At its foundation, Dancer in the Dark is essentially a character study. Selma is presented as such a pure, selfless, optimistic, and spiritual being that it becomes nearly impossible not to sympathize with her. Although sentenced for a murder she did in fact commit, the audience is aware of Selma’s driving forces—ones that the court never gets close to approaching. Selma’s actions throughout the film are done only in love, and without compromise. She becomes startlingly heroic as she refuses to break her promise with Bill, even if her testimony that he was bankrupt would save her life. Instead when asked by the court why Bill would ask her to kill him, she only says “he asked me to.” She is the epitome of selflessness, respecting Bill’s wishes even after he committed the most selfish act possible against her. Selma’s unbelievable selflessness is reflective of her optimism toward her situation. When Selma unburdens her heart to Bill, she smiles while talking about her blindness. She is relentlessly hopeful, as her hope is centered on Gene’s future. This inspiring display of moral fiber is reinforced by Selma’s unique spirituality, which is found in music. Unique musical-style interruptions intersperse the film, choreographed to Selma’s original day-dreamy soundtrack. These moments reveal Selma’s hopefulness and acknowledgement of a greater reality than the one she is part of. A particularly poignant example of her hopefulness and spirituality is found in the song “New World”, with the lines “if living is seeing, I’m holding my breath—in wonder, I wonder, what happens next? A new world, a new day to see.” She sees more in the world, although she can not physically see at all. Selma is an indisputably complex individual, so it becomes necessary to question what makes her behave the way she does in order to fully understand the film and the writer’s motives.
As prescribed by the discipline of psychology, human behavior can be interpreted in any of five varying perspectives. Particularly revealing to Selma’s situation are the biological angle, the experiential viewpoint, and the socio-cultural perspective. Selma is in an inarguably distinctive biological condition compared with those around her in the film. Her body is in itself an obstacle she must tackle. Of course, everybody is faced with particular bodily features and limitations. These aspects, however normal or unique they may seem, influence one’s way of life drastically. Selma’s life is primarily affected by her handicap and race, but even as simply being born a woman. The film makes no mention of a husband for her or any reason for having a child, but her life is almost completely guided by her actions as a mother in protecting her son. She could have avoided pregnancy with preventative actions, but even so, being a female in the first place led to her future lifestyle as a mother.
Selma's Czechoslovakian lineage became an aspect of her life that she had absolutely no control over, and one that further distinguishes her from those around her in 1960’s Washington. Although her lineage blurs the line between biological and social/environmental influences, Selma’s biology simply stems from a Czech family tree. Her lineage can be seen to affect her in several ways during the film, particularly in the realm of stereotypes. The socialist message is undoubtedly supported in the film, but characters often presuppose Selma to be communist, as in the factory scene where Norman randomly comments on sharing, addressing Selma and Kathy as “you commies.” Selma’s birth in communist Czechoslovakia also limited her potential options, as she was left with little education and few skills to use in America. This is a largely environmental concept, but with a different genealogical starting point, she may have been subject to vastly different circumstances and an immeasurably different attitude, lifestyle, and fate.
Selma’s most noticeable and plot-driving biological feature is her disease of approaching blindness. This trait was another genetic hand-me-down, one that completely altered the course of Selma’s future. However, her own blindness seems to be secondary to the fact that Gene will suffer the same fate without surgical intervention. Still, Selma’s behavior is significantly altered by her own experience in a quickly darkening world. She finds herself unable to walk home easily, work, watch a movie, and to even pour herself a drink without her vision. Her psychological experience quickly turns inward, and physical blindness does not hinder her from experience. She does not lament, but instead sings, “I’ve seen it all—there is no more to see!”
The disability only increases Selma's spiritual tie to music and sound. When in an isolated cell, she finds herself hopeless in such a soundless environment. But when she sings to herself and listens to the ventilation, she can find a much needed solace from her desolate reality. The genetic aspect of her disease affects Selma more through her concern for Gene than for herself. She acknowledges that she knew Gene would have the same disease when he was born, but had him anyways. To compensate for what she considers to be her fault, she spends her American life saving money for Gene’s surgery. This biologically-driven motivation is as equally vital to the plot as is capitalism. Where Bill is concerned with his socioeconomic standing, Selma is concerned with her son’s wellbeing. These vastly different motivations construct the tragic outcome of Bill’s death and Selma’s condemnation. Still, Selma never complains or compromises in her pursuit to save Gene. Actually, the biological disease eventually becomes so entrenched in Selma’s life that it gives meaning to her existence.
