The Substance: Regrets and Forms of Greed
Exploring themes in The Substance and having a much needed conversation on aging.
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I had the joy of watching The Substance pretty soon after it came out in theaters. I’ve had so many thoughts, opinions, and questions to share with the class ever since so here I am once again. We are going to be talking about (gasp!) aging and societal standards placed on women as they get older especially in Hollywood. If you find this topic offensive (ew, gross, leave) then politely close your browser and have a hard long think about yourself and your intentions when it comes to women. If you in any way shape or form find yourself paying for this content and are absolutely not interested in hearing about women and their struggles, I do not want your money! :) Those are the only rules going forward, all conversation is welcome as long as we’re respectful (please) and productive with our words.
THERE ARE SPOILERS! PLEASE STOP READING HERE IF YOU HAVE NOT WATCHED THE SUBSTANCE OR PLAN TO WATCH IT WITHOUT KNOWING ANYTHING IN THE NEAR FUTURE.
In The Substance we follow Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), a former star fading from the spotlight of her fitness show. Even though she’s still enthusiastic and fit, she’s faced with her own insecurity regarding her visible age. This subject and internal struggle is not helped when her show is cancelled by a very gross man over lunch where he consumes way too many shrimp. I’m surprised he didn’t drop dead. Elisabeth ends up in the hospital and meets a very handsome doctor who describes her as the ‘perfect candidate’ for something he specifies nothing about and leaves a card in her pocket. While debating with herself on whether she will explore further into this mysterious information she has just been given, she calls the number and gets an address.
This place is creepy and absolutely unnerving. The door doesn’t even open all the way and the inside of the room is so blindingly white, I swear I wouldn’t be able to see after that flash-bang. We see Elisabeth collect her package out of what looks to be a PO Box before going back home in her trench coat and sunglasses to watch the tape provided. We’re now fully introduced to The Substance. A way for people who feel older and run-down to reinvent themselves in the form of a new body with free consciousness. Of course, you’re still tied to each other in specific ways as we’ll find out but the main stressor in this entire tape is the fact that both you and the new you are ONE. Elisabeth is skeptical as most would be, the general explanation makes this process sound easy and seamless, there has to be a catch no one’s informing her of. Never-the-less, she decides she’s going through with this.
If you didn’t know already, this film is filled to the brim with body horror, gore, and a touch of a fantasy world still grounded in reality. We get a mix of sci-fi and futuristic themes that seem too relatable and too close to fruition in our current world. It’s hard to find an older woman who hasn’t received botox or more. It’s hard to find people who are completely happy as they are and don’t want to change anything about themselves. As I sat down and continued to watch this movie, I was fascinated with how graphic the story was told. How bare to the bone and non-frilly the explanation of womanhood became. This isn’t a fun, hopeful watch. This is a message to our current society. In bold, they tell us nothing is as it seems. We’ve become too trusting with medications and with solutions. We’ve become direct results of a corrupt system we’ve single-handedly created. This will never become easier to digest, it will always sit in the bottom of our stomachs, the back of our brains, we don’t want to wilt away into nothing. We don’t want to spend our life fulfilling what seems to be our purpose just to be discarded and undermined. But even if this happens, life is not over as we know it.
Sue is born. A younger, beautiful, fit, model with luscious hair and everything a man or woman could ever dream of. Imagine waking up after being born directly out of someone’s back and being thrown into this process of switching between control and doing what has to be done to survive. Although Sue may appear to be a full grown woman, she has the mind of a naive girl who deserves better. In the beginning, she’s learning things about herself. She’s exploring this whole new world she never knew existed until this very moment. We then see her fall into Elisabeth’s habits. Instead of moving towards a different direction in career or personality or literally anything, she falls into the hands of the corrupt man who discarded Elisabeth as soon as he got a chance to seek a newer, fresher, ‘hotter’ version. After auditioning, she is now inducted into the place her counterpart once loved. This is the first time we really start to see them separate. Sue buys her own clothes to keep in the closet. She’s shown pushing Elisabeth’s items, awards, portraits, and food further from her own. She’s her own person now, she has her own friends, hobbies, and personality. She is Sue at her core.
