Aronofsky’s Black Swan as a Postmodern Fairy Tale
Mirroring a Narcissistic Society
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20249247 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Margarete Landwehr (0000-0002-2061-3264, West Chester University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 86 |
| Publication date | 2021-06-30 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Humanities (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2076-0787 • E-ISSN: 2076-0787 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/h10030086 |
| OpenAlex | W3179841327 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 10 |
Based on the plot of Swan Lake, Black Swan depicts an ingenue’s metamorphosis into a woman and a prima ballerina that contains a fairy-tale plot in which a naïve heroine overcomes enemies and obstacles in order to achieve success and sexual maturity. Unlike a traditional fairy tale, this cinematic tale concludes with death and the clear distinctions between good and evil, helper and adversary and reality vs. fantasy are fluid. As in many fairy tales, the film criticizes the values of its era, namely, the narcissistic aspects of contemporary society with its excessive worship of youth, beauty and celebrity, and its most pernicious results—escape into fantasy and insanity, aggressive rivalry, violence, and self-destruction
Aesthetics · Art · Beauty · Fantasy · Literature · Narcissism · Postmodernism · Psychoanalysis · Rivalry · Contemporary Literature and Criticism · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Psychology · Themes in Literature Analysis
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |