Hi! This is just my own takeaway from The Substance - obviously I am expecting people to disagree since the movie has gotten vastly positive reviews. The general response to my take (on here and IRL) has been that xyz is "the point" of the movie, but for me it relies a bit too heavily on those assumptions. But that's just me! Debate away. here's my Letterboxd review of the film!: letterboxd.com/broey_deschanel/film/the-substance/
I like your takeaway, it's coherent. And I love that you included cinema history in it and gave us the name of the two genres the movie is composed of. Very informative!
Whilst I don't disagree with your thesis, as an actor/performer myself, I did find the themes resonant with my own lived experience. Personally, i think the film starkly highlighted how the entertainment industry often pushes the body to its limits and cuts you off from building meaningful relationships without any consideration for the persons wellbeing or what their quality of life would be after they retire/are no longer seen as a profitable commodity. Personally, I thought the body jumpscares represented injury and body strain. Additionally I thought it was intentional and poignant to showcase Elizabeth with no friends/loved ones/support network. As performers we are conditioned to be shallow and selfish...and above all prioritise our careers over everything else. Wanting a work life balance is seen as you not taking the "opportunity" seriously enough. I saw Elizabeth as a woman who gave her entire life to performing and afterwards realising she has been left with nothing. To me, the most horrifying aspect of the film was how starkly it showcased the industry pushing people to their physical/ emotional limits, the social pressures to commodify yourself through performing beauty and the inevitability of being discarded no matter how much or how long you try to conform to the shallow, unrealistic and unachievable standards of beauty set by executives.
@@Brahmabullzshe could, but hasn't the internet already done that for us with the man vs bear conversation? a video on that topic would basically just be a rehash of that convo, because it's pretty clear from statistics alone why anyone would be afraid of young men...or even just men, in general. she could even tie it all together by doing an analysis of Alex Garland's 2022 "horror" film, Men. and I'd still watch any or all of those videos.
Whilst I widely agree with your points about hagsploitation, I think a point has been missed about Demi Moore being cast who, as you said, barely has any signs of aging. I saw that as the point. She has been fired and her career ended because she's turned 50, and now she can't stop looking at herself and hating what she sees. We, as an audience, see an almost flawless superstar, but it's still not good enough according to Hollywood. She is sitting in the restaurant looking gorgeous whilst the man who controls her future gorges sloppily on shrimp whilst leering at the young waitress. This is what Hollywood is all about.
I loved how margaret qualley is low key worse looking than Demi Moore she had to really hate herself to go thru all of that. like so many people who struggle with body issues and yet are told they are beautiful. or people getting plastic surgery and becoming “uglier”. she mistreats herself so deeply beyond just taking the substance. If I took the substance, I wouldn’t put myself in a sad hidden room I would put myself in a giant fluffy bed. I see it as a parable in loving yourself.
I totally understand why they cast Demi - and that this was the point of her assuming this role. The reason I bring up her young looks is in relation to the idea that actual aged bodies are not visible to us in cinema, and in media more broadly!
I got emotional hearing your empathy for the older women who might have been watching this in a theater and heard that type of audience reaction. This is the type of compassion that's so often missing from media criticism & analysis 💞
Elisabeth gave up everything for fame, including her relationships. That's why she has no friends. That's why no one comes looking for her when she goes missing for actual months. She only has the approval of the board of men and the world at large. She has no intimacy. She is afraid of what true vulnerability means, which is partly why she stands up her date. Elisabeth hates herself. That's why all of her violence is inward and why she doesn't attack people who push these insecurities onto her. That's why she saves Sue from termination. "You're the best part about me." Except that she isn't. When Sue uses the activation liquid again she creatres a "better, more perfect" version of them. This is a monster that combines the two of them, and its the first time we see anyone look in a mirror without hating themselves. Later, they are punished for daring to be a woman in public who doesn't care that she's ugly. The whole point of the "bum shot" of older Elisabeth is to contrast the one thousand bum shots of Sue that we've seen before. And these shots are not meant to titilate, they're meant to leer. We leer at Sue's body, and then when we are presented with Elisabeth's elderly body we are presented with "isnt this what you like to see?" And the answer should have been NO the whole time, not just when looking at Hag!Elisabeth. Later, when Elisasue falls apart, we see Elisabeth actually happy for the first time: when she doesn't have a body at all.
@@michaelotis223 normally I enjoy Broey's analysis, but this time I definitely got the sense she did not like the movie and this video reflects that and in her pinned comment. This analysis misses a lot of what the movie was going for and I often find she holds the live audience's reaction to the movie to be The Reaction of the film and that coloured this video quite a bit. We also had people laughing in our theatre, but I genuinely believe that this laughter is from the catharsis of horror, not from the mockery of Elisabeth's body. I wish she had met it on its own terms and in the context of Hagsploitation the depiction of older women on screen, rather than comparing it so much to The Fly, which is more about a man's hubris.
@@Dycehart Agreed. It seems to me that Broey is pointing out her experience watching the film with an audience, moreso than tackling any actual shortcomings of the film itself. There's no mistaking the theme of self-loathing in almost every frame of Fargeat's movie. Self-loathing isn't something Cronenberg was actively commenting on, so it sounds like Broey disingenuously faulting The Substance for not doing something that The Fly did. Its like she's trying so hard to justify why this film left her uncomfortable. It's something I myself fall into whenever a movie didn't meet my arbitrary standards. That's why I always remind myself to take any movie I watch for what it is and what the storytellers were going for, as opposed to what I would have personally liked the movie to be.
Executives can act like they know what the audience want but having positive or atleast entertaining senior citizen stories (especially women) is something we’ve all been fond of throughout. Give them roles, give them dignity. Problem solved.
I very much agree with you. However your words "give them dignity" makes it feel to me like this would some act of mercy. If we let men act all over the place regardless of their age, why not the women too? There are plenty of senior actresses (i.e. over 50) who act rings around younger ones. And who also look very well (for their age, or regardless), so that cannot be a reason not to give them roles.
@@xaviarnl Let men? What are you on about? Men in Hollywood are doing insane things to their bodies to get and keep roles. So many steroids, insane diets, and purposeful dehydration for a more cut look. The grass ain’t greener sweetie..
Maybe it's because I had a different viewing experience streaming this movie at home, or maybe it's because I'm pushing 40, have never been conventionally attractive, and have a doctor who tried to get me to take Ozempic to change my body, but this movie impacted me and I did empathize with Elisabeth from start to finish. I could feel my self hatred and the pressure I feel to change myself to suit the expectations of others reflected in every tragic scene. The hardest part for me to watch was when Elisabeth breaks down in front of the mirror and stands up her date. It was way too familiar and uncomfortable. Even the scenes where she covers herself up from head to toe to leave the house, and the fear she seems to feel that someone will see and judge her are difficult to sit through. Demi Moore's more grounded and subdued performance gave me the feeling that Elisabeth believes she doesn't belong or doesn't deserve to belong in this world, which makes Margaret Qualley's performance make more sense in comparison. It's one of the most uncomfortable movies I have watched in a long time, and it's not because of the unrealistic older body that they came up with. It's because it does hold up a mirror for me.
For me, the difference in Moore and Qualley's performance emphasizes that Sue is not a "real" person. She is an act, a charade. Moore is the actual human being who comes back home and binge-eats as a failed means to cope with her depression and dysmorphia.
I think it's leaning a lot more towards "tragic" rather than "punishment" since they made a point of covering the audiance in her blood, implying she is not to blame.
I'm not sure if this interpretation is correct but I saw the agieng body of Elisabeth to be less about really ageing and more about our collective fear of what ageing looks like, her hunched back, her sagging limbs, she didn't really look human at all. In this way it's not as exaggerated as the fly but to me it's still half way there. I think watching this video also solidified how much I enjoyed that the film separated Elisabeth and Sue into two bodies and not two alter egos inhabiting one body. It does actually a few interesting things: 1. It puts Sue as an unreachable idea for Elisabeth. To some extent Sue is an extension of Elisabeth yet Elisabeth cannot enjoy her younger body. She can only take part in her success and beauty indirectly, and due to her rapidly growing self hate, this becomes enough. 2. It shows how fragile Sue is and how self hate can be contagious. As Elisabeth hates herself, so does Sue hate Elisabeth, despite the fact that they are one. Despite the fact that the Substance does not prevent ageing at all, it just gives you another body. Sue is this unreachable standard and at the same time, also subject to the whims of the studio execs. If she isn't found attractive anymore, her fate will be that of Elisabeth's, and she resents that. 3. There is a broader point here that just as Sue takes life from Elisabeth. We similarly rob our parents of their youth. We stand on (for better or worse) on the shoulders of those who come before us. From the moment of childbirth to independence. The elders of our life, their experience, their trauma, their habits, are all passed down to us. Their lives, to some extent can/will mirror ours. Yet despite this, we place a premium on youth and despise ageing, even though it is their lives we take. At one point Elisabeth was the pinnacle of beauty, at another point it was Sue. Following this I think MonstoroElisaSue actually just represents (or could be read as) the constant mutation of these beauty standards. How they are so contradictory and sometimes so opposed to one another from one generation to the next, that if they manifested as a body we would acknowledge them for what they really are, something monstrous. Edit: I also want to add during the scene where Elisabeth the hag is shown, It struck me as deeply sad. Not because of her ageing, but because she sees herself of so little value that she is willing to have the life literally sucked out of her for a brief participation in being young. Not sure if anyone will read, but this was a great video as always
my grandmother used to say, "beauty is pain," when I complained about shoes or clothes being uncomfortable. She is right in a much darker sadder way than I realized. I have always been a bit of a rebel when it comes to beauty standards, eschewing the need to wear makeup all the time and color my gray hairs. But the pressure is there. People comment on my hair all the time. I asked my husband if someone ever told him he should dye his grays so he'd look younger. Literally never. I can't imagine how a literal sex symbol like Demi Moore must feel in terms of the pressure to look young. I kind of love how she keeps her long dark hair too, many women cut their hair short bc "long hair is for young women" (another thing my grandma said) but fuck that, her hair is incredible.
I actually feel like for me the horror was more so the fact that her body had rapidly morphed without her being able to process the changes but I do appreciate your take
i heard that this film is also an allegory for motherhood and pregnancy. especially when elisabeth is screaming "i made you, you would be nothing without me" at the tv. the extreme gore around being inhabited and invaded in ones own body. being left alone to grow old. i need to look into this more but i am curious on your read through that lens!
The amount of women I meet irl who dread every birthday after 25 and question their worth is depressing. We're taught that aging is scary, and your experience in the theatre just proved that further. I really wish we had more "normal" looking people on screen and that youth wasn't so coveted, because no matter what, youth only lasts for a short period of time, and aging is a privilege. I cannot handle horror movies personally so won't be watching this or the fly, but really appreciated your dive into them!
Being scared of aging to a certain degree makes sense though and that applies to everyone, not just women. When you age, your body becomes less capable. You get weaker. You get tired faster. Your body starts to malfunction and to fix it you start taking pills to help you with your conditions (i.e for blood pressure etc). You have less energy to do things. Your organism becomes more fragile. And beyond all that you face your upcoming death that comes closer every year. And you start looking at your life and think, "did I live up to my potential? Did I spend my time meaningfully? What legacy do I leave behind? Did I have fun? Am I happy with the life I've lead?
I had a similar experience during The Substance with people laughing at a scene I found to be very tragic - when Monstro Elisasue tries to wear Sue's NYE blue dress, ripping it as she struggles to fit it onto her "monstrous" new body, stabbing the earrings through her skin, doing everything she can to dress up what is very much a societally non-viable body into one that feels beautiful to her, I felt the same sense of dread and helplessness I felt in early transition - trying to fit into a piece of clothing that is clearly made for someone with very different proportions than you but feeling like you don't deserve to walk outside unless you can somehow manage it. Elisasue had a surprising amount of what seemed like an innocent hopefulness - "maybe no one will notice". It hit really hard as a trans woman. And of course the filmmakers did not intend for this reading, but I can't help but notice how the way older cis women are treated is much the same as non-passing (or even in many cases well-passing) trans women are treated. "Monstrous" fits very well for the way we are both viewed, as is the simultaneous farcical and fearful way that people view our femininity. Idk just some thoughts
love reading this, i felt so much of it too while watching as a transitioning trans man (who's still seen as someone who's corrupting a "sacred feminine" body to be something that is as "ugly" as the masculine self) watching that third act! it's incredibly sad and tragic just as much as it is chaotic and thrilling, just felt so much sympathy for elisasue
I found it really endearing because i thought she was finally loving herself and i was like "work girl" lol but then she hid her face. I guess the monster form is supposed to be consequence of insecurity? but that itself feels shallow...
@@sapphic.flower i didn't see anything as a punishment tbh, coralie seems like a "more is more" director to me, so i do enjoy how elizabeth/sue don't really "learn" anything and it all plays out in the tragic ending. elisasue hiding her face elavated the real sadness of the whole scene to me!
you just made me cry i felt this also watching the substance as a 6 foot trans girl in a 5 feet dominated country it's very sad to some even if im attractive ... a freak show they will never look at me as a woman or a girl even if my waist size is as small as my hand i will never be enough cause im TRANS i loved the substance cause you can interpret it in many different ways
I'm glad I'm not the only one who had an emotional reaction to the 3rd act of this film. I've noticed a lot people who relate to Elisasue tend to be gay, trans, disabled, or neurodivergent
Being an older woman, I love this dive into hagsploitation (I didn't know this term until this video), but also, see the point this movie tries to make very differently. First of all, I don't think this movie is about beauty per se, more about fame and the sick Hollywood star system. It literally *eats* people's lives, especially those of women, devouring them, deforming them and then throwing them away when they're sucked dry of youth, beauty and energy. And yet, though in the end it has cost them everything, these former stars long for that blip of time when they were relevant. It's hollow, it's nothing, it's dehumanizing, but it is everything they had, everything they were. Working in this industry, I think "The Substance" captures this feeling of longing for this fame, which is abusive love, but the love they know - while also showing us the totally misogynistisc way in which this system works. I think this is why Sparkle doesn't age realistically at all. I know this might be hard to grab if you're younger and unfamiliar with older bodies, but this is not an old woman! This is clearly a monster, the sort of Baba Yaga witch-monster figure that is so prevalent in European mythology. And I find it hard to describe, but seeing this as an older woman, I found the images very very powerful. Yes, she is terrifying and monstrous, but she also has the power to destroy the whole system. And she does! The sagging boob is part of this imagery - it is the s3xual subverted to something this system can't deal with. A s3x symbol, reclaimed by women themselves. This is something I (and many older women) would love to be, I think; a monster that finally gets their way with the patriarchs that took everything from them. This is a totally different read, but I'm wondering if - if you'll rewatch this movie in twenty, thirty years - you'll understand more of this point of view.
My grandmother would agree with you. She told me that her aging body being able to scare and disgust men was the most freeing and empowering thing she experienced after years of being raped and abused by older males when she was young.
I would not call the substance hagsploitation film. I would say it's more about the self hatred that women are taught in society. I liked the different tones that the film and it was done on purpose between the younger and older self. Elisabeth could have been happy with the former high school school mate but she didn't think she deserved it due to self hatred that woman are taught. The scene where she is getting ready in the bathroom then she hates on herself is the point of the movie. Also how once women pass the age of reproduction we are taught we hold no value in society.
Can a film about the self hatred that women are taught in society and also how once women pass the age of reproduction we are taught we hold no value in society, where the self hatred is the point of the movie not also be influenced by hagsploitation or pyschobity films?
@dolphingang3767 i'm not sure what your experiences in life are, but in their first encounter she was clearly awkard, and hell, maybe even looked down on him, sure, but by the time she was like "you know what? let's give it a chance, why should i stop going out?", she didn't believe she, herself, was good enough for him or to even put a foot out the door. She was way too ashamed to even show up, when who knows, he may have not cared about the finger, but she panicked, and couldn't fix it the way she envisioned it, so now it was, in her eyes, all over for her. she might as well just stay inside forever and make a mess because who cares right? she is as good as dead looking like that. (it's not what i think, but it's what the movie conveys, and i and others with self image issues, body dismorphia, even eating disorders and who are constantly judged as a woman based on their "fuckability" (you are as good as dead past 30 for many men), well, i'm sure they understand the feelings conveyed, and it wasn't that her friend wasn't good enough, but that she didn't deem herself good enough anymore to even go on a simple, chill date, or even put a foot outside.
"Outside of horror, when do we ever see a sagging breast on screen" !!! Thank you, that is so succinctly put! I've been thinking about this for years now, and there is SO much that we just never see on screen. I have never seen an authentic and sympathetic portrayal of a person who is "ugly" or "unattractive". You do not see their bodies, you do not see them have sex, and you do not see them unless they're in the background or if they exist for the audience to mock or be horrified by. And I feel like this is the fate of any person deemed "ugly" by the current trend of beauty standards. And it's so insidious because I know so many people who shy away from so many social interactions because of media and this narrow definition of what a person looks like makes them feel so undeserving of anything. Like, no wonder my 22 yo friends are using retinol.
