Perfectionism: Good or Bad?

The Black Swan is a movie with Natalie Portman in which she is a professional ballet dancer who wins the star role in the performance of Swan Lake. The movie examines her obsession with perfecting both the role of the white swan and the black. When she has to compete with Mila Kunis's character who is more fit for the black swan, she drives herself insane and starts having visual hallucinations where she imagines sleeping with Kunis and also killing her. In the end, she dies metaphoricallyand whispers

"I felt it. Perfect. I was perfect."

I really liked this movie because of the way it was made. One of the things that really draw the viewer in, is how you can hear Portman's character, Nina, breathing while she dances. To be completely honest, the movie kind of stressed me out, but I enjoyed it. If a movie can inspire such a strong feeling, whether its a good or bad one, I think its done a fabulous job. The whole point to media is to make the audience feel something, and the Black Swan definitely accomplished that for me. I like how they examined perfectionism, because in society it's seen as one of those "good" flaws, something you can say during a job interview when asked "What's your greatest flaw?". For Nina though, she takes it too far, killing hers

elf and going insane for the role of the black swan. She wants to fit the black swan so badly that she becomes her. I think alot of us can relate to that as students. We all know a couple of slackers, but we also know a bunch of over achievers who take Adderall to do well on tests when they weren't prescribed it and go for days on no sleep trying to write the perfect paper. Some people think it's a good thing but is it really? The word obsession carries a negative connotation but is it still negative when you're obsessed with achievement?

Nina also has a strange relationship with her mother. Her mother was also a dancer in her past and she projects her failings as a dancer onto her daughter. She has multiple abstract portraits of Nina hanging in her bedroom, and watches Nina as she sleeps. She is obsessed with her daughter being a success in the ballet world and grooms her like a child. It adds to the uncomfortableness of the movie when Nina starts touching herself in bed and turns around only to find her mother asleep in a chair right next to her. I can relate to this in some way because my mother puts alot of pressure on me to do well in school. In fact, the card my mother sent me for Valentines Day said

"Good things come to those who achieve"

All of us can relate to family members who put pressure on us to do well in school or whatever else were interested in whether its sports or work. It may not go as far as the obsession Nina's mother has with her and ballet but we all know what the pressure feels like, even if its self inflicted like in Nina's case.