LaneGate: Dead Horse Edition

The Wall Street Journal, who have not covered themselves in glory in covering the facts in this story, offered Natalie and Lane the opportunity to write about their experiences making Black Swan…even though Natalie basically did that for a couple months in promotion for the film. To nobodies surprise, Natalie declined and Sarah jumped at the chance.

You can read the piece here, which is not as strongly worded as some of her recent statements, but still quite upset that Black Swan wasn’t a documentary about ballet.

I’m not done yet, hit the jump.

Personally, I’m more annoyed with the media coverage of this news than I am with Lane. Lane is just one bitter ballet dancer and if she wants to throw her toys out of the pram, well that’s her choice. But one would like to think the media would at least put some effort into seeking out facts and taking an objective point of view. The Daily Beast put forward a piece that was made to look like it was taking everyone’s opinions into consideration, but they left out key passages of Aronofsky’s statement, which is surely the most important statement about this entire news item. Not only that but they repeated that Natalie didn’t mention Lane while promoting the film, without even throwing in a “Lane alleges”.

So I signed up for the comments section and left a message explaining, in very moderate language, that the allegation is patently false and Natalie did mention Lane. I also commented that the media really should do their homework a bit more. Needless to say, that comment was not approved. I also tweeted the writer of the article about it. Again, not a peep. They simply do not care about those annoying little things called facts, and that is far more annoying and worrying than what Lane has done.

But back to Lane, Natnat made a really good post over on the forums, and I think it’s well worth sharing here on the main site.

I think Mary Helen Bowers said it well when she said; “If you’re going to play a ballerina, you’re going to have to train like one”. And that’s what Natalie did. She trained, she tried to absorb herself in that world so that she could be as believable as possible.

Where this sloppy reporting has come from that she has claimed she’s a professional ballet dancer is beyond me. Natalie did interviews with some of these people and they can’t even be bothered to look in their own archive.

Sarah Lane is very transparent to me. This is not just about credit and standing up for dancers. If it was then she would mention Maria Riccetto and Kimberly Prosa. In fact she hasn’t mentioned their contributions at all. Fair is fair right? As fanatical said, these two have had even less credit than her. Why not use this opportunity to shine a light on them as well. It’s been all about her so far.

This girl acts like ballet dancers are the hardest working professionals out there. There are a hell of alot more professions out there that are equally hard working that don’t even get a mention and without their work our way of life would not exist.

This girl is consumed by ballet. She can’t see anything else. Being passionate about something is one thing but she is almost cult-like in her devotion.

If Natalie wrote what this girl wrote but from an acting perspective, the comments would be that Natalie is soo pretentious. Yet this girl has so much support.

There are a group of ballet afiliates on twitter that have created a fake account and have been disparaging Natalie and have disgustingly brought Natalie’s baby into this whole matter. They are hypocrites. They indulge in the very same nasty behaviour they’re accusing Natalie of; MISREPRESENTATION!!

Listening to Natalie speak about ballet actually gave me more appreciation for ballet than Sarah Lane’s odious odes to ballet.