse. Of course, this is not true of ALL child abuse survivors, but it is true of many, including me. :0) OCD can be a way of trying to “control” what doesn’t matter because you can’t control what does.
– Faith
I think the mother was jealous of her doughter, and didnt want her to be a more successful dancer than herself. And Nina wanted to .. you know, revenge? (my english isnt that good)
Hi all,
Barbara Hershey, the mother, plays another scary, abusive, sick woman in Portrait of a Lady. If you have not seen that movie, it’s another fascinating character study, with Nicole Kidman as the “lady”. John Malkovich is also in one of his typical roles. There is so much subtlety and symbolism in that movie too. There is one scene where barn doors swing open suddenly and all these pigeons flap and fly out, but there’s one bird left hanging in a cage… I almost jumped out of my seat and left at that. After the movie when I got home I was so upset I ran and ran in the hills and got a big stick and started beating and beating and beating the ground. I didn’t know what was wrong with me, but it was the beginning of realizing the truth I had buried about my own life. I watched that movie over and over to try to figure it out too.
[…] Allen and the commenters on her post, Black Swan: Movie about Mother-Daughter Sexual Abuse, are doing a great job exploring and elucidating the not always overt theme of sexual abuse in this […]
[…] […]
Wow, I am so glad I read this blog. To be honest, I read the main article and definitely wasn’t convinced. I completely picked up on abusive, controlling relationship between Nina and her mother, which I recognised as one of the main themes and reasons for Nina’s madness but could not recognise any sexual abuse. I just saw Nina’s frigidity as an effect of her mother smothering her and keeping her almost childlike (the room, dressing her, brushing her hair, etc).
But after the reading the comments, I am definitely more convinced, especially due to the “Sweet girl” comment (though doesn’t Tomas also call her this at one point?) – at the time I just saw it as it was the way everyone saw her.
As I was reading, I had another thought which I think may add further cannon. When Tomas is assigning her “homework” to her, he asks if she’s had many boyfriends and whether she was a virgin. Although she says she has had a few boyfriends, she seems far too sheltered to really have, especially since she could hardly spend much time with them since it appeared her whole life has been her dancing and her mother. In response to the virgin question, I don’t think she actually answers, but her facial response gives the indication that she’s not. Due to the lack of boyfriends (and privacy) and her embarrassed expression (though this could be intended to be as another sign of her frigidity), could this be another sign that she’s not due to the abuse she’s experienced from her mother?
Such a fascinating discussion and I look forward to reading more.
Chantelle
Found this blog through looking at tweets with #blackswan – I must admit, sexual abuse didn’t spring to mind, though I certainly saw the mother as abusive, in that she had pushed her daughter into ballet, after her failed career. Sexual abuse does make sense in retrospect.
I didn’t think the character of Lily was real, but was an hallucination – I found the film a bit predictable, in the sense that from the start I assumed Lily to be only in Nina’s head – as whenever we saw Lily it was only with Nina. A bit like a split personality. For example, when she overslept, Lily was there doing Nina’s part – but that seemed to me a rationalisation in her head.
When Nina “killed” Lily, I knew that that was a set up for Nina actually committing suicide, given the plot of Swan. Lake.
I’m glad I found this blog, it’s given me more to think about.
Just my two cents.
Faith,
yes she does die in the end,i think the cut was small,the knife held the blood in, she took it out,therefore started to bleed out. When she performed for her final time the audience probably thought the little bit of blood was part of her role as the dyin white swan, when she fell down and they all came and saw the blood at that point she had alot of blood seep through. Thats what i think.
Also did u all notice what shes wearing each time shes either the white swan or black swan (in her head). In the club she wears milas black tanktop hence tryin to break out and become the black swan. Im gonna rewatch it so that i see what she wears each time in diff scenes.
Hi, Vicky.
No, I did not notice that! I have got to go see that movie again and bring along a checklist of things to look for!
– Faith
I saw the movie and could not pin point what was missing, and then upon my search for the missing piece via google, I discovered this article, and I completely agree. Both very interesting and sad at the same time.
English Atheist: You raise an interesting point about Lily, and I would tend to agree with you, except when Nina was doing her fouette pirouettes while auditioning for the role, and Lily interrupts, Thomas introduces her to everyone as Lily from SF…..
Ah, good point, thanks! I’m thinking of watching it again. It would be interesting to see if any one else reacted when she was introduced.
Hi! I seen the movie last night and i absolutley love analyzing the point of stories so this helped me alot! what i got out of this movie is that Nina’s mother was trying to keep her confined and small and weak so that she could keep control of her and what she does.. trying to live out her dream through her and than Nina starts to break out into a independent person( the black swan). But your theory makes way more sense to me.. the only thing is i dont get a couple things.. like when Nina was rehearsing and the lights shut off and she sees lilly and that guy having sex yet he turns into a monster.. than she goes to see beth and beth starts stabbing herself.. do you have any idea what these secnes would symbolize?
Thanks!
What if the director also symbolizes Nina’s mother? Why she would have bit him on the lip? safer than what she could do to her own mother… and if she saw the director having sex with Lily, but Lily is her dark side, the black swan, and so the two having sex is Nina (portrayed by Lily in her mind) with her mother (portrayed by the director in her mind) and then he becomes a monster? The thing she can’t bear to face, to deal with.. her own mother is a Monster. So she transfers the feelings and actions onto others. This I believe this is also a symptom of victims of childhood sexual abuse.
Survivors of childhood sexual abuse.. we try to make excuses, cover up. lie to ourselves about the truth. Perhaps Nina is so complex in her hallucinations and thought processes she finds a ‘safer’ way to let out her real feelings, even if it’s only in her mind.
I think, to those who have posted here about them being thought crazy when voicing the allusions to sexual abuse, I found that true myself, and that is why the director ‘hid’ the abuse in such a skillful and artistic way that only perceptive ppl and those who had experienced it would recognize it. The rest of society cannot deal with the “monster” that would make a mother if true.
While I feel this is a valid interpretation of the movie, it completely neglects the ballet aspect of it. To become a professional ballerina, particularly a soloist or a prima, one must possess a great deal of discipline, focus, and drive. Your entire world must revolve around ballet, which can leave very little time for developing parts of self identity that are not connected to ballet.
To Nina, Lily represents all that she is missing, passion and freedom which is what draws Nina to her. What drives her rivalry and paranoia with Lily is the fact that Lily could replace Nina at any second, thus killing Nina’s dream.
While there is no doubt a theme of Mother-Daughter abuse in the film I see it more as a stage mother on steroids sort of deal. Nina’s mother had been a professional ballerina herself (although not as accomplished as Nina) until she became pregnant. Nina’s mother then took all of the drive and focus of her ballet career and placed it on Nina and decided that she would live out her dream though Nina. To her mother Nina is little more than her living doll.
I felt the ending shot on her mother was more to do with the fact that at last Nina had gained independence than her mother’s role in her death.
I thought the same thing until I started reading this post, and the comments. I think that Jessica (a commenter above) says it best:
“Erica, did not demand Nina to practice more, etc. I do not recall her telling Nina that she was too fat, or too lazy, or didn’t practice enough; all things that are usually typical of controlling stage parents. In fact, Erica had the opposite reaction; telling Nina that she was the most dedicated in the company and… she even encouraged Nina to eat cake. (and in a really creepy way, with the licking of the finger, right?) This sentiment of her not wanting Nina to perform was especially evident during the day of the opening of “Swan Lake”, when Erica called the company and said Nina was too sick to perform. Why, if she’s such a controlling stage parent would she do that? Why?”
When I think of an overbearing stage mother, I think of the mother from “Center Stage” (don’t remember the character name, but played by Debra Monk – Maureen’s mom) – pushy, ambitious (for her daughter) and with lots of snide comments about her daughter’s weight, amount of practicing, etc. The kind of mother who brushes off symptoms of her daughter’s illness because, by gosh, nothing is going to get in the way of her greatness! I don’t think that Erica exhibited those sorts of traits. If anything, like the commenter Jessica said, her sentiment was more towards NOT wanting her to perform.
[I suppose a second argument could then be, she didn’t want her to perform because she – Erica – thought she – Nina – would outshine her – Erica’s – old performances…but somehow I just don’t buy that. It seems a bit too trite for the level of psychoanalytical drama at play in this film.]
You are correct in bringing up all of the points you do about ballet. This is why it was the perfect setting for the other elements of the story to work. If Aronofsky is one thing, it is certainly not straightforward! So while on the one hand (surface level), this is a movie about a ballet dancer, and the world of ballet is the ideal environment for the exacerbation of the other character developments/psychoses, it is on the other hand a movie having nothing at all to do with ballet and everything to do with identity, sexuality, control, the human psyche, etc.
Familiarity with Aronofsky’s other work, particularly his last and also critically-successful film, “The Wrestler” (which was, similarly, about wrestling yet NOT about wrestling) helps understand the complexity of his films and the importance of discussions such as this one.
I just saw this movie with my husband. I picked up on the abuse undertones right away and even talked about it after the movie. I am an SA survivor and something kept bothering me throughout the movie so now it all makes sense. Also, my mother was not the one who abused me but there was emotional abuse, the SA was from a male relative. I think your article was very good and it helped me to make sense of the feelings I had during the movie and after it. The bedroom is what really freaked me out and also the way the mother was always in her room or bathroom and seemed to always be around. I also noticed she was always in black throughout the whole movie so I thought maybe that meant something too.
I thought the mother’s wearing black at all times was significant too. Throughout the movie, it is stressed many times that the “black” swan symbolizes sexuality. The sexual part of Nina’s nature is the “black” side, so maybe the mother’s wearing black is a silent cry that invites us, viewers to notice that what sexuality means for nina is sadly the sexual abuse of her mother.
Black as dirt maybe? Something to be ashamed of? That would make sence
[…] When I went to see the movie Black Swan, I thought it was going to be a thriller set on a ballet stage. I never expected to relate so deeply to the main character, Nina (played by Natalie Portman), especially since I have absolutely no experience (or even interest) in ballet. I also did not expect to be completely freaked out by her mother (played by Barbara Hershey). The movie blindsided me and disturbed me on a very deep emotional level. I shared my reasons why here: Black Swan: Movie about Mother-Daughter Sexual Abuse. […]
Great, stimulating, thoughtful, and important critiques and analyses here, the OP and comments, too. Thanks!
I just saw the movie for the first time last night. I expected to love it, being a pretty die-hard Aronofsky fan, but it also wasn’t what I expected at all. But, as all powerful works of cinematic art tend to do, while my initial reaction to it was a bit dumbfounded or unsure, the film has been milling about in my mind since last night and reading posts/discussions like this is only confirming to me the genius of this film.
There is a lot I feel I could write while still trying to process this film, but for now I’ll just add one small point to add to the discussion: There are several moments throughout the film when peoples faces literally change (major kudos to the effects people in this film, too, especially for these more subtle moments!). Firstly, we have the seemingly purposeful ambiguity of appearance between Nina, Lily and, yes, the mother. First, Nina sees Lily in the subway, but not her face. Yet the composition of the shots sets up the “reflection” nature of their relationship. Then Nina walks past…herself? in the alley — was this real, was it Lily? Who can say. Nonetheless, this plays directly into the confusion of identity as well as detachment from reality.
Importantly, someone here mentioned that when Nina opened her eyes underwater in the tub after the blood dripped in, she saw her mother above the water. Now, I was/am pretty sure it was actually Lily, but this goes a long way to prove the point of visual ambiguity between the three female roles. (Furthermore, did you notice that the quick flash we see of Lily or the mother, though distorted by the water, appears to show her also naked?)
Furthermore! In the all-important Lily/Nina sex scene and the crucial use of “sweet girl” at the end, Lily’s face actually becomes Nina’s for a brief instant before the pillow covers up the shot.
Additional points which bolster this theme: Beth turns into Nina when she begins stabbing herself in the hospital (further ambiguity when Nina gets in the elevator and actually drops the bloody nail file at her own feet…); we are never sure whether the mother is drawing self-portraits or pictures of Nina; Lily turns into Nina at least once, if not more, during the final struggle in the dressing room (and this time the audience gets confirmation of the ambiguity since, we know, Nina never actually fought or stabbed Lily but rather, be it figuratively or literally, stabbed herself with the glass).
All in all, I really appreciate this discussion and I will certainly be seeing the film again soon (and surely many times thereafter).
I’m glad to find I am not the only one who took the movie this way. I was also abused as a child, though not by my mother, and this interpretation of the movie was hitting me in the face all throughout it. Every “crazy” reaction Nina had reminded me of a flashback-type hallucination that I can relate all too well to. I also understand the strive for perfection – after going through all that as a child, it’s hard to ever feel good enough for anything. It’s also a form of grasping for self-control, another important aspect for sexual abuse victims.
I do understand why so many can’t see it, though. To those who haven’t experienced such a thing, it probably is indeed a “reading between the lines” kind of thing. But I just add this as another aspect of brilliance to the director – as a portrayal on how society ignorantly views sexual abuse. Something that somehow isn’t out in the open even when it’s right there in front of you, something that is easier to attribute to craziness and sweep under the rug.
The relationship between Nina and her mother was obviously clear. Maybe because I studied social work, and had clinical psychology on my courses. I really am surprised, that so many people don’t see the real background of Nina’s problems. In my opinion, Aronofsky made a good job in presenting devastating effects of sexual abuse.
SS,
Absolutely correct:
“I do understand why so many can’t see it, though. To those who haven’t experienced such a thing, it probably is indeed a “reading between the lines” kind of thing. But I just add this as another aspect of brilliance to the director – as a portrayal on how society ignorantly views sexual abuse. Something that somehow isn’t out in the open even when it’s right there in front of you, something that is easier to attribute to craziness and sweep under the rug.”
I felt that was the brilliance of the film as well; I just lacked the ability to articulate it. When Lilly comes to the house, she notices how absolutely strange Erica is, but even Lilly doesn’t really “get it”. Had Lilly understood, she may very well have never drugged Nina’s drink. Lilly just thinks that Nina needs to “loosen” up, without being truly aware why Nina is so sexually repressed.
Oh, and I must also mention the nail clipping scene. Erica tells Nina that she knew Nina couldn’t handle the role and the role was “getting to her”…very clever trick of an abuser, no? This is a pivotal scene for a reason.
Please watch this review on Black Swan. He makes some connections you missed, but you also pointed out stuff that he missed!
Thanks, Apple!
The author, Stefan, posted the link a couple of weeks ago in the comments. I agree that it is a brilliant review. It makes me want to go see the movie again!
– Faith
I picked up on the mdsa fright from the start, even though I do not have a personal history of it. From reflecting on your insight, I have another one. Her own guilt. Nina had a lot of guilt, in that she got physical pleasure from the sex with her mother, and blamed herself (as do victims of sexual abuse). Evidence: when she was having sex with “lily” who was most likely really her mother disguised as lily in her imagination, she achieved orgasm. At one point during their encounter, lily looked up at Nina, and somehow scared her, but I don’t understand what that meant. Evidence #2: When she was rehearsing and the lights went out, she imagined Lily having sex with the director, who one of the bloggers pointed out symbolized Nina having sex with her mother. In this encounter Lily was smiling and enjoying herself.
I am so relieved to find this thread! I have not been able to stop thinking about this movie since I saw it a couple of nights ago – this movie is so layered, detailed and intense it is truly haunting. My partner and son and I also picked up on the theme of sexual abuse…but when I asked them, they missed the scene which confirmed for me the nature of the mother-daughter relationship because it was so quick, when the mother appears in the doorway in lingerie asking, “are you ready for me?” My son at that point made an insightful comment; he said that one of the things he loved about this movie was the fact that it took so long to find out who the antagonist is, and it shifts throughout the movie until we finally find out that it is Nina herself. That is one layer – of course as the discussion here reveals, it is the mother all the way. The other scene that absolutely confirmed it for me was the “homework” scene. Nina’s masturbation involves grinding against the bed and bed covers; many survivors of sexual abuse engage in furniture grinding as a compulsive sexual behaviour. (Then her mother is sleeping there in the chair; the other disturbing part of that scene is that it doesn’t seem unusual – except for the timing – to see her mother sleeping there.) During the grinding scene, I immediately thought of my friend who was a victim (unfortunately not a survivor) of mdsa who engaged in this compulsive behaviour. Ultimately, my friend took her life and her daughter’s life because – as someone pointed out here – like Nina, she saw no other way out, no way to peace. She could not escape herself, she could not escape her past, in the end her self-hatred was complete and she destroyed herself, taking her precious daughter with her just before taking her own life as a way of protecting her but also I believe to confirm that she herself was a monster. I saw a lot of my friend in Nina – an artist driven to perfection but ultimately doomed to failure by self loathing and the dark hours of the mind.
I did not know about the compulsive sexual grinding against furniture, but I suspected later on in life that it was a sign.. I was doing it at 8 years old against the furniture compulsively and asked my mom over and over what was wrong with me, but she never said. My therapist thought perhaps my mom had buried her own abuse by her father, who later abused me. Do you know where more information on the compulsive behaviors for victims of sexual abuse might be found?
Hi, Deb.
I am writing a blog entry on this topic that will publish on Monday. :0)
– Faith
Hi, I only know that in the weeks and months following my friend’s suicide, as myself and her other friends tried to crawl our way through the horror of what had happened and figure out what J’s last hours had been and what had driven her to her desperate act, J’s partner told me that she used to grind herself against the furniture in a sexual and at times almost violent manner and that a therapist had told her that this was indeed symptomatic of childhood sex abuse survivors. Maybe someone else on here knows more?
I am saddened for everyone whose life experience causes them to relate to the horrific circumstances of this movie. But I am excited that so many people are here talking about these hidden and taboo types of violence and abuse. The more we talk, the better. Through experience I know how destructive this type of family abuse is. After 13 years, I am still working my way through it. Reading these posts has been helpful – now I know why this movie haunted me so much, because I see my friend in Nina. I’m glad that at least it has sparked so much conversation.
I believe the mods at the Mediasaurs movie forums have a link to the script you can PM them for.
http://mediasaurs.com/FORUM/FORUM/FORUM2/viewtopic.php?t=801&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
I have suffered a lot of abuse in my childhood, by my mother, but not in a sexual way.
Yet I strongly believe you are mistaken, when you say that there absolutely was sexual abuse between Nina and her mother.
I’ve too grinded beadsheets and even my favorite fluffy animal between my legs, but that had nothing to do with the abuse (I started doing it before that) – I simply had to relieve the sexual tension that was building inside of me (because I was too young to have sex, I couldn’t do it any other way). That is not to say everyone has the same experience.
Still, I’m not convinced. Mother treats her grown-up child as a child. That cannot be translated as 100% proof of sexual abuse. I’ve seen many parent-child relationships which are exactly that way, but abusive is all that they are.
Evening rituals with her mother caring too much still doesn’t prove anything – it’s simply shows a control freak.
When she masturbates and is suprised by the mother – again absolutely no way to tell if there’s an underlying theme. Occurances like this happen everyday, but mostly the parents are not asleep and see their children masturbating. Now those are some traumatising experiences.
The way Nina reacts when the director touches her, kisses her… I can’t imagine a sexual abuse victim who so willingly engages in acts of sexual nature / allows others to intrude her privacy so easily. It just doesn’t add up.
As a victim yourself, perhaps you’re too biased and were mislead by the movie to think that this is a story about sexual abuse, but I’m sure it wasn’t intentional.
Until the Black Swan director or the cast comes out and states that was their intention, I don’t believe you can say that this theory is proven in any way.
I loved the movie, but for me it was about a mad (trauma from all the abuse) artist, who literally went all the way to achieve perfection.
Hi, Erkils.
Thanks for your viewpoint. I will agree to disagree with you. :0)
I did want to address one comment you made. You said, “The way Nina reacts when the director touches her, kisses her… I can’t imagine a sexual abuse victim who so willingly engages in acts of sexual nature / allows others to intrude her privacy so easily.”
This is actually a very common aftereffect of sexual abuse. Sexual abuse survivors tend to react in extremes. Some become very frigid or even asexual while others become promiscuous. A lack of boundaries is a HUGE issue for most child abuse survivors.
– Faith
I would also add that in that scene the director overcomes her initial resistance by ordering her repeatedly -“Open your mouth”… Often victims of abuse can only ‘resist’ in a very passive way, they can’t actually say ‘no’, and will give in to forceful demands as experience has taught them that regardless of their desires the abuse WILL happen.
Actually, sexual abuse survivors frequently DO allow people to go over their sexual/personal boundaries.. it’s all a part of it, getting love is now through sexual means, it is what we learn at an early age. It’s how to get attention. Yes I agree with Faith. It’s hard though for anyone who has not experienced this to understand. Especially when sexual abuse happens as a child the boundaries of “who you are” are so blurred. Its a battle later on in life not to be a ‘people pleaser’ and do whatever it takes to get approval. Just my own personal experience and perspective.
Yes, I know that often victims whore themselves out or the other way around – become frigid (like Nina). I shouldn’t have added that sentence.
But overall except for that one comment I was correct. Good to know. 🙂
Hi, Erkils.
No, my choice not to debate you on each topic does not mean that I agree with all that you wrote. Like I said before, I am fine with agreeing to disagree with you. :0)
This blog is not a place for debating issues. We discuss numerous issues relevant to healing from child abuse, but I try to steer clear of debates because this is a place for healing. Because most of my readers come here for the purpose of healing from child abuse, I thought it was important to address that one point in your comment so my readers don’t think that there is something wrong with them for not meeting a particular profile.
Again, I appreciate your input and welcome alternative points of view. I choose not to get into debates here because this is not a place for them.
– Faith
the meta-narrative of Black Swan is about Nina’s sexual awakening as a woman, and how that clashes with her childlike state and ultimately destroys her.
the first attempted masturbation (i.e. liberation) is curtailed by her mother’s presence, she then hides and feels shame. then she masturbates in the bath but gives up, then sees her mother’s face grinning at her; intruding on her privacy and curtailing any liberation. the blood on the fingers after that is obviously period blood – a surefire sign of sexual maturation. the hallucination of Lily calling her sweet girl after making her orgasm is yet again her mother intruding on her attempts at sexual liberation. she then hides and feels shame (with the pillow).
she can’t escape her mother and become her own person, become her own woman who is fully sexually liberated. she’s stuck in this quasi-childhood sexless state because of her mother’s refusal to let her grow up and instead keep her trapped as this perfect sweet girl (when all her mum’s paintings come to life and start calling her “sweet girl” is representative of her mother’s suffocating power). Nina IS the White Swan – pure, innocent, virginal – Thomas says so repeatedly.
the Black Swan, however, is sexual liberation. so Nina just doesn’t get it. she’s too tightly wound. Lily perfectly represents the Black Swan: free and liberated. Nina recognises this (hence Lily is the instigator for Nina’s orgasm) but feels conflicted by her burgeoning sexuality, which is why she then demonises Lily. she feels guilt over her sexual awakening so treats it as a threat to her perfection.
but the main reason this film isn’t about sexual abuse? the 110% surefire rebuttal to your argument? Darren Aronofsky simply does not do subtlety. if this movie was about sexual abuse he’d be smacking you over the head with it a billion times. Lily wouldn’t turn into Nina when she said sweet girl, she’d have turned into Nina’s mother. there’d have been way more emphasis placed on the way the mother touched and admired her daughter. after saying “are you ready for me?” (which is simply “are you ready for me to tuck you in?” as we’re shown she does every night) the mother would have licked her lips or somethin’, etc. etc. etc.
the signs that there could be sexual abuse, the signs you picked up on, are subtle. therefore you can bet your bottom dollar they weren’t intentional on the part of the director. you saw them because you were sexually abused by your mother, thus in your mind you sexualise abuse that is not inherently sexual. it’s perfectly understandable, but it’s clouded your reading of this film.
“Fellow ballerina Lily (played by Mila Kunis) tries to befriend Nina, which connects Lily to Nina’s mother in Nina’s head.”
I might try to start understanding your view point if you could let me know how you got to this conclusion.
Personally I think the relationship between Nina and her mother is abusive and critical to the film, but I don’t think it is sexually abusive. Her mother is in her room when she climaxes not because she will “awaken her mother sexually or whatever” but to show the mother’s over-bearingness, to explain why Nina can’t just “let go”, her fixation on perfection.
I’m no movie critic or anything, so if u could convince me otherwise then I would be glad to be able to see the movie from another view point.
I just saw the movie and my interpretation is that there is only one character in the movie – Nina’s mother. She was Nina who was forced out of the ballet at the age of 28. She may have been in a relationship with the director and he may have rejected her for another woman – and she became like Beth, the rejected woman who tried to kill herself. Everything was going on in her mind before she really committed suicide. This would explain her sitting around in front of all the paintings crying and the conversation she had with Nina about how she had to leave ballet when she was 28.
This is a great blog – another thing that comes to mind with the mother daughter sexual abuse theme is when she is at Thomas’ place after the soiree, and he asks her if she has had any boyfriends, and she says ‘a few, but nothing serious’. Surely, someone as respectable as Nina would only have sex with a partner if she thought it was serious? Her mother obviously has provided her only sexual contact, and masturbating, for Nina, is another form of taking control of her body.
I don’t think Nina experiences a demise, even though she commits suicide. I think she finds a strength and the only way to truly take control of her life – be the one who ends it. I have always believed that while some perceive suicide as a weakness, personal experience has allowed me to realise the strength one has to take their own life.
Her final line, ‘perfect’, reflects not only her dance routine. When one has a passion as strong as Nina’s for dancing, success can be as satisfying as a sexual climax. She ultimately reached this perfection, in each sense, on her own. Nina created her own paranoia and ended her pain.
I’m really glad I stumbled upon this website. I am not a victim of SA, and perhaps for that reason I didn’t put everything together when I first saw the film. However, there were certain elements that bothered me about the movie that now make sense given the underlying sexual abuse. For instance, why does Nina sleep in lacy lingerie when her room is filled with little girl stuff (music box, dolls, etc.?) It’s just a strange juxtaposition but makes sense when you consider the idea that Nina may have been a little girl who was inappropriately sexualized by her obviously controlling and intrusive mother. Hence the bizarre and unsettling combination of lingerie and children’s toys.
Ah I see, Faith. Perhaps allowing comments then wasn’t such a good idea, as it only creates enviroment for discussions. But I get what you’re saying.
I have to say – Mu – you really hit the nail on the head. I couldn’t find the right words, but you really did. Amazing.
Hi, Erkils.
