The De-Romanticization of Mental Illness in Darren Aronofsky

Few films have left me feeling more miserable  than Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream (2000) and Black Swan (2010). Something about his take on a tragic storyline always hits harder than your typical tale of loss, failure, or despair. For a long time, I could never pinpoint why. Why did both these films leave such an emotional impact on me that I’m terrified of ever rewatching? Why did they both leave me primed for self-sabotage and depression? What distinguishes Aronofsky’s films from other tragedies: ones which I can not only enjoy, but even reap inspiration from? Ultimately, the answer lies in the way Aronofsky de-romanticizes mental illness. 

The romanticization of mental illness has historically been an important topic in media analysis. Many films take mental illness and make it cool and exciting. Mental illness may be a clear source of the character’s suffering, but at least all that suffering is flashy and purposeful! Think of the classic film Fight Club (1999). Like Aronofsky’s Black Swan, Fight Club addresses split personalities and the delusions of the schizophrenic. But in Fight Club, the protagonist’s illness strengthens him and brings growth and purpose into his life.

And what does Aronofsky do with a similar topic? He absolutely crushes us. In Black Swan, our protagonist has similar hallucinations and manipulates her interactions and relationships with people as her illness progresses. By the end of the film, her mental illness has not improved her life in any way. Instead, it has destroyed her, sucked all meaning from the accomplishments of her dreams, and led to her implied death in the denouement. The moment when she stands on the stage dancing the role of the swan is not a moment of triumph, despite representing the culmination of her life’s work. Instead, what could’ve been a moment of ascendency is a fevered nightmare, as she collapses and bleeds out on the floor.

Aronofsky also sucks all romanticization from mental illness in his most famous film,

Requiem for a Dream. Requiem for a Dream deals with drug addiction. The mental illness of a

large cohort of characters is front and center the entire runtime. This film is extremely gritty and

shows how ugly mental illness can become. There is nothing beautiful, Aronofsky points out,

about self-harm or anorexia or hallucinations. There is nothing meaningful about crippling addiction. While some filmmakers would try to make us look on the bright side, have

their characters find the light at the end of the tunnel, or allow them to find peace and purpose as they face defeat, Aronofsky leaves room for none of this.

There is no bright side to the fates of Aronofsky’s protagonists and no seed of hope in their eventual downfall, which comes about not through the strength of unstoppable outside forces, but through the characters’ actions and self-aggravated illness. What makes these films so terrifying is how accessible these fates are to the rest of us. While films like Fight Club that romanticize mental illness are engaging and could exert a negative influence on us if we let them, there is no danger we could realistically end up like Tyler Durden. But falling victim to crippling paranoia or collapsing into an addiction? These are horrors that could absolutely happen in our own lives, and Aronofsky shows that there is nothing beautiful about it.

So, what is the bright side to watching Aronofsky, if any? If these films make you feel depressed and hopeless, why would you want to watch them? Aronofsky’s genius lies in his ability to make us look realistically at our own lives and our own potential issues. We aren’t living in a fantasy world with Darren Aronofsky. He forces us to look critically at ourselves and ask, do I really want this to happen to me? And as we work our way out of the gloomy fog his work casts over us for a day or two, the answer will almost invariably be no.