2010’s Black Swan was a career highlight for American writer-director Darren Aronofsky. The psychological horror movie about a mentally unstable ballet dancer was nominated for a plethora of awards, with lead actress Natalie Portman earning a SAG, a BAFTA, a Critics Choice, and (among many others) an Oscar for her performance. Aronofsky’s previous film, The Wrestler, was a change from his previous maximalist work. The stripped down, slice of life drama got the attention of mainstream Hollywood, and with Black Swan he reaped the rewards of his 10+ year filmmaking career. Horror films are rarely nominated by the Academy, making Portman’s win (alongside Jodie Foster’s in 1992 for Silence of the Lambs) an anomaly in Oscar history. Seven years would pass before another horror film was recognized at these awards; the next being 2017’s Get Out, which won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. 

Portman’s character, Nina Sayers, is demure to a fault. The film focuses on her struggle to please both her domineering mother and the ballet company’s artistic director, Thomas Leroy (played by Vincent Cassel). Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake serves as a backdrop to Nina’s unraveling mental state while the demands of playing both Odette and Odile (the titular Black Swan) test her limits. As the people in her life take advantage of her, Nina imagines a series of grotesque body transformations and other frightening hallucinations.

Does Darren Aronofsky Understand Horror?

Aronofsky twists the plot of the ballet, through his character Thomas, to serve the metaphor of his own film. In Tchaikovsky’s original Swan Lake, both Odette and Odile are under the control of the evil sorcerer Rothbart. After begging for her forgiveness, the prince and Odette throw themselves into the lake, choosing to die together instead of living apart. In Black Swan, Thomas’ artistic vision has Odette as a pristine virgin, Odile as an evil seductress, and the prince leaves Odette to die alone, heartbroken. Thomas then sexually manipulates the innocent Nina to make her a “better” Odile. He threatens to replace her with another dancer, Lily (Mila Kunis), and Nina begins to confuse Lily’s actions with her own. She hallucinates a sexual relationship between her and Lily, and then between Lily and Thomas. The final moments suggest that Nina also dies, a victim of her own insanity, though what actually happens remains open to interpretation.

Aside from a few characters that link back to their Swan Lake inspirations, any other parallels are scant. Though Nina is an accomplished ballerina in New York City, something that takes an incredible amount of skill and strength, Aronofsky seems uninterested in her agency. He never counters Thomas’ corrupted interpretation of the ballet, and instead presents Nina as the perfect, broken girl, a caricature of innocence. The script heavily leans into the ‘hysterical’, ‘delusional’ woman horror tropes, tying her descent into madness with her own sexual awakening (and then tying this awakening to sexual assault). “I want to be perfect” she insists, one of the few things we learn about her dreams and desires. Any potential plot or character development is unraveled by continuous reveals that the events in the previous scene were imagined. Her attraction to Lily is left unexamined, making their hallucinatory sex scene just another “shocking” moment.

Where Black Swan flounders, a film like Micheal Haneke’s The Piano Teacher (2001) soars. Isabelle Huppert plays Erika, an emotionally stunted woman stuck between a domineering mother and a demanding art form. Though Erika and Nina have little say over their day-to-day lives, Haneke purposely explores the ways that Erika asserts her agency, though they’re often upsetting and violent. Both films also deal with sexual assault, but Haneke makes a specific choice not to invoke any kind of male gaze; the camera barely moves as the actors play out the sequence. In Black Swan’s most sickening scene, Aronofsky directs the camera to follow Thomas’ hands as he assaults Nina, forcing the audience to assume the abuser’s perspective. Unlike Aronofsky, Haneke and Huppert managed to create complex, flawed characters that are frustrating and engaging, without ever infantilizing its protagonist.

Black Swan Represents the Worst of “Prestige” Horror

Black Swan also flails when compared to a more recent horror film about doppelgangers that has been recognized by the Academy Awards – The Substance. Back in 2010-11, the marketing around Black Swan leaned into its ‘prestige’ status as a way to legitimize the film’s grosser moments. Natalie Portman’s Oscar race campaign focused on her year-long training as a dancer and the authentic athleticism of her performance. This misguided quest for respectability gets in the way of the film’s campier moments, making the jumpscares and sudden gore feel out of place. In contrast, The Substance is interested in no such mainstream legitimacy. Director Coralie Fargeat embraced gore and camp to tell her story about female duality under the oppressive male gaze. Despite the absurdity of the plot, Fargeat’s characters and their struggles ground the story with depth and meaning.

Despite Black Swan’s initial success, Aronofsky’s career struggled as Black Swan faded out of the limelight. His biblical epic Noah went largely unnoticed, and his maximalist ode to inspiration Mother! (starring his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend Jennifer Lawrence) deeply divided audiences. It would be over a decade before he’d return to the award circuit with 2023’s The Whale, for which lead actor Brendan Fraser won an Oscar. However, the issues that plague Black Swan also plague The Whale. The novel Moby Dick is supposed to be the backbone of his metaphor, but the connection between the titular whale and the protagonist is just that he’s fat – like a whale. He carries a lot of guilt – physically, on his body, as fat. That’s it. The Whale relies on lazy stereotypes under the guise of ‘high art’ to once again create a protagonist whose virtuousness lies in their ability to absorb everyone else’s abuse. 