I strongly encourage discussions here, just not debates. Discussions are collaborative efforts to understand a topic, and your contribution (even though I don’t agree with it) adds to the discussion and collaboration by presenting another point of view on a topic. A debate involves taking sides, proving your case, and disproving the other person’s case. That’s not what we do here.
I actually love a good debate, just not here. :0)
– Faith
I think part of why people may be so resistant to seeing mdsa in this film (it has to be admitted as a possibility at least even if one doesn’t absolutely believe that it’s the case) may be the general reluctance to admit that 1. It goes on at all and 2. It goes on so frequently that anyone would think it worth exploring it in a major film. There is little reason for sexual abuse by mothers to be less common than sexual abuse by fathers, yet society is so much more vigilant about the latter.
A good question for viewers to ask themselves would be: “What would I assume was going on if the mother and Lily were male characters?”
I am absolutely not trying to cause a problem here, I just think it’s an interesting opportunity for people (including me) to explore their gender assumptions.
Hi, Jan.
I think that is a great point. If those characters were male, I to think more people would see the sexual abuse element.
– Faith
Just because Aronofsky “doesn’t do subtle” doesn’t mean he hasn’t changed his style in this movie. I absolutely agree with Faith. It was clear to me that sexual abuse was going on and I do not share Faith’s history.
I completely agree with Tina, I do not share Faith’s history and yet having watched the film this evening picked up on many of the pointers that other posters have raised here. One other thing Faith, for your checklist! Note how Erica says right at the beginning, almost haltingly, that Nina is “the most dedicated dancer in the group” she could have said the most talented, or the best, but to say she was the most dedicated felt to me like “well done, you work really hard, but you’re not the best”
Thanks for the interesting insights
Allie
I have to agree with ‘mu’ here. Are you all skipping his/her comment on purpose? I think her mom was overprotective, but not sexually abusing her. She was just holding Nina back to bloom sexually, constantly treating her like a kid, because she had the feeling she needed to protect her daughter from the big bad world that destroyed her life. Nina even makes a comment to her mother about this at one point in the movie. Sure there are hints that the mother-daughter relationship is not normal, but the signs are far too weak to say that it’s about mdsa. Abuse? Yes. Sexual abuse? No.
Hi, Slipvin.
I respectfully disagree with both of you, which is why I haven’t posted a reply to Mu’s post. I welcome all points of view in a discussion format, and I am thrilled to see so many points of views being shared. However, as I have shared in the comments, I am not going to get into a debate over the topic here because this is a healing place for child abuse survivors, and debates are not helpful to healing due to taking sides and getting into the “you’re right” or “you’re wrong” line of thinking.
I think the movie is amazingly layered so that different people can connect with different levels. To me — a survivor of mdsa — the movie screams mdsa. Of course, I bring my own experiences into my experience of the movie. :0)
– Faith
Beautiful reply, Faith.
I was just signing on to post when I saw this. What I was going to say was, the movie is so layered that it allows many interpretations. There is room for both interpretations – that this is a story of sexual awakening (Mu’s post), and that it is a story about sexual abuse. In fact, it’s interesting to think about Mu’s interpretation about sexual awakening in this light…that the brokenness and perversion of the mother-daughter relationship underlying Nina’s experience is what makes her awakening – to adult maturity, to her own sexuality – go so disasterously wrong. Of course, this all happens in the context of the ballet world, where there are other pressures… it is also about a young woman driven to seek an unattainable and impossible perfection by these pressures and by her own wish to have something of her own, her own power. A girl who is childishly desperate to have her turn (as she says while stabbing “Lily”).
As someone who is a survivor of sexual abuse myself and who is, sadly, acquainted with the worst possible outcomes of mdsa, (it feels wrong to put this in parentheses, but to give context, I supported a friend who ultimately committed suicide because she could not find healing from her experience of mdsa) it also screams sexual abuse and of course we all bring our own experience to bear on our interpretations. Interesting that this movie would spark such impassioned debate but, as you say, Faith, this should be a venue for open and compassionate exploration and sharing of ideas, not debate. The tone of respect and compassion that most of the posts here possess is what made me so happy to find this site. Thank you, Faith.
If I may add my thoughts. I just recently saw the movie tonight, and I was rather confused to the condition of her shoulder wound and did a search on Google, in which I came upon this site. It’s been quite the eye-opener and while I found parts of the movie difficult to watch, simply due to my squeamishness to blood, the feather out of the skin thing, and the mother trimming her nails, the nail file stabbing and the thumb in the throat/choking…I digress.
I wanted to address Mu’s statement, that a mother who is THAT oppressive to her daughter, that controlling could still be considered as sexually abusive. Yes it is abusive, but in repressing her daughter she affected her sexually. I know it’s a frail argument, almost like saying that if I put up one picture on a wall I was essentially decorating the house. It’s a stretch but it’s a thought I had considered.
A little background: I wasn’t SA by my mom, but by a male cousin, however, my mother was fixated on my sexuality because I was a sexually expressive child. Much of the things she would tell me about my early childhood even now don’t make sense. How at 2-3 years old I was using scissors to cut my father’s Playboy magazines up the crotch and across the breasts (WHY would I have access to scissors in the first place…but that’s not the point) and how I was born with pubic hair and would complain that it tickled (age 3 or 4), how I was insistently curious about reproduction and the act of sex in reproduction as early as 4-5 year old. All these curiosities and actions caused her to state on many occasions throughout my childhood and up until puberty that I would be the “one with all the boyfriends” and when her statements became reality, she beat me within an inch of my life for being promiscuous at a young age.
I would never go so far to say that my mother was sexually abusive, but she certainly was abusive, and I feel, as a result, I’ve never looked at sex in a healthy way, even now I’m dealing with my own skewed perspective.
While it wasn’t overt and obvious, it was certainly an underlying theme to Nina’s downward spiral. Her attack in the dressing room on her projected image of Lily was, I feel, her fighting the sexually free side of herself trying to break free and her stifling it, but when she went out and danced with passion and freedom, then came back to the dressing room only to realize she didn’t stifle it, but instead had killed the repression, the negativity of people telling her she couldn’t live her life. (Remember the words between “Lily” and Nina before the struggle) When she understood that she had NOT succeeded in stifling that sexual being, she had to embrace it, but her abused self could not “live” with this new found self. Her mother in the audience, reminded her that she would NEVER be truly free, hence she kills herself. Though I’m not certain if she truly killed herself or injured herself severely.
I say injured herself because if you remember, she was having issues with her diaphragm. Also, I recall her clutching her ribs in a scene after that. Could she have hurt herself some other way? Broken rib? Just speculating.
I’m glad I found this site and this blog. I hope I didn’t ramble on too much. 🙂
I’m not sure if anyone else has mentioned this yet, but Nina could have had a multiple personality disorder, which is the result of being sexually abused at a young age.
I remember reading that people with multiple personality disorders are often victims of sexual abuse at such a young age- when they haven’t formed their own sense of identity -and that shifting personalities can become a way of coping with the abuse but also other stressful situations.
This could be what the eye color shifting was representing before the black swan dance. Another potential sign of this is that she had the unexplained scratches on her back that she often seemed surprised to discover. The lapses of time can represent that MPS. Also, her mother says something along the lines of “I thought you grew out of this” and “it’s the stress/pressure of the ballet” maybe this way reference that she had a history of MPS episodes.
Great blog on an interesting subject.
I found the movie quite disturbing (though I thought it went distinctly downhill in the final third) and definitely caught the mdsa overtones right from the cake scene – it’s “our” favorite, and Nina can only make amends for her initial reluctance by eating it from her mother’s skin.
The more you pull the movie apart the more obvious the abuse theme becomes, and it has been fascinating to see the other points that people have noted, as well as the obvious ones I saw myself.
I am wondering if Nina’s constant attacking of herself, and eventual ‘killing’ of herself is an acting out against her ‘sweet girl’ aspect who has allowed, and possibly enjoyed parts of the abuse by the darker side that cannot understand why she has not fought back.
Many abuse victims are angry and unforgiving of them selves as they have had opportunities to run away, to leave, to say no and have not done so.
I see her death at then end not as a literal death (I find it unlikely that she could dance with a fatal abdominal wound) but as the death of the ‘sweet girl’ who strive for perfection, and who could only be put away once she had found it. The dark side, sexually independant and confident get’s “her turn” at last.
I am amazed at all the layers of possible interpretation…each providing more insight into the movie, the characters, and the issue. Yours has given me yet more food for thought! There is something about survivor guilt and anger…that ‘dark’ and powerful side that we wish we could be, the side that would fight back…which is also the side of us that saves us. In Nina’s case, it destroys her at the same time that it allows her perfection. Who is there to punish if we see ourselves as the enemy?
This also gets me thinking about the tension at the end between self-destruction and liberation. Nina “kills” herself (figuratively or literally)…but the screen fades to white, not black. Your post brings out the distinction between White Swan Nina, and Black Swan Nina…juxtaposing these two (and recalling that the title is Black Swan) is a really interesting way of interpreting the film. Thanks!
“I suspect that most people who go to see this movie won’t have that missing puzzle piece and will leave the movie feeling Nina’s emotional disturbance without the “aha” moment of the logic that ties it all together … and I suspect that is was the director was going for.”
This is exactly what happened to me,I saw the film and kept thinking “but WHY was she so fragile?” The pressure of her upcoming performance didn’t do it for me ’cause she had been like that right from the beginning,before she’d gotten the part.Sth was definitely wrong with her and I couldn’t figure out why.Without the missing puzzle it all just seems like a messy and disturbing film with some beautiful scenes but without much of a plot.
The mother did make me suspicious in certain scenes,and (I think) I considered SA for a second when she insisted on undressing Nina-seemed really weird to me,and not in a overly protective way,but I quickly forgot about it because there was so much happening in every scene.I’m gonna watch the film again and am still open to other explainations but this one seems right.
Also,I read a similar thread on some film website and sb said that after Nina bites Thomas we see her mother with a wound (?) on her lips.Like they’re bleeding or something.Didn’t catch that,don’t know if that’s true but sounds interesting…
As for the bathtub scene,I’m almost certain it’s herself that she sees grinning at her.Here’s a screencap
Mila’s eyebrows are way more arched.I think it’s Natalie
Yes! I noticed this too…
It his her own face, and it’s her own face in the sex scene too. As the cap at the top of this review shows, it’s herself that she passes in the alleyway as well:
http://www.totalfilm.com/reviews/cinema/black-swan
I wasn’t sure at first viewing (I thought she looked like Jennifer Connely, another Aronofsky alumnus). I also thought that maybe she represented the younger version of her mother – the 28 year old whose career was cut short.
But now that I’m clear that it was Natalie Portman herself, it seems fairly clear that the woman she sees is her own repressed self. This alter ego gradually breaks through until she stabs Nina in the changing room – hence the shout of “Now it’s my turn”.
As to the original article, it seems clear that people will find whatever they hope to be there. The argument seems to proceed from a “diagnosis” of Nina’s character as a sufferer of sexual abuse and look for things to prop that up in the film, which isn’t particularly valid as a means of assessing cinema.
Interesting observations. But with your final comment I respectfully disagree. If you look back, the assessment of this thread of the story began with people noticing cinematic cues and then re-interpreting character peculiarities through this lens rather than the other way around.
“As to the original article, it seems clear that people will find whatever they hope to be there. The argument seems to proceed from a “diagnosis” of Nina’s character as a sufferer of sexual abuse and look for things to prop that up in the film, which isn’t particularly valid as a means of assessing cinema.”
It’s not just one person who believes this theory,and it’s not just psychologists and SA survivors who see it. It’s all over the message boards and while a lot of people simply don’t see it,there’s also quite a big group of those who do,and did from the start. I might have been convinced by other people’s arguments but it’s only ’cause the film left me feeling like I missed sth so I went online to read other’s interpretations and this particular just seemed like that missing puzzle.
I’m not sure it was Aronofsky’s intention,and I’m not saying it’s OBVIOUS and anyone who doesn’t see it is stupid,but to say that those who do are simply reading too much into it doesn’t make sense,there’s way too many people who picked up on it.
[…] 7, 2011 by faithallen On my blog entry entitled Black Swan: Movie about Mother-Daughter Sexual Abuse , readers started a discussion about “sexual grinding,” otherwise known as frottage. Here are […]
[…] You can read a full translation of Juvenal’s famous satire on women here. Though I didn’t pick up on it myself when watching the movie, there’s an interesting theory about the mother-daughter relationship in ‘Black Swan’ here. […]
I totally agree with you’re interpetion of the movie.
I have an addition. there is moment in the film in wich the mother says ‘Are you ready for me, sweet girl?’
This sounds odd and questioning to me?
And also the where Nina has sex with Lily and Lily says ‘sweet girl’. I quess here is a link,
Don’t you think?
And ofcoarse all the obesive paintings of her daughter.
Im convinsed that there is talk of sexual mother daughter abuse. And I don’t think you have to be abused
to see this. No offense ofcoarse.
Faith, I totally agree with your theory
sorry my english is not very good, Im dutch, so
I’m very pleased that I found this discussion. I was searching this movie to see if sexual abuse was a part of it when I came across this. I, however, am not a victim of sexual abuse but I immediately picked up on it taking place in the relationship between Nina and her mother. So I disagree with the statement that only victims of SA will pick up on it. I just wanted to point out a scene implying SA that I noticed in the movie that nobody has mentioned. In ninas room the morning of the show (the morning after “Lilly” spent the night) it shows Nina asleep in her bed but it shows her feet first then moves up to her face. Her panties are at her ankles at this moment. And she is obviously on top of the covers. Her mother is awake sitting in the chair by her bed. Im pretty sure that if there wasn’t sexual abuse going on, no mother would sit there casually watching her daughter sleep with her panties pulled down to her ankles. Just thought I’d point that out because it hasn’t been brought up..
I’m sorry. I am mistaken. It’s not the night after “Lilly” stayed. It’s the night when he knees crack in (resembling a swan) the morning I’m referring to IS the morning of the show. When Nina realizes her clock is missing and her door knob is gone.
Wow,I really have to rewatch this film.
There’s a lot of tiny things that some people pick up on,like the finger licking scene or the mother’s lingerie when she says “Are you ready for me?” but now that I think about it, it seems like there’s a lot of touching in their relationship…sure, some might say that it’s because she’s treating her like a baby and looking after her, but at the same time, it’s just weird…whether it’s undressing or feeding her or cutting her nails or saying good night or checking her wound,she always has a reason to touch her daughter. The only conversation I can think of where she doesn’t is the one on the phone lol. She’s constantly invading her space.
I mean I don’t know if that’s what abusers act like in everyday life, just throwing it out there.
Remember when she took Nina’s dress/top off to check on her wound and Lily came by? Nina *really* wanted to get out of there. And it wasn’t ’cause she was afraid her mother would see her back,she’d already seen it before Lily came. What was she afraid of?
I went back and checked this point. It indeed is after the night with Lilly and the panties are pulled down, but the mother is not in the room that morning and not watching Nina sleep.
Wow, Kaylee.
That is HUGE! Thank you for pointing that out! I have got to go see this movie again! I might have to wait and buy the DVD, though. I can’t seem to keep our family healthy long enough to get out to go to the movies again.
– Faith
“Remember when she took Nina’s dress/top off to check on her wound and Lily came by? Nina *really* wanted to get out of there. And it wasn’t ’cause she was afraid her mother would see her back,she’d already seen it before Lily came. What was she afraid of?”
Again, you see what you want to see.
In reality she was scared, bacause it had gotten worse than before, and she knew, mother didn’t like it, it just makes sense that she doesn’t want her to worry about her (because she will become even more overprotective).
Interesting topic! I’ve only read through half of the comments because they were too much to read, so I’m not sure if somebody has allready wondered this: what was the rol of Beth? I haven’t heard anyone about that and I’m not quite sure what she added to this movie.
*** This comment was removed by Faith for attacking another reader ***
Erikils — This blog is a place for healing from child abuse. While I welcome comments from people who are not child abuse survivors (and this blog entry in particular has attracted a lot of non-survivors due to the popularity of the movie), I won’t tolerate rude comments toward any of my readers. Child abuse survivors are vulnerable and need a safe place to heal.
I am sure that you can find another place on the Internet to debate the merits of my interpretation of this movie. You can even feel free to post a link over to here or quote part of my interpretation and debate it over on a site intended for debating the interpretations of movies. This site is for healing from child abuse, and all comments need to be supportive, even in disagreement. I won’t risk having any of my readers feeling alienated from my blog due to this one blog entry about a movie.
~ Faith
Why does it bother you so if others interpret a movie in a certain way? It’s called SUBJECTIVITY. To say there is enough “misinterpretation” going around is doing a huge disservice to the beauty of art and subjectivity. Not everyone, or even most people, need to share the same view. And you shouldn’t insinuate that those who have interpreted the movie to have an underlying theme of sexual abuse are “fantasizing” it. Especially when many who do interpret it this way, have suffered from abuse themselves, or know someone who has. But even those who have not, doesn’t mean they’re having some fantasy. It’s just an interpretation. It’s fine to disagree and have your own interpretation, but I’m seeing way too many people try to imply that ones with this one are being sick in some way. This is very bothersome.
(note: I am dutch, so my English is not going to be perfect 😉 )
@ Erkils: The way you express yourself is a bit harsh. Is this really necessary?
I watch the movie 2 days ago and cannot stop thinking about it. I found it very disturbing to watch. I have suffered from an eating disorder en selfmutilation and also did a suicide attempt. So that was one reason why the movie was hard for me to watch and why I left the theater with a bad feeling.
But the main reason why I felt so upset after watching it, was because I recognised so much of the disturbed relationship with the mother. My mother did not abuse me in a sexual way, but she is very controlling and abusive in a mental way.
I absolutely agree that the mother of Nina was sexually abusive with her. I don’t really get why people can even disagree on that, it’s so obvious!
By the way: I loved the music, it is so beautiful ❤ Follow this link to listen to the whole soundtrack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5KTRZ6CC7w
Maybe I do express myself in a harsh, but that’s how I am. I might repost edited comment later. For some reason skewing of facts and lies make me lose my temper. Figures.
“I absolutely agree that the mother of Nina was sexually abusive with her. I don’t really get why people can even disagree on that, it’s so obvious!”
If it was so obvious, then why isn’t this disscussed everywhere? Why are we even having this disscussion then? Where is the undeniable proof? Why hasn’t director/anyone from cast aknowledged this interpretation?
The music is indeed amazing tho.
Hi, Erkils.
“Maybe I do express myself in a harsh, but that’s how I am.”
If this was a forum for debating movies, your comments might not be received as overly harsh. Please keep in mind that this blog is written for survivors of child abuse — people who have been severely traumatized and struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder, among other diagnoses. There are plenty of places online to get into heated debates about movies — this is just not one of those places.
I am curious why you feel such a strong need to come to a blog written for child abuse survivors and debate this issue so vehemently here. If you don’t agree with us, that’s okay. I don’t agree with your interpretation, but I don’t feel the need to get into a heated debate over it either here or elsewhere. I have been clear that this is a place for people who have suffered deeply. I don’t understand why you would think that it is OK to “express yourself in a harsh” way when you know that most of the people reading your comments have been hurt through child abuse.
I think it is time for you to agree to disagree and move on.
– Faith
Hi,
First of all, thank you Faith for sharing this! This movie has been disturbed me for several days, I couldn’t find out why, because I thought I already understood the deeper thought of it. I thought is was ‘just’ about a perfectionistic dancer that wants to get the role of the swan and totally gets lost in it, and when she finally feels like being the black swan, she kills herself, just like the swan does in the part. I just didn’t got the sexual parts in the movie, why they where so obvious presented.
This mother-daughter sexually abuse context is very interesting, and the above comments made it clear for me. After reading Moi’s comment (I’m Dutch too, though), I realised why the movie was kind of hard to watch for me, since my father abuses me in a mental (not sexually!) way. Interesting how people with situations like that (mentally or sexually) might pick this film up different than people with a ‘normal’ homesituation.
There was one thing I found in the film that I think no-one this far noticed (I’m sorry if someone already did, I did not read all the comments):
1. Beth’s role in this movie. The part where Nina goes to the hospital Beth’s in and she find here hurting herself, I think Beth mirrors Nina. After that Nina kills ‘Beth’, what means she wants to kill the underachieved, lost ballerina that ends in hospital she rather would not be.
2. I believe that visit to the hospital never happened. I don’t remember what happended before she went to the hospital, but wasn’t that something quite heavy? I remember that I thought on that moment: why would you go visiting a hospital visiting when something like that happend?
Well, I hope my English was a little understandable! It’s already 2:12 AM in Holland and I have to get up early, but I really got caught in this discussion 😉
Hi Faith,
I’m late coming to this post. I wanted to see the movie before I read what you had to say about it, so I quit reading when I first found it, and then looked for it again this morning.
It is interesting to me that others I saw the movie with did not interpret this movie as “sexual abuse” but only as “a mother expecting her daughter to be just like her and pressuring her”. When I said something about sexual abuse, they looked at me strangely, but then began to notice things that did seem to point in that direction. For me, (and other commenters) the clincher was after she fantasizes about having sex and then hears the words “sweet girl”. I pointed that out to the others who went with me to the movies and you could almost see the goosebumps rise.
It was a very triggering movie for me, but not so much because of the sexual aspect. There were other things about the mother-daughter relationship that really set me off. I wrote about my reaction to the movie on my blog, this afternoon. I know, it’s a bit late. Most people saw it weeks ago.
Anyway, there are quite a few insightful comments and good points made in this article, and others on your site.
Hi,
it is an interesting blog, but I don’t think that the physical abuse is clear. To me, it was a psychological/emotional abuse. The mother kept Nina as a child, kept her away from life, from an own development and growing up, not wanting her to have a life of her own, away from the mother. She wanted Nina to be dependent on her for the rest of her life. She wanted to control and possess everything of Ninas life, especially also things she never achieved (like being a famous dancer). She kept Nina away from living and developing into a woman with an own sexuality and normal feelings toward men or women. She did not want Nina to have an own identity, she tried to keep her away from all kind of identities, not only the sexual one.
As a woman who has experienced this kind of emotional abuse by her own mother, I can tell that all the scenes mentioned before can also be explained by this kind of abuse, not only by sexual abuse.
– The mother saying are you ready for me can also imply emotional abuse in the sense of never leaving Nina by herself, always trying to possess her, not by phyisical abuse, but “just” by being there all the time, putting her into bed, doing things as if Nina would still be a little kid not being able to set up the alarm clock herself and so on. It is a misuse of power, a “need” of wanting to control the child, but not necessarily sexual abuse.
– Hearing “sweet little child” after the orgasm is also a representation of the mother in EVERY part of Ninas life, even in the intimate part. Her mother never leaves her alone, never lets her make her own experiences. The mother wants to control everything. Nina can never develop a sane relationship with herself because of this possessive behaviour of the mother. She can not develop normal sexuality because of this. So she is trying to fly into her imagination and imaging sexual experiences, but her mother is everywhere, never leaving her experiencing it, not even the most intimate thing. There is absolutely no space for Nina for herself, her mother is everywhere.
– The explanation of the emotional abuse without real sexual abuse works for the other scenes as well.
Nina was not able to develop an own identity and normal relationships with other people and was not able to find a balance in what people expected from her, always seeing the possessive, controlling, over-reacting side of other people (because that was the only thing she was used to and was always cautios an prepared for other wanting to get too much into her and crossing boarders all the time) and therefore she was very insecure, weak and went crazy. Without going crazy myself, I had to work hard on that issue, to not be paranoid of what other people want from me because me mother was so possessive, overall controlling and not wanting me having an own identity. If you experience something like this, you can turn out exactly like Nina did, it makes total sense.
Emotional abuse is also a serious thing, it does not even have to be sexual abuse. It is one of the most serious mistakes a mother can do to not let her child have an own identity, development and to control every part and to have an abnormal need of wanting the daughter to stay a child, never get away and have an own life.
So, what I am trying to say, the sexual abuse is not obvious to me and not necessary that the movie and the mentioned scenes work. The emotional abuse is sufficient to explain all of it.
Vero
I completely agree with you, Vero. Thank you for the insightful perspective and wonderful explanation.
I think we all see what we want to see. The movie triggers a connection with abuse if it’s existed in the past.
I watched the movie yesterday and i too think there’s a strong sexual element between nina and her mother, specially what a lot of the other readers have already commented: when she licks the cake from her finger, how the mother caresses her when she “helps” her to undress, the lingerie and the are you ready for me part, the sweet girl stuff, etc
also, something else i believe points to the SA, and i think nobody has mentioned this, is that when nina barricades her door, I perceived she does it mostly on nightime, as if she wanted to protect herself when she sleeps and keeping her mother out of her room at night. i know abuse can happen at any moment of the day but i think it is common for it to happen a lot more at night, when the victim is already in bed.
at least that is what i picked up from nina barricadinq her door because it she had done it just because she wanted privacy from her intrusive mother, she would have done it everytime as soon as she entered her room and she didnt.
she also has a frightened look when shes trying to put the stick against the door for the first time and she quickly hides it when she hears her mothers voice, again with a scared look on her face.. just my opinion
I agree with this review about mother abuse.
But anyone else have noticed about the CLUB SCENE? The hidden images? Search in Youtube and see this scene slow motion, please.
We can see sometimes Lilly is not there, and Nina is rounded by herself; weird and wizard faces; a feminine breast; and most important, a picture frame (less than a second) with pink butterflies background, and a woman (Lilly? the mother?) behind Nina in sexual attitude.
And also a full moon, and terrifying eyes. And the hypnotic song of Chemical Brothers. When I saw this scene I felt very sick. When I can see it slow motion, understand why.
Hi, Sarah.
OMG — That was WEIRD!! I am most baffled by the butterfly background. I saw the full moon, too. I had to stop watching because my kid came in the room, but I wanted to comment on this.
– Faith
Very late to the party, have just watched Black Swan for the first time, and although I am not a victim of MDSA the theme leaped out at me while watching.
Specifically to the club scene, I saw some of the hidden details when watching at full speed, but not nearly all. Just impressions, really. I’m sure by now you have watched it over and over and my comment is not news, but just in case…
The butterfly background has more than one significance: 1) metamorphosis; and 2) it is the wallpaper on one wall in Nina’s bedroom. There is also the recurrent (i.e., swan, butterfly) theme of wings => flight, both literal and metaphorical (as in escape).
As to some commenters’ denial that the theme of mdsa is in the movie at all, there are lots of reasons why a person would prefer not to acknowledge it, consciously or unconsciously.
Thank you, Faith, for this review – I went looking for online reviews to corroborate my perception of a mother-daughter sexual relationship, and hardly anybody mentioned it…I was glad to find your post.
