Badass Femmes is a bi-weekly column that I write on Crome Yellow about all the Badass Females in pop culture that has shaped my life.
This month I was drawn to women who earned their badass status through hard-working, intensely focused work ethic. Legally Blonde’s Elle Woods was an apt first choice, but to follow her up, I selected a very different kind of woman, one who literally dances on the darker side and pushes the boundaries of what’s humanly possible. That woman is Nina Sayers from Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. As the flip side of Elle Woods, Nina finds herself consumed by her goal and will stop at nothing (to her detriment) to succeed. Bringing Nina to life, Natalie Portman’s bone-chillingly nuanced performance is the embodiment of what happens when you let your passion bring out the worst in you. Channeling her fragility into strength, Nina’s intense goals threaten to ruin who she is, and it’s this struggle that the character illuminates so well.