From the moment Sue came into the world, she caused Elisabeth pain. Whether she was crawling from her body or erasing the image of what once was, Sue continues to blur the lines of caring and greedy. Although she stitched up Elisabeth’s back and put a pillow under her unconscious head, she feels as if Elisabeth is stealing her time for nothing productive. The result of the 7 day switch back into her old body was heaps of trash, a lit television, and old food sitting in the fridge and on the counter. If she wasn’t doing anything seemingly good for the world and was in Sue’s perspective, ‘stealing time’ why shouldn’t she do the same? Sue has things to do, she’s busy rehearsing routines and airing show episodes on TV. Her career only continues to grow by gaining a new spot at a more desirable hour and a New Year’s Eve show where she’ll look like the princess she feels she is inside. Who would be harmed by a couple extra days, weeks, or months?
Before things get too crazy, Elisabeth wakes up to her finger grossly aged, almost black and rotting. In confusion, she calls the number on the card she was originally given for answers. She seeks the answer that she’ll be able to return back to normal, she won’t have to wear a glove for the rest of her life and instead walk freely without any question. Instead, she learns that this change is irreversible even if she were to stop the substance. Now she finds herself in a difficult position, let go of the reborn life she has been gifted and continue to only live in her body with the new finger aging progression or continue and risk further deterioration at the hands of the other version of herself. At this point, she feels as if it’s not even a question, she has no option but to continue. Before switching, she calls someone she knew in the past and had bumped into after her doctor’s visit earlier in the movie. He described her in ways she was unfamiliar with now. She’s heard she’s still the most beautiful girl in his eyes and seeks the confidence he had once given to her now that she’s more fragile than ever.
This is where we get one of the best scenes in my opinion. After dressing to impress and spending time on herself, Elisabeth looks longingly into the mirror. The more Elisabeth stares at herself, the more she seems to see all of her flaws. All of the things that once made her beautiful to everyone have slowly become her biggest insecurities. Although she seems to be put together, that’s not how she feels inside. Her physical appearance doesn’t fit what she wants to be especially after seeing Sue and her recent accomplishments in her place. Red lipstick is then smeared all over her face demonstrating her slow dip into gradual madness and anger. To summarize this scene, she doesn't end up going out to meet anyone. Instead, she drops back into her normal routine of watching television and trying to waste the days away until Sue takes over.
Sue continues to take advantage of the time she’s given herself to grow and succeed in her career and own life. She’s built relationships and is looking forward to being who she’s seemingly supposed to be. Although she had grown angry at Elisabeth for wasting away her days and Elisabeth had grown angry at Sue for stealing all of her time away at her discomfort, there is still a deep rooted connection between the two. They are the same, they are one. That is until Elisabeth decides she’s fed up with everything. She doesn't care if she has to live out the rest of her days in pain, confined to her own apartment. She wants to end the suffering she has been consumed with at her own hand, her own greed for something more beautiful. Something more fresh. She’s given an injection to give to Sue’s unconscious body in order to ‘get rid of her’ forever. Although her impact will stay in the form of Elisabeth’s newly acquired extreme aged appearance and her disappearance from her newfound stardom as a whole. After almost being done with the injection, Elisabeth begins to reject her dissatisfaction of the life that’s been taken away from her. What’s the point if she can have solitude and goals as someone new at the same time? Just at this moment of realization Sue awakens out of her deep slumber showing another, more defined split between the two of them.
I have to blame the injection for them being able to live synonymously with each other for the first time since this ordeal began. Because Elisabeth no longer wanted to be one with Sue and manifested it physically, they have now separated into different people. Elisabeth looks at Sue as if this is her first time seeing her. This is when she realizes that even though they weren’t existing at the same time, they were both deserving of equal amounts of life. Sue is just enraged after seeing the syringe lying on the carpet. Everything has almost been taken from her without a second thought, without her permission or consent. A battle takes place, blood is drawn and there is no going back from here. Sue kills Elisabeth Sparkle once and for all. Or so she thinks.