I posted this earlier but I really think that Nina, the mother, Lily, and Beth were all one person and the story was being told through this woman’s eyes as she lost her sanity and eventually committed suicide. I think the mother had been Nina when she was younger, lost her ballet career at 28 (when she tells Nina she was born), and paints pictures of her young self. Lilly is her repressed sexuality and Beth is her lost competence.
Hi, Tina.
I am still intrigued by your theory. I want to buy/rent the movie when it comes out on DVD and watch it through one time from your perspective. I then want to watch it through looking for everyone else’s observations. I want to do it your way first so I am not influenced by looking for anything else.
I think the beauty of true art is being able to watch the same movie (read the same book, look at the same painting, etc.) from multiple perspectives. I want to enjoy the movie from your perspective. :0)
– Faith
I am a survivor, and I saw the abuse foundation, too. When me and my partner discussed the film, they didn’t see anything other than the mother being “overbearing”…Glad to know I’m not the only one . I wanted to see if anyone else noticed, and ended up here. Thanks for posting your thoughts. The rest of the “movie meanings” are absolute crap, yours is the only intelligent one.
Hello, I found your page via the iMDb message board. I posted this on the message board earlier:
This is the very first exchange between mother and daughter:
Mother serves breakfast. Camera pans down to breakfast plate (consisting of a half-sliced, cored grapefruit and one small poached egg) on table in front of Nina.
Nina says: “Ooh, look how pink…so preeety!”
Mother and daughter smile at each other and say: “Preeety!”
Followed by mother and daughter giggling together at what appears to be an ‘inside joke’.
This scene clearly sets the stage and hints at the root cause behind Nina’s psychosis. The Ancient Greeks used fruit as a metaphor for fertility/female genitalia. This metaphor continues to this day. The writers have it spelled out for us 4 1/2 mins into the film. This film is darker than it appears.
Oh, wow Syb! I did not know that about the fruit. Thank you for sharing this!
I also didn’t know there was a link here from imdb. That explains the high traffic volume to this blog entry. :0)
– Faith
It might have been an inside joke between Arnofsky & the audience… One of the characters from “Requiem for a dream” lived on a diet consisting of grapefruits & eggs (although boiled, not pouched). Don’t wanna spoil the film but those who’ve seen it know that there are some strong similarities between that character & Nina.
I remember feeling really icky when this scene was shown. The way the conversation goes is like when a pedophile is showing a child their private part and trying to convince them that it is okay.
My uncle’s 20 year old brother in-law talked to me like that when I was 7 years old and basically peeking at my private part. “Look, it’s so pinkkkk”.
Gross, really gross.
The movie is definitely about sexual abuse but more disturbing because it’s a mother abusing a daughter.
Just as a reminder, my review of the movie shows more of the sexual abuse themes with relevant images: http://blip.tv/file/4616227
yes you are right! throughout the movie, i kept telling my bf that nina’s mom must be sexually abusing her, ebcause of the way nina behaves. esp the part about the cake, when her mom starts acting weirdly, and to taht scene when she ask nina if shes ready, when nina wanted to block her mom out with a rod. it is pretty obvious that nina wants to do smth to stop whatever her mom was doing, and with the scene closing straight after, i was confirmed that something weird is going on between them. and the fact taht nina is more obsessed with sex with lily than the men in the club.
http://www.slashfilm.com/nina-mom-black-swan-paranoid-schizophrenia/#disqus_thread
the link above actually lists the erasons why teh author thinks that nina’s mom may be sexually abusing nina. and in any case, even if it may nt be true, though i doubt so, here is smth jsut so damn creepy about nina’s mom, the drawings and crying she makes and etc.
Qwerty, that sounds like a MUCH more plausible theory. Thanks so much for including it.
Faithallen, this is OT but thanks for the lovely lotus haiko at the top of the page. I love haikos. I’m more sorry than I can say for your trauma.
Hi, Jennifer.
Thank you, but I cannot take credit for the Haiku. A member of Isurvive named Reisha wrote it and gave me permission to include it on my blog. :0)
– Faith
“For me, (and other commenters) the clincher was after she fantasizes about having sex and then hears the words “sweet girl”.”
Another easily applied theory: Lily represented the sexual freedom Nina wanted, or the wildness she thought she did. When she confronted her mom, locked the door and had sex right away, that entire delusion represented her breaking free from her mother’s sexual repression (not abuse). Then, when Lily morphed and said, “sweet girl”, I took it as an obvious indicator that Nina had NOT really broken free from her mother’s influence. Complete with the fact that Lily put a pillow over her head (smothering) and the door the next morning was unbarred.
Well a thank-you to Reisha 🙂 and may God watch over her.
I agree with the sexual abuse in the movie Black Swan. I picked up on some sort of weird abusive relationship right away. This adult child is extremely intimidated by her mother. She does not want to do anything to upset her mother for fear of repercussions. Hence the cake scene where nina’s mother is infuriated with nina for not wanting the cake. This is not a normal reaction. Nina in turn tells her mother she will eat the cake. The mother obviously wants to have power and dominance over her daughter.
Because of this scene my first thought was nina was physically and emotionally abused by her mother. As we delve deeper into this story it is shown that nina puts a piece of wood under her door. Major sign that she is frightened by her mother. She does not want her mother to come into the room. This was another sign that could still lead to physical abuse.
When I had the AHA moment was when Nina’s mother is looking at her scar and touching nina. She is slowly rubbing her hands over nina’s back and shoulders in a very seductive way. But this also doesn’t prove Sexual abuse. When one see’s nina’s eyes in the mirror and the fear and horror in her eyes, I believe this is the moment that it is confirmed that Nina is being sexually abused by her mother.
The touching is bad touching. One can see how uncomfortable nina is. Everyone in the theatre becomes uncomfortable. They may not understand why or maybe they just cannot comprehend the horrors of a mother sexually hurting her child.
One comment said you only see what you want. I am not a victim of sexual abuse. I was a victim of child abuse however. I am obtaining a degree in school psychology and I have taken a lot of psychology classes dealing with children. We can all admit that this was a disturbing psychological thriller that touched us in a very uncomfortable way. I guess we all just differ on the cause of why it was so disturbing. I believe that sexual abuse is the why!
I’m still dealing with the backlash from seeing that movie a couple weeks ago. I don’t know if it is only psychological abuse or sexual abuse or if it even matters… I know it has brought out a seven-year-old who is bringing up more secrets. These secrets are things I’ve done… one of which I wrote about on my blog today and one of which I have only written about anonymously once or twice. It’s very hard to disclose the things I know I’ve done as opposed to the things done to me.
I see a lot of brave people here in these comments – and faith is also very brave.
You know, at the beginning of the movie, you see only Nina her feet at the toilet. She stands up, but she still pies. What does that mean?
I agree with this a lot. The problems originating with the mother seemed very central to me but only were clear I.suspect because of sexual/emotional abuse by my mother and a year of exploring the effects it has had through therapy. I also share traits with borderline personality disorder and read that the writer had this condition in mind when writing Nina. Making the link between childhood sexual abuse and bpd through this movie was helpful. I kept expecting when she looked down at mila kunis and saw her own face that it would be her mother’s! Thanks for writing this, very helpful.
Faith, I too am a survivor of mdsa and agree 100% with your theory. I picked up on all the subtleties mentioned throughout this discussion and agree that they suggest something more than just ocd, stress, and an overbearing parent.
I’ll be following your blog from now on. Thanks for having the courage to address is often overlooked issue.
Lily calls Nina ” my sweet child”, just like her mother did; she mutilates herself, she pretends she’s asleep in one scene so her mother doesn’t bother her; the first things Nina throws away are her Teddy Bears and the music bow that her mother used to play for her.
uh for me the clincher was when the mother had sex with her. The Lily sex scene is her mother. She comes home, jams the door shut. Her mom is pounding on the door. All the sudden the mother stops pounding on the door and she starts having sex with Lily. When she wakes up (she is in a sober state upon awakening so you can trust what she sees) her room is disheveled and the door jam is moved. Upon learning Lily was never there, only 1 person gets the door jam open, her mother. Her mother stopped beating on the door b/c she opened it. Her 2 freak outs mid sex also can be here freaking out b/c she sees her mother, then her brain goes back to Lily.
I couldn’t disagree with that more, see, and frankly I find that interpretation of the sex scene outrageously disgusting.
I believe it’s not certain she dies in the end, it can be metaphorical for the fact that she finally has killed the oppressed white swan that couldn’t say no to her mother. I believe the black swan to be her strong side with the power over her own sexuality, and in the end when the white swan dies her mom cries, she knows that she lost her possibility to keep molesting the girl, that her girl is now free.
This is just one interpretation, and I believe the interpretation where she actually dies to be coherent aswell.
And I truly believe the MDSA teory to be correct.
Is it possible for sexually abused people to write this on the internet?
In Black Swan I do believe there were some emotionale abuses and so sexual abuses.
But I don’t think it’s possible for abused people to talk about it so openly.
They are closed, but by thearpy, they learn to deal with it.
I don’t think that talking about it, is a way of dealing with it…
I was myself sexually abused so I know what I’m talking about.
You who wrote this propably don’t need to show any respect and just troll around. This is an serious issue.
..
Hi, Tango.
Was this comment for me (the author of this blog) or one of the comments?
Yes, abused people can and do talk this openly about the sexual abuse. My therapist said that “talk therapy” is the best way to heal from sexual abuse. Child abuse survivors need to talk about it until they no longer feel the need to talk about it any longer.
I began therapy in 2003. I learned so much about healing from sexual abuse through therapy, being active at Isurvive (www.isurvive.org), and through my own hard work. I started this blog to share what I learned with others, but I find that my readers also help me as I continue to heal.
– Faith
Yes talking is a way to heal from it. I don’t think it is a very fair thing to put all survivors of sexual abuse in one category of “not being able to talk about it” simply because you can’t. Everyone is different. I am sorry for what you’ve been through and that you feel you can’t talk about it – but not everyone is the same, and many of us find solace and strength in the talking and openness.
I am surprised no one has mentioned the scenes in which the mother is alone crying. We hear and see her crying in a couple of scenes which to me seems like an obvious indicator that the mother is unhappy and that she knows she is hurting her daughter whether it is psychologically, physically or both.
Like someone already mentioned the scene where the mother says to Nina “Are you ready for me?” in a very sexual way is actually preceded by a scene in which the mother is crying alone in her room. So I think that the mother is feeling sorry for what she has done/will do.
Just a thought.
Great blog, keep up the analytical and critical work. I also wish that more people would talk about the child abuse that is clearly portrayed in this movie. Our hesitation in believing that the movie is about child abuse only shows how society would much rather ignore it and not deal with this pervasive social problem.
@Red,
when nina again attempted to masturbate in the tub, she did not look up out of the water to see her mother, but herself.
she saw herself, the darker version of herself, the black swan version, leaning over the tub.
it’s similar too when she hallucinates having sex with lily. nina is masturbating in this scene but hallucinates lily and then herself, taunting the real nina with her mother’s words “sweet girl” and when the pillow is thrown over the camera, i interpret this as the darker version of nina trying to escape so that nina can access this part of herself.
and i think it’s foolish to deny an abusive relationship between mother and daughter. like others, i have not been sexually abused by my mother but even after stripping the film down to it’s foundations, i still fail to connect the sexuality in the film to the relationship between nina and her mother. as in, i fail to see that nina’s mother sexually abused her.
that relationship seems purely psychological. it’s explored in centre stage (a terrible film when compared to black swan, but saved by zoe saldana who could very easily be compared to lily in this case – only zoe does dance as the swan) with the lead (who can be compared to nina – only she gave up her role as swan) suffering abuse at the hands of her mother, only not at all on the same level black swan.
nina’s mother is possessive and i agree with all of the points made that support the psychological abuse theory (though really, it’s so obvious and easily recognised it’s almost fact).
and we shouldn’t read too much into what it means when nina sees herself. “aronofsky conceived the premise by connecting his viewings of a production of swan lake with an unrealized screenplay about understudies and the notion of being haunted by a double, similar to the folklore surrounding doppelgangers.”
in folklore, doppelgangers represent evil which in this case is extremely relevant as it is more than obvious that nina’s “doppelganger”, represents the black swan, desperate to break free and claim what it craves. doppelgangers themselves are also seen as omens of death.
as far as the “scar” on nina’s mother’s lips. you may be looking for something that isn’t there. or if it is there, barbara hershey may just be a casualty of hollywood.
i’m so very jealous that this movie was not available to me during 12th grade english.
The movie reminds me of my own background. I am a perfectionist and watched closely by my mother in all matters. I am in my late 20s and cannot seem to disentangle myself from my family. I feel I am watched and guarded but not supported. I even give off some of the physical characteristics of the perfect ballerina.
The thing about psychological abuse is the abuser is always obsessed with the victim. Whether sexual or emotional. The abuser uses the victim to give themselves a life.
The abuser might not even realize themselves. Abuse is addictive and the abuser might not be able to let go, or even have control over how much they abuse their victim. Abusers are addicted to control. They might even honestly confuse control for love.
Everyone is tied to their family, and if I choose to be close to my family that would be one thing. But I am close to my family, yet I don’t have a choice.
Abusers will also physically wear down their victims. Such as the mother always physically being present. Always watching. Literally surrounding her daughter and making her daughter very, very vulnerable to the outside world.
In theory families are supposed to protect each other to support each other from the predatory nature and competitions of the “outside world.” In abusive situations, family will make their own members vulnerable to being used or manipulated by others, who are non-family members.
There is a confusion of control versus power in abusive situations. To have power would be to grant a child independence to live a normal productive life. An abuser will control the child in a manner that destroys the gifts the child has for both the child and the abuser. Ultimately everyone loses in an abusive situation.
Hi Sally,
Strong set of lines. Makes the best sense of them all imo. But, I am missing a conclusion. On the motto of the screenplay.
Was it sexual abuse or was it the over-caring mother trying to not let go of the little girl-like daughter?
Am very interested in your reply.
Michel.
[…] theme that’s been doing the rounds is that of mother/daughter sexual abuse. There’s a really good post on it here if you’re interested, and I tend to agree with everything the author’s […]
I didn’t get the sexual abuse theme right away until I read this blog. I’ve been sexually abused by men (young boys as well) in my childhood and I had a very controlling mother. My room looked much like Nina’s and I lived in that room until I was 29 years old. I wasn’t allowed to drive or go out past midnight.. even in my late 20’s. I was never taught anything “grownup” until I moved out. During my childhood, my mother never encouraged college or to pursue any type of career. She wanted me to stay there to live for the rest of my life. It was sick, twisted and I still resent her to this day for treating me that way. I interpreted the movie to be about a woman who was being controlled by her mother, much like myself, with much jealousy and verbal-physical abuse. I had sexual dreams about my mother as a child because (I believe) it was just another way she was controlling me, but not in real-life. I was a dancer as well, I wasn’t in such a huge production and it didn’t consume my life, but my life was consumed with the arts, theatre, and music. Dancing was the only way I could express emotion without saying a word. I didn’t know what being an adult really was until I moved out and got a full-time job.. graduated college eventually. I still struggle and act like a child. People think I am 21 years old when I am more than 10 years older than that. Whew.. this movie was pretty good though.
Wow! You people are AMAZING! I rented the movie today on DirecTV. I have watched it over and over while studying analizations from a couple of sources and stumbled upong this blog.
You all have made me think! I admit to not completely ‘getting’ the movie first time around. There was so much going on that was never fully explained. And I have never known the story behind the ballet either. So, I have watched while reading this blog, and will do so again to dig deeper into this movie and understan more about what is going on.
I found the old man on the train appaulling, but that’s bc I encounter dirty old men at work all the time (as a nurse) and they disgust me with their behavior (this type of behavior might I clarify). There was nothing funny about it to me.
Loved the movie, love the blog. I will be back!
I have watched several of Barbara Hershey’s interviews on the topic of her character Erica. What I find interesting is that she talks about many of Erica’s flaws: being controlling, envious of Nina, and even a little not all there. She never mentions anything on the topic of sexual abuse, however. Why, then, would the actress portraying the woman committing a sexual crime not even be aware of it?
I personally think that Erica becomes increasingly aware of Nina’s mental deterioration and eating disorder and ultimately blames herself for these traits. After all, she pressured Nina (probably from early childhood) to be all that she failed to be. Erica probably wanted so badly to live vicariously through her daughter that she failed to see all of the harm that she was causing.
I don’t know for sure whether there was sexual abuse or not, but there may well have been. It makes sense.
For me, it’s definite that the mother’s physical and psychological abuse (including likely sexual abuse) drove her daughter to mental illness — and an overpowering drive to be perfect.
That’s why Nina kills herself; she has finally attained her goal of perfection. She is finally good enough for her mother, her ultimate goal, and so has no more reason to go on. If she lived, she would fail again.
Psychologist and researcher Alice Miller (who spent 30 years studying the causes and effects of child abuse) estimated that 90% of all people are abused in some way, and sexual abuse seems to be one of the most common. I think about 90% of people can relate to the abuse in the movie (if they’re honest, which many find it impossible to be) even if it’s not exactly what they personally experienced.
Miller explains that the drive to be perfect always comes from abuse. And how many “perfectionists” have you met?
I think Miller would have liked this movie for its honesty had she lived to see it. She died last year. Her works, especially “Drama of the Gifted Child” are highly recommended to anyone interested in this subject.
i was abused by a parent. that is definitely what the movie was about.
I agree. I do think it’s obvious that she’s being sexually abused by her mother. I never read anything about this movie before watching it and became aware of the sexual abuse component half-way through the film. When she has her sexual experience with Lily, we learn she is trying to fantasize it is Lily when likely experiencing a sexually abusive encounter with her mother. “My sweet girl”, seems the obvious giveaway. Also, the stick to the door has been moved while the bed is all rumpled up, when we know Lily was not there. If Nina really is tripping on X in this scene, then perhaps her inhibitions are down and we witness a particularly icky moment. I don’t really want to think about that, but regardless, it was at this point I went back and watched previous scenes with the mother and they took on a whole new meaning (e.g. when she asks “Are you ready for me Lily?” in her black, lacey getup with her hair down. Eeeessh).
Disassociation is something that many people can do meditating, but also is said to be something people experience when going through a tramatic event, such as abuse. It’s a defense mechanism – the ability to separate from oneself, almost like an out of body experience where a person feels he or she can see and hear himself/herself as another person. Hence the moments when she sees her doppleganger in the mirrors. Extreme disassociation can be characterized as split personalities.
I think this movie is about witnessing the very moment that an abuse victim gives herself over to another distinct personality in the moments right before she is “freed” by death. The transformation is brought upon by the role and the manipulation of her instructor as he tries to get her to access her sexual side (forcing her to confront tramatic events). At first terrified of it, she gives into it at the height of her performance which ironically enables her to perfect the swan queen (essentially a duel personality role).
I think its that her mother is so dominant and stuff so Nina needs to please her and remain as a cute little girl. Which disallows her to perform her sexuality.
I think this tells a story of little teen age girls nowadays who need to be pleasing and lovely and same time “fellow teenager girls”(:’DD) put pressure on them to be cool and seductive…
To me this movie is about anorexia and preadolescents. And sexual awakening. :3
I agree there are obvious signs of abuse between the mother and daughter. However I feel that is a small under tone of what the movie tries to tell us.
This movie is another telling of the “swan lake” with a women performing as the “swans”. She is the white swan from the start of the movie, but she is pressured to be the black swan which represents sexuality and strength. Because of her abuse she has learned to cope by suppressing any feelings that are represented by the black swan. Because she strives so hard to “be perfect” she is forced to unearth these feeling of sexual abuse to be able to perform as the black swan. Her inner termoil to want to suppress these feelings yet wants to let them out slwly drives her insane.
We see signs of this throughout the movie when she pulls feathers out of her back. She is becoming the black swan she needs to be to fulfill the role, but at the cost of bringing back memories of her abuse.
All of this underlines the main plot. Thomas is her prince…. thomas is seduced by the black swan (the scene where she catches him having sex with lily.) White swan kills herself. Swan lake storybook being told by a dancer performing swan lake who was sexual abused (in a nutshell )
Watching Black Swan for the first time, I could definitely see what looked to me like possible sexual abuse between the mother and daughter. If not that, then there was definitely crossing boundaries and no privacy at all. She was emotionally and psychologically abusive either way, even if it was not confirmed if there was any sexual abuse.
But I thought there were too many inappropriate and weird scenes that seemed to possibly show evidence of that. I loved the movie. I saw it twice in the theater, and watched it again on DVD. I plan on buying it. I just watched it recently. I thought the idea of the mother possibly not existing was an interesting theory, but when Lily shows up at Nina’s house, when her mom tells Nina she shouldn’t go out, Lily says, “Wow she’s a trip.” So that is definite evidence that her mother exists. Also when she kept interrupting them at the door, Lily goes, “Jesus.” And of course, there is the comment later, “What are you going to do? Run back home to mommy?”
This is a great, visceral movie, about what happens when one tries to achieve perfection, and cracks under the pressures of life. It’s a great look on mental illness, and when one loses their touch with reality.
Oh and I forgot to add, I am very sorry for what you and your sister went through Faith. That’s terrible. My mother is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, and also thought the same things about the mother/daughter relationship. So I can definitely empathize.
What I really think is that the mother does not exist. Even when lily mentioned her or was aware of her when she was interrupting. After all lily was part of Nina’s hallucinations. And that is proved in the sex scene and how her image appears on and off in the metro and the changing room. I think the mother is just a memory and Nina moved out long time ago but she really couldn’t be free from that abusive past. Also, the mother was not in the party scene where Nina was introduced to be the new Swan Queen, that seems to be odd that the mother never attended! Any mother would never miss such a chance! Also her appearance at the theatre among the aundience that was really weird specially after the fight she had with Nina when she locked her! Like coming to the theatre in the same clothes that was really odd too. I think Nina saw her as an image while actually not being there! Nina mentioned in one of the scenes that she is moving out, I think she actually did long time ago! Ahhh this movie made me so tired, I felt so exhausted after I finished watching it!
Did anyone notice the beginning when Nina was eating breakfast with her mom and it was a grapefruit and an egg and she was saying how pink and sweet it was? It was so subtle yet sexual it bothered me but I didn’t know why
Now that you mention it, it did bother me too and I wasn’t sure why. I’m not sure I made the connection to the sexual connotation, but it was more the forced “diet” it seemed like her mother was expecting her to balk at the food, but instead she forced her enthusiasm in calling it “sweet and pink” but I can see now the subtle underlying nuance of sexual reference and with that revelation a deep dark chill has crept up my spine.
I don’t think I could sit through another showing of this movie honestly, it was uncomfortable enough watching it with my own mother who’s reaction was, for lack of a better word, cold and disengaged. It was “weird” to her. She’s not much for looking beyond a plot line to find deeper meaning, but that’s not so much a flaw in her her unwillingness to see the abuse, but more her inability to process complex storylines due to cultural and underdeveloped emotional sympathy. Even though I’d ascertain that its probably due to her own childhood abuse experiences.
That said, the underlying connection between the food and sexual reference can easily be drawn when you put the rest of the movie in context with it’s emotional and abusive elements.
Oh my gosh, yes! I remember that scene and I was like, what? Did she just say it was so ‘pink’ and ‘pretty’? I was like, WTF, that didn’t sound right!
I just saw black swan last night. There was always something I couldn’t quite understand about it which was how come Nina was so crazy. I mean, to normal people, it would seem that it couldn’t be THAT hard to internalize passion but internalizing her sexuality and just trying to bring it out seemed to be making her crazy. The whole movie left me disturbed and confused so I got on the Internet to find out more.
Here are some of the things people observed/theorized about the film that I agree on:
1. Nina was crazy.
Yes. But why was she crazy is my question.
2. Lily was not real.
Sometimes I think she might be, sometimes I think she wasn’t. The reason why I think she might not be real is that she was introduced early in the movie, in the train, where Nina spotted her and each time Nina moved, Lily would also move in a similar manner, although from afar.
I’m wondering if even from the beginning of the movie, Nina was already internalizing being a black swan, even if she hadn’t gotten the role yet.
2. Lily and Nina’s sex scene was her imagination.
– Definitely agree on this.
3. Nina’s mother was her imagination.
I think I agree with this because her mother always wore the same thing – that black leotard with her hair put up in an old fashioned style nd that scene where she was painting and crying and seemed so ghost like.
I think she was real but she might have already passed away and Nina actually did live alone by herself.
4. Nina’s mother had sexually abused her.
This clarified the movie for me. I think the movie was about a ballerina but more so about a woman coping with trauma from sexual and physical abuse by her mother when she was a young child.
I don’t recall the scene about the mother saying ‘Are you ready for me’ but I do recall the scene where the mother buys her a cake to celebrate her getting the swan lake part and it looked like a birthday cake. And then she makes her daughter taste the icing from her finger, and says ‘Yummy’ which was so sexual it bothered me.
Then there is that long piece of wood which Nina used to jam the door so it couldn’t be opened from the outside. It seemed like such an act of distrust, as if she were trying to keep someone she didn’t like out of her room.
Then the scene where her mother undressed her when she got home from the party and Nina was clearly uncomfortable and said “I can do it myself”. Then her mother cut her nails in the bathroom and was so violent.
Then there was her anger at her mother. Towards the end of the movie, her anger at her mother manifested in the way she defied her (going out with Lily to the bar), and then slamming the door on her hand not just once, but twice. And surprisingly, the mother wasn’t even mad at her when Nina woke up.
In the movie, Nina seemed to have so many cuts and bruises that no one else seemed to notice except herself and her mother. (while she was being fitted for her costume, the lady did not notice the cuts on her back). The scratches on her back seemed like scratches a woman would give to a man after passionate lovemaking.
This blog has certainly added more twist and turns on my own interpretations of the film!!!
Firstly I’d like to say how I believe the film is an intense cinematic portrayal of schizophrenia. yes, before you correct me I know split personalities and violence are the two main misrepresentations of the disorder but this is how films have adapted to represent it on screen. Using the production of the Swan Lake to be the central focus is a microcosm of the Nina’s own split mind. She clearly already has notions of the disorder however her obsession with perfecting the role pushes her deeper into her hallucinations and imaginary world. As Nina grows stronger and stronger into the role, her sanity becomes weaker and weaker.