Black Swan’s legacy represents the most frustrating aspects of “Academy Award” cinema, and its faults become clear when held against better films. It will always be a drama masquerading as horror, one that twists Nina’s abuse into art to serve a patriarchal gaze. Her psychosis and death are presented as a beautiful tragedy, a fetishized martyrdom to Thomas’s (and Aronofsky’s) artistic vision of a perfectly broken girl. 

“You can’t get away from it Jasmine. It’ll follow you, believe me, I know.”

If there’s anything more certain than the sun, it’s the irreverent notion that a person of color is not only not qualified, but they should also feel lucky to be within the spaces they reside when “allowed”.  

As of late, during this tumultuous election year, we’ve gotten used to (not really) the term “diversity hire”. In the 80s, it was the great disdain for Affirmative Action acts from the 60s. In the 50s, it was the civil rights movement. We’re 30 years shy of a century of oppression, adversity and undertow in academic institutions, and it permeates everything we can possibly think to be involved in, appointed to or admired for. In the 2022 film Master by Mariama Diallo, we explore cultural depth and neverending societal issues with race, microaggressions, and othering in the academic world.

The film opens with Gail Bishop (Regina Hall), the first Black Master of House at Ancaster University, a predominantly white collegiate atmosphere that’s almost as old as the country. She works to settle in as best she can in a home rife with pictures of old white men and cookie jars in the shape of derogatory Black effigies, but we’ll get to that later. At the same time, an eager and hopeful Jasmine Moore (Zoe Renee) arrives at Ancaster. Jasmine is given her assignment, room 302, the haunted room. Oooooh!

Well, she’s not even told that it’s haunted. It’s alluded to quite haughtily by the Welcome Crew.

It’s a shame the steep spiral downward in trauma this film takes because these experiences, save for most of the supernatural pieces, are true to life. The wonder of starting new, being a part of something that sparks joy. Being the first Black anything academically is always seen as a how-did-they-get-that-couldn’t-be-because-they’ve-earned-it, and it’s a mountain on top of a mountain. For Jasmine and Gail, the hike is just beginning.

A Live One:

Jasmine takes to the haunted room, and realizes, quite startlingly, that she has a roommate, Amelia (Talia Ryder). Amelia and Jasmine hit it off nicely when it’s just the two of them, but when they are joined by Amelia’s more affluent, more snotty (and also white) friends Cressida (Ella Hunt) and Katie (Noa Fisher), the tables turn out of Jasmine’s favor. She’s constantly interrupted when she shares her own stories in order for them to tell their own. She is picked on, cornered, and subjected to soft-handed bullying at the hands of these girls’ possible paramours as well. It’s a common situation for any person of color in a predominantly white space.  The period of adjustment takes longer because the goalposts keep changing. And the game of making you and keeping you ill-adjusted is an ongoing sport.

Now, the haunted room theory permeates Jasmine’s waning emotional and mental state as she begins to have hellish nightmares: losing time, waking up believing she’s being attacked by an entity or treated like a specimen to be studied. Jasmine uncovers the death of the first Black student who resided in that room, and from that point on, the thinly veiled and petty racist cracks become less subdued.

Jasmine’s struggles with belonging and the doubt of her aptitude begin externally. A valedictorian, a brilliant mind, and a bubbly personality squashed into a shell of Blackness. The Black lunch staff is all smiles with the white students but when Jasmine comes through the line, she’s treated brusquely, silently as if to say, you think you’re something special by being on that side of the aisle. It’s such a visceral scene because society has made its perpetuated caste system for so long, there’s bound to be some internal issues that folks struggle with. Sometimes it causes anger, jealousy or shame. In this scene, it’s a mix of it all and cuts deep in less than 120 seconds.

In light of being a suspect, she’s investigated when an alarm sensor goes off in the library. When it’s revealed that Jasmine has nothing belonging to the library, the urge is to check her bag. The accusatory tone of the librarian and the growing crowd behind her only adds to the humiliation. Guilty until proven innocent. During a class with the only other person of color, her instructor, Dr. Liv Beckham, discussed color usage in The Scarlet Letter. Jasmine believes that using the color white so often points to Hester’s daughter Pearl’s innocence, but you can tell she wants to dive deeper than that – much deeper. When white student Cressida chimes up that the white points to white people of that time and their ignorance and disdain for color or non-conforming women. Listen.

I know many people of color who viewed this film and felt everything Jasmine’s body language was showing. For real, Cressida?! If that statement had come out of Jasmine’s mouth, would she be seen as the angry Black woman? The race card thrower? The reverse racist? Surely, and not as the wise, forward-thinking, woke, and diversity-first crown-wearer like Cressida gets to be. And there’s another rub. Don’t be too smart, don’t be too confrontational, don’t question the system.