Sue is falling apart and fast both physically and mentally. She begins to deteriorate from her finger nails ripping off to her teeth falling out. We get a scene where the gross man who has been in control of her career from the start introduces her to another group of men who are equally infatuated with her. From the male gaze, even when she’s falling apart, Sue is still a star. She is hiding all of her pain and undesirable ‘issues’ to still appear perfect for them. She’s told to smile like most women are by awful men. She needs to appear satisfied with their conversation, enlightened even that they gave her their attention. She grins big without her teeth considering her situation and then runs home to find what she’s looking for, a fresh start as a newer better version of herself. This is the brutal cycle of reinvention, of perfection. Instead she gets the opposite.
Now we meet the monster these women have created. Still needing to follow through with her hosting position, this creature gets ready by curling a few strings of very greasy hair and poking expensive jewelry through its lack of ears. Most would say this is disgusting, unsettling even. This thing isn’t a human, it’s the manifestation of slimy greed. Monstro Elisasue is alive and breathing. Although she may not be the most attractive thing we’ve ever witnessed, this scene is supposed to bring out the worst and most judging sides of ourselves. Instead of reflecting on our repulsed attitudes, we’re simply sitting in them.
Everything about this creature is meant to implode. Elisabeth’s face can be seen on its back, voiceless and in pain like she hadn’t experienced. She’s not in control anymore. In fact, she’s never been this out of control before. Even when switching back with Sue and dealing with the disrespect of the balance, she still had a sense of self. Even when she was looking back at herself in the mirror and couldn’t see any of her defining physical qualities anymore, she was able to speak and breathe in her body. She was able to be outraged about her situation. Now she is nothing more than a parasite, a side character placed on her own creation.
The end of this film is brutal. We see guts. We see blood. We see bile. But most importantly we see a sense of relief from Elisabeth. She finds herself laying atop her walk of fame star before what I interpret as finally giving up her need for control over her life. She’s exhausted of going through something she can’t quite explain. She’s done with being in a situation where she feels replaced. She can finally find peace in knowing everyone who was spectating her life got what they deserved. She got her second 15 minutes and made the people in charge suffer for it after years of putting expectations on her shoulders. She can now feel content in knowing she’s imperfect in so many ways. She can feel content in knowing this cycle is finally over as she knows it.
The Substance reminds so many people of so many different things that they’ve been through throughout their own lives. It can stand for struggling with a mother daughter relationship, an eating disorder, work life balance, and so much more. I love hearing people describe what they picked up from this movie whenever I ask if they’ve watched it. It can mean everything and anything if you look at it through the right lens. The movie engulfs the theme of pain, yearning, and standards of beauty that we all are a little too familiar with. The creators definitely chose the right time to release this work of art to the public. We’re in the midst of plastic surgery becoming the new normal. ‘Fixing’ yourself and wanting to see who you used to be in the mirror is what we’re forced into feeling we need to do instead of seeing our growth, achievements, and physical experience as a regular part of life and as a positive feeling. I admire those who accept themselves in whatever way they feel comfortable. This is not commentary on how getting a nose job or a face lift or botox is a bad thing that you should never do. It’s more of a reflection into the motivation behind us feeling as if we want or need to do that in the first place.
Public figures and media have taught us that we need to look like them even though we don’t have the proper resources to maintain their lifestyle. Someone with a lot of money can dig into their pockets for a surgery without a second thought and post about how amazing it is and how young they look and how everyone should be doing this to ‘better themselves’. But when normal working people go in for a consultation and see the vast amount of digits laid before us in order to feel ‘pretty’ or to be ‘accepted’, we’d have to pull out cash that we’d be thinking about for the rest of our lives.
If you’re looking for more in-depth content regarding beauty trends and plastic surgery in modern society, I’ve linked some of my favorite YouTube video deep dives for you below.
And in the mean-time, take care of yourself.