I first thought that Nina’s mother was just very over protective and suffocating her because she is aware of her disorder and understands she needs to be sheltered from social interaction etc etc, However now I am sort of steering into the direction that perhaps Erica (mother) has been abusing her since a young age therefore being the reason for Nina’s instability and schizophrenia. Especially in the lesbian scene where Nina props the metal bar against her door to restrict her mother from coming in, however in the morning it is no longer barricading the door suggesting that someone was in her room…since Lily confirms she did not stay at her house then the only person that could have been in her room possibly performing a sexual act on Nina, is her mother. And in order to get her mind off the reality of abuse Nina imagines that her mother is Lily.
This leads to the idea that maybe Lily is the figment of her imagination not (as many have suggested) her mother. Firstly her mother does not acknowledge her when the two girls come back from their night out and there is never any real evidence that anyone was even at the door when Lily arrives to take Nina out.
Nina’s evil side soon overrides her and rebels against her mother violently attacking her which is suggested to be real when she wakes up to find her mother with a bandage round her arm. All other acts of violence are not confirmed to be reality. The only way she will find freedom from the two conflicting pressures in Nina’s life is to end that gift. This was even subtly hinted at when Leroy the choreographer quotes that ‘and in death finds freedom’ (09.10secs)
I am doing my dissertation on this film so feedback would be much appreciated!
My impression after the movie is that Nina’s mother was not real. She was a total fabrication in Nina’s mind of the person that abuse her in the past. Nina lived alone. The only person to see her mother in the film is Mila, but she was wearing black at the time and was most likely a fabrication in Nina’s mind at that time also. This is reinforced by the make believe sex scene after the night on the town.
Thoughts?
I agree with hopo 25. I don’t think the movie is about sexual abuse by a mother, but that is an aspect of the movie. I think the film is about dealing with two aspects of self (the sweet, innocent, goody good girl = the white swan & the passionate, irreverent, confident adult woman = the black swan), trying to access the one side that has been suppressed (in this case, likely due to abuse), without letting it overtake your other side. This struggle, exacerbated by the stress of her ballet career, leads to a mental breakdown. If she did not have the history of abuse, such a situation might lead to personal growth, but in her case, it’s a disintegration of self, not an integration of another aspect of self.
I think Lily is a real person, but Nina identifies Lily with her own repressed side, the side she is trying to access for the role of the black swan, but which her abusive history is making difficult to come to terms with. Lily is almost always in black, clearly representing the black swan, and Nina wears white or light colors. Nina only wears dark colors when her black swan side is emerging (ie. in the club, wearing Lily’s black top).
I think she did go out dancing with Lily, but they really parted somewhere before the cab. Whether the sex scene was a pure hallucination or it happened with the mother is hard to say. I’m leaning towards hallucination + masturbation. I do think the “sweet girl” comment was her own mind connecting her abuse with her adult sexuality/passion, which makes her want to repress it. The pillow smothering her is her mind trying to block her black swan side from emerging, as it threatens her white swan side by making her confront her mother’s abuse & her own fears.
I think when she sees Lily doing overtly sexual things (with Thomas in the dance studio when the lights go out, grabbing the dancer’s crotch), she is imagining them. They are her own desires, ones she cannot cope with, so she ascribes them to a person she associates with the passionate side of herself.
I think the mother is real also. If I recall, Lily does see her when she comes to their apartment (and I think their going out was real), and people notice her getting calls from her mom. If the mom is not real, then she is the only purely imaginary character, and I suspect she would be an imagined version of Nina’s now absent mother (whether deceased or just out of her life). All of the other characters interact too much with others to be completely imagined.
Every time Nina gets close to merging her black swan side with herself, some connection to her mother kills it (ie. spotting her mother in her room when masturbating, the “sweet girl” comment in the sex scene). At the end, she is victorious in this struggle, able to let the black swan merge with herself (she kills Lily, so she can embody the black swan herself, instead of mentally having Lily represent that part of her; Lily as her competitor & understudy emphasizes this), but then she realizes the white swan must die as a consequence.
So I’m also not sure she actually dies at the end (maybe just badly hurt). I do think she kills her white swan side. The black swan wins (just as in Swan Lake). In this way, she gains freedom (just as the white swan gains freedom in death) from the abuse of her mother. The only way out for her was death, whether it was literal or symbolic.
I’m not a victim of abuse, but I did get the feeling that was what was going on. So, I googled and found your blog. Interesting read.
All in all it’s a VERY complex film, with many different themes, not just about sexuality, but the sexual themes are saying so many different things, the MDSA be one of many. Currently I’m a student and have done extensive work on sexual psychology. I’m actually writing a paper on the sexual aspects of Black Swan, and the MDSA is DEFINITELY there. An abuse victim myself, you always know it when you see it.
Generally it would seem that Nina is very ‘childlike’ and sexually ‘sheltered’.
In many cases of extensive CSA it starts very young and can continue EVEN into young adulthood and possibly longer.
We see at the very beginning that she has a lot of classic CSA emotional symptoms. Severe anxiety, fear of sex, self mutilation (the scratching, as I actually used to do something similar) and delusions paired with schizophrenia, possible anorexia (still not sure if she vomits or gags out of anxiety or from eating disorder or both).
In Nina’s case, it may have started young. Because of this, her mother may want to, in a sense, keep her from becoming more than her ‘Sweet Girl’ and may treat her and talk to her like a child to keep emotional control over her, to keep her dependent, and surrounding her with childish things so the mother can keep on seeing her as that ‘sweet’ sexless little girl and prevent her from (emotionally) developing secondary sex traits.
Once Nina begins to transgress into her own sexuality (very late, uneducated and emotionally unprepared) this is a sign to her mother that she is no longer the little sweet girl she wants her to be, no longer having sexual and emotional control.
In having sexual control over her daughter, Nina must remain ‘sexless’ never having masturbated, never talking about sex or acting in consenting sex by also imposing on her that it is bad, paired with her negative experiences of sexual abuse Nina is disgusted by it. Hence why Nina is so sexually naive, her mother never letting her have friends, or teaching her anything about sex, in the hopes she’d never engage in sex with anyone else….
Sweet Girl is not only a pet name but something Nina may see herself as, and having been taught that sex is indecent, devastating, so on. When Lilly is preforming cunnilingus and she suddenly sees herself in Lilly’s place it’s likely hinting that She is masturbating and fantasizing of Lilly, exploring her own sexual freedom without her mother for the first time. When Lilly says ‘Sweet Girl’ and smothers her, it may be interpreted that Nina is split, wanting her own sexual gratification while feeling disgusted with herself and ‘smothering’ and killing the ‘sweet girl’ she thought she was. Once she’s finally broken away from the ‘sweet girl’ she shoves all of her stuffed animals down the garbage chute to further signify her forced sexual transgression into the Black Swan, no longer having need for or depending on those childish things or her mother.
Notice also that at the end of the film when the credits are rolling that the audience is chanting ‘sweet girl’ and cheering then slowly turn into what sounds like weeping and wailing.
Anyway, I’m rambling and I could go on and on. It’s all very hard to put into coherent and organized sentences, but hopefully my rant sort of makes sense. : )
Still, it’s a great movie, very well done. I don’t think Darren Aronofsky has ever made a bad film, that’s just me though. I honestly didn’t find the ending as disturbing or hard to watch as Requiem for a Dream, also by Aronofsky…
I agree with Jackie. Just wanna add to your reply …
The Mom is all about Repressing Nina from Sex. Because when Nina was born her Mom had to give up Dancing. And her life changed forever because of it.
I feel lucky to have found this review noting the mother-daughter abuse. The way Nina ran back to the apartment and the way she related related to her mother did seem as if she was a child not a grown woman in her twenties but it reminded me of the way I related to my mother, which only ended when my mother died, and of the way my mother saw my friends as rivals and how I kind of equated my mother and my girlfriend just as Nina equated Lily and her mother in an odd way. It was odd but familiar to me. The film brought me immediately back to a critical year when I was 10 and just starting to menstruate. My mother was distorted grotesquely (morbidly obese) and in terrible pain ( isolated and debased) and what happened that year has plagued me for the rest of my life. My mother has always been in the bedroom between my husband and me and between every lover I have ever had and me. I have felt essentially wrong, evil and unworthy. This film shows just how distorting and subtle mother-daughter abuse is. This ultimate taboo occurs more often than many people would suspect.
*****Dear Faith,******
You couldn’t have handled Erkils any more beautifully! You addressed the disrespectful behavior with grace and dignity. With respect for yourself, and for your readers. You were patient as you explained over and over what the purpose of this site is, and what this site is not intended for. You are a wonderful example of how to be compassionate, and respectful while still standing up for yourself. Bravo!
I happen to agree with you, but as you said, this isn’t about who is right or wrong, this is a place to heal for many readers, and a place for others to arrive at the “aha” that the movie didn’t overtly allow us to arrive at. Thanks for the great blog!
indeed a complex film… but the mother-daughter abuse is surely that element left unsaid. the mother’s behavior is frighteningly realistic… plus, she opened the door to nina’s room and said are you ready for me…
Another thing I picked up on was when Nina came home from drinks with “imaginary Lily” her mother questions her about what she’s been doing. When Nina replies with “I f***ed them both” her mother vigorously slaps her across the face. That’s another sign of abuse and sexual abuse, I’m sure her mother did not want to hear of any other sexual relations Nina was having.
Also, the same-sex sex scene with Lily gives away that Nina is not having sexual relations with men, another hint….
And at first I thought Nina bit the director’s lip merely because boss/employee relations are wrong, but now I see that it could possibly be tied in with her mother
There are so many insights and explanations, but I can agree with the mdsa.
And could the pillow suffocating Nina at the end of her and Lily’s sex scene actually be the continuing actions of her mother’s abuse? Could that have been her mother suffocating her?
I am not sure it was mdsa. I think the mother was trying to keep Nina a ‘sweet little girl’ … innocent. It is hard to be sexual and passionate when you are made to view yourself as a ‘sweet little girl’ Nina was all the mother had, and she gave up her career for her…. so she suppressed Nina’s growth to keep her totally dependent on her. Nina did have to break free of her mother to become a sensual ‘woman’. Don’t forget, Nina was making out with a guy in the washroom of that club, but she imagined Lily later at home because Lily was kind of slutty and was who Nina was trying to be more like. To Nina, Lily represented the ‘black swan’ that Nina was trying to become.
I”m so glad I found this blog. I too am a survivor of incest by my Mother, and it has been very helpful to read other’s perspectives on it.
I did not realize that keeping the daughter ignorant about sex and their own sexuality, or teaching them it is ‘bad’ or ‘dangerous’ is part of the abuse, but that is how it was for me too.
I wondered if Nina was not aware of the sexual abuse-if it was hidden due to dissociation ….perhaps what happened in her life at this time caused those memories to push up…..it can certainly be triggering to have sexual experiences, but to try and find your sexuality at the director’s demand, a repeat of the original trauma, someone who does not care about you but only wants to use you, would cause even more stress……
And she is struggling for independence from her Mother, seeing her more and more for the oppressive person she is “You were 28, too old to be a star” I forget the actual quote…
Well I want to watch it again, with this new perspective….I’ve only seen it once.
My therapist and I were talking about this movie briefly, and how good it was, and he said it was spot on, regarding how she acted, symptoms and hallucinations and just the entire scenario, and he has worked with many abuse survivors…..
Thanks for this thread, I had no idea what this movie was about when I rented it, and it was very triggering for me. I didn’t pick up on the MDSA theme at first, but after reading this thread and re-watching the movie, I can definitely see it.
For me the part that really sealed it was when Nina hallucinates seeing Lily and Tomas having sex, and then Lily turns into Nina, and Tomas turns into the sorcerer (Rothbert). Remember at the beginning of the movie, Nina has a dream about how she is dancing the prologue and it’s the part about when Rothbert casts his spell. Then the next scene is of her waking up, and someone opens her door (her mom). Was the mom in the room during the night? Why did she need to open the door? It seems to me that this is pointing us to the reason behind Nina’s mental illness- she was under her mother’s spell. Her mom is symbolized in the movie by Rothbert.
Ok, so maybe the mom was “just” repressing her and controlling her. It’s possible, but then I can’t explain that scene right before Nina has her complete breakdown- I think when she sees the dark side of herself having sex with Rothbert, that is pointing to her finally understanding that it was her mom who abused her. Remember that she goes home and screams at her mom to get out of her room, and slams the door on her hand, breaking it. I don’t think it’s coincidental that she breaks her mom’s hand.
I think that Tomas is also a sexual predator, since he forced sex acts on Nina a few times, and it’s an abuse of his position. I think that this triggered her memories to surface, along with her playing the role of the black swan. Now this is just speculation because we aren’t shown in the movie, but I wonder if she and Tomas actually did have sex- remember when Nina and Lily are at the restaurant and Lily says he’ll probably call Nina “my little princess” after he’s performed oral sex on her (she said something more graphic actually but I won’t say it here). Then at the end of the movie, Tomas does indeed call Nina his little princess. And that term brings to mind something a sexual predator would call his child victim. Just like her mom calls her “sweet girl”. I wonder if Nina’s victimization by Tomas brings out her memories of her original victimization by her mom. It’s curious to me that Lily specifically says that Nina will let Tomas perform oral sex on Nina (why that type of sex?), and then later in Nina’s fantasy, it’s Lily who is performing oral sex on Nina. Not sure what to make of that.
Also Beth- Nina desperately wants to be like Beth, she thinks it’s sweet that Tomas calls her “little princess” and she doesn’t see the abuse in that relationship. Then when she sees Lily/herself and Tomas/Rothbert having sex, it’s Beth she goes to visit, and the truth about Beth is unmasked for her. Beth isn’t perfect- and neither is Nina. Then she hallucinates seeing a bloody person (Beth? herself?) in her apartment, right before her confrontation with her mom. Why did she stab herself in the face, what does that represent?
And then there’s Nina transforming into the Black Swan. I don’t think this represents sexual liberation at all. I think the black swan, the dark side to Nina, represents the secret of the sexual abuse. It’s the terrible truth that she’s trying so desperately to avoid. The dark Nina is the one who hurts Nina’s body, it’s her self-destructiveness. Maybe because she “enjoyed” the sexual abuse, both by her mom and by Tomas (obviously a distortion and a product of guilt, not true enjoyment)? The black swan isn’t who Nina really is, anymore than the white swan. When she dances as the black swan, it’s almost as if she is possessed. She is over-sexualized. SHE becomes the predator, both in the performance and in real life. Remember how she forcefully kisses Tomas after the performance- the roles are now reversed and she is the one with the power. This is the dark side of her, that, left unacknowledged, the evil her mom perpetrated may take over and consume her, that Nina also has the capability to abuse.
Nina is essentially split into two extremes- all-good and all-bad. Neither self is who she is, and neither sexuality is true. Both the white swan and black swan- the good and evil sides to her- must be seen, acknowledged, and integrated, otherwise it will kill her. Unfortunately, I do think she probably dies at the end.
I want to clarify because something didn’t sit right with me after I posted the above- I think the black swan/dark Nina is Nina’s own projection of what she fears, not a true “evil or dark side”. She is not actually split in two, of course, that is always a distortion of the mind. When she sees the dark Nina, she is seeing herself because she thinks the badness is inside her, when really it is her mom. If she were to live, I think for her healing, she would need to identify that the darkness, the evil, the “black swan” if you will, came from outside herself, from her mom. It is not something to be feared, because she can escape from it through acknowledging it.
The black swan is a false Nina that her mom created through abuse. The white swan is also a false Nina, that both she and her mom created together to cover up the abuse. Both are lies, and Nina is neither, but I’m not sure she finds a way out except through death- the tragedy both of the movie and Swan Lake.
The black swan is definitely NOT about sexual liberation. All the sex is this movie is exploitive, from the mom, to Tomas with Beth and Tomas with Nina (he exploits his authority with both, for professional gain). Even the imaginary sex with Lily is exploitive- I mean, Lily drugs Nina against her will!!
Ok I’ll stop over-analyzing now, thanks for letting me get this stuff out. 🙂
I have seen it carefully. Thomas didn’t exploit Nina thats for sure. May be he did exploit the other girls, but not Nina.
First time he kisses Nina, he’s trying to bring out the Black Swan in Nina. When he takes her to his apartment, he can have his way with Nina and do whatever he wants. But he just wanted to talk to Nina, so she could do something to bring out the playfulness of the Black Swan. Later during an after hours practice, he again seduced Nina, but he stops short just to point out that the Black Swan is the one who seduces and not get seduced.
In my view, Thomas is very professional most of the times. He does go overboard at few occasions, but he never takes advantage of Nina, even though he has the power to do so on every occasion. His only concern at all times is to make the the stage performance better and everything he does, he does to push to that end goal. Because thats what provides funds to their work.
I like the interpretations with a sometimes “imaginary Lily” being the real Nina. I think that carries over to the scene when Nina sees Lily having sex with Tomas: it’s really Nina having the sex with Tomas, but Nina has disassociated from the sex and sees herself in the mirror, and then sees the sex scene between “Lily”/Tomas in disgust (when it’s in fact herself and Tomas).
Her subconscious (the one experiencing the sex, and the one watching the sex in disgust) sees Tomas as Rothbert because she needs to be both the white swan (innocent one watching the evil “lily”) and the black swan (“lily” having the sex w/ “rothbert”).
The problem with this movie is that we’re in the head of a disturbed person, so we’re not sure what’s real; but we do have indications that the real Lily isn’t really evil — Nina has just cast Lily in that light because Lily is ‘new’ and Nina needs someone to be her black swan “muse”. Lily is real, but the Lily we see through Nina’s eyes isn’t always the ‘real’ Lily. (Guess that’s sorta a “duh”).
But shouldn’t that make us wonder if Nina hasn’t also cast others in her life as muses, including Beth and her mother. I think the other characters are real, but that’s about all I feel comfortable “declaring” about the other characters. This story is ultimately about Nina’s attempt at perfection, and if she can distort Lily to play out some fantasy role she needs, she could distort others in the same way.
And her mother indeed seems distorted: she wants Nina to be a great dancer, and possibly to stay away from men, but she also is shown being worried about Nina’s health and wanting her to eat. The mom just doesn’t “feel” right (another “duh”).
So who’s to say, really, that Nina wasn’t the painter while her real mom was out at work all day? Maybe Nina needed her mother to be a controlling figure, when in fact Nina was the controlling one (to achieve perfection, you have to be obsessively in control of yourself). We might see “real” glimpses of the mother, but much of what we see might be what Nina NEEDS her mother to be, so she can have something to “break free” from.
Oh, all that to say, I think it’s Nina/Tomas having sex.
Here is a fairly complete interpretation that I’m inclined to agree with: http://vigilantcitizen.com/moviesandtv/the-occult-interpretation-of-the-movie-black-swan-and-its-message-on-show-business/
It mentions possible mdsa.
Faith, I read your story yesterday and after exploring the site where I found the above interpretations I’m inclined to think you were undergoing Monarch Programming or being toyed with by people that themselves had been victims of Monarch Programming and were reenacting it on you. These horrific practices need to be made known and opposed. No child should be put through this. I’m in awe of your strength and healing.
Well i dnt think there is much left to say but i wud like to add that i do think neena dies in the end..as a failed ballerina she will end up like her mother and even if she become succesful she will end up like beth..another tragedy…dying is the way she seeked perfection.
Hello Faith
I am sorry that you got so damaged during your childhood that your only viable interpetation of this movie is mother-daughterly-sexual-abuse. However, give it a rest. The movie is NOT about that.
There are many people who do not share Faith’s history, including myself, who clearly saw the abuse in the movie. Just because you don’t see it or interpret that way doesn’t mean that Faith is interpreting it that way because she has been “damaged.”
I can’t believe i didn’t see it when i watched it. I definitely picked up on the disturbing relationship between Nina and her mother, but i assumed that it was just one of excessive control, to the point that Nina had no autonomy. But i can definitely see it now. When i first watched it the scene with the cake and nina licking her mothers finger disturbed me, and now i know why.
I actually didn’t think that the scratch marks were from mdsa. My take on it was that they appeared after Nina had done something to break out. They appeared right after she got the role (and had bitten thomas), so i assumed that they were the beginning of the black swan’s wings trying to break through. Nina had taken her first step towards something, and as she was abused this would have been a major step for her, i.e. the beginning of her metamorphosis.
The same with the bleeding fingers, she imagines that she tears off a piece of skin and it starts bleeding, but when we look back it hadn’t happened. Again i thought that this was the beginnings of the black swan inside of herself starting to show on the outside.
As someone said before about the ug boots. I did think it was quite strange that she was seen in them in the intervals, seeing as pointe shoes are quite a pain to get in and out of. But then again whenever we performed we had to use new pointe shoes that weren’t dirty from class, and they’re quite uncomfortable to normally walk in when they’re new and the box hasn’t been broken in.
I also caught on to the sexual abuse by the mother, and googled “Is there sexual abuse in the movie Black Swan?” and this blog surfaced. The clincher for me was the “are u ready for me comment.” Not sure if I picked up on it because I was a sexual abuse victim by a friend of the family or because I counsel children who are victims of SA. In any event, I watched the movie again and was able to see some of the connections made by the other posters, which solidified my suspicion of SA. But there was something else I picked up on in reference to Nina’s interpreting every interaction she has with a person as sexual or the thought that she is constantly being used sexually.
Does anyone remember the bathroom scene at the party where she was being introduced as the swan queen? She was self mutilating as Lily was pounding on the door. She opens the door for Lily, and as Lily is talking ever so casually, she removes her underwear and puts them in her purse. Did that really happen or did Nina imagine it? Other than highlighting the SA, what other purpose could there have been? Additionally, in the taxi ride home from the club, that brief sexual encounter between Lily and Nina, the prelude to the encounter between Nina and her mother, did it really happen, or is it that because of the SA, EVERYTHING, EVERY THOUGHT, EVERY ACTION in Nina’s life is seen through the eyes of her abuse. If Lily was never in her bedroom, then she probably wasn’t in the cab either. The only other person in the cab was the driver. Could that have been what she imagined the driver wanting or expecting from her. I dunno. But I believe the MDSA is evident as I also agree it’s just a portion of the overall issues being outlined in this film.
I found this blog while trying to understand what the sex scene meant in Black Swan. It somehow didn’t seem right, and even though I am not a survivor of abuse I picked up right away on the fact that Nina and her mother have a very unhealthy relationship.
Someone mentioned a connection between a scar on Nina’s mother’s lip and the fact that Nina bit Thomas. Maybe it means that when her mother abuses her, Nina bites her (or bit her at least once) as a way of fighting back. And when Thomas kisses her, she bites him as a reflex. Notice how she bit him hard enough that he complained it actually hurt, and she apologized to him for it; she clearly didn’t do it on purpose.
I disagree that Nina connects Lily with her mother in her head. I believe that Lily represents the dark swan, and on some level, Nina recognizes this. Notice how Nina both wants Lily and is fearful of her. She imagines that Lily(the black swan) seduces her in their sex scene. In her dressing room murder scene, she imagines that Lily (black swan again) is trying to take over her role. She hallucinates these things in the same way she hallucinates ripping the skin off her finger and pulling black feathers from her back. It is all part of her awareness that the black swan inside of her (personified by Lily) is trying to dominate her (the white swan). Her dark side has been repressed and it wants to get out. The black swan is trying to seduce her to make her weak so she can take over her. She both wants this and is afraid of this (remember how she hates losing control?) The abuse from her mother makes it difficult for Nina to accept the other side of herself. So she creates this images in her mind that her dark self is somebody else.
As for the ”sweet girl” comment at the end of the sex scene, I don’t think her mother really did that to her. It was all a hallucination. But the reason the sweet girl comment came out was to show that the abuse she went through runs so deep that even in her fantasies she cannot escape her mother’s influence. It is showing how the abuse of her mother (whatever type it happens to be) is interfering with her ability to connect with the black swan side of her. This is why she is afraid and fights so hard against her maturing sexual self despite wanting it.
Anyway I hope you don’t mind my blabbering comment. This movie really disturbed me and I’m curious to see what people think of my theory.
Also forgot to mention in my previous comment that the moment she stabs herself is the moment that she accepts and integrates the black swan into her personality. The only way for her to do that was to punish herself for it by mutilating herself. I am not sure what it means when she sees her mother in the audience, and I am curious about why she was so happy and calm at the end. Surely she knew that she was bleeding to death? I don’t know if she was happy she was going to probably die, or maybe she was just relieved that she was finally able to accept herself. I wish that she could live, but I think it’s likely that she dies.
After reading the comments above, I can see how the movie could lead people to believing that one of the larger underlying themes is MDSA.
Honestly, I’m seriously torn at this point.
A lot of the points people made are convincing, but they all seem much too subtle for me.
I’ve never been abused by my family, so maybe it’s more difficult for someone like me to see. But I just can’t imagine that the director would make such an IMPORTANT part of the story so hard to spot.
I’m not saying that anyone’s interpretation is wrong…because opinions cannot be wrong (no matter how much some of you are pushing them to be), but if the director wanted to emphasize the theme of sexual abuse, shouldn’t he have hinted upon it more?
Obviously, he DID emphasize that Nina’s relationship with her mother was incredibly odd, but there wasn’t anything glaringly obvious that stood out to me that pointed to MDSA, just a bunch of clues that could be interpreted in different ways.
I think that this movie is meant to be obsure so it creates a lot of controversy and different interpretations.So, I find that there’s no right or wrong for this type of movie, it’s simply people trying to make sense of the symbolism in their own way.
I just want to remind everyone that I didn’t want to offend anyone here. I still don’t know what to make of the movie, which is why I loved it. 😀
Finally,
@faithallen and other victims of abuse —-> I send you my sympathy. I could never imagine going through such a horrible situation; hopefully this blog continues to heal its readers.
I watched a documentary called “The Celluloid Closet”, which detailed ways in which homosexuality was depicted in film during the era of censorship (and sexual repression) in America. Seemingly innocent movies quite often had “hidden” themes of homosexuality, which in all innocence the average American moviegoer would not have recognised. This is, possibly, a similar situation, wherein exploration of this theme (mother-daughter sexual abuse) is not yet culturally sanctioned…just as homosexuality was not culturally sanctioned until late in the 20th century.
What made it totally obvious to me, was, in the scene where she was supposed to having sex with Lily, it was actually her mother all along. At the end of their sex scene Lily calls her “Sweet Girl.” Moments later in the movie her mother calls her “Sweet Girl.”
It was just like in “Fire walk with me” where the daughter imagines this “wild man” she’s having sex with, when really it’s her father. When she puts the two together and realizes the imaginary “wild man” is really her father she has a mental break down.
@Kelly
The problem is that she could also have imagined the entire thing; she may have been masturbating instead.
