Black Swan 2

It seems rather indifferent of me to think of this film as an expression of social games, but that's exactly what it is. First, how does White Swan and Black Swan become one and the same. You are your worst enemy. Ego and alterego become one and one becomes beyond good and evil. But according to society, those who are at the top of the society are the ones who are most good no matter how evil or good they may be. There is another film in which ego and alterego become one, namely, The Godfather. Michael Carleone is beyond good and evil and in a structure in the which the most good pretend to be good while being both good and evil, the one who combines ego and alterego can assume a position even higher than the most good and construct social games of "winning" (which brings happiness and joy) and losing (which brings sadness or sorrow), Life is a game. Guilt and Shame are really social constructs which prevent us from reaching the true light of being. We may do evil but it is often in reaction to much larger evils. At the same time, privacy is a form of guilt.

Now White Swan becomes Black Swan. This is a false construct and this explains the film's quaint charm. You do not become your alterego. The problem of acculturating into a foreign culture relies upon a false dichotomy and a basic misunderstanding between cultures. American culture sees the negative in Korean culture and this justifies Americanization. But what is Americanization? Americanization relies upon a jouissance built on rock and roll and Hollywood, a spirituality built on modern understandings of Puritanism, and linguisticallly, upon a language system which forbids words like "fuck" in public discourse and yet, at the same time, limits the expression of language in general to mere banalities. You say things are "good." The weather is "fine." I am not surprised that great English writers like D.H. Lawrence were attracted to Fascism. Certainly, some Jews preferred the German Fascists to the English WASPS Pre-World War II. It's rather a question of whether you prefer psychological torture to actual physical, Foucaultian torture. Anyway, the Black Swan image is created concurrently by negative impressions of one's own culture in one's experience and negative images of your culture as seen by others. This is indeed death as the film expresses. 

Now the male teacher in the film, per se, is not a bad person. He is an excellent teacher and an excellent psychologist. If she wants to assume the center of the ballet culture, she must synthesize black and white swan. Ego and alterego. But logic does not travel down one path. Actually, there are an infinite number of choices, an infinite number of citations that reduce the occurrence of deja vous in a culture. White Swan tortures herself and wonders what she should do, and like an idiot, she takes the path of least resistence. She chooses to seduce the teacher whose intellect and understanding of human experience is deeply superior to hers.