In an interesting intersection of biological and experiential psychological perspectives, Selma finds meaning for herself within her disorder. It is not a stretch to say that Selma’s optimism and overall strength of character are built upon her personal answers to significant existential concerns. Stevens gives three existential concerns as “the experience of time (and finiteness), the capacity to choose, and the need for meaningfulness” (154). Selma is surely aware of her own being, and in the space of this film alone she is forced to reconcile with all three aforementioned issues. Meaning in Selma’s life is grounded in her need to redeem Gene’s life and have him “see his grandchildren.” Not only does she overwork herself and struggle as a blind woman in capitalist America, but when faced with the option of using her money to buy a lawyer and effectively save her life or to buy Gene’s surgery, she sacrifices her life to pay for Gene. Selma is also forced to confront her finiteness as a human being while waiting for her execution. When her time is up, she becomes so afraid for her life that she can barely walk, and faints before having the noose around her neck. But when Kathy tells her that Gene had received the surgery and would be able to see his grandchildren, Selma stops crying entirely, calms down, and sings “Dear Gene, of course you are here/ And now it's nothing to fear/ I should have known/ I was never alone”, a moving episode where she finds self-actualization before her death.
A final psychological approach to Selma’s behavior is the socio-cultural perspective. Many relevant cultural details have already been mentioned, all having to do with Selma’s experience as a Czech immigrant in 1960’s America. She is forced to exist within a cultural divide, and is often subject to stereotyping. The largest gap between her original culture and new home is the socialist difference. Selma might have even constructed her vision of America based around her views of it in musicals, as evident in her words, “I saw in a musical a house just like yours and I thought ‘how nice it must be in America’.” The media representation of American culture can be seen as a social construct because it is an invented concept of culture. Selma perceived American musicals from her background in Czechoslovakia and simply deduced it as reality. Unfortunately, Selma’s life in America was much more tragic than the lives she had enjoyed in the cinema. She was subject to socio-cultural stereotyping, especially in her trial as one attorney described her as “a fundamentally selfish and communistic individual who cynically hides behind a handicap.” Of course, Selma was quite the opposite. But the socio-cultural difference and situation led everyone around her to assume that she was guilty of petty theft and cold-blooded murder.
Dancer in the Dark is a unique study that offers many insights into the realms of political-science and psychology, as well as finding a middle ground where the two meet. The socio-cultural perspective in and of itself seems to focus on this middle ground. Still, there is more to be said on the subject. One significant venue for combining personality with politics is in Selma’s trial, where Selma is stereotyped and condemned. Although she is shown to be optimistic despite her blindness and the most selfless being imaginable, the court still critiques her as “selfish” and “merciless” in her crime. Bill, on the other hand, is left alone as a kind and generous neighbor. This skewed perspective of each character is possible through the fundamental attribution error, where Selma is simply dismissed as the evil perpetrator and Bill the innocent victim. Such an attribution error is then used as evidence to sentence her to death. Really, the film blends the two disciplines so entirely that Selma could only face the same fate in her particular situation of threatening capitalism (political in nature) colliding with her pursuit of personal existential meaning (psychological in nature).
A point could even be made to argue that Selma’s biological blindness symbolizes the need for community for survival, as she would become more and more dependant on others for help. But as the film pans out, it is clear that her environment is unwilling to help. Nevertheless, the political shortcomings she faces do not kill her spirit. She even sings out to the audience, “this is not the last song,” implying that the story goes on forever. And her meaning is found in that realization. The film’s great tragedy is only skin deep, as Selma breaches the lines between her reality as a fictional character and the audience’s reality. She had told Bill earlier in the film, “Isn’t that annoying when they do the last song [in musicals]? You just know it’s going to end? I hate that. I would leave the cinema just after the next to last song, and the film would just go on forever.” With that in mind, the director clearly wants the viewer to take the film’s final words with them, to absorb them and remember them. They are the words of Selma herself, dead in body but alive in spirit.
“They say it’s the last song
They don’t know us, you see
It’s only the last song
If we let it be.”