Yeah for women it’s definitely that sense of being rejected by society, being ignored or having your personhood denied. I think these movies just feed that fear (and therefore patriarchal standards lol) when we should cherish aging
I agree, I think women’s fear of aging is different from just fearing death. I for one can’t wait to become a hag, I will fully embrace the freedom of societal invisibility. Crones RISE UP 😌
Yeah, I agree. I believe it's less fear of death, and more fear of the devaluation that comes with aging for women under patriarchy. It's the same dynamic as in abuse: idealization (of youth and innocence) - devaluation (of the aging woman and independence/strength) - and finally discard (of the old woman and her wisdom).
I was in The Substance with my best friend. And next to us sat a older Woman in like her late 50s. She definetely had another Experience than us. I also think that this will BE movie hitting a Lot Harder when I too grow old. But honestly the Scene where Elisabeth makes herself ready to go out for her Date and has a full Meltdown Literally resonated with me on a deeper level. I really felt for Elisabeth and felt her self loathing and I Loved the way it was portrayed.
Im so curious what the experience of someone 50+ watching this would be. I’m 31 and spent the pandemic partly just dreading becoming 30 (an age i think society/pop culture also made taboo). I felt like the pandemic (among other things at the time) robbed me of my ‘best years’ (26-29). I’ve had this crippling fear/paranoia of aging/dying since high school that’s only gotten worse with time/unrelated traumas. Maybe it’s just bc my life/wellbeing have improved so much in other areas that i was able to watch The Substance without spiraling. But i honestly left the theater sort of refreshed? It made me reflect on all the Special Episodes of disney channel sitcoms about bulimia and such i grew up with, the controversies around Barbie’s appearance (i think a documentary came out in the 90s/00s), etc. I kind of disagree with OP’s point abt Elisabeth’s very old body, bc it’s so cartoonishly old; her toes are fused together, her knobby knees have knobs on knobs (she literally has to break her leg to stand back up), her hunched back is practically an upside down U. For me personally the movie was saying ‘rotisseriepossum, if everything you think about your aging body were correct, you’d have to look like this cartoon prosthetic. Calm the fuck down.’
@rotisseriepossum For context I am 22 and maybe I should watch the movie with my mother who turned 54 but she has a weak stomach. I definitely have self esteem issues whilst looking probably fine idk 😅 But I too stood in front of my mirror finding every flaw and not being able to leave my house even though my boyfriend says I'm beautiful. I also have some issues with my body that I have gained a bit of weight since the start of the healthy relationship. So my clothes don’t fit anymore. Oh I also have the feeling with the Pandemic. I turned 18 in the first lockdown here in Germany. 18 is the big birthday in our country. I also had my last school year and my final year with the final exams (I caught covid right before the most important)and I feel so robbed because I loved school and my friends and I am really sad that the best school experience was cut short but not the Prior years where I had no friends. Obviously there are people who lost much more than me, but yeqh thats my feeling. I have to say I dont see an issue with how Elisabeths aging body is shown. Yes its completely over the top, but thats because Sue/she sucks her own life force out of the original body. Its not like she is aging normally. I didn’t saw the horror that her body was old but that she herself had so much self hate that she willingly destroys her perfectly good body for it. Like substance (pun intended) abuse where addicts ruin their health body and shorter their life time drastically.
@@rotisseriepossumI’m 49 and I have semi- joked that watching the Substance was an unwitting act of totally bludgeoning emotional self- harm. Two days after watching it I had the experience of seeing 6 people get served ahead of me at a bar, feeling more profoundly invisible than I ever have in my life and I completely blame having recently watched the Substance for the feeling of despair that washed over me. It was a brutal experience emotionally and I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a good couple of weeks. I have been waiting for someone to talk about the way in which Elizabeth’s ageing body was presented in the film and was hoping it would be a menopausal woman, but Maia has hit every point I would have wanted to see and read. I’m really grateful for her perspective, which has articulated my discomfort with the film better than I ever could have.
I personally feel a couple of your critiques of the film would have made the film worse/not what it is if - for example - Moore’s performance had been more camp or if there was more of a character back story/fleshing out of character. Moore’s character is a foil to the cartoonish ridiculous nature of Hollywood execs & outlandish standards of society. In writing a character that is as camp as the world in which they inhibit, you cease to have contrast. As with an archetypal characterization (not knowing a lot of details, history, etc.) about her character - it makes it easier for people to project themselves & therefore see themselves in Moore’s character & the struggles her character faces. If you have some long winded character exposition of her history & personal story - the character would lose relatability as opposed to a blank canvas to be projected onto. There is more empathy to be found when you can see yourself in a character rather than trying to relate to an ultra specific backstory that you can’t really see yourself in. I don’t want to know who her friends are, how she got her career, or why she is alone. But I can relate to the feeling of being alone - & that’s the point.
Genuinely as somebody with body dysmorphia I'd have HATED it if Demi gave a camp performance, it'd have made no sense. She starts subdued and reserved bc everyone else around her is crazy (they believe in beauty standards) & can be carefree (bc they aren't the ones suffering from beauty standards) and then she gradually becomes more unhinged as she's dragged into their craziness & goes fully insane bc she breaks under the world's pressure. Making a movie like that camp makes it unserious und disrespectful to the subject matter. I've been really frustrated with Broey's recent takes bc they have THOROUGHLY missed the point in so many movies!