That however would still leave the question why her mother would have stopped banging on the door and also how the door barricade was removed the next morning.
Possible explanations are:
– continuation error by the director (he didn’t intend for the barricade to appear removed the next morning). Somehow I doubt Aronofsky would make such a mistake.
-the mother stopped banging on the door because she realized she was not going to get through the door
-sometime in the night Nina woke up and removed the barricade
I don’t know the answer to it by the way.
I’m just trying to figure out the movie hehe.
Thanks for allowing me to post here by the way and good luck to all who have been or are still victims of any kind of abuse…
i still don’t get how she dances around with a stab wound in her stomach
I think the whole experience is a dream of Nina’s before she commits suicide. The movie starts w/her proclaiming she had a dream she was dancing the White Queen but the choreography was different…maybe representing change. I also think her mother was also only there in her memory…the controlling stage mother, the mommy who supported and with the blink of an eye would degrade/control her with a change in tone, accusing question like “how’s your skin?” or “the cake is garbage” or “you’ve been there long enough”…mothers who were abused are very able to pass their pain along to a daughter…blaming them for their own early life experience…they don’t know how to love w/o it being attached to pain. That her mother got pregnant by someone who is obviously not around and that her mother claims she gave up so much to have Nina….all perfect signs of a mother who was abused.
Nina’s dream is reliving her life but through something she so desired…dance. Each a player that she sees herself or alter self in and lets them play the role for her until the final break where she begins to stand up to the mother of her nightmare who most likely did not protect her from her own abuse (the use of a pole to block the bedroom and bathroom doors, both places where a little girl would be vulnerable) so she flips back and forth from a little girl to taking control…throwing out her stuffed animals, going out w/Lili…but I still believe Nina lived alone, triggers to her insecurity became overblown, she loved and hated her mother so alternated between “good girl” (a horrible title where the word PERFECT comes in and sets a young girl up to being a child her whole life) wanting her mommy to love her and be proud of her..but having to cower at her cruelty to keep peace and absorb what felt like love for a moment…
The fact the Thomas calls her “little princess” the same name he called Beth and we saw what happened to Beth…is something a father or older man would call a little girl while abusing her…Nina sees Beth’s breakdown…Beth walks from the party during Thomas’ speech where he calls Beth “my little princess” just before announcing his new prey…very telling stuff.
Thomas….creepy…pushes his desires on Nina…pours on the “guilt” and “what’s wrong with you” vibe then the “this is your time, not your fault” crap…
he was indeed the predator…versed in applying guilt to his victim so that he carries NONE.
Nina only finds sexual enjoyment with Lily…who is her own alter ego… the one she fears and is mesmerized by. the next day there is shame…so Lily has to become the villian…in their bedroom scene Nina’s sheets are bold circles, not the abstract black and white design from earlier child bedroom scenes…the door blocking pole is still in place.
“this is my time”…the victim Nina is claiming her life by killing Lily but in doing so she kills herself…Nina was born a white swan…horrible childhood experiences damaged her…the black swan became both a protector and something she feared it was thrust upon her, not her choice, she was forced to face things that made her unable to claim her white swan birthright…she needed that black swan as a child…as an adult it broke her in two…peace could only come from stopping the pain of the split…
This movie to me is a suicide dream…Nina was Beth, Lily and Nina rolled into one…Thomas her abuser and her mother a nightmare of love, hate, live my dreams for me, my perfect girl (that I could not be cause I had you w/a man like Thomas due to my own insecurities)… total mother daughter/abuse story.
Sorry I disagree, though not etirely. A past of sexual abuse is possible, but I don’t think it is the source of Nina’s struggles. Nina is definitely fighting to excape her mother, but at this pont in her life it is only mentally… figuratively. The relationship with her mother was far from healthy, but it was the timing of her death that really makes it hard for Nina to move on with her life and her sexual development. Her mother has made her feel guilty for taking away her career throughout her life. I’m not a psychologist, but we know that the death of someone in our life, especially a parent who we’ve not found peace with, would be extremely tramatic and difficult to get over. I believe Nina has lived her life striving to satisfy her mother and has dedicated herself even deeper after her death to be able to live with her guilt. To become the best dancer is the only way to be at peace with her mother. She finds a way to get past her mother’s death by creating a second personality, one that is able to defy her in order to become the Black Swan. The Black Swan killing the White Swan is when Nina truely gets over her mother’s death. You really bring up some good points through sexual abuse and I’m not disputing it, but after considering this the movie makes a ton of sense.
There are a lot of questions answered this way:
-Why is her mother’s bedroom a memorial of chidlish art work? – they are pictures drawn and painted by Nina as she aged without her mother… her way of grieving and making her mother’s presence felt.
-Why does Nina’s bedroom look like a 12 year old’s? – she is mentally stuck at that age, or a much younger age of her current age… in many ways Nina can’t move on with her life.
-Why is her mother only seen in the apartment accept for that last scene? – it’s the only place she lives for Nina… it’s where her memories are of her… she calls her cell when Nina is conscience of what her mother might be thinking of what Nina is doing or where she is… she is finally at peace when she has proven her success to herself and her mother… that’s why she see’s her there in the audience… she is over her death, finally at peace with her, and is also dying physically… in movies, you see ghosts when you are coser to death.
Another clue to me is how her mother is introduced. It is early in the movie where Nina is stretching before her daily practice, discussing her dream, speaking to herself at a low level that would be hard for someone to hear if they were not sitting in the same room. Her mother flashes across the screne in the same manner that a ghost is portraid in scary films.
***Scene by scene interpretation – major spoiler alert***
I’m not saying I’m right or this is the only way to see it. It’s just as I see it.
Evidence for abuse, at the least emotional, psychological, mental, and neglect (supporting eating disorder and overly perfectionistic qualities in a narcissistic way) at best, including sexual abuse at worst. She is suffering from a combination of perfectionism/possible OCD, eating disorders (anorexia/bulimia) and DID, aka Multiple Personality Disorder:
1. Opening dream. “Swan Lake” reflects her life. The scene is essential. Woman’s laughter (thematic concept). This shows her relationship to her mother. See perspective of outsider (woman’s moan, swan wings). Monster is touching her seductively. Then look at her sadness and dejection. Then she wakes up. Dreams are important in psychological interpretations. She awakes to an infantile bedroom. Woman walks by and is always *dark* like the monster.
2. Kitchen scene. Both say “So pink and preeeeetty.” Again, either supporting the ED/OCD or referring to…She’s encouraging, but she still dresses her, calls her “sweet girl” and asks if she should come with her….
3. Everyone reminds her of aspects of herself or fears in herself, accordingly all the major women look alike (Nina, mom, Lily, Beth) but have extremely different personalities.
4. She gets kissed. Listen right before she bites. She hears a woman’s moan and laughter, and reflexively bites.
5. Nina sees Lily for the first time on the subway, looking almost identical to her but in mirror image with dark clothing. Nina seems slightly perturbed, but not astounded. Lily gets off at the stop.
6. We hear the story of Swan Lake, which parallels Nina’s life. She’s betrayed by her ‘evil twin,’ which is quite relevant. My question is: Where is Beth?
7. Lily is introduced, and dressed in black. So obviously she is ‘real’ unless Nina simply imagined it.
8. Nina is getting a call from her mom. She clicks it away. Then she sees her mirror self, dressed in black but unclear, coming toward her. As her mirror image passes by, we hear the woman’s laughter again. She fades. We hear no more footsteps. Now I don’t know about you, but that would freak *ME* out. It didn’t phase her, though. Meaning, this kind of thing has happened *before.* Nina has been ill and seeing delusions for a long time.
9. She is in the bedroom, with her mom being a bit *too affectionate* doing everything for her. Calling her *sweet girl* again.
10. Eerie music. She puts on makeup. She has her hair down and for once doesn’t look like her mom.
11. When she says, “I came to ask for the part.” Eerie music. He kisses her. Eerie music. She hears woman’s laughter, and reflexively bites him.
12. She sees “Whore” written in red lipstick although no one came into the bathroom. Eerie music. Laughter.
13. Mother has a ‘weird shrine’ to Nina made of her modernist/expressionist pictures, distorted images of her, with her own picture in the lower left-hand corner. They all look eerie and demonic. The one of her Mom moves her eyes and laughs in *the same giggle that she constantly hears*. And the sigh/moan she always hears.
14. She goes to the bathroom, where she admires herself in the mirror. Her mom gets home, calls for her and she barricades the door, either to prevent her mom from seeing her evaluating her wounds or because she’s afraid of her, or both. She has just scratched without knowing it. The wound appears as if from nowhere.
15. Switch to eerie kitchen scene. Eerie music before. It’s “our” favorite, vanilla (white…) with strawberry (pink, red) filling….Hmm…Remind you of something? When she rejects this, her mother throws it away. So you would think if Nina had an eating disorder she wouldn’t care, but she consents, relinquishing control. Her mother extends a finger (phallic symbol) with cream (tell me I don’t need to explain that) and she needs to lick it (weird). At best, she’s treating her like a baby, at worst….Listen to the eerie music atmosphere when she does it, too. And Nina looks depressed, worried, almost terrified. She licks, says “Mmm,” and they both giggle.
16. Change to dance scene, “Very nice, Nina. But the *real* work will be your metamorphosis into her evil twin.” Foreshadowing her complete dissociation. “I know I saw a flash of her yesterday.” (literally, a flash of her dissociation) “That evil force is pulling you that you can’t escape that’s just like…achhh…out of your control….You can sense it…it’s taking me, taking me….little bit more desperate…then you can go up a little bit and come down.” Yeah, you can say that again.
17. Switch to scene with Lily, hair down, dressed in black, Nina wishing she could be Lily. Lily represents everything Nina cannot be. She desperately wants to be that, but cannot. And then the poignant words, “She’s not faking it.” Not like Nina. Nina has always faked it. But becoming it will rip her psyche into pieces.
18. “You room with Beth from now on, so be considerate…” So apparently Beth is real.
19. Ballroom. Nina is dressed in pure white. Like all other major female actors, Beth is dressed in all black. All other women represent this dark, formidable imposing or dominant force through her mother’s control (which reflects her own, Beth’s violence (which reflects her own), and Lily’s sensuality and immorality/amorality (that she cannot reach). Beth is leaving, and it is announced, confirming her existence. She will leave at the end of the season. When Nina is introduced, Lily giggles (interesting – these female giggles).
20. Turn to the bathroom scene. She pulls at loose skin, which rips her finger open, washes it, and the wound mysteriously disappears. Sometimes wounds appear at will, but they disappear, too. This is another proof of dissociation.
Then she hears knocking at the bathroom with increasing intensity “Come ON, I’m about to burst.” She opens the door, and it’s Lily. But instead of going to the bathroom, she takes off her underwear, puts them in her bag, sits on the sink, and asks Nina to “keep her company.” Well now that’s pretty odd.
21. As Nina’s waiting in the great hall, she is impressed by a dark, masculine statue. Eerie screetchy sound, in comes Beth drunk, calling Nina a “whore,” and asking her what she did to get the part, exactly what was written in lipstick on the mirror in the bathroom. When she asks her this, and Nina replies with, “Not all of us have to,” woman’s laughter/giggle again.
22. Apartment scene. When asked if she has a boyfriend, she says she doesn’t. And when asked if she ever had, she replies, “A few, nothing serious.” And when asked if she’s a virgin, she says, “No.” Considering the kind of character Nina is, I’m wondering if she weren’t *forcibly taken* by someone. If not by her mother, then definitely by someone else. If it *were* someone else, that would explain the overprotectiveness of the mother. When he replies, “So, there’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” she clears her throat and takes a drink. He tells her he should pleasure herself, something she’s obviously never done before. So obviously she’s not in touch with her sexuality, further suggesting she was ‘taken’ by force. Either that or she’s lying and she actually *is* a virgin and doesn’t want him to know because she cannot be together with a guy while she’s with her super-duper overprotective mom.
23. Switch to one of the eeriest scenes of the whole movie, when she undresses. This seems to be something Nina is used to despite the fact she must be in her mid- to late-20s. That’s not quite normal; last time my mother figure dressed and undressed me was when I was 4 or so.
“Guess he wanted you all to himself…” Uh, okay?
“Why”
“I don’t blame him.” Uh, wtf?
“Where did you get these?”
“They’re fake.”
“Fooled me.” Enter jealous mom.
Mother starts undressing her “I can do it.” She just gives her *the look* and keeps going.
“He must have been by your side all night….showing you off” Creepy x 2000.
“OH NINA – you’ve been scratching yourself again….Let me see…” Strips off her dress like she’s going to…well, you get the point, and Nina’s like whimpering, “Mooom.”
“This disgusting habit. Jesus Christ.” She desperately tries to cover herself up. But not the scars. Her BODY. Have you ever known a girl who was not harmed who does that in front of women, especially platonic women? Uh, no, sorry.
“I thought you were done with this, Nina. Shrugs…you’ll keep wearing the shrugs. SIT DOWN! You have the white one and the pink one and that will hide it….” Um, wow, this is getting weirderer and weirderer. “And I’ll dig out that expensive cover up, no one will see it.” Wow, she sure had that planned out. She chops off her nails while Nina’s like, “Mom, please…” And what’s her reaction??? “It’s the role, isn’t it??? It’s all this pressure. I knew it would be too much, I knew it, I knew it…” And she cuts – literally – too close to the quick. Nina looks humiliated. Her mom is literally cutting off her power.
To me this scene was more disturbing than the sex scene.
24. Then Nina tries to explore her sexuality, first touching herself, and then she hears the odd sigh/moan thing that always occurs before the laughter elsewhere, but then oddly enough leads to her grinding. Grinding is not generally – as far as I know – a heterosexual act. It’s more when women are together with other women. Hmm, strange. Okay, you could argue that she’s afraid of expressing her latent homosexuality/bisexuality. That could be. Especially with such a controlling Mom. But it could mean more. Then, however, oddly enough, she sees HER MOM SLEEPING IN HER ROOM??? What the hell is that???
25. After that, we hear that Beth has had an accident. She has tried to kill herself by walking into traffic. Even though her coach knows that Beth probably has done it on purpose, he remains impassive and unaware that *he* probably played and instrumental role in her demise. She was thrilling and perfect, but dangerous and destructive, because she had this big, dark impulse inside her. But he dismisses any role either Nina or he could have.
26. Out of guilt, Nina visits an unconscious Beth, disfigured and damaged, surrounded by flowers and looking dead. When discovered by a nurse, Nina runs out. Nina is distraught in her studio, laying out all her things in a perfect, pristinely cleaned room.
27. She goes and takes out the trash, upon which she discovers a piece of wood, which she will use to barricade the door if necessary to gain some privacy. Nina passes by her mom’s room as she is painting and crying – why is her mom crying: out of sadness, guilt, lost beauty, lost career, her daughter’s condition? Nina goes in her room and tries the wood trick, and it works. Then her mom eerily calls out, “Honey, are you ready for me?” Now on the one hand, this could be part of an OCD ritual of them getting ready together, but it could be worse than that…Strangely enough, the mother arrives in black lingerie…Not exactly normal for a woman just tucking her daughter away. Definitely showing a lack of respect of boundaries at the very least. My question would be, why does she hop nervously in bed, looking at her mom with an odd, nervous smile???
28. This is juxtaposed immediately afterwards with her coach yelling, “FORGET ABOUT CONTROL; I WANT TO SEE PASSION!” hm. Then her diaphragm is in “a bit of a contraction.” Sure that can happen from exercise, and she’s experiencing a lot of stress from work.
29. Switch to practice, “David, let me ask you a question…Honestly, would you fuck that girl?” And then he doesn’t respond, and the coach is like, “NO, no one would…Nina, your dancing is just as frigid….” and the lights go out, emphasizing that. That’s her fear. No one will love her or want her. She can’t “let go” or “let it happen,” either because of past trauma or because of a controlling mom. And in an appropriate response, her coach responds with, “FUCK!” He lets the other guys go, Nina stays, and her coach seduces her, meaning of *course* she has a sex drive, but she hardly ever feels that she can let go. Her coach tells her that should be *HER* role, and she’s perplexed.
30. Nina is depressed on the ground, and then the panting sigh, and in comes Lily. She represents, like I said, everything Nina wishes she could be. The dark seductress. Nina spills her guts.
31. Bathroom scene. Nina tries to please herself. But as she’s doing that, she has trouble, and dips under the water. She gazes up to see drops of red blood and staring at herself. This is the first tangible sign of a psychotic break from reality this close. Before it was always brief, blurry encounters. But now it’s tangible, and when she glances at her fingers, she sees pieces of flesh and blood from self-mutilation.
This is how filmmakers portray dissociative disorders (split personality). Think of movies like “Fight Club” for example. The black outs, things shifting and changing without warning. She’s looking at the dark side fighting to come out, but she is always in control and pushes this person in the background, except when the blackouts get stronger, longer, and more intense. Now her mirror image is showing what her dissociative personality is doing, such as deliberately cutting down a nail vertically. Switch back to White Nina, shocked at what just happened, frantically trying to make it go away. Then realizing it was all a hallucination. Scary stuff.
32. Dancing scene. Note that Nina has now started wearing gray, an outer manifestation of her emerging second personality – a shift from white to black. “You could be brilliant, but you’re a coward,” this is reflecting her own feelings about herself probably, which puts her more in his grip, too. She feels vulnerable and weak, like he says.
33. That provokes a confrontation with Lily, who admits telling Tomas what happened in the studio. This further confirms Lily’s existence, because the others acknowledge she’s there.
34. Switch to subway with the old man. Notice the sequences are getting shorter and more intense. The old man makes kissing motions towards her while she’s filing her nails. And then, despite what other people say, he’s not pretending to touch himself, otherwise he’d make a male UP AND DOWN movement. He *doesn’t* – he pretends to *rub* himself like a woman would and licking his lips like a pervert. And making sucking sounds like he’s eating a woman out. He’s also OLDER and a person of authority – a representative for…whom? The mother? The person who hurt her? Authority in general?
35. House scene where a concerned (or jealous, or both) mother is asking whether Nina has had ‘relations’ with Thomas because he ‘has a reputation’ with the pretext that she has stayed so many nights rehearsing (she says that with an ironic tone) and wants to make sure he is not taking advantage. Either she’s overly protective due to her own insecurity, past trauma Nina has experienced, or her own abuse she has inflicted. It’s hard to tell outside of context. In the context, she sounds like a jealous lover asking her wife where she’s been late at night.
She says, “I don’t want you to make the same mistake I did,” provoking a defensive, “Thanks,” from Nina. At this point, it becomes clear that the mother has stopped her career due to Nina’s birth, and she’s not just a little bit resentful about that. Nina gets pissed and says, “You were 28 and only in the…” before she stops herself. The mom turns cruel, saying, “How’s your skin,” and ordering her to take off her shirt to get back in control of the situation and evokes an angry, defensive, almost fearful reaction from Nina, who’s either terrified of having her mother see her topless or see the scars and wounds from her self-mutilation. It’s only broken off by a knock on the door.
36. Lily comes by to apologize and Nina’s mom tries to coax her inside, provoking a surprised response from Lily. This proves that her mom is real because the only way the mom couldn’t be real is if Lily’s fake and she hallucinated the girls’ reaction to Lily and her coach’s initial introduction, which seem unlikely. Lily invites Nina out, and in a bold new move to assert her independence basically doesn’t care what her mom says, and goes out partying. Again, Nina is dressed in gray.
37. While they’re out, Nina’s still the good girl as ever, refusing drugs, eating her tiny morsels while Lily eats a great, big hamburger, takes drugs, smokes, and drinks. Again, Nina finds it hard to let go like Lily does. But she concedes to taking off her grey sweater, putting on a black shirt over her white top, covering it with her grey top. Her transformation is progressing. Constant calls from mom, which she ignores.
38. Nina notices Lily putting ecstasy in her drink, but after trying initially to resist, she ends up getting weak and taking it after Lily taunts her, “What are you gonna do? Go home to mommy?” Well, drinks is better than that, right? So she half-heartedly flirts with some guys and does an awful job, proving her complete inexperience with the opposite sex, until she starts “rolling.”
39. I imagine rolling – like many people with a psychotic tendency or mental illness – can potentially push you over the edge, and it sure does with Nina. It starts on the dance floor. Odd sighing noise again. She becomes delusional and feels her hands webbing together. Eerie dance scene that I’m sure contains weird images if I had a way to slow it down….I think this is her decline into madness…Then, all of a sudden, she’s making out with a guy and has no idea how she got there, another dissociative shift. She’s now dressed in black, hears a taunting child’s voice, and an older adult woman’s voice.
40. She goes outside and Lily calls out to her, asking where she’s going. They apparently hop into a cab together and go to Nina’s home. While she’s rolling, Lily tries to touch Nina, but Nina stops her, holding her hand. This is the struggle Nina’s still putting up to the ‘Dark Nina,’ because in reality Lily isn’t there. She’s still at the club. But because she’s rolling, Nina imagines that it’s Lily touching her. She’s really struggling between masturbating and not. After there’s a moan, the Light Nina and Dark Nina (one person, two personalities) open the door to Nina’s furious mom, who demands to know where Nina’s been. The mirror in the foyer ‘splits her down the middle’ after which time the Lily part walks away. The Light Nina becomes Dark Nina, though, claiming that she slept with two guys. After she gets slapped in the face, she runs, taking Dark Nina (Lily delusion) with her to her bedroom. Nina uses the wood to shut out her mom. Dark Nina makes love to Light Nina. How can this happen? She masturbates and makes love to her dark side, and they become one, during which time the dark wings on “Lily’s” back spread and stretch out, like they do in the closing scenes after the complete transformation. Nina has her first orgasm independently at least. But that is spoiled by her mother’s words “sweet girl,” a double entendre after what was just done, after which Lily turns into Dark Nina for real, and Dark Nina smothers Light Nina with a pillow.
Filmmakers often depict blackouts by people falling unconscious or by some act. In this case it was smothering.
41. She awakes with her panties folded at her feet. The piece of wood is gone, apparently Lily left, but wait – she wasn’t there to begin with! No worries. It was probably Nina’s dissociative self. Dark Nina is slowly crowding out Light Nina and pushing Light Nina to the edges of consciousness. Now Light Nina is awake, aware of the Dark Nina as Lily, and wonders why the heck Lily just left. She runs out wondering why her mother did not wake her, but doesn’t get a response, oddly enough. Her mother is on the couch.
42. Nina goes to find Lily dancing the Swan Queen, and becomes paranoid, thinking that Lily is trying to take over her part. Seduce her to make her incapable of playing. And it actually seems rather plausible because the director has cleverly filmed all of this from Nina’s point of view. Not unlike “A Beautiful Mind,” we’re just as confused as the main character. When Nina asks why Lily left….Lily says she went home with Tom, not her, and taunts Nina for fantasizing about her. Is Lily lying or not??? Everything’s hazy.
43. Shift to rehearsal. Nina is wearing almost all gray now. She goes home, and retches but she hasn’t eaten anything to throw up. She hears the eerie giggling again, and with a now black sweater, falls into bed. She slams the ballet dancer music box – indicating her innocence, on the ground, smashing it and causing it to break. Frustration? Indication of abuse? Hard to tell. Ever decreasing length of scenes. She takes all the stuffed animals and shoves them down the chute.
44. Final rehearsal. Nina is wearing black with a touch of gray tutu. Her transformation is nearly complete. Her coach says, “It’s your final act. Your final dance. You’ve tasted your dream…touched it…only to have your heart broken…wounded…The blood drips. The black swan stole your love. There’s only one way to end the pain. You’re not fearful, but filled with acceptance. You look down at…and at the prince, and the audience, and then you JUMP! Well, go ahead, JUMP!!!” Pure foreshadow.
45. Measuring. Pure denial of what’s going on from others. She takes off the shrug, and her mirror image, the Dark Nina does something different from her, signaling her continued downfall into complete psychotic break and dissociation. Her dissociation does the scratching.
46. Nina thinks someone’s after her. But rather than reinforcing her worth as a person, her coach confirms that she has to give a great performance so that she doesn’t “have to worry about anyone else.” Although he tells her to go home and rest, she practices obsessively until the poor piano guy gives up. Her pressure causes the complete psychotic break from reality. She’s Light Nina, but she sees Dark Nina in the reflection of the mirror. With the laughing noise. The light goes out. And she hears the same monster noise as in her dream, female laughter she always hears. Then she sees Lily with Thomas, her ‘prince,’ who turns into a monster, growling, snarling.
47. Hyperventilating she gets all Beth’s things into a bag and brings them back to her. Beth represents her fear of failure, and when Nina says she only stole her things so that she could be perfect, Beth starts stabbing herself in the face with the nail file. Then she finds herself holding the nail file, meaning she probably imagined it all.
48. She comes home to find her mother crying, washes her hands, turns off the light, hears, “sweet girl,” rushes to turn the light back on, sees Beth?? Her Mom? Dark Nina? Gets ill in the toilet, runs to hear her mom crying, all the pictures talking saying, “My turn! My turn! Sweet girl! Sweet girl!” She screams, “STOP!” And all the pictures have a screaming face and wide eyes, and she rips them all off the wall, and sees Beth bloodied from stabbing her face, which she probably didn’t do, coming at her, which turns into…HER MOM??? Her shoulders start showing goosebumps and with red eyes, notices a feather; she screams at her mom to get out, inflicting violence on her, and Light Nina falls unconscious, letting Dark Nina take her over in another dissociation. At the end we see the broken dancer in the music box.
49. Nina goes to the show come hell or high water, “What happened to my sweet girl,” “She’s gone!!!” “I’m the Swan Queen, you’re the one who never left the court!” Nina act like nothing’s happened. “The only person standing in your way is you. It’s time to let her go. Lose yourself.” And she does.
50. As the white swan, she has lost her strength. Her toes web together….She dances beautifully but hears this eerie laugh again…Sees Lily touching the ‘prince’ analogous to her prince and hears the eerie laughter sound again, so bothered. She gets distracted when she sees Lily as herself, and her prince drops her, and she falls. No strength as Light Nina anymore.
51. She goes back to her room to see Dark Nina there as Lily. But it’s not Lily. It’s Dark Nina. She’s worried that Light Nina doesn’t have the balls to carry it out. Then Lily becomes Dark Nina, who comes towards Light Nina. Light Nina smashed Dark Nina into the mirror, smashing it. Dark Nina grabs Light Nina’s throat, trying to strangle her once and for all, saying, “MY TURN! MY TURN! MY TURN!” but Light Nina’s throat extends twice as long (in her delusion) into that of a graceful swan neck, takes a shard, and stabs Dark Nina (aka herself) in the stomach, saying, “No it’s MY TURN!” But due to the delusion, she doesn’t realize that she’s just stabbed herself. Dark Nina then turns into Lily again and falls unconscious. At first Light Nina thinks that she had a delusional episode thinking Lily was Dark Nina and killed Lily. She drags ‘Lilly’s’ body into the bathroom, but as she was Dark Nina all along, she’s all ready to go on stage in 5.
