The Hype Over Black Swan

The Black Swan has been getting lots of hype lately. Everyone wants a great movie to escape the Holiday madness. And I’ll admit, Black Swan seems to be something that people are defiantly enjoying. However, as an eating disorder awareness advocate I look at this movie in a different light. I find it very hard to watch emaciated stars prance around the big screen. My pulse quickened just viewing the trailer.

Natalie Portman’s already uber restrictive vegan diet was reduced even more for her training as a ballet dancer. To top that off she was working out for 5-8 hours per day. My heart just hurts for her little body! Director Darren Aronofsky became so worried about Natalie Portman's weight loss on the set of new movie Black Swan; he begged the skinny actress to eat. Aronofsky states "Portman took the role very seriously. These dancers get really, really skinny... At a certain point I looked at her back and she was so skinny and so... I was like, 'Natalie, start eating.”

Image obtained from Access Hollywood

Image obtained from gloss.com

Mila Kunis, who also stars as a ballet dancer in Black Swan, told E! Online, that her weight loss was so extreme it concerned her family. "My mom freaked out," Kunis said. "She was like, 'You have to promise me this isn't going to affect you.' I was like, 'I promise it won't, but it might take me a little time to be OK with having a little more fat on me.'"

Kunis also admitted she hated looking at her shapeless body in the mirror. "I could see why this industry is so f****d up, because ... I would literally look at myself in the mirror and I was like, 'Oh my God!' I had no shape, no boobs, no ass ... all you saw was the bone. I was like, 'This looks gross. In real life, I looked disgusting, but in photographs and on film, it looked amazing."

Both Portman and Kunis reportedly lost around 20 pounds off their already thin frames. I wish that these were not the images we as society feel are beautiful. I wish we could have watched these actresses dance without them pushing their bodies to near skeletal existences. I don’t think it was necessary for Portman or Kunis to turn to such extreme dieting for their roles, and I wish they could have withstood the pressure to lose so much weight.

Instead of discussing the dangers of dieting to the point of starvation we are reeling in the “beauty” and talent of these actresses. I simply feel differently…in fact, with my oopposing viewpoints I sometimes feel like an alien in our society. But this isn’t the first time I have stood up to what the media deems worthy of our respect. And it won’t be the last.