The Black Swan

Introduction

Post-modernist critique points to the destabilization and fragmentation of the idea of the coherent, unique subjectivity that has led western culture, and subsequently its critique, through time. Cultural objects seem to correspond with the processes of naturalization of gender divisions and the female body. On a literal level, Black Swan gives the impression that it follows this tradition. In this paper I argue that the use of allegory in Black Swan is a conscious choice that emphasizes the discrepancies between the film and its original source Swan Lake, in order to contest the notion of a stabilized female subjectivity. I am also going to contrast stereotypical ways of looking at the female body in the film, exemplified by feminist film theory, and how pleasure derived from the act of looking at the female body is disrupted through specific visual elements. Finally, drawing from Butler’s theory of performativity I contest the idea of the essential female body, while bringing together the notions of performance and performative acts.

Allegory and Postmodern Subjectivity

In the first part of his essay “The Allegorical Impulse: Towards a Theory of Postmodernism” (1980) Owens discusses how allegorical elements are being employed in postmodern art, parting ways with the romantic and modernist obsession involving originality and the self-proclaimed “genius”. Postmodernism is not preoccupied with originality; in fact it creates art which recites its own eventuality, insufficiency, lack of originality. Since the allegorical work “is synthetic; it crosses aesthetic boundaries producing a ‘confusion of boundaries’”(Owens 75), it corresponds to postmodern needs, where the crossing of boundaries and the conflation of genres le...

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...terally-as in corporeally-, before the fatal performance, can be read as an open mockery towards the possibility of herself ever “being” a “natural” in the role.

Works Cited

Black Swan. Dir. Darren Aronofsky. Perf. Natalie Portman. Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2010.

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990. Print.

Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Film Theory and Criticism :

Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford UP,

1999: 833-44.

Owens, Craig. ‘The Allegorical Impulse: Toward a Theory of Postmodernism Part 1’. October, Spring 1980, vol. 12, pp. 67-86.

Salih, Sara. "On Judith Butler and Performativity." Judith Butler. London: Routledge, 2002. Sage Publications. Web. 24 Mar. 2013. .