52. Light Nina has taken her place on stage as the Dark Swan, and a beautiful job she does, in her fantasy, she transforms and keeps developing until she does the cudo or whatever it’s called and fully develops into the Swan in her mind. The audience falls in love with the dark twin. We see her as Nina, but her reflection as the dissociation. She kisses her coach with passion we have never seen before, which sweeps him off his feet.
53. She returns to the room to see the broken glass, but wait! There’s a knock. Oh crap. It’s…LILY???? How the hell can that be, I just killed her??? she’s probably thinking. That’s when she sees through the delusion and realizes she really stabbed herself. Now part of her act allows her to bleed, remember what the coach said, “Your blood drips…” So if the audience sees anything, they’re going to think she’s okay. It’s just the part. As she runs up to take the final leap she gazes at her prince (her coach) and the audience (her mother – not with fear, but acceptance) and jumps….to her death.
“It was just perfect.”
And the screen goes white. White, not black.
So what does all this mean? Nina is obviously suffering from multiple disorders. The most obvious is an eating disorder (anorexia/bulimia) most of her stressors are this extraordinary pressure she puts on herself; this anxiety and need to be perfect. One could also make a case for manic-depressive, but although I see the mania, I really don’t see the switches to depression. Another possibility is manic schizophrenia, but that doesn’t explain the cinematographic portrayal.
The most feasible case is MPD, DID, or psychotic break in personality. People with this disorder dissociate, meaning sometimes there is one personality that knows what all the others are doing; sometimes they are completely independent. It’s a very debilitating disease. One ‘person’ doesn’t know what the other ‘person’ is doing. And some ‘people’ see the other ‘people.’ But it’s really one person. This is usually caused by extreme trauma. So now the question is: what’s the trauma?
We could maintain it’s the pressure to succeed and the pressure from her coach? Did her coach do something to her? But he’s not really portrayed that way. The father’s out of the picture…doesn’t seem like he really plays a role. So who, pray tell, could it be?
Well, we have the overly controlling mother who knows no boundaries. She sees her daughter as a close girlfriend at best, a lover at worst, and really doesn’t know how to be a mother. She switches from authoritarian to being the woman’s best friend….or lover. It’s hard to tell. Anyway, boundaries are not clear on any level, which in itself can traumatize children, even without them being touched. In any case, there’s a really unhealthy attachment there. And an issue with frigidity that doesn’t come from nowhere.
One could make a case that there’s a history of family mental illness. The genes have been passed on, and the stressors (family, job) combined with external factors (lack of food, electrolytes going nuts, body out of whack, and then the drugs that pushed her over her hair-fine grip on reality) just totally drives her over. Like Beth, Nina’s greatest strength is her greatest weakness.
So I think the debate over whether or not Nina was sexually abused or ‘only’ psychologically or mentally or vicariously is really beside the point. The point is she has an abused psyche that pushed her over the edge. And her fate is….death?
But what kind of death? Does she reunite both parts of herself? Find freedom and acceptance like the white swan does in Swan Lake? Or does she literally die because that’s the only escape she can find? Or has she conquered herself? If she lives on, will she be Light or Dark Nina? It’s hard to tell, except with the final words, as she stabs Dark Nina, she says, “NO IT’S MY TURN!” She triumphs over her dark self. Despite all the darkness, like Beth’s dark impulse inside her, she is victorious. So did she really stab herself and welcoming the warm light of death, or just kill her dark side and jump into life and the light?
Hard to know.
But I think there is a twinge of hope despite the darkness for those who suffer with a hard past, no matter what it entails.
Perhaps people are missing the beauty of abstract. To be abstract denotes that there is no ‘one’ answer. Interestingly enough, many of you seem to have a relentless desire to prove what the director intended to represent.
My thought is that the director intended for there to be many conversations like the ones above. Bravo! Mission accomplished.
It may be due to my own abstract way of thinking that I am able to appreciate the movie without identifying a specific meaning. There’s meaning all through this movie, but it does not have to be clear cut, black and white.
I have seen the movie like 45 times, and I don’t almost agree with the sexual mother/daughter abuse theory, but you have a point 0_o. If it’s not sexual abuse, maybe her mother is like infatuated with her, and at the same time jealous of her ( hey, maybe she’s crazy too, Nina had to inherit it from someone). And to me, Nina is like a little girl trapped in a woman’s body, which to me makes the movie metaphorical in my point of view and not literal. If you look at it this way, Nina really never dies in the movie, she just gets rid of her childhood, her little girl like attitude, that’s somehow mirrored to Swan Lake ( a woman trapped in the body of a swan ). And because Nina in her mental state and mother’s oppression, she doesn’t wanna let go of her child like ways, but because she already is a woman, her womanhood is somehow trying to get out of her. Like, what I’m trying to say is, that even though she acts like a little girl, because she is a woman, she can perceive her mother’s intentions, her infatuation and jealousy towards her, therefore she has a really good relationship with her mother until her mother gets all up in her business. She helps her eat, get dressed, comb her hair, helps her with her shoes, and then screams at her because of the scratches, the skanky attitude she later assumes… And I think tha she projected that side of her mom ( the infatuation with a woman ) in the moment when she gets an orgasm from another woman ( Lily ). And after all, Nina is just like her mom, she is jealous of Lily, ’cause she has more passion than her, but at the same time admires her for being so loose and having passion in her dance. If you look at it, her mom doesn’t let her go out in the opening night, it can mean that her mom already knows she is ready for the role, and is insisting she don’t go out and do it, because it would make her a frustrated ballet dancer while her daughter is living her dream. ( All the hallucinations for me are just that, and I don’t consider them to be real, so I don’t really believe that she doesn’t want her to go because she says: ” You’re sick! ” ) And later in the movie, we see Nina acts like her mom in the dressing room when in her mind she believes she kills Lily, because of her jealousy towards her for making a better role as the Black Swan, it was the only way Nina could’ve done the role so perfectly, because she never nailed it, and the first act was a disaster, so she had to fill the void and set her mind to believing that her ” evil double ” is dead, leading her to think that the person who can do it better than her is no longer alive. When Nina realizes that Lily is alive, Lily congratulates her, but Lily doesn’t notice Nina bleeding nor the shattered glass. To me this scenes means that Nina finally realizes that she loosened up and acted like a woman ( a crazy one ) but not a child when she ” stabs ” Lily, and in order for her to do the role perfect, she had to become a woman and stop being that lousy spoiled whining little girl. When she realizes that, she thinks she betrayed herself ( stabbed herself ) as I suppose the change from a girl to woman can be very hard, thus spotting her mom in the audience can mean to me that she’s saying farewell to her as a child, and also saying like ” I’m not under your control anymore ” or ” you don’t threat me anymore ” with that look, and her mom cries cuz she has no longer a girl to mess with. That is my interpretation, sorry that I wrote so much, and after all, I don’t believe she kills herself, when she’s ” bleeding ” the only one who sees her bleeding is her mom, and why doesn’t all the people in the crowd and in the play react to it? The ARE seeing the same woman, right? And when she falls in the mattress, the only ones reacting to her are Lily and Thomas, the screen fades to white, we all know when a person dies in film, it fades to black.
Not that I’m very beread on mother-daughter sexual abuse, but my thought when the movie ended – when I got the aha-experience because I hadn’t know what was real or not – all I could think of was that her relationship with her mother was very, very disturbed but I couldn’t, and still can’t, put my finger on it. You might be right, or it might be something else 🙂
Movie is about paranioa.
There isn’t really a mother daughter sexual abuse, but more of the mother being controlling over Nina as she gave up her career as a dancer to have Nina.
Half the stuff that happens in the movie is Nina’s delusions. But its open to interpretation on what is and what isn’t.
Nina is obbsessed with being perfect and doing th role perfectly, but is constantly told she isn’t doing the Black Swan role well enough, and that she needs to be more seductive, more dark. She then trys this with Lilly, being passionate dark and seductive. But then becomes paraniod that Lilly is trying to steal her role.
However wrote the movie, clearly has written it from experience, because the delusions and the paranioa are so spot on, that it could not be done just by a professional treating it, but by someone who has, or had paranioa.
I loves the movie by the way.
I’m sorry if someone already mentioned this and I missed it, but there was no bedroom furniture in the mom’s “room” – just the art studio materials. Big flag.
I had a feeling throughout that film about sexual abuse and power abuse, I think if it was her dad instead of her mom more people would have “gotten” it.
Thank you for being so willing to talk openly about this subject. Some of us can’t bring ourselves too.
Just to add, not all sexual abuse is direct rape or sodomy. The mother may never have actually touched her genitals, but done everything else, including massaging her daughter inappropriately and masturbating in front of her.
This is not uncommon, and is very damaging because even the abused can’t quite put their finger on what was going on. Literally, her mother never raped her, but may as well have.
Some very good points there, thank you. There’s a whole area of behaviour that is termed, at least in my part of the world, “non-contact sexual abuse”. This includes things like sexualised remarks, lack of boundaries eg. making no effort to stop your children seeing you having sex, showing a minor sexually explicit material etc. It’s very rarely prosecuted, as it’s so difficult to prove and is so common, particularly underage children being shown pornography, but it’s still illegal. I always maintain that it is the violation of the childs boundaries, rather than the form that the violation takes, that is the significant thing.
And yeah, I think switching the gender of the abuser is a good way to consider all angles and play with your own preconceptions about what’s going on in a situation. There’s absolutely no way that something should have been less harmful or less violating just because it was a woman that did it.
She’s doing right,the mother should find a new target for her frustration.
I’m sorry if anyone has already covered this point and i missed it but, The scene where Nina “fantasizes” about Lily is a pretty obvious point too. Right after Lily comes up she turns into Nina and says “Sweet Girl” which is what her mother always calls her. So Nina’s mother could have been abusing her at that very time but its hard for Nina to get it because she isn’t sure what is real and what isn’t. And that scene with the old man on the subway train was just plain creepy! But i think Nina is just seeing this as a outlook on the guilt she felt from masturbating.
I jut commintted i dont think know if it went up or not. i have not seen the movie in a whle i definetally agrree now the mom wasnt real but i know lily want real either. she was the “black swawn” she was nina’s dark side- she had sex with the teacher something “nina” wouldnt do. when she did anything bad lily was there like smoking. i cant remember lots of the movie it has been awhile but in the end while she is killing lily she also dies. also nobod in the movie see’s or talks to lily? around the same time she is trying to “bring her black swan out” lilly comes. im soo suprized nobdy has mentioned this yet.
Some other observations: Nina screams to her mother that she is moving out…If I remember correctly, soon thereafter she throws away the stuffed animals of her childhood….Rips the child like paintings down…Says “No” to her mother. But there is no evidence that a physical move is taking place. I think she is beginning to cut ties with her mother’s influence (I say influcence, b/c I too questioned her reality.) She is no longer willing to play the silent, always apologetic, always seeking approval victim. She is willing to face the hatred she has of her mother.
As a perfectionist, her world is black or white. She is either perfect, or a piece of crap. She doesn’t know how to believe in anything other than those extreme viewpoints. She is either sexually fulfilling herself, or feeling the shame of sex. No room for gray in her life. As such, she must embrace the black to flee her mother, to flee her own quest for being deemed as perfect by others.
The white swan is not pure when she takes her final leap, her innocent facade and white swan characters are marred by the spreading of dark blood. It is not the white swan who plummets, but the black swant. She fell to the ground earlier in her performance, an action a perfectionist would obsess about, yet when she takes the swan dive, she looks at her mother in a manner that suggest a final FU, like “I made it, despite you…I did what you never could” Thus the last words she utters are of it being perfect. She let go of her mother by embracing the darkness, achieving what her mother couldn’t…and that was perfect.
Of course, these are just thoughts for consideration..
Oops. Another observation…
While her room was childlike, pink, etc. The sheets on her bed, a place of inimacy, are swirls of black and white.
So many symbolic touches & nuances in this movie.
for all of those saying nina’s mom/lily didn’t exist, you’re wrong. lily has contact with just about everybody in the film, INCLUDING nina’s mom. when lily is at the door for nina, she says ‘jesus’ when her mom was bitching at her, and at the bar when they were geting drinks lily asks, ‘what are you gonna do then, run home to mommy?’ in my opinion, some of you are looking a bit too far into this movie.
as for the sexual abuse thing, i’m not really sure. her mom seems to be living her life through nina and gives no privacy and whatnot, but the only reason i have to believe that there is sexual abuse is the scene where she says, ‘are you ready for me nina?’
I think the brilliance of this Aronofsky film isn’t that it’s left open to interpretation, but that he PURPOSEFULLY builds several interpretations into it.
For me (a non-abused, non-conspiracy-theorist software developer), I took B.S. to be primarily about an artist’s desire to achieve perfection. I was a bit analytical about it (if you can’t trust Nina’s impression of Lily, you can’t trust her impressions of her mother and others in the film), so that left me free to think that nina “made” her world what it needed to be so she could act it out (method acting), and it explained why these characters weren’t always “in character”. (Eg, the overbearing stage mom who feeds her daughter fattening cake? The one who seems jealous of her daughter, but has [legitimate!] concern about her daughter’s mental health?)
The occult interpretation didn’t pop out to me until I read the review at vigilantcitizen.com —and yeah, now I can see that, TOO. I don’t look at gothic stuff or images of the sun and think “occult”, and I’d never heard of “programming” famous people to respond to phrases like ‘sweet girl’, but I definitely understand now that Aronofsky set that stuff there purposefully so it would resonate with that group.
Likewise, after reading this blog, the mdsa angle really resonates, as well. It’s not that I didn’t get creeped out by the same mom/nina scenes before, but that I thought the source of the creepy scenes was Nina’s driven, genius brain, not prior sexual abuse. I had considered that her mother was “creepy” because Nina needed someone who had bound her so she could “break free”; that the mother was real, but not really in Nina’s room sleeping, for example.
What’s neat is that I’m seeing all these facets to the film now and think they’re not only valid, but intended. Aronofsky wanted to speak to many people with this flick. Pretty neat stuff; thanks for the mdsa interpretation!
I do get curious though: how does ANY interpretation handle the “kill beth” aspect? (I have to assume beth was really hurt, and that nina really did it — Nina left with the nail file, and had to wash her hands.) I never really got that part for any interpretation; I suppose Nina didn’t want to end up like Beth, but why steal her stuff, then return it, then hurt Beth?
I stopped watching when Nina was masturbating. Why because It ruined my image of Natalie Portman. (Big Star Wars fan) so yeah never finished it I guess I have to see this…
I was sexually abused by my mum and dad. The film shocked me so much as Nina’s mum is so so much like my mother. I couldn’t believe it. and the way Nina is portrayed and how she sees any sexual comeon as an attack or threat is just like me as is her intense feelings of isolation and disconnection from the world. The way Nina has flashbacks during any type of sexual activity. and to me, the film shows quite clearly that Nina’s mu, use to masturbate her which is what my mum did. This means that any time you are stimulated , you go right back to the original abuse and u fortunately have to think of the abuse to experience orgasm. This leads to intense feelings of humiliation, despair and hurt afterwards. It wrecks your relationships and ability to have a normal life. Anything mirroring the same pwer struggles such as Nina’s relationship with Lily can trigger off similar feelings which is why she prob had the sexual fantasy happening with Lily. To me, ithe film shows quite clearly mother daughter abuse. The scene where Nina sees Lily outside her home and then her mother comes to the door – trying to control her – is so like my mum. She ised to do this all the time. It was like seeing my mum on the screen. I couldnt believe it. This film has helped me so much since I always thought noone had a mum like mine. It has taken me years to finally separate from my mum and I still find it very hard. I think of her all the time and miss her. I have been raped several times as an adult and when my memories came back I made the link and realised I had to try and stop seeing my mum. I still find this hard and always think of going back. i can survive without a dad but everyone needs a mum.
*** sexual abuse triggers***
BTW my dad very badly sexually abused me including anal rape but the most damaging thing was what my mum did – masturbating me from a very young age.
Thats for all the readers who may think mother daughter sexual abuse isnt damaging. It is – its the most painful and damaging thing on the planet. i’m lucky Im still here as throughout my childhood and early adulthood, I made several serious suicide attempts.
Mother daughter sexual abuse is like your soul has been stolen, I always felt my mum had entered right into me – through my vagina , right up to my head! Which is a very hard experience to describe. But its like the ultimate violation. You have nothing human left and are fully objectified. This is the total humiliation of a human being and the total annilhilation of your soul. People who have never been sexually abused will have no conceot of this but the pain is unbearable which is why many don’t survive it.
God bless the ones who didnt make it and pray for all of us who are left that one day people will take on board the horrible crime and help us to recover.
This site is fantastic and is one of the few sites which really gets to grips with the issue. Thank you so much.
I always watch Portman’s movies but had not gotten around to watching Black Swan until tonight, and then I ended up watching it twice, even though there were some sections that were extremely hard to take. Then I just now went on line to see if for one thing this was based on a true story and also to see if anyone else had picked up on the mother/daughter relationship. For sure her coming to the door and asking her daughter if she was “ready for her” was very telling. This brought back a lot of very disturbing memories and feelings for me. So, no one should think they are wrong about their perception of what is going on here. The first time I watched it I was distracted by something; so, I was practically watching it with what we would say “with my hands tied behind my back” and I still caught on very quickly to what was going on. Mother/daughter sexual abuse is one of the nasty little secrets in our culture. I for one have spent years in therapy for this.
Joy, from one survivor to another, I wish you healing. I’ve been in pain all my life and had therapy. Its a black hole to try and heal from. Sometimes I think its impossible. There’s no end in sight…
I just saw this movie yesterday, and Nina’s struggle to find her passionate/sexual/physical self completely resonated with me. As I watched her struggle, a scream kept echoing through my mind: “Help her! She can’t access that part of her self because she’s been abused! [sexually-still hard for me to type that word] She’s been abused! Can’t you see!” I kept searching in my mind for all of the men who could have abused Nina. I knew the mom was creepy, but I didn’t pick up on the mother-daughter abuse until the pieces fell into place while reading this blog.
This movie has haunted me. I took a nap right after, then found this blog. Thank you, faith. 2 years ago, As I was going thru some bodywork with my osteopath, I started remembering that my grandfather sexually abused me when I was about 7 years old. I only remember one incident, and that one is not yet completely clear. It amazes me how powerful our minds can be . . . I doubted myself, and sometimes still do. But the depth of the pain and the rage and the emotion that escaped me as my body tried to let go of the trauma convinced me that it did happen. I could not have made any of that up no matter how hard I tried.
I have not worked on my recovery since early this year. I wrote a letter to my grandfather, read it to him at his gravesite, and tore the letter up into small pieces. I left it in the small container usually reserved for flowers. I felt so powerful that day! He cannot hurt me anymore! I am telling! But when I saw this movie, I realized there is much more work for me to do.
Thank you, again, for your blog. It has helped me to resume my recovery work and process my overwhelming reaction to this movie. Thank you to all those survivors brave enough to share. My prayers for grace and peace and healing go out for all of us.
I agree that the film provides enough evidence to suggest that there is an ongoing sexually abusive relationship between Nina and her mother. The masturbation scene horrified me as soon as I saw that Nina’s mother was in the room; I agree that this is a metaphor for the mother being connected to Nina’s sexuality.
In my opinion, her mother could be overly protective of Nina because she doesn’t want her to take part in sexual experiences elsewhere; she wants Nina all to herself, she wants the innocent little girl that she still thinks Nina is, and doesn’t want her to form relationships of her own. Her mother’s obsessive need for Nina to remain so childlike could be symbolic for her mother wanting to fulfill her dangerous desires.
Of course, I may be looking far too deeply into this. I’m an English literature student… analyzing poetry makes me analyze everything!
I agree with Faith…I recently saw the movie and am obsessed with it because i knew that there was something not quite right about Nina and her mom. The scene that stands out most in my mind is when she and her mother are talking while doing her ballet shoes and her mother is saying how she has right to be worried because Nina and Thomas are spending so much time rehearsing together…Nina’s response to her mother’s badgering angers her mom and in the next moment her mother demands that Nina take her shirt off so she can check her skin…at this point I was like okay thats just weird…fast forward to after Nina has achieved orgasm via Lily in her mind to the next morning how her mother reacted to her shutting her out of her room and you just know that there relationship goes way beyond her mother being intrusive…Another scene that sticks in my mind is when Nina finds the piece of wood in the area where the garbage is dumped and utilizes it as a means to keep her mom out of her room…This reminds me unfortunately of a child who is seeking ways for the abuse to stop…by placing the wood behind the door she is ensuring that her mother cannot enter her room without her knowledge and therefore give her a chance at autonomy…Her mother while intrusive is much more than that she is controlling and wants to dominate every aspect of her daughter’s life as anyone will tell you is a sign of an abusive individual
Mu and Vero are right. I think the interpretation that the films major theme is about mother daughter sexual abuse is due to your experience of it and so your bias towards it. You’re confusing her mothers inhibition and repression of Ninas sexuality for her molesting her. When she tells Nina to take off her shirt, it is more about her nonexistent privacy and her controlling mother, and Ninas continuing self destruction that comes with her trying to unlock the black swan in her. The self harm is about the unlocking the black swan not sexual abuse. Plus it makes no sense that the films theme is something so specific.
To be honest, a lot of SA victims/survivors tend to try to see alternative meanings because they don’t want an innocent afternoon’s entertainment to become something horrible. There is the phenomenon of triggering, certainly, but a lot of people here have come away from the film thinking very carefully about it, and analysing it calmly, after the event. Our experiences seem to want to take over our lives, but we don’t want them to, so we fight it; we don’t try to make everything about what happened to us.
Can you please tell me, how to post this on my FB account? Greatly appreciated!!
“J”
Hi, Jessica.
I don’t do Facebook, so I have no idea. Can anybody else help her with this?
– Faith
I feel bad; when Nina was touching herself and saw the mom sitting in the chair, I laughed….I didn’t get anything sinister at that point…and Mila Kunis “wait, was I good?” That wasn’t written for dramatic effect, you know that…..
I only began to think something was weird when the mom was cutting Nina’s nails with scissors (nobody does that) and that line “are you ready for me?” Ready for what? “for me?” For you to do what with me?
I just watched the film like an hour ago and at first, I thought the movie was merely about delusion and how sickness in talented people goes unnoticed/ignored because they must perform/produce/succeed at their field. But the recurring crotch grabbing by Thomas/Lily’s projection? That really didn’t sit well with me….like her body was just up to be used by anyone else but Nina……
I completely agree with the MDSA opinions. A few pieces of evidence to me; first, was Lily’s calling her “Sweet child” after Nina orgasms. REALLY? Yuck. Her mother calls her that over and over throughout the movie, and the “Lily” character sounds soooo self satisfied at getting Nina to orgasm. And then, poof, there is no reciprocation. The sex act was one of dominance and not love making, which is highly suggestive of incest. I suspect that Nina being under the influence of X or whatever Lily gave her allowed her to not exit the hallucination of her sexual partner being Lily, which enabled her to climax, probably for the first time in her life. About halfway through the physical act, Nina bolts up as if recognizing the act was wrong, but is quieted as she re enters the fantasy.
Next, I cite Nina’s COMPLETE and TOTAL lack of sexual or other boundaries. Thomas brings her to his apartment, and says, straight out, “I don’t want there to be any boundaries between us,” and then proceeds to begin asking her completely inappropriate questions about sex, and her experience. He even tells her to masterbate. What woman would allow that? Only someone with a long history of not being allowed to exert any sexual boundaries. Incestual parents train children from birth to accept any and all sexual advances.
Next, I point to Nina’s LICKING and SUCKING cake frosting from her mother’s finger in order to coddle her and make her less angry. Ewww. Not normal, highly sexualized and any non-incestual parent (I suspect even an abusive one,) would not be okay with that action. Nina’s mother looks satisfied and happy at the gesture.
Last, there is obvious self-injury in the movie. We know that fairly extreme self-injury is a long standing pattern for Nina. Self injury is often times the result of childhood sexual trauma. There are some exceptions, but only rarely is there not sexual trauma in repetitive self injury behavior.
Beyond adding a postscript to the movie, or another line to the title, such as: “The Black Swan- A story of what happens to a victim of incest,” I am not sure that the director could have made it much plainer.
However, audiences who have not been victimized by parental abuse, are, IMHO, far less likely to pick up on this fact. There are layers and layers of meaning in the story for those folks. Survivors, though, probably pick right up on it. It makes me wonder about the childhoods of the writer, director, and even Natalie Portman, though.
Every now and then I have a go at trying to understand my wife and her upbringing and in that context I found the reviews of black swan and last night I watched it. Fascinating to see the control by the mother. A few years ago, I would never have recognised it. For example in the sequence when Nina goes out clubbing in defiance of her mother, then her mother does not wake her to attend ballet the next day so she of course is late. He mother effectively punishes her and reinforces the rules of the relationship without having to lay a hand on her.
My wife, when we were dating snuck out in defiance of her parents. Even though they used to actually cane her for misbehaviour. On this occasion they let her sleep in. No physical punishment at all. She was late for a major sporting commitment and arrived half way through the match and spent the match sitting on the bench watching someone play her position. The team lost and because my wife was usually a key play maker. The other players subtilly let her know that she had let them all down. A far more effective punishment and reinforced her parental dependacy. You can be sure she never snuck out again.
I could also relate to the scene where Nina’s mother would undress her to inspect for scratching. Even into her twenties, before we were married and my wife was living at home with her parents. Her mother would help her dress and undress. ‘help’ her choose clothes. Come in to the bath room while she was showering. She would even inspect that she had wiped her bottom cleanly before she put on her underwear. My wife would just go along with it. I did not know about much of this at the time except that I knew that my wife to be would seek approval from her mother about her clothes whenever we went anywhere. Thankfully no mobile phones in those days. So once we were away from home then we / she was free.
I’ve only just recently seen this movie for the second time.
First time I saw it, I didn’t get it at all. I read tonnes of reviews and searched for the meaning online. What I found were commentaries that this was a movie about a perturbed ballerina subjected to an overbearing mother who strives to let go of her inhibitions in order to perfect her dream role as the black swan and she ultimately succeeds however this is the cost of her sanity. I felt that I understood it more having read these reviews, but there were still things that didn’t add up.
