Black Swan: Violence and Danger (5-8)

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Category: Culture and Media

We don’t tend to think of the fragile and delicate as violent and dangerous.  We admire the grace and beauty of the butterfly with no fear. We see the white swan, fluttering beautifully or the sweet gossamer like beauty of Nina at her minimal breakfast, and we don’t fear them. We might even say that one egg and a half a grapefruit is a normal and appropriate food for such a light and delicate being.

Black Swan: Stealing (4-8)

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Category: Culture and Media

I’m glad the Black Swan filmmakers included Nina’s stealing from the older ballerina, Beth. Stealing is often a component of an eating disorder. The person doesn’t steal because she has a criminal mind and seeks to earn her way in the world through theft.

Black Swan: Mother/Daughter Control Issues and Sexuality (3-8)

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Category: Culture and Media

In the Black Swan, the character of Nina lives the emotional life and physical life of a child, dependent on her mother for care.  You see the bind they both are in. 

Nina’s mother treats Nina as a child.  She is not capable of functioning as an adult. To make realistic changes in this relationship, mother would need to treat Nina as an adult and Nina would have to rise to the occasion and become an adult. 

Black Swan: Narrow Life Obsession (2-8)

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Category: Culture and Media

In the film, The Black Swan, Nina obsesses about being a perfect ballerina. Her dancing in a troupe is inextricably tied to her sense of self. To endanger that activity is an intolerable nightmare. To stop dancing or to lose progress toward unapproachable stardom is equivalent with death of her identity.

Anorexic and bulimic women in real life go into weeping tantrums, rages, manipulative arguments and pleading when their eating disorder symptoms prompts family or