With her last dying breath of ecstasy, Nina softly utters, “I felt it. . . perfect, it was perfect” (Black Swan 1:42:30–1:42:43). The scene fades to white with the sound of the crowd applauding and chanting her name, ending the film. This very scene signifies the conspicuous purpose of protagonist Nina’s actions throughout the film Black Swan. Directed by Darren Aronofsky, Black Swan is a psychological thriller that tells the story of Nina, a ballerina who not only competes for the lead role in Swan Lake but dedicates her life to it. Once Nina is selected for the leading part, she continually must prove herself worth the role over her competition. As she prepares for the performance she has long dreamed of, she begins to develop an obsessive pursuit of perfection. This pursuit causes her to be consumed by her alter ego who then disconnects from reality and grows self-destructive—ultimately leading to a tumultuous end. Though many analyses of the film exist, they focus on identifying Nina’s psychosis and provide explanations for the infamous ending, whereas I am more interested in the root of Nina’s idea of perfection in a more complex approach: it isn’t about her performance or success at all, but rather her unique relationship to her mother that develops into a desire that controls her life.

Most articles and film reviews of Black Swan focus on Nina’s perfectionism, addressing possible motives, pressures,and illnesses that attempt to explain this unhealthy obsession that continuously unravels throughout the film. Websites such as Film Inquiry, The Haughty Culturist, and Collider all published articles with similar discussions of perfectionism in the film. Collider’s article titled “Black Swan Ending Explained: The Price of Perfection” lands on Nina’s mental health issues and psychosis as contributing to her decisions and behaviors toward perfection. Another conversation taking place more directly concerns the disordered relationship between Nina and her mother. The article “Two Reciprocal Selfobject Variants in Systems of Pathological Accommodation: Illustrations from the Movies Shine and Black Swan” by David Garfield et al. encapsulates the psychology behind Nina and her mother’s abnormally merged personalities and lifestyle. Though articles that mention both topics jointly exist, none focus on Nina’s relationship with her mother from the perspective of the Lacanian stages of development that fuel her drive for perfection.

On the surface of Black Swan, Nina desires to be perfect. However, this observation becomes more intricate when viewing the film from a Lacanian perspective through the role of the Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic order of human subjectivity—all of which influence Nina to become consumed in the idea of perfection. In this essay, I will argue using a Lacanian approach, how the film Black Swan presents perfectionism as the objet petit a: a way for Nina to attempt to fulfill her desire for the love and approval of her mother but instead becomes a slave to her desire and suffers the consequences. Best explained by philosopher Slavoj Žižek, “The objet petit a is not what we desire, what we are after, but, rather, that which sets our desire in motion, in the sense of the formal frame which confers consistency on our desire” (53). In simple terms, the objet petit a, such as perfectionism, is not the actual object of desire. Rather, it is an intangible object that only drives us to endlessly search for satisfaction in the false desire is based on what we perceive we lack; this search forces us into obsessive acts of desperation and self-ruin.

With this analysis of Black Swan, Nina can be seen as a prime example of what happens when our desires go beyond what we think we want, transforming our behavior into a distorted version fixated on achieving an idealized version of ourselves, risking our identity. Nina’s character undergoes drastic changes and is pushed to extremes, costing her mental state––the ultimate price for perfection.While this essay primarily explores Lacanian psychoanalysis within Black Swan, the themes of obsessive desire and toxic perfectionism go beyond the film to illustrate how external pressures challenge identity and self-image while propelling us to reach for the unattainable.

This relentless pursuit only backfires with the rise of our own psychological transformation that causes turmoil. To analyze the way Nina’s desire is structured and leads to her fate, I will first expand on Lacanian psychoanalysis of lack and desire, analyze her and her mother’s shared identity, and expand on how the Swan Queen role serves as Nina’s “mirror stage” and transforms her. Ultimately, I will explore why this performance of the Swan Queen does not fulfill her desire/drive towards perfection.