Having watched it a second time and now read this blog, I am completely convinced of the MDSA analysis. This explains so many subtle things that didn’t make sense to me – the ‘sweet girl’ comment, Lilly putting the pillow on Nina’s head, Nina constantly barracading her door to stop her mother coming in, licking the cake on the finger, and the way Nina is so timid and shy about sex towards the beginning of the movie… This analysis has made the film much more disturbing and I appreciate that art can be interpreted in different ways, but this is the only analysis which makes sense and deals with all the subtle undertones which other people do not recognise or understand.
I wasn’t abused as a child so I guess I watched this movie without the missing puzzle piece, but I’m so glad I’ve now finally found it. Thank you.
I totally agree! Also when Nina was having sex with lily she said something like “my little girl” or something that her mum called her so I think the sexual act possibly happened but not by lily but by her mum? Prob wrong though!
I’m watching this movie again with my (ballerina) daughter. I happened upon this blog. Excellent insights. It’s put so many of my feelings into words.
I have one question that seems that it could be obvious but no one has discussed it.
Could Thomas been Nina’s father? The reason her mother quit dance? The love/hate relationship Erika has with the director/theatre? Could it be that the “bite” on Thomas’ lip that transferred to Erika be due to that bond?
I have read alot of the comments, they are all so great, I did notice no one mentions cloths, (details) her mother has control, is it sexual, yes, is it abusive mentally yes,does the mother know that she self mutilates yes, that she has mental issues yes she ask her about the dimond earings, she new she didnt buy them and that they where fake, she tells her i thought we were done with that on self mutilation. is there resentment mother on daughter yep. keeps telling dont lie so she doesnt try to talk to Thomas for the role, tells her u can’t handle the roll, to much for you. But she had a dream about her being a wht swan,Nina spoke to her self, when the anouncement of the black swan mother said he wanted him all to him self did he make a pass @ u, yet she checks her daughters body for marks. the mother loses control, (mistake she did the mother having her). but every one except Nina dress in black, Her mother wore only blk even night gown, Beth in her dressing rm and @ the anoucement when she puts lilys black tee over her white 1 she gets drunk,she is her weakest when she is in wht, pink light grey, all the girls were wearing black or blk and wht, Veronica and lily wore black, some wht only tee’s except her (nina) when she tried for Swan her gry shawl was gathered where she scraches she was already self mutilation. @ the anousment nina was the only 1 who wore white every one else Black, lily, beth (everyone else is stronge Black swan, she is weak white swan) .Thomas, tells her that Beth was self destructive for perfection, she does the same. but remember she stoled the red lipstick did she stoled Beths earings. she fantizied with lily i believe she fantizied the old man when Lily eats her she is all in blk she feels guilty because she masterbated,(thats bad/evil/blk swan) when the lady said u lost wait she smiles. she starts to believe that lily was after her,(she is jealous Because he put her as her alternate, jealous for thomas,the time she watch lily dance she was in blk and was happy with her hair loose after that Nina let her hair down, that was her challange, sign of a person who is perfectionest, always working on performence always afriad to fail, someone taking there job,( she/nina wonted to be someone), She admired) to be like her) Beth including getting thomas, thats why she see’s her self and thomas making lust, and he becomes the evil and she see’s her self in black , She runs to the hospital and tells Beth, she is trying to take my role i know how u feel (i wanted to be perfect like you) but beth (so call says so u stole my stuff) she say im nothing. Thats what nina thinks she is nothing, she hears crys but there she see herself in beths hospital cloths, distruction on the painting her mother did she hated shows her as a good girl, her room was all pink except the rest of the house wasnt it was dark the towel in her rm was pink, but the box that the towel was on was black and white. in the end she was having a mentel brake down. self mutilation she stabed her self instead of scraching her self. alot of actors become the roll they play, thats what she did, she became the black swan. Some people live a double life, some people are there worst enemy, some abused victims go on living normal lives, we will all see different, specially victims we will see alittle of u. people who found this funny, life is great for them, mom & dad we great, and good for them, but people who see this move alot will see evey time something different, and victims see even more i hope it can help release. and that will not be u. this move is fantacy, for some reality. but self distruction is true for some, parents can do it or self for some reason. but 1 thing try to be happy, on nina u can count on 1 hand how many times she smiled.
I just recall that when Lily/her self masterbated she was looking @ lilys back which had black wings she believed that every man like lily the prince, thomas. she got agressive when thomas said i ask lily to dance she said u dont want another conterversy, but go back when she distroyed her mothers paintings they we saying my turn, when she killed the black swan and she was goin to dance the place swan she said my turn. and she fot the black wings like lily.
This interpretation really hits the nail on the head. I think this is exactly what the movie was talking about. And even if one interprets other issues Nina is struggling with, the director gives no “aha moment” in the story. The only way for Nina to solve her struggle is to kill herself.
Interesting fact: I heard the director (Aronofsky) sees his other movie The Fighter, as the male version of Black Swan. As a female, I emotionally identify with Nina on a subconscious level, besides the literal narrative. It would be interesting to see a analysis like this one, of The Fighter from a male perspective.
Very interesting point to the movie. I’m sorry to hear about you and your sister’s struggle. I love darren aronofsky films, they are definitely a mind game. I can for sure see where you are coming from. I always looked at it as though it was a struggle with herself trying to reach perfection. Her conversation with Thomas “trying” to ask for the part back saying “i just want to be perfect” and him always commenting on the fact that Beth, the previous ballet star, always lost herself and acted on her feelings which made her ‘perfect’ ,made me take it that way. Also her issue with everyone being out to get her and take her lead role (obviously not everyone, just lily, but when there is that much pressure she couldn’t help but feel that.) The scenes with her mom (which I found out in real life was a dancer!) Made me feel extremely uncomfortable, and after reading this it kind of all makes sense! I think all this brainstorming is what the writer wanted though, to take the issue into your hands and explain how it would relate to you youself the viewer. Overall though, did you enjoy the film? And have you ever seen any other aronofsky films?
Let’s not forget that in the movie her mother was a ballet dancer as we and she is wanting her daughter to be the star but at the same time is completely jealous since she never had a shot having that opportunity. That argument they have before Lily shows up at the door, talking about the career. Nina days”what career?” Belittling her…and her response “the one I gave up to have you” and then later in the movie it gets brought up by saying to her mother “I can’t handle this? Youre the one who never left rhe corps!” Clearing showing her mother that she doesn’t need her anymore or to be treated like a little giel anymore. just something interesting i noticed with the movie.
I was thinking the same thing while watching the movie. I think u summed it up perfectly.
I have read so many contradicting theories and i think everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But one thing is for sure, there is a strong connection between Nina’s sexuality, her hallucinations and Nina’s mother. In my opinion, Lily truly does exist because a little after the beginning, when Nina cannot embody the black swan, she goes to look at other dancers and Lily is the one dancing at the time and Thomas comes and tells Nina that Lily’s dancing is not pretentious. So yeah. That. But after that, I think Nina tries to become like Lilly who is a complete opposite of who Nina is. This could be a s a result of the MDSA and all as Lilly is whom Nina imagines she could have been had she not been ruined by her mother.
The part i am not really sure about is whether Nina’s mom is in the apartment at all times or just sometimes. Like sometimes she was in the apartment in Nina’s head. Lilly too in some scenes.
Coz if we say she does not exist, then who called the company to say that Nina was not feeling well yet she had been passed out that whole time?
Another thing that is obvious is that Nina’s mom has abused her mentally and MAYBE, maybe even physically. But who says the movie was set in one direction?
What I think makes it a great movie is because it can speak to a lot of people who have been through different things in life. As long as you loved it and you somehow connected with the characters- mainly Nina, then the directors did a great job!
But generally I think due to her hallucinations, its very hard to tell what/who was real and at what time.
-Nemo
A little late to the discussion but ….
I wonder if anyone has seen this analysis of the movie? With transcript available here.
The review was on youtube but got removed for copyright (unfairly I think!)
That one is repressed from masturbating by the actual or feared physical closeness of one’s mother doesn’t mean that the mother is sexually abusing the child! That the relationship is an abusive one there is no doubt. But if the abuse is indeed sexual in nature then I am sure just one or two more signals or clues would have been afforded us by scriptwriter and/or director. That those who have suffered sexual abuse might wish to see the story of the movie echoing theirs is natural. But there is no compelling evidence of sexual abuse in the movie. That the relationship is abusive is obvious. Sexually abusive, not so. I am not lessening the severity of the abuse or trying to play it down. I am just saying not all abuse is sexual, far from it. And need not be to still be very serious indeed.
I completely agree with you, Paul.
“…That the relationship is an abusive one there is no doubt. But if the abuse is indeed sexual in nature then I am sure just one or two more signals or clues would have been afforded us by scriptwriter and/or director. ….”
The article/ video I linked in my previous comment (right above yours) points out the Nina says she’s never had a serious boyfriend, yet she also says she isn’t a virgin. This would suggest sex with a female, the most obvious candidate being her mother.
BTW that link is a very good analysis of the movie – I recommend 🙂
Add that to the masturbation scene where she ‘sees’ her mother in the chair as well as the lesbian sex scene where it is later revealed that the only two people in the house that night were Nina and her mother (plus all the other clues) and I think it’s pretty obvious the movie is implying sexual abuse specifically from the mother. The implications are numerous and consistent – it’s hard to imagine they are all there by mistake.
I agree with aMolk. The movie definitely revolves around an abusive relationship with her mother, but I don’t see anything sexual about it. Her mom is trying to live vicariously through her daughter, and is very controlling and sometimes demeaning, but there was nothing sexual in her abuse. Anyone who sees this in the story – in my opinion – is projecting their own experiences into Nina’s. No doubt that Nina’s confusion about her relationship with Lily is partly due to the absence of a father figure in her life, and an stressful/somewhat abusive relationship with her ballet director (who is male). But I don’t at all see anything in the story about a “sexual” abuse from her mother. Creepy and abnormal, clearly. But not sexual.
Just watched the movie today, I believe the Mom isn’t real. Her mother died when she was in her developing years or recently and reverted to her childhood years, which I believe she wants back. Never obviously got over it which leads to her juvenile behavior. I believe for most of the scenes the mother wears the same clothes. We never see her make any interaction with any other person. Even when Mila Kunis comes to the door we don’t see any interaction as only when Nina goes to the door are we aware of it being Mila or any person for that matter. A counter to the idea is that the mother calls her on her cell phone multiple times. I believe it is only in private areas and those phone calls could all be in her head. The only time we see her outside the apartment is in the audience during the performance, could easily be an image in her mind. Plus knowing her behavior she would very likely be backstage helping her daughter, I know my mother would. It is possible the mother molested her at times, but it could also just be her remembering her mother when she was very young when privacy was a foreign word to most children. Going back to a previous point, a real mother would have most likely realized her daughter was bleeding to death during the performance as she would only be focused on her. We don’t see the mother run onto the stage when everyone is surrounding her daughter with applause and then shock. Most mothers would have run onto the stage to see what was happening as most performances end with bows. She also knew that her mother wanted her to be a big dancing star, with NYCBC Swan Lake being the pinnacle. That is why she says perfect as her life will most likely decline from that point on. Furthermore the mother knew her daughter was in an unstable state from the previous night, yet doesn’t see her even before her big moment. Probably need to watch the movie again to confirm my impression.
After seeing Black Swan a lot of times, I thought another possibility: The first scene, the dance with Rothbart can be a clue. Nobody knows who’s Nina’s father. Maybe the sexual abuse came from there. On the first scene, we can see a calm Nina, almost like an innocent girl, then Rothbart in male form started to play with her, and suddenly became a monster who treated her violently and at the end transforms Nina into the White Swan, the Nina we saw on the movie. The White Swan who is fearful, fragile, sad.
A clue can be when her mother talks about her “horrible habit”, the self injuries, I understood that habit was from her childhood, when she was abused by her father. That’s why her mother is so protective with her, but also jealous of her success, to the point of make her daughter a victim of psychological abuse.
I don’t know, is just an idea, just because every time I see Nina dying and her mom watching her, all I can see is a worried and hurted mother seeing her child completely lost. She knows Nina’s hallucinations, because when she tried to enter into her room and Nina tried to slam the door, the mother asks: “Nina! What do you see?”
When Thomas asked Nina about her virginity and she said she’s not a virgin anymore, maybe she’s talking about a rape but if that wasn’t the case, she would have her first experiences with one of her non-serious boyfriends. And it doesn’t need to be a serious relationship for the first sexual intercourses. Even if you’re shy and introverted like Nina is. And I’m talking from the experience.
Yes, I felt connected since the first time with the movie, for the hidden passion I felt in Nina, the need to be perfect is the same I feel when I paint… or at least the one I used to feel (a relationship that ended bad let me practically empty in that way). Then is her relationship with her mother, the control that has over her life, I felt that connection too. I have an overly protecting mother, I’m on my early 30’s and still she looks me like a child, maybe is because we’re practically alone in this world.
I think this movie has a lot of readings and every person feels it in a different way, that’s why is wonderful. Many can feel identified with it from so many points of view, and learn from the others, in the way I learned from you guys 🙂
Hi, Nestagirl.
I love that theory!
~ Faith
Hi, i was very excited to see this movie because i love his films, and very upset afterwards. My first response was frankly “No wonder she divorced him.” His now ex-wife.
It was very intense for me due to many of the scenes you all have written about. I had a very primal rage-filled visceral response to them, despising the mother, not pinpointing why until reading these interpretations. So i am the SA survivor who couldnt put 2 and 2 together as to the real reason i hated it until many moons later.
However… I have one more layer of interpretation to add to this discussion, if you guys are still having it.
Nina doesnt die in the end. Yes, the mother is outted as the “Prince” who betrayed her due to her focus in the final dance…but Tomas’s response to her falling and the blood…made me do a double take on HIS real part in the movie. He is the one who, for whatever reasons in the director’s mind, is the one who freed Nina FROM the cycle of abuse she had been trapped in within the film.
There is this loathing of him throughout it For seeing her as even being able to awaken TO her sexuality. And the mother’s first response when she finds out about the role is one of jealousy” Has he tried to sleep with you yet?” or something.
But the blood scenes:
in the bath- where it is her inner black swan, not lily dripping blood into the water…could be a metaphor for her “hymen” being broken, or losing her virginity;
as well as how that virginity was first lost-through some sort of touching;
ripping the flesh off her own finger until it bleeds after sucking the “birthday cake” off of her mom’s finger when the mom was about to explode for her not wanting any of her”cake” …then looking down and her finger was fine(as if her touching herself made her loathe herself because it made her recall what her mom did to her that ISN’T shown…which would explain the crossed wires of attraction to Lily in the club, even though she was only shown as “the receiver” in the sex act);
The wound on Tomas’s bloodied lip was what she WANTED to do to her mom, but never could because she was living in full-on fear of her;
And then the final bloody scene of her…stabbing her good girl then dancing wildly…which came after breaking down due to seeing “LILY” fuck Tomas, then Tomas turn into a monster…
for me…and i’m asking you guys to go with me for a minute… iii think…it was NINA who had sex with Tomas. & all the blood in hindsight was how her pending actual sex with the man who-twisted as he was, was breaking her out of the madness in her house that -possibly due to his mother “knowing how he is” even though he seemed too young to have been in that Same position with Erica when She was in the company…he may have subconsciously even been aware of. The mother was completely intimidated by the “effect” Tomas was having on her 20+ year old little girl.
The blood is the cresting of her breaking away from her mother, and killing the goodytwoshoes perfectionist compliant robot the mother had turned her into With the abuse, leaving only the part of her that fucked…the Monster of Tomas to reign.
Even the stabbing of Beth..after returning the lipstick she stole to seduce Tomas and feel like a woman…. Beth is who Tomas was last having sex with. That scene happened After “Lily” was screwing the monster- it was like she went to see his ex like “I did it. i dont need your talismans of womanhood(lipstick) anymore because i’ve crossed that threshold.”
in the original little mermaid and many other grimm’s style fairy tales, once the girl has sex with the prince, & gets her “legs” every step she takes is stabbing pain. Lots of twisted dark imagery fed to little girls about sex having to do with “stabbing” of some sort.
She had to kill the part of herself that was horrified she had defiled her mother’s “temple”[her own body] by something closer to the more natural, sane act of sex with Tomas instead.
And she finally dealt with what her mother had done, angrily as she danced it all out of her until she “died.” It was the perfect escape.
However…she didnt die. I think the blood was still one of her hallucinations due to the “i was finally perfect” glazed over thing…but it was indicative of her having finally lost her actual virginity with a man, versus with her abuser.
And why do i see it as such?
The mother arguing with him, the sex scene…and most importantly…HIS response at the end over her…is not in line with any of the predatory “he’s trying to fuck her” energies…but actual concern OF, dare i say it a guy who knows he was her first and is concerned, His concern…and the rustling of everyone in the company “now knowing it” about them is underscored int he new pet name from HIM that she now has.
IF she had really died…the mother, even if just for appearances, would have factored into one of those last shots, hovering somehow. But it was the mother she escaped from, whose reign ended.
********************
Many are like Arronovsky is never subtle.
I disagree. He’s blunt…but he is also the most subtle director out there at the same time & THAT is why his movies mess with you the way that they do.
I felt…and think to this day…That maybe…a woman he loved very, very much…was a victim of MDSA. The depth of the subtlety here is due to both his love of that person as well as his rage at the person who harmed her as a child, and having had to do something “creative” with the subject matter that no one knew was factoring into their relationship. But if she wasnt ready to see…what alot of SA survivors have been triggered into due to the movie… if she didnt get the love and his solidarity with her, trying to say “you gotta deal with this or what has happened to you as a child is going to dry you crazy,” all was lost if she wasnt ready for that.
How many SA survivors have found the guy willing to 100% be there with you as you sort through the mess just left to be dealt with? I haven’t. But it doesnt stop me from sorting. But …Now, even more than before… this movie has made me aware of what the guy trying to stand beside a survivor might go through.
It’s like it’s told through “Nina’s eyes…but as recounted by her to someone who was also seeing the breakdown or something.
strange theories, i know.But i actually think…Nina survives.
Like we have to.
Aronofsky taps into all sorts of mythic currents that generally aren’t talked about because they refer to states where humans cross from one phase of being into another.
I saw Black Swan as very much about MDSA. I saw it even more harshly: as a portrait of how some mothers go about killing their daughters…often in cahoots with men outside the mother-daughter dyad.
A mother who represses her daughter’s sexuality IS abusing her sexually and IS killing her. It’s just that the murder leaves no fingerprints.
I was not abused sexually by my mother my mother was violent towards me and i was sexually abused by my uncle. I dont think you needed to be abused by your mother to recognise the sexual abuse element. watching this movie I DID pick up on the theme of sexual abuse it seemed VERY obvious to me and i believe the director knew most people wouldnt pick up on it. but everyone i know who watched was disturbed deeply by the movie and doesnt know why. the sexual abuse is the missing piece most people dont seem to see.
the mother and the charcter for lily are BOTH obviously real
lily talked to tamal when he was giving her a hard time and tamal mentions this
lily was training to be the main girls alternate and you clearly saw her practising all the blocking with tamal as nina ad the rest of the class watches.
ninas mother is real because the puts mittens on her hands and calls the theatre to tell them nina is not well.
For those who claim that the movie was not necessarily refering to sexual abuse but more emotional abuse then WHY does lilys mother constantly harras her sexually. Undressing and caressing your 22 year old daughter constantly is sexual abuse. Theres a BIG difference between an overbearing mother and your mother undressing you when you are 22 years old. Did your overbearing mother undress you well into your 20’s? Im guessing not unless you were sxually abused.
Why would nina feel sexually repressed? Why would nina interpret friendship a sexual advance? These are signs of someone who has been sexually abused. And if she is interpreting friendship from a woman as sexual then she has been abused by a woman.
A very important character is actually lily. If it wasn’t for lily nina would have had no outlet to the outside world. Nina likes lily wants to trust her but also is convinced shes out to ruin her. Why? Why does nina have such a hard time trusting someone? Because she wants to trust her mother wants her mother to be a proper parent but never has (another sign of parental abuse)
Lily is what nina wants to be free. She is confident she is caring and concerned for nina. Nina projects a lot onto nina she sees her as sexual freedom which is why she thinks she string to steal her part of the black swan, because she knows she embodies the qualities of the black swan and cant trust her friendship. This is also why she imagines her having sex with tamal and imagines having sex with her. She knows lily is free and emulates her sexual energy.
I was not even sexually abused by my mother but I saw all the signs and I can understand how most people don’t ( most people don’t have a surpluss of empathy or a knowledge of abuse or how it leaves you)
Someone with an overbearing mother does not stab themselves in the stomach. Someone with a sexually abusive mother might.
It is clear that Nina is broken in many ways and her mothers sexual abuse is clearly the answer when I watch this film. Its so multi layered i really like the directors work and hope the film builds awareness of MDSA
– tobi
I completely agree with your interpretation. I think you could even relate her dancing to the situation at home. She is a perfect dancer with no passion; she knows all of the mechanics and moves, but there is no emotion attached to what she does, at least not any positive emotion. I imagine that sexual acts to someone being abused would lose sexuality. And they would simply be physical effort.
I think the mother may be repressive and brutal without there being the implication that she is actually physically violating her daughter.
Hi! I found your post very, very interesting. I’m an avid movie-goer and I’ve seen Black Swan too many times to count. I’ve also read as many interviews as I can find with director Darren Aronofsky, and I must mention that he based the mother/daughter relationship in the movie off of people that he knows. Just an interesting factoid for those of you who care. Any way you choose to interpret the film, there is no doubt in my mind that yes – the relationship Nina had with her mother was abusive in some way, and the way in which it was abusive is left up to interpretation.
That being said, I simply had to mention that some people posting are incorrect about Nina’s hallucinations. I have read other blogs, and most of the comments left on this blog, and many people seem to think that in the scene where Nina is masturbating in the tub, and in the sex-scene-that-didnt-really-happen and in fact, was a metaphor for masturbation, that the person who looks at Nina has her mother’s face. This is incorrect. I was startled when I first read this, so I watched those scenes again to make sure and, as I had initially known, those are flashes of NINA’S face. Just like when she passes a woman while she is walking home and that woman for a split second has Nina’s face, this happens when “Lily” is performing oral sex on Nina and when Nina is in the bathtub. The flashes of her own face on other people that Nina sees is a way for Aronofsky to show that Nina is attempting to tap in to the dark side of herself – the “other” side, if you will. Lily is not actually evil, or trying to get Nina’s role, or even necessarily the representation of the “Black Swan” but what Lily IS, is a perfect example (in Nina’s mind) of what she needs to be in order to transform in to the black swan. Thomas comments on Lily’s dancing to Nina and mentions that she is, “imperfect, but effortless”. Nina takes this and distorts it, idolizes it, and attempts to embody it so that she can become the black swan for the role. THAT is why she imagines she is having sex with Lily, and why in the same scene, Nina sees herself giving herself oral sex (her own face on the imagined Lily’s body).
For those of you who think that what you saw was Erica’s face on Lily’s body and Erica’s face above Nina in the bathtub, I suggest watching those scenes again and pause-advancing it to see what I’m talking about.
And Faith, as for what you said about mdsa, I have to say that you may very likely be totally correct. Especially since it’s true that in the sex scene, the phrase “sweet girl ” is used. Thank you for the post! I know it’s an old one and that I’ve very late to respond to it, but I just had to get my comment in. 🙂
Spot on!
Hi Faith, I just saw this movie and cannot stop thinking about it! Unfortunately, the emotionally disturbed mother in the movie is so very close in mannerisms, attitude and personality to my own mother–it was absolutely chilling. –think you are correct. The moment I saw the interaction between mother and daughter, I realized the premise of this movie is growing up with a mother who is a sexual predator to her own children. It literally leaves the children insane, especially in relation to anything to do with “sex”, and that is what you are watching when you see this movie. The life of a woman who happens to be a dancer and descends into madness when she is forced to look into the face of “sex” — since this only can bring her “sick to her stomach” feelings that are unbearable. Up to the point that you enter the movie, this young dancer has managed to fool everyone including herself that she can live a “normal” and successful life just like everyone else, by keeping her and her mother’s relationship in perpetual “little girl” realm. But when forced by Thomas to “get sexual” in order to play the part of the Black Swan, she has to let go her prudish little girl ways which have protected her psyche so well. The inevitable result without these defenses, is madness. A very sad and disturbing movie, but extremely excellent as well. Thanks for your post.
I just watched the movie again and was able to pause, and rewind on significant parts. First off, this movie is actually quite obviously about mother-daughter incest when you see it the second time. It seems so hard to believe that a sane grown up gal would stay living with her Mom under this situation where the mother abuses her and makes her child her sexual partner–but that is just it: Nina is NOT sane. She grew up from a little girl with her mother coming into her room each night to have sex with her. Nina can certainly not be normal–if she lived the rest of a long life out, she would never be “normal”. She has been able to lose herself in her rigorous ballet, and focus solely on being “perfect”, in a way that helps her to never face what happens to her at home in her bedroom. Here are some points to support all this:
1. One of the earliest scene’s has phallic symbolism: look at the grapefruit sliced in half juicy and pink with a hole in the middle of it. Nina and her mother call it “pretty”.
2. The mother is utterly obsessed with her daughter. Pause and take a look at the images she is drawing: they are all of a girl. With portrait photos of Nina scattered around them. I believe the painting the mother is currently working on is of Nina when she was little, when her hair was fuller and wavier. The reason is I took a close look and there is a true life photo of Nina as a little girl just above the painting, and it looks identical. The mother still sees Nina as her “sweet child” that she has spent years molesting.
3. When Nina comes home at one point, sometime after her talk with Thomas about needing to be sexual, she sees her mother sitting in her room painting, and crying. I think talking with another human being about sex even in the smallest way has helped Nina to start to see for the first time how abnormal her sexual relationship with her mother has been. So for the first time, she gets a pole to place under her bedroom door (which does not have a lock), to keep her mother OUT. It is probably the first time in her life Nina has realized she has the ability to say “NO”. But it is too late because her mother has heard Nina come home and is already on her way down the hallway to get her sex with her that night. Nina doesn’t have time to secure the pole under the door, and hides it under her bed in haste instead. Her mother yells from the hallway as she approaches: “Nina, are you ready for me?” She then opens the door with her long hair down, in a revealing lacy black neglige and smiles at Nina. If THAT doesn’t make it obvious this movie is about mother-daughter sexual abuse, I don’t know what else could.