Yesss you put it into words so well! The genius of this movie for me was in the feeling of having a mirror shoved in my face - "This is you. This is the over-the-top cartoonish depiction of the exact circumstances you're creating for yourself by hating your appearance." And so much of the critique I've heard around the movie (including a lot of what's covered in this video) is where it falls flat on the repudiation of Hollywood's attitude towards aging. And honestly, I see where they're coming from because without the personal connection, I don't know if I would have liked it at all. If I wasn't able to project all these other layers of my own personal experiences onto it because it delved further into some backstory about the specific personal experiences Elisabeth went through that made her internalize those ideas so deeply, it would have at the very least been less impactful for me as a young woman. Is that a shortcoming of the filmmaking, like Broey said in her pinned comment? Quite possibly. But it's one of my new favourite movies of all time because I cannot stop thinking about it.
This analysis seems heavily influenced by an experience with an American audience. In my cinema the sagging breast shot was perceived purely comedically because her blasé boyfriend expected Sue to return from the bathroom and instead met Elizabeth in her final stage. Fargeat is French and the production mainly European. I don‘t think they planned for the image of sagging breasts to be horrifying. I also think you missed the mark on distinguishing aging from decomposing. What is actually horrifying are the extensive necroses, shedding of body parts and supernatural deformations. She essentially turns into a corpse not just an old woman. I doubt seniors would relate to that any more than they do to zombies. And most importantly Elizabeth is punished for doing what advertising and media production tell her to. This is the message of the film, that society does not allow for women to age and ridicules them for trying to avoid it. It makes perfect sense for Elizabeth to be a relatively straight character hammered to a pulp by over the top characters to convey this point. It is not her personal failure, it is exactly the societal critique you call for in these dire times.
Totalmente, aquí desde Europa ....nada que ver con California/USA....esta asumido y no produce Horror....la ideología estar bueno y ser joven es una de las locuras americanas 😅
I think you made a great point about the decomposition not merely representing ageing but self annihilation and ego death. I think it’s supposed to allude to the fragility of our bodies and self concept vs finding deeper meaning or connection.
I can’t help but feel we watched a different movie here. I can agree that the film leans too much into the horror of an older body but the reason it’s so punishing to Elizabeth is because of her own complicity in peddling the wellness industry & impossible beauty standards. Sue berating her for her being outdated was about the endless vicious cycle of women who hurt each other at the expense for temporary success. Their days mimic very much like the behavior of addiction. I didn’t see the movie being about burning your youth away either, but that sue’s hedonism is enjoying her own super power without any consequences to her as it can only hurt Elizabeth. I also find it strange not a single mention of ozempic here. It’s not subtle about even down to the fact that you inject it and sue doesn’t need to eat. It’s not about about ozempic specifically, but the horrible beauty industry under capitalism imo
Every time I see the thumbnail of a Broey Deschanel new video about some film made by a female I open it hoping that is going to be a good review, and instead it is almost always a lukewarm review at best and at worst a "look how this dude made a similar movie and its better than this" video. I understand the nuances this channel is presenting in this video. Still, I felt that this film offered me a mirror to look at the relation with my own body, how society interprets the depiction of a decaying limb as a jumpscare, and felt empathy for all women who also perceive their own bodies as a prison to escape from at all costs. It is not a bad movie.
I don't think she "hates" the movie, she gave a pretty positive response on Letterboxd and also pointed out the good and flaw aspects of it. I also really like this movie, but I actually 100% agree with Broey's take
@@rosielisamoreno I'm sorry, is she not allowed to enjoy movies directed by men about women more than movies about women by women? This is an extremely odd comment
I just watched it last night and even as a 43 year old man it hit me hard. I’m not sure why now, but this year in particular, has hit me really hard in regards to aging. Well, I do know, it’s because I noticed it significantly. Even without the societal pressure and standards, aging is hard in general. The world has changed so much at a certain point you realize it’s not “your” playground anymore. It’s just hard, especially if you don’t feel accomplished and have nothing and no one.
I'm also a man and only turning 30 in 2 months, but even I was looking in the mirror inspecting all my flaw like Elizabeth after watching this movie... 😭
lowkey one of the top places to see normal aging bodies is public pools. i used to lifeguard at a ymca and the old ladies that came in for water aerobics were so cute, one of the woman who led the classes was 97 and her back was super hunched but she had the most energy of any teacher there. there were also this group of old russian ladies that would come in and float and gossip as their husbands walked back and forth in the shallow end. all very cute, just a bunch of old ladies living their lives and taking care of their bodies. i remember a long time ago seeing some post about how europe has nude spas and seeing saggy grannies and gramps as young kids helped them learn, everyone gets there, no one can escape age. i'm from the midwest and to me this movie feels especially catered to la/california creatures, there really is something about picking demi moore who is beautiful, don't get me wrong, but has been so worked on she looks uncanny. be kind to yourself, embrace aging, it's a wonderful thing to grow old.
what a great point about public pools! i kind of love how the women there didn't care either, they were swimming, dammit. look or don't look. and they were taking care of their bodies, such a beautiful thing. I took a yoga class with seniors when I was 19 and let me tell you those women knew their shit. there is almost something freeing about being an old woman bc you no longer have to perform femininity in the way the world seems acceptable.
You're right. In real life, I find old ladies really adorable. I teach an elderly woman piano and I love how excited she gets when I teach her a new song- learning piano is sort of on her bucket list. I just love interacting with old women and find them very endearing. Hollywood may use them for horror but reality is much different.
Yup, as a Spaniard myself, I'm starting to think this hagsploitation and detachment from the elderly body is specially poignant in white american/protestant society, but maybe not so much in other cultures, like eastern europe or meditarranean, where the extended family interactions are still a vital part of your life, or even Scandinavia where saunas are commonplace. That's not to say neglect of the elderly isn't a big issue in Spain and the fear of aging/body expectations is as intense, but I could guess we maybe spend a bigger deal of time with our grandparents that they don't feel as alien. Again, I may be making a lot of assumptions, America's a big place with lots of religious and ethnic backgrounds and I'm sure many americans have more going with their grandparents other than that relative you see in nursing homes, but those are my two cents
That Demi Moore's body barely shows signs of aging is THE POINT. We see the casting call for someone under 30 yo. And every day we listen to women talk about how much fewer opportunities they receive. I think we saw a realistic look at what most women go through. Society doesn't wait until you're 80 or even 40 to tell you they want someone younger, creating an obsession with trying to pass for as young as possible
Literally. Just look at the discourse happening online. Post 25, women have nothing to offer. They've hit the 'wall' and are suddenly gross and old and rapidly declining. Hell, even the movie itself makes this reference when Dennis Quaid's character says this all while struggling to urinate (ultimate irony cause it's usually gross old men with no concept of their own decline saying this). Plenty of actresses have come out and said they've felt devalued after a certain age, and denied roles. This is in stark contrast to their male costars who got acting gigs well into their middle and old age. We've just recently had a breakthrough with Monica Bellucci playing the oldest Bond girl, meaning that shock and horror she was of an age with her co star, Daniel Craig. It's extremely pervasive, to the point that you cant escape it.
@@TheaTheGeniusThe old men know their worth. It was never their looks, but money and status. Men are born poor and grow rich, while women are born rich and grow poor in the sexual marketplace. Yeah, the gross old men say that. While the entitled young women say broke men ain’t shit. All is fair..
Ehhh, idk if I agree that The Fly is even trying doing the same thing as The Substance in terms of its scare mechanism. Yes, the transformation of a man into a supernatural fly being played for horror is a lot less objectionable than a woman’s transformation into an old woman, but isn’t that the point? Personally, I think that The Substance is self aware enough that it knows it’s hoisting the horror trope of the “terrifying aging female body” onto a humanized and sympathetic protagonist, and thereby asking the audience- especially the female audience- to reflect on why these images scare us so much when these physical attributes (sagging skin and breasts, age spots, yellowing nails, hair loss) await all of us later in our lives. To me, between the absurd third act, the complete break from reality represented by Monstro Elisasue, and the in-text reckoning with body dysmorphia, this film aims to confront women with the physical realities of aging and also to make us consider how absurd our fears of them are. How absurd the prevalence of aesthetic surgeries is. How absurd our aversion to seeing the aging female body is. I think a more abstract metaphor divorced from the cultural baggage of gender like is used in The Fly would’ve been far less effective. This is a gendered movie about a gendered issue using a gendered vision of horror to help a female audience reckon with these uncomfortable realities about our bodies without getting sucked into the predatory anti-aging industry that has no real interest in our physical, mental or spiritual wellbeing
100% agree with this. I do think this film holds up a mirror to audiences (especially female audiences but it can apply to anyone ofc) in that it simultaneously depicts these issues as absurd and even humourous without ever losing its sense of empathy for the people who suffer from said issues. It makes us confront ourselves by reckoning with its absurdity. Also i feel Elisabeth is the only one not over the top because her outside view of other characters is an external projection of what she internally feels.
I think to some degree the fact that signs of aging await everyone is part of the reason old people (especially women) are dismissed and excluded. Just like blaming the victim of an assault makes a person feel like they’re safe because they won’t make the “mistakes” the victim made, it’s a way to avoid those fears
I was surprised that you viewed Psycho as a jumping off point for Hagsploitation and not Sunset Boulevard. Norma Desmond feels more like a prototype for many of the characters that came to define the subgenre.
I think it’s interesting that our critiques of stories featuring women seem to insist that these stories need to be soft and compassionate at the core. Why can’t stories about women be shallow, loud, angry, violent, and disgusting because the artist is purposefully channeling those unpleasant feelings into their art? Why can’t it be a scream of frustration instead of a feminist masterpiece? Why can’t it be seen as an exaggerated reflection of the way society insists on our youth and then mocks us when we destroy our natural bodies with procedures and medications in the pursuit of that youth and beauty? To me the aged body of Elizabeth in full nude is more related to the body dysmorphic fears of how an aged body looks and not the reality of one
I absolutely agree. The Substance is a goddamn horrifically amazing work of art and I don't give two sh*ts if anyone puts it down for not being "feminist masterpiece". It's heartbreaking and dark and it's also a wild ride that's camp to its core. I walked out of a packed theater and EVERYONE of all genders absolutely either loved it or were shook to their core. It doesn't matter if it's something we "needed", it's something we got. It's made by a woman and it's absolutely amazing.
You didn't think Demi Moore cackling to herself like an old school witch and throwing foodmush around the kitchen and at the TV was over the top? You thought that was a subdued performance? Oooookayyyy
In our critique of The Substance I find that we forget that it is written and directed by a woman who has materialized her self loathing in this script. I think it's social implications feel so superficial because in the end, self loathing can feel so strongly seperate from our circumstances outside of ourselves. Old Elizabeth is not similar visually to the old women mentioned and is an over exaggeration of that purposefully. It's seemingly a representation of how horrific we already find it. I think it's interesting how the substance in your analysis was compared to films directed by men. Not that they can't make the films (Poor Things being in my top 4) but it's just a different way of looking at aging women. I find a lot of the criticism of the substance not taking into account and empathizing with how personal this film is. It may not feel good but let's be fucking real, being a socialized femme in society does NOT feel good. Elizabeth inevitably silently pining for love through beauty and fame while seeing how isolated she is made me boo fucken hoo
being personal doesn't give you a shield against exploiting that very own experience for spectacle. if anything, it makes your views on this societal issue more transparent.
@@majejejentathe experience in question is her own. Is it exploitation or is it reckoning with a very shameful part of being femme in this society? Again, the hag in question is an exaggerated version of an elderly woman. An image of unrealistic and irrational anxiety we have about ageing
I disagree. Elisabeth’s transformation is into a monster - in her eyes, in society’s eyes. While she is just aging rapidly - an aging woman is the monster she so desperately seeks to escape from. I think The Substance does a great job at holding up the mirror many times in the film and I think we can all see ourselves in Elisabeth and the struggle she has with herself / Sue. I don’t agree that the aged body of Elisabeth is supposed to scare the audience. It scares Elisabeth. She becomes the thing that she is most afraid of - showing signs of aging, not being desirable by society anymore. But that doesn’t make her ugly. This film has a message of self love more than anything to me. A cautionary tale of what can happen when we change ourselves for patriarchal society and the monster it creates within us. I left The Substance feeling beautiful, and sorry for all the times I thought I wasn’t.
You are missing a major point: The old woman Elizabeth becomes is a CARICATURE of older women’s bodies. The point is for the audience to laugh and be horrified at a physical avatar of our perceptions of older bodies. It is meant to have us question our incorrect perceptions and expectations. This is why all the weird things men say about women’s bodies come to pass, like the boob on the face. The film isn’t a mirror. It’s a malicious compliance to all the horrific thoughts we have about women’s bodies. What would happen if that chicken drumstick went right to my thighs?
But compliance to these misogynist tropes and archetypes doesn’t produce anything new or interesting if it’s framed in a way in which the audiences initial response is simply fear and then laughter. I was also in a cinema where everyone, mainly young men and women, laughed at these shots. Is the point not here that devoid of the empathy and poignancy that films like Baby Jane and The Fly cultivate, The Substance just ends up reproducing the very misogyny it attempts to critique.
@@lomoonoo55 I believe satire is the word you're looking for. The Substance satirizes these concepts. The laughter and horror you get from the audience IS the purpose and is the new contribution to the conversation. You are supposed to notice this reaction and then begin to have the same reaction to the beauty standards held up in real life. It breaks them down by shoving the absurdity in your face. This is the new and interesting take everyone is seemingly missing.
@@nathanielholzgrafe5274 Of course this movie has satirical elements. I guess I disagree with you as to how successful that satire is in encouraging us to interrogate misogyny and body standards in contrast to films that are less tonally inconsistent (I.e. The Fly). Satire isn’t some untouchable form; it can be both effective and ineffective.
@@lomoonoo55 I would argue it’s immensely effective, as both you and I are here discussing it, along with countless others in countless other videos commenting on this movie and misogyny/beauty standards. What exactly would have to happen for this to not be effective?
26:18 to me, moores detachment from her actual physical age just added to the sadness i felt during my watch. all of this was so unnecessary. She was still good-looking but the everraging war on her body forced her to take these ends.
I somewhat disagree with the point about Demi Moore's acting being too subtle to fit the tone. While the message was in some ways packaged very simplistically in The Substance, the fact that Moore starts out more subdued and almost timid but is *then* driven into unhinged behavior was an interesting addition. In the first part, she is such a contrast to Quaid's disgusting shrimp-eating/spitting producer. And the fact that she acts more natural makes the bathroom scene where she's examining her body more poignant. It's precisely *because* she is not a "hag" initially, not even in some campy acting way that makes the transformation into a caricature of aging truly work. As much as I like the camp and high contrast deep lines of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, having Elizabeth start in that state would be wrong.
While I did enjoy The Substance I do agree that its more sparse approach to storytelling does open the film up to the audience laughing at the characters as opposed to empathizing with them. It’s been interesting seeing some takes saying that discussing women and ageism is ‘not that original or new’ which in some respects sure I can see that perspective but on the other hand as you pointed pointed we continue to see this fear of aging all over social media.
The Hollywood aspect is what hurts the empathy. It’s really not that serious that she’s not famous af anymore. It’s first world problems but actually worse. Also most actresses don’t complain about this when they’re young. When this stuff benefits em.
I think that's the point. Our endless desire to point and laugh at another's expense coming at the price of our ability empathize with someone who may actually be suffering at the hands of an injustice. This is what leads to the... "explosive" ending that makes this film shine. The blood is on *our* hands
I took a horror class in school and never really reconciled the concept that what we're so terrified of - aging, "disfigurement" - is some people's everyday reality.
i think your critique that the film victimises elisabeth too much is a little off base. i don't like to state what the 'point' of any movie is because i think that's a bit reductive, especially for a movie like the substance which has so many potential readings, but for me this victimisation of elisabeth throughout the film is an intentional part of its narrative. elisabeth is a victim of her own cruelty towards herself - she despises the body she sees as aged so much that she repeatedly ruins her own life in a myriad of ways. i found that very poignant.
I think there is a miss understanding that Elizabeth and Sue are not the same person. They are: Sue says “I can’t go back inside you” when she decides to stay in the younger body “for ever”, AND, when given the opportunity to stop, Elizabeth decides not to, because she enjoys going into the younger body. Elizabeth isn’t a victim of Sue, as much as an alcoholic isn’t a victim of their drunk self, but because she oscilantes between bodies, it’s easier for her (and for us) to forget it’s actually just one person harming herself. She is also not a victim of her quest for youth, she is just an addict hooked on the high of being praised by a male dominated Hollywood industry, and that’s the tragedy. I see how the movie can rely on what it’s trying to condemn, but I also think its purpose is not to educate us. It’s just a horror story made to entertain us, based on a very real problem (both for celebrities and non-celebrities), augmented for our amusement.
Aging as a woman is not the fear of death, but the fear of invisibility - of living a life stripped of your value as a person because you are no longer pleasing in the eyes of society. It’s this fear of having to continue living completely silent
When the movie finished, I wasn't left feeling like Elisabeth was a helpless person or guilty for the way she wound up. She is a woman who has identified her value as a human being with her appearance. And that's what makes this films message special to me: it's a realistic situation for so many women of all ages today. Demi Moore's performance could not be campy because she is playing herself. And she is us. The contrast between the grotesque and funny parts of the film with the fact that Elisabeth, like many other women, sees herself as a shell of a human being is why this film is interesting to me at all. The world is playing us. She's not that old. She's not ugly in the slightest, but she doesn't see any value in herself as a human being if she's not what was expected of her. Unfortunately, many women today think the same about themselves and don't see how much they can contribute to everything around them, regardless of how they look or how old they are. When the movie finished, I felt like a part of my brain that always looks for the nearest mirror so that I can fix myself has melted away. The most relatable moment for me in the movie is when she damaged her body so much that she only wanted to come back to the way she was a couple of days before. In that moment she began to realize she didn't need to butcher herself at all because what the way she was beautiful. But it was too late.
I think you misunderstood The Substance. Or at least parts of it. I personally wasn't scared of Elizabeth because she was turning into an old lady. I felt bad for her that she was aging so quickly because she is losing years. And look, no 50 year old wants a weird finger that doesn't match the rest of you. Plus, it wasn't normal age either. She was becoming deformed. This wasn't just turning old. I wasn't scared of her but FOR her.
this conversation around the substance’s depiction of aging reminds me a lot of the critiques abt the fat suits used in films like the whale. the audience cannot be expected to truly empathize with what they understand, rationally, to just be prosthetics. our ability to truly see these characters as people is diminished by the fact that we know this is not how they “really” look.
I love that line. Catelyn thinks this around the time she first meets Brienne. Cat's viewpoint is informed by the extremely patriarchal society she lives in. Women are seen as inherently weaker, like they cannot possibly be strong in the way that men are, and therefore Brienne is a freak of nature for being big, strong, and skilled in combat. Brienne may not even be very ugly by our standards, but characters within the story see her as abnormally hideous, almost monstrous, because she does not conform to the very strict gender roles for women. It also reminds me of Cersei, who is fiercely jealous of the power that men are allowed simply by virtue of being men. She attempts to gain power through her beauty and sexuality, but fears she will be usurped by the "younger and more beautiful queen" of her prophecy. So you have two characters, one of whom somewhat yearns to conform to the feminine role but is completely barred due to her size and strength, and copes with this by adapting into a man's role. And one who conforms to the feminine role and attempts to operate within its narrow constraints while despising every second of it. I could talk about gender in ASOIAF all day. There is so much to unpack...
Meh…I think the reason this analysis doesn’t work for me is because she is Sue. She is not be victimized by another, she has internalized misogyny to the point where she is victimizing herself. Someone else pointed out that she doesn’t use her “second chance” as a younger self with influence to make any change. She simply reclaims the position she had within a system that threw her away. The scenes I have seen of this movie and her naturalistic portrayal feel painful and horrifying in that someone could do that to themself. I can’t imagine it being played as campy. I think everyone else being over the top keeps the focus on her, because that is really where the horror lies, even if outside forces are the underlying cause.
As an openly gay guy who has been out since the '90s, I can say indisputably that the same worship of youth has been adopted by gay men for decades. But today, we have the "hot daddy" trope... which has always been around, but is finally being embraced by the gay subculture. It's too bad that females don't yet have the same thing. Bring on the "hot mamas"!
I think a lot of critique is missing the fact that Carolie Fargeat is in her late 40s, she's nearing "middle age". Unlike a movie like X - this is a woman nearing that age range, likely lamenting her feelings about that, not a man just writing something for shock value. It possibly lacks compassion bc well, when it comes to insecurities about ourselves, we tend to not be compassionate towards ourselves; as women, we're allowed to be angry and messy with our feelings - I don't think every piece of media from us, about us, should be nice and compassionate all the time. The Horror genre does use the trope of evil aging older men too, Saw being a popular example but, we have the flipside with X and Harold - not just Pearl.
I feel like it's disingenuous to call Demi Moore's final stage of rapid aging a normal old body. Sure, people get very wrinkled and hunched over and lose hair, but the proportions of Moore in this scene are fairly inhuman, with her upper back and knees especially bulbous beyond anything. But even if it was just a very old body, I still think the audience can empathize with a character who's put so much stock into her appearance that, to see it rapidly taken away from her, can be devastating. The fact we don't see her relationships on screen might suggest that she doesn't have meaningful ones, she maybe has put everything into a career that relies on her looking a certain way, so losing the one thing she has is obviously very painful. It's tapping into the fear of aging that can be quite traumatic especially for women. And if some audiences aren't reacting in an empathetic manner, isn't that inevitable given the disgust people show towards older women like you mentioned? A movie like this that's gone from the arthouse to the mainstream very quickly isn't going to achieve its intended effect with a lot of general horror audiences, who go to the movies to be freaked out and gawk at what's on screen typically. Artists shouldn't necessarily be held accountable for shallow or mistaken interpretations that some audience members come to. And to say it fails as a critique discounts the many women who've resonated so heavily with it, I don't think people are only getting "wow this is insane/fucked up" out of it. I dunno, I'd agree that it isn't the most scathing critique of beauty standards, but let's not project that onto it when it's not necessarily the filmmaker's main intention. If Fargeat wanted to make that movie, then she would've made a more restrained character-focused piece instead of a heavily stylized film that's clearly influenced by exploitation cinema and the New French Extremity. I think there's room for The Substance in the "feminist cinema" canon, even if it doