Black Swan

Black Swan is a beautiful, endearing movie about the pains and traumas of acculturation. It is difficult to acculturate to any culture. As a Korean, I found it extremely difficult to acculturate to American culture. When I first came to America, living in the ghettos of Philadelphia, I had no idea of what it meant to be an American. I was taught that American families were more or less perfect and beautiful.

Black Swan. White Swan. Alterego. Ego. Natalie Portman's family in Black Swan is not much different from mine. My mother was fiercely protective of me and she distrusted the American world. I was fascinated by the American world, especially in my teenage years during which I drank and smoked pot. White Swan doesn't like elite, ballet culture with its brutish, protective men and the conniving, sexual women. She longs for purity, grace and the "incredible lightness of being."