4. The mother calls Nina her “Sweet child” as she runs her hands down Nina’s hair in back while hugging her. After the sex scene with “Lily”, Lily says “Sweet child”. This movie could not show Nina having sex with her own mother. It is too disgusting for anyone to watch and too taboo. So instead they show her having sex with “Lily”. Lily is the performer during sex, Nina is in the passive role as the receiver. But Lily told Nina she wasn’t over her house that night. So who did Nina have sex with then? The one who said “Sweet Child” after wiping her lips? Not too hard to figure out who it was. (And enough to make you barf.)
5. No one has mentioned yet the significance of where Nina dies at the end of the show. She dies on a BED. Huge significance there.
6. The mother is always touching, dressing and undressing her 28 year old daughter in this movie. Nina tells her “No, I can do that” but the mother ignores her and continues to undo the top of her dress near Nina’s breast. That is what sexual predators do.
7. This is somewhat gross to think about, but why do you think it is Nina’s middle finger near her nail that is damaged and torn in the washroom scene?
8. When Nina masturbates in bed, her mother is sleeping on a chair in her room. You wonder if the mother was sleeping the whole time, or just when Nina looked over.
9. It is obvious Nina is not a slut. She is very frigid and prudish in fact, as described by Thomas and evident as well. So when she tells him she has never had a serious boyfriend, but that she is not a virgin, that would mesh with her sexual partner being a female (in this case, her own mother).
10. At one point, Thomas asks a male dancer “Would you fuck that?” referring to Nina, because she is so frigid and cold in her dance. But he doesn’t know who Nina is, and why she is so passionless. Nina cannot connect with passion in the daytime, around other people in the daily course of life, because all of her passion is tied up with her mother, which is disgusting and not something she ever wants to think about outside the abuse that happens in her bedroom.
11. When the mother is undressing Nina, she says “He probably wanted you all to himself” about Thomas. And then: ” I can understand that”. Only a sexually abusive mother would say such a thing.
I think basically Nina has been living in denial about the abnormal relationship she has with her Mom, and since she is in a co-dependent destructive relationship, she is incapable of doing anything about breaking away from it. But when Thomas comes into her life, and kisses her and talks to her about sex, for the first time perhaps Nina thinks there may be sex outside of what she has been accustomed to. That is when she starts fighting against her mother, putting the pole down to keep her out, yelling at her, threatening to move out, and finally crushing her hand. But the movie at least seems to argue there is no way out for someone who has been so systematically and diabolically abused over all those years–besides death. So Nina dies on a bed, where her soul died many many years earlier the first time her mother sexually abused her.
Fantastic analysis!!!
Seriously, wow! That really hit a lot of points, and the significance of the bed really makes sense now!
Just watched this movie for the first time last night. I did get a mother-daughter sexual abuse storyline but to me it wasn’t as prevalent as some of the other things. I saw Nina as a closeted lesbian and felt trapped by her surroundings. Her worshipping Beth… Her wanting to be (& be with) Lily… Then her mom and her coach controlling her sexually. Even in the Swan Lake performance, Nina saw Lily touch the male lead. Like the Swan Lake storyline, the love interest “fell in love” with another. Then suicide.
Being a closeted lesbian, it is interesting how that storyline was prevalent to me. We both put our own life experiences into the story which is exactly what Nina did with the Swan Lake story. I wonder if they purposely made the storyline broad (yet intense) for this reason.
I had like a brain-orgasm when I realized this and wanted to share it.
I think any movie can be interpreted however the viewer or audience see fit. Whether based on personal perspective or using classic allegory one can find an abuse filled undercurrent to even the most innocent of films(Snow white for example). This film altho overt in allot of its classic themes (Persephone/vulnerable Goddess..Demeter/Affiliation need.. etc etc) seemed intent on showing the more NPD archetypes and variations. Mayhap its the audience that defines the meaning. Interesting that us with a certain history see it in specific way.
Ahhh thank you for writing about this…I saw it a while back and thought exactly what you thought…I am a 61 year old survivor and I am struck by how little there is written or shared about this subject. I saw the abuse instantly.
Hi I just searched this topic and your post came up. Just finished watching the movie. I have not experienced this first hand but have worked in social work. I really got the same impression.
I think whoever programs the movies on this station must agree with you. Carrie is on next.
For me to decide what was “real,” I think you sho,uld start with what characters were real. I believe Tomas, Lily, and Beth were all real. Why? Because they interacted with others of the Ballet co. I am not sure if the mother is alive. I can understand how people may think she was once a live and emotionally and probably sexually abused Nina, there are ghost like encounters with her mom from my perspective, however when Lily comes to the door it pokes a hole into my theory that Erica is dead.
As we all know Nina is a certifiable unrealiable narrator. People make a very good case that Erica may have performed the sex act on Nina however, what about the time in between she leaves the club and is in the cab. That said, the sex scene can be exactly what Lily professed it to be, I think something like a “lesy dream about me.’
Yes Nina and her mother are not well. Do we mistake the mother’s oddity and perversion for sexual abuse? Be it that I am no doctor wonder can sexual abuse exist if it is not physical? thoughts?
Seems like Erica knows about her daughters compulsive scratching. Do we misunderstand Erica’s creep and drastic measures to protect Nina. Seem’s to me she feels the need to shorten Nina’s nails, she puts on oven mits and locks Nina in her room before the performance for her own safety?
Does the mother ask her if she is ready for her, because she may file her nails at night, maybe paint Nina from life?
Things we do know, we are not suppose to know. It is open for interpretation, well done!
Haven’t seen the movie in forever and have only seen it once. Also typing this on my phone so parts may be sparatic and topics might jump around a bit but bare with me. My opinion is that her mother is simply overbearing and vicariously lives through Nina and in doing so represses her sexuality. Remember her mothers dancing career ended due to pregnancy. The root of her not continuing her dancing career was ultimately sex. In order for the mother to live through Nina she would obv want to make sure she doesn’t make the same career ending mistake that she made. Meaning it is very possible that she has been overbearing to the degree of keeping Nina sexually immature and the best way to do so could/would be to over shelter her and treat her like a little child, meaning that even though Nina grows and matures in all other aspects of her life her mother holds her back in the one aspect that ended her career. Think of a mother that loses a first born to some sort of tragedy and the way they might shelter their next child. Think of the father who lost the “big game” or almost went pro that doesn’t realize the hell he puts his son through cus he wants to live through him. Now think of this, Nina refuses to eat the cake….she is starting to realize how overbearing her mother has been all her life and the rebellion begins symbolizing a childs rebellion, Nina goes out with Lily against her moms will….symbolizing a teenagers rebellion, Nina’s hallucination of having sex with Lily….symbolizing her realization of her mother suppressing her sexuality and her rebellion to it, Nina goes to the performance against her moms will…..symbolizing her ability to rebel and prove to her mother that she can be her own person and that she doesn’t need her anymore. Nina kills herself (looks at her mom in the crowd)….symbolizing the “final” step to rebelling against her which is breaking free from her. Basically the white swan with perfect technique and textbook movement symbolizes her as a person and her relationship with her mother being so strict at the beginning of the movie, even Thomas said she was perfect for the white swan for those reasons, as she progresses towards dancing as the black swan she progresses in real life the same way and begins to open up and lose dependancy of her mother, less technique and cookie cutter and more individual expression. Thomas helped her transform through dance, Lily helped her transform in real life. The references to mdsa could be mistaken for the fact that when Thomas asks Nina to basically “open up” she finally realizes that her mother has repressed her sexuality all these years. Albeit supressed the fact remains she is still an adult and human instincts will eventually take over even within sexuality when triggered. So during sexual scenes any connection with the mother is meant to be seen that Nina is starting to realize that her mother has been supressing it all these years for fear that she might make the same mistake. Anywho this is all just another view of the movie, I haven’t seen it in 2 years and will watch it very soon and taking a second look I might see a msda side to it that I missed the first time around. Again sorry for the skipping of thoughts and overall cluster***** in this post
Interesting, but if that is true, why does Nina put a wooden pole down near her door to try to keep her mother out of her room at night? That isn’t symbolism, that is an attempt to maintain a physical distance. If her mother weren’t coming into her room every night, Nina wouldn’t have to do that.
The sexual abuse in this movie is so obvious and blatant to me that it disturbs me how many people just don’t see it or deny it. It makes me wonder how much is going on that they don’t or won’t see in real life. And I do not have a history of abuse but know many people who do.
Well when u consider that Mila Kunis, Natalie Portman or the director have never even hinted that its a movie about mdsa maybe it should disgust me that all of u think it is, but I believe everyone is open to their own interpretation as the movie clearly was made to do. Also like I said I saw it once when it first came out and I didn’t feel it had anything to do with that but that I would watch it again and maybe I would look more into a possible mdsa side of it. I don’t remember if the movie mentioned what happened to the dad but something as simple as the father dying when nina was a child could be enough for the mother to be very protective and at whatever age nina was when it could have happened is the age her mother tries to keep her locked in to and even more so if nina was a survivor of any tragedy that could have involved her dad. Take away the ending of the Sixth Sense and what do u have, a movie about a kid who sees dead people and bruce willis is just a normal breathing person, add the ending and now u have to re watch the movie and ur thinking oh it makes sense now bruce willis never talked to anyone else, that movie had a specific twist and plot and ending that is obv and the same to everyone. Not to mention M night has spoken about the movie, what its about and the ending. Now take the ending of the Black Swan away and u have a movie that is open to interpretation, now add the ending and the movie is still open to interpretation, the ending doesn’t solidify anything and is made that way so the audience can take what they want from the movie. There are people out there that have had very over protective parents and see the movie and can relate to the movie in that sense but never think twice about mdsa, and then there are people that watch it that grew up in a perfectly normal family and the only thing they think of is which parts were real and which parts were in ninas head, now u have people with mental illness that are now controlling it with medication and that movie hits home to them cus they can remember when they started to fall victim to mental illness and how it progressed, and of course their are people with a history of sexual abuse and we have this blog, feel free to express ur opinions cus that’s what they are, don’t show or voice ur disgust of people that don’t view it the same way u do, until the maker of the movie comes out and says the movie is about mdsa then feel free to voice ur opinion but don’t look down on others cus they don’t see what u see
Tina observed that she wondered how many people just don’t see it or deny it. I think society in general has become acutely aware of when men sexually abuse because they are blatently doing it for their own selfish enjoyment. However my suspicion is that many mothers become overbearing to the point of abuse not intentionally for their own pleasure but because they genuinly believe that what they are doing is actually for the benefit of the child or the family. So when others see it, they may say to themselves well she is a bit intense or overbearing but because the observers also accept that the mothers motivation is coming from that ‘protect the child’ and ‘help the child’ perspective then they let it go. Like for example, if we see a sporting coach or dance instructor pushing a child, or yelling at the child to do better, we might think they are being harsh but at the same time we would say to ourselves ‘to be the best then you need that push sometimes’.
It is only when one takes a deep breath and stands back that one can start to say well a line has been crossed.
I think there is another aspect too and that is that these days if a person is acused of abuse it is the end of them. There is no middle ground. No opportunity for intervention to help them moderate their behaviour. So I think that many people do nothing because its not blatent abuse and they do not want to ruin the adult by making an acusation.
Do u know how many kids barracade their parents out of their rooms and there isn’t any physical abuse going on, its called no privacy and no locks on doors, if her mother sheltered as much as the movie makes it appear then why wouldn’t she just barracade her mother out for that simple reason, hell I’ve barracaded my mom out of my room cus I didn’t wana hear her talk, not to mention a sexual predator wouldn’t leave anything in the room for her to barracade a door with, they would want full interupted access to the room, not to mention when nina masturbates and realizes her mom is in the chair, seems to me the mom would have stayed in the bed with her as most sexual pradators would, ur mom has never come into ur room at night when she knows ur going through a lot just to be a comfort for when u wake up or for any other reason other than to be sexual abusive
I understand why someone with your experience would see this element in the movie. I do not agree that it is a necessary element or that it is even intended.
I believe it is absolutely sufficient to see the mother as abusive by being overvbearing and putting career pressure on Nina – because she wants her daughter to be what she could not be. This behavior is probably more commonly seen at beauty pageants, but not uncommon in ballet as well. It already appeared in the ballet movie “Center Stage” in form of the character Maureen. Two things should be noted here: Psychologically, parent-child problems can cause anorexia and bulemia (a distorted idea of beauty isn’t necessarily the cause). Nina and Maureen are both bulemic and have overbearing mothers (Maurern outright blames her mother). Secondly, the director not only admits to watching a lot of ballet movies before doing Black Swan, he also went pretty close to plagiarizing a scene from Center Stage (the preparation of the ballet shoes that real ballet dancers go through). In short – overbearing mothers having mentally unstable daughters are common in ballet and have been a significant part in ballet movies before, some of which might have had influence on Black Swan.
Further, treating and keeping Nina like a child seems sufficient to me to make her both extremely self-conscious on her own and sexually inept/frigid. The extreme worsening of her schizophrenia (that is, having hallucinations) is sufficiently explained by the pressure of playing the lead while being constantly reminded that she isn’t good enough for part of it and being threatened by a rival (Mila) – plus there’s pressure and sexual harassment by Thomas that comes with it.
That scene with “Are you ready for me?” confused me at first, too, but keeping in mind how extremely overbearing Erica is, this might be a question she routinely asks before taking Nina to bed and bidding her good night like a toddler. Like “Are you in your night gown, teeth brushed, washed and ready to sleep?” – or simply (which I believe is somewhat less likely) – “are you dressed enough for me to come in or are you still naked?”. Remember that Nina’s door does not lock; much like you would not leave a lockable door to a child, if you could prevent it.
In short – I think non-sexual abuse by her mother and some added pressure/sexual harassment from other people are quite sufficient to explain the movie. I do not think adding maternal sexual abuse is necessary, nor indicated.
Does Nina’s mother dressing/undressing her merely count as physical abuse? Sexual abuse doesn’t always equal overt rape. How much right does a mother have to the body of her child, especially when that child is an adult?
As a fellow survivor of the devastation of a sexually abusive mother, I picked up on it immediately. I’m stunned that others didn’t. I don’t think I’ll ever fully recover from what she did to me. Our mother’s bodies are so much like our own, and the betrayal is beyond comprehension. It particularly pains me that, like the Swan, I’m unable to have close girlfriends. Just the smell of women turns my stomach.
I never saw the movie I thought it was a movie about ballet a defiantly didn’t know there was a scene where she was f ing playing with herself I really wonder sometimes about what the hell is going on with the entertainment industry gross.
YES! I totally agree, the sexual nature of the abuse is alluded to through out the film. Sometimes in life when we are disassociated from the actual abuse all we have are the shadows, or the symptoms of it. Such mother daughter abuse would surely yield the kind of psychosis and hallucinations she was experiencing. Delusions and psychosis are often affects of surviving incest because you learn at an early age to question reality. In fact the splitting itself is the act of creating a hallucination, or alter. So what could look like Schizophrenia to some is not at all. If she was Schizophrenic she would not be able to suffer the rigorous self control it take to become a prima ballerina. But if she was Dissacociative she could easily both suffer hallucinations and seem to function normally. Simply having an overbearing mother does not seem to be enough stress to create such deep wounds that would cause one to experience such psychosis. Yes there is a lot of pressure on Ballerinas to be perfect and over bearing mothers can be damaging, but there are obvious sexual themes through out the film. The Director and Actors may not speak out loud of this theme directly because it is a silent epidemic most of us keep to ourselves and would not attract most ‘normals’ to want to see the film if they knew that CSA was a part of the theme. Also it was a woman Nina fantasized about, not a man, the compulsion for many survivors is to recreate the abuse in an empowering way, at least some of us will be subconsciously drawn to people who resemble our abuser in some way to fulfill a physical addiction to the abuse when it began in early childhood and continued into adulthood and our fantasies take on life like proportions because we can experience that hormonal charge safely. Maybe not a popular theme but one that speaks to more then just those themes discussed in Center Stage. For me as a dancer and a survivor I found it to be both triggering and comforting to see that girls like me are being represented in Hollywood.
Very interesting. I thought that there was an overt implication that Nina had been abused when she was young by a male ballet teacher-I shall have to watch again and check-that would not preclude her being sexually abused by her mother, it may be a red herring or a causal factor, in the sense that her phsycological abuse makes her a target.
Reading all this reminds me that 1. Sexuality permeates everything-it is not discrete, so that abuse that is not overtly sexual can pervert sexual development
2. People who are chronically psychologically abused or traumatised by witnessing violence as children often have no sense of boundaries, or a sense that they have a right to boundaries, which makes it difficult for them to possess their sexualty, either in pleasure or refusal-the inability to say no, to stake a claim to one’s own body and have sexually agency is overwhelming, paralysing-a terrible, circular, convoluted source of shame-that guy who used the phrase ‘whoring themselves out’-you are part of it-I mean you are a victim-we all feel it, I understand your rage.
When I was younger and I went to NA meetings and people would talk about ‘muscle memories’ and flashbacks, I used to feel a feverish resentment, I don’t think there is anyone who had to take on too much as a child, in one way or another, that cannot relate to an area of disempowerment that feels virtually impossible to breach.
I loved the movie, and also found it deeply disturbing, there is no doubt in my mind that the mother/daughter relationship is characterised by the constant and chaotic collapse of boundaries and has overt sexual implications-I had interpreted them as the inabilty of both mother and daughter to occupy separate identities, but I definitely saw the mother as sexually intrusive and innapropriate, I didn’t even think of it consciously-it is the usual case with posessive, pshychologically abusive parental figures-the child has no rights over their body-and that the parent over identifies with the child in all directions-sex is never entirely out of the equasion-that is why the relationship is termed ‘abusive’, because it does not have the protection and nurturance of the child as its basis and prevailing motivation.
Love the site-great to see an intelligent, non-hysterical discussion of the topic
It is a chronic tension that I am drawn to discussions of sexual abuse, but I hate the competitive suffering and victim speak on some sites-it seems almost fetishistic-and I can get drawn into it.
I don’t know who said it but somewhere above someone mentioned having to fantasise about the experience of abuse -it was a relief for me to see that-thank you for your candour.
For sure agree with u
I just recently saw the movie. I was never a victim of mother-daughter sexual abuse but I definitely saw something odd in the relationship with her mother that kinda grossed me out.
It’s been three (two?) years since I’ve watched Black Swan, and I can definitely say I was fascinated by it. It’s been a long time and I still hold its position as “Favorite Movie”, it’s even frustrating…trying to feel what I felt while watching this by “experimenting” with similar movies, but I don’t think I’ll ever like (and understand) a movie as much as I did with this one.
At first, I was confused but felt a huge empathy towards Nina, an empathy none of my friends – with the exception of one or two – felt. I didn’t know why I was so obsessed (strong word, but couldn’t find one that better suits it) with this. I watched it at least five times in six months, and every time I discovered something new. I also spent a reasonable amount of hours discussing it on IMDb, and the “Mother-Daughter Sexual Abuse” theory was one of its most popular threads. But for some reason, while I could understand, I thought that theory was “taking it too far”.
Bare in mind, my “identification” with Nina was one of the things that made me love this movie so much. I felt what she was going through, and understood…even if I didn’t know why. Didn’t know why she felt like that, and why *I* felt like that.
Now, a couple of years later, I’m starting to question the “why’s”. We got it all figured out – she hated herself, wanted to be perfect, had trouble with the “sex” issue, but…”why”? Emotional abuse was our best guess at the time, but now that I’m getting more involved in Psychology, I’m realizing it still doesn’t cover the “sexual” issue. Nina wasn’t a simple prude, she was literally afraid of, for an example, being sexualized by others. That is a huge symptom of sexual abuse.
Funny enough, I’m also starting to figure out why I identified so much. Only now I questioned my OWN reasons, and realized I might have been a victim of sexual abuse when I was a child. There was definitely psychological abuse, “exposure” and etc, but because of my repressed memories (going to see a psychologist for that), I could have been repressing PHYSICAL sexual abuse.
It could have been the reason why I was so disgusted by the theory, and thought it was such an absurd, even if deep down I knew it made sense. Just as I realize *I* was a victim, I’m starting to realize Nina was one too.
This is possibly one of the theories people don’t throw around that much, but I think it’s the only one that explains Nina’s mentality. You connect the dots and the parts of the movie you ignored and form a web…analyzing it, you’ll how everything screams MDSA.
[…] New York City, which summons in the observer the idea that this woman must be the victim of abuse. “Black Swan: Movie about Mother-Daughter Sexual Abuse” is a blog post that takes an entirely different perspective on who is responsible for Nina’s […]
Hi,
I just came across this old article but I couldn’t resist leaving my view on the movie. It has been a while since I last saw it, and I just came up with this theory after reading (almost) all these comments.
What if Lily and Nina’s mom are actually the same person? I mean, that Lily would be a ‘flashback’ of Nina’s moms’ life. Lily is a person that would do anything for the part in the Swan Lake, but she got distracted by temptations as the nightlife and boys. Maybe if she had focused more on ballet she would have been better than Nina and she would have get te part.
Doesn’t that sound a lot like Nina’s moms’ story? She wanted to be the perfect ballerina but got distracted and got pregnant of Nina.
Both Lily and Nina’s mom are in a constant battle between what they want and what’s best for Nina.In Lily’s case, it means showing Nina that there is more in life than just being serious about ballet. The ‘what’s in it for her’ is getting distracted by it, which is giving Lily a bigger chance of getting the part.
In Nina’s moms’ case, it means that she wants Nina to be the best ballerina she could be, because she thinks that is Nina’s dream. The ‘what’s in it for her’ is that by Nina living her dream, she’s actually living her mom’s dream and that makes her mom happy.
Next to that, Lily is driving Nina soooo crazy that it makes her a better black swan. That makes it very logical that Nina’s mom could be the same person as Lily: she wants her daughter to be a perfect black swan, even if that means pushing her to her limits.
People say that when Nina and Lily are in bed, Lily’s face changes. It’s not Nina. It’s the actress that plays Nina’s mom when she was younger. Why? Cause they are the same person. Maybe the younger version of Nina’s mom, also known as ‘Lily’, is just returning to the present to push Nina till she is the perfect black swan.
Idk, it’s just a theory and maybe it’s very stupid. Oh, and excuse me if my English isn’t perfect, I’m from Holland!
A friend whom suffered abuse from her mother, and was forced to abuse her siblings, told me about this movie. As she went on and on, I became extremely triggered. The only thing that helped me keep it together was the fact that she seemed blissfully unaware of all that she was saying.
Before recovering, I used to have ghoulish sessions of reading survivors’ stories and making myself dissociate. I would become aroused not because of the abuse stories, but because of the familiar warmth of dissociation. The fever pitch my friend was reaching as she described the plot in painful detail reminded me of the giddiness I felt when dissociating.
I wasn’t sure I could watch it before, now I really don’t think I want to.
I completely agree with Michael Western’s assessment. While there are elements of an abusive relationship between mother and daughter, the abuse does not appear sexual in nature. The mother, who blames the daughter for failed career (even though she was 28 when she became pregnant), sought to live vicariously through her daughter and in doing so, was completely overbearing and controlling.
If you’ll remember the scene in which the mother helps Portman undress after the charity event, had Portman been abused sexually, she would not have tried so vehementally to cover her naked body. In the scene (mentioned above) in which the mother asks, “are you ready for me”, while that can be taken as implying ready for sex, I think it was just the mother asking Portman if she were ready for their nightly bedtime routine.
I can understand how these sexual undertones would be “apparent” to those who have suffered sexual abuse, especially if they have not sought help, but, I think good art is open to interpretation and interpretation can only be based on ones own experiences. In that vein, everyone is right.
I don’t think its just survivors who saw it i mean its extremely obvious whats going on. I figured it out from one part. The part where she tries to keep her mother out of her bedroom when Lily is there. Nina says leave me alone and shuts the door and it all quiet now. her mother is nuts i doubt all it took was shut the door for her to go away. After “Nina” performed oral sex on her she turned in Nina and said sweet girl. Just like her mother did when she got her dressed after asking her what was that on her back. That’s when it was confirmed in my mind. But i got the feeling from when her mom was a lil bit too concerned about the scratch on her back. The look on her face when nina hugged her got me thinking.
Late to the party but had to comment. Before I even saw the movie I was looking at some clips on YouTube, the scene where the mother tells her to “Take off your shirt!” immediately screamed sexual abuse to me. The tone and choice of words spoke volumes. As a mother I might say, “Let me see your back,” or “Lift up your shirt.” Not take off your shirt.
I am not a victim myself but it really scares me how many people do NOT believe that there was sexual abuse in this movie- it makes me wonder how many people are in denial about it happening in their own families or among their friends and neighbors. I think it is blatantly obvious in this movie.
Most of you here have easily picked up on the fact of what the orig. creators of this work have wanted to project in a dualistic fashion. Yet you still have glaringly missed the most important aspect of the whole picture, it is the systematic element of the whole program, you completely skipped the fact that when you pick up on the clues not only is this JUST about childhood sexual abuse, yet it is about a SYSTEMATIC effort at such especially in various creative (e.g. performance) sectors in society, in order to piece the whole “puzzle” together, simply refresence PROJECT MONARCH, and understand that this is something that all civilized and decent human beings need to obliterate!
This is not a story about a woman is sexually abused by her mother. Just because you are sexually abused by your mother, don’t make everything is about the sexual abuse. Yes, Nina is abused by her mother, but physically not sexually. it’s because her mother loves her and that’s all. It’s just a story of a perfectionist and how to dance perfectly.
I saw Black Swan about 4 times. This last time, I never came away with mother daughter sexual abuse. I obviously noticed the sexual harassment Nina endured from Thomas. I agree with the above view that the mothers relationship to Nina had subtle siductions. The mother was so overbearing as to tell Lily that Nina is busy and cant come to the door. I have seen this behavior before. I dated a young man that had a mother just like Nina. I suspected sexual abuse between him and his mother. This movie is intense.
I’m sure the movie was showing the effects of sexual abuse etc.. and It’s pretty clear that Portman’s character suffered from OCD and possibly psychotic episodes of some description. BUT what I’d like to know a few things:
1. Why does she take those ‘items’ and obsess over them (from previous ballerina star, Wynona)
2. Why does she sprout feathers?
3. Why does Wynona / self stab herself in the face with the nail file?
4. Why does she keep seeing people change into herself and more to the point, things that are not there at all.
I find it rather odd that everyone on here is obsessing over lines like “are you ready for me” when it is not clear if the girl is even in reality at all.