I'm Currently Filling An Admission To A VERY Prestigious Religious - Studies Program, And I Was Requested

BLACK SWAN - THE UNREWARDING CHASE AFTER PERFECTION

Tw: bulimia, self-harm, sexual assault, body horror

''Black swan'', directed by Darren Aronofsky, is a 2010 film. It deals with our main character, Nina, a ballerina which gets picked for the role of both The white swan and The black swan in a production of "Swan lake", but as she is urged by her artistic director to 'lose herself' her sanity crumbles before her. In this post I'd like to address the themes, motifs, character development, and what black swan made me feel, because I find art is about emotions.

★ SWAN LAKE ANALOGY

The story of "Swan lake" is a direct analogy most readers can pick up on during their watch of Black swan and I'd like to highlight some thoughts of mine on the parallels between the two.

" virginal girl, pure and sweet, trapped

in the body of a swan. She desires

freedom, but only true love can

break the spell. Her wish was

granted in the form of a prince.

But before he can declare his love,

her lustful twin, the Black Swan,

tricks and seduces him.

Devastated, the White Swan leaps

off a cliff, killing herself. But,

in death, finds freedom. " - Leroy

This recounting of "Swan lake" is a basic synopsis of the movie Black swan. Nina is perfect, and she finds this need for perfection a prison. We see her eat half a fruit for breakfast, spend all her time in the company, and put mountains of effort into every step she takes. This is exactly Nina's downfall - if Leroy was right about one thing it's that perfection is inherently imperfect. It's messy and dirty and full of mistakes, because perfect is expected.

Nina believes her 'freedom' will come in the form of Leroy, that he can cultivate her into the girl she was destined to be, and sees Lily as her doppelganger - an evil xerox who wishes to steal her only answer away from her. Nina is mistaken, and actually her mistake falls perfectly into the plot of Swan lake - she mixes up the roles. Lily is much closer to the prince in the sense she allows Nina to be herself. She genuinely desires to see Nina succeed and yet doesn't believe that Nina should torture herself to perfection. Although it's difficult to distinguish between reality and illusion during the film, when the credits roll, I think we all know who's the twin, who's the swan, and who's the prince.

★ THE THEORY OF ART

Nietzche (😒...) Coined the terms 'dyonisian' and 'apollonian' in his book, Birth Of Tragedy. The Dyonisian is the tendency for freedom - pleasure, lack of thinking, impulse. The Apollonian is the tendency for structure - order, planning, perfecting. Nietzche claims that good art is the balance between the two, you can't be overly obsessive over detail nor carelessly creating.

Nina is Apollonian. She is so invested in being the perfect dancer she loses what made her good in the first place - her love for the profession, her daintiness, her emotional connection to pieces. Throughout the movie, we see how obsessive Nina becomes with perfection as her bulimia gets worse, she grows suspicious of her peers, and eventually resorts (does she...?) to murder for her sake. Truly, Nina couldn't balance art because she couldn't let herself go, and only when she did her performance was perfect.

Black swan made me unnerved. As an artist, it's truly an enthralling experience seeing a young woman shred herself to bits trying to be perfect. I almost cried when Nina forced herself to puke the nothing she ate, because it's an amazing metaphor; trying to use up something that is not there. I think about black swan from time to time, and I realize that Nina isn't perfect - she was. She was her best when she loved dance. When she lived living . When she loved herself.

Stay yourself, stay curious

Everyone, they didn't accept me #antisemetic #boycott💔

I'm currently filling an admission to a VERY prestigious religious - studies program, and I was requested to write about a piece of media which influenced me as a person.

Fools just gave me free rein to infodump on TSH

Stay yourself, stay curious

במדבר.

Jewish youths rescued from Auschwitz show their camp tattoos while aboard a refugee ship, July 15th, 1945

OUT ON THE FLOORRRRR

YOU’RE SO ART DECOOOO

I WANT A TYPEWRITER!!!

stay yourself, stay curious

War thoughts

A person in my life was taken hostage some time ago. He was at a family dinner. through exchange he has returned, but it's such an adsurd scenario. I can see the trauma on his face. I can see the looks people give him, how before he was anonymous and how he can never return to that anonymity so many of us take for granted. I can see how I've grown close to him, when before he was just a name, A face in the corridor, a smile at the end of the day, not at me, but at the people who know him.

I have recently started to become more ecologically conscious in my everyday life - eating out less, buying less, using more of the possessions I already own, etc... - and that includes shopping for clothes in second hand shops. And I am ASTONISHED at how many well kept, good quality pieces are simply lying around at some dim lit room downtown. Honestly, I urge everyone reading this to go to the worst rated second hand shop in their area. Avoid the trendy ones, go for the ones with 70 year old witches who'll smoke a whole pack inside the store in the hour you'll spend there. The true gems lie there.

Stay yourself, stay curious.

My phone charger stopped working a month ago, and so I had the misfortune of having to buy a new one. It doesn't have a headphone port. I wasn't even considering the POSSIBILITY of a phone not having a headphone port, so now I have to go to settings and activate OTG everytime I want to use headphones, because I believe Bluetooth is demonic witchcraft and refuse to participate in that debauchery.

Just so blatantly evil when they took the headphone port out of the phones to force people into getting Bluetooth earbuds like we let them do that to us and no one was jailed or murdered for it? What is wrong with us

To the kids not excited for this school year,

To the kids that don't have someone to sit next to in class,

To the kids that just can't seem to make friends,

To the kids that are falling behind,

To the kids that will push themselves to their limits for a number on a card,

To the kids that are made fun of because of their way of appearance,

To the kids that are bullied, and yes they are,

To the kids that don't share a language with their peers,

To the kids no one believes,

You are important.

You deserve this year for yourself.

And you are more than enough.

Stay yourself, stay curious.