When Jasmine confronts Liv for giving her a poor grade in class and praising the white students, Liv construes that Jasmine was from an “inner city, poor graded school, things work differently here”. Jasmine has to fight to tell her she’s not a hard knock case, she’s from the suburbs, AND she was the valedictorian, to which Liv is like oh gee wilickers I didn’t know. The casual assumptions about her intelligence and background, especially from Liv, sting, in the same ways the attitudes from the lunch crew stung. Jasmine’s experience is compounded by the ingrained and institutional barriers that exist for Black and Brown students. She’s constantly having to prove herself academically and socially, play maid and errand runner, and in a coup de grace to further distance and isolate her from her roommate, she’s made into a pawn as Amelia’s crush. Tyler (Will Hochman) begins to flirt and make out with Jasmine in a “how scandalous is it that I’m hooking up with the Black girl” way, because that’s a scandal ‘round his parts! Extensive spiritual sigh.

She’s constantly reminded that she doesn’t belong and is some sort of bone of contention for many members of the school and faculty. It’s almost as if, even though all of our barrier-breaking, that these spaces are not designed for us to succeed, much like corporate and government spaces; the navigation of personal and racial bias has you exhausted before you even end your workday.

And Nothing Ever Changes:

Gail’s situation is less nuanced and much heavier in the “you should feel incredibly lucky we’ve decided to let you do this” vibe. There is not a person of color out there in an academic, corporate, or government setting (and let’s go further, a friend group) where they didn’t feel tokenized or like a box tick. As a tenured professor, Gail Bishop represents the more mature side of this coin for Black women in academia. Despite all her successes, she’s constantly countermanded and undermined, not to mention low-key chided by her colleagues with comments like, “Should we call her Obama?”. The microaggressions are more serrated for her, especially when her all-white board – mirroring Jasmine’s all-white “friend” group – cast doubt on her professional merit and her ability to be impartial when faced with a serious situation regarding another professor of color. She’s deemed unqualified and unsuited for the prestigious gift they’ve given her. It’s this type of structural inequity and institutional racism, not to mention gross lack of cultural awareness on the part of predominantly white institutions that create this caustic and hostile environment where stereotyping and discrimination often impact promotions, tenure opportunity and space for new Black and Brown professors. Is Gail as secure as she thinks she is? All signs point to no with conditions.

Despite all of her glossy ideals and sense of friendship and availability with her student, the lion’s share of the faculty at Ancaster have deep-seated racial bias that’s imbruing on the school through Jasmine and Gail’s experiences and not only are they none the wiser – they don’t seem fussed enough to care. When Jasmine is overcome by visions, nightmares, and just enough racism to push her over the edge and out of a window, Gail tells a recovering Jasmine not to let them drag her down. Fight.

“You can’t get away from it Jasmine. It’ll follow you, believe me, I know.”  

Advice Gail should heed herself.  As that tension between her and the faculty escalates after poor Jasmine’s suicide, Gail knows that even though they create shiny diversity programs and exude a semblance of a beacon for marginalized academics, they don’t truly care for Black or Brown students. The microscope will always be at full magnification, the scrutiny and judgment on eleven and the bias, sky high. Our experiences, knowledge, achievements, and mental prowess will always be viewed through a lens of skepticism.

By the end, Gail knows that she is merely that token, that box tick to get things done and having the public ignore their racist ways as long as a Black patsy is standing at the front of the line to prove they don’t see color. Nothing is ever going to change. Not for her, not for any other student of color, ever.

Diallo’s film was released with mixed reviews, and I understand it’s a polarizing film. It’s a stark look at what it’s like to be a Black woman in higher education, and I don’t think people were ready for the “Are we the baddies?” conversation. Thinking back to my college days, I was met with millions of microaggressions at the time that I didn’t know weren’t just part of life. Majoring in Business, we were asked to make a business plan for a business we’d like to create someday. I chose a bookstore/record shop, basically a small-town Borders. When I presented it to my professor I was met with, and I quote, “Oh wow! I was expecting like a hair salon, weaves and nails and stuff.” Hmm. Even having the highest GPA in the course, I was constantly asked to further cite my sources as the reports were “just a little too clean”, something my white counterparts were never asked to do.

It’s hell representing yourself and all you’ve accomplished, and in just a few months, that light is dulled, diminished, and, in Jasmine’s case, snuffed out far too soon.

Master’s prestigious Ancaster is more than just a setting, it’s a symbol of a broader societal issue with race, privilege, and power. Black and Brown academics are devalued by design. It’s a vacuumed microcosm of a society that promotes diversity and meritocracy, all the while creating and perpetuating systemic barriers that prevent Black and Brown groups from thriving without mobilizing or leaving all together. Master keenly explores how microaggressions add up. Assumptions about intelligence, qualifications or the capacity to succeed, reveal a deep unspoken bias that infiltrates marginalized women beyond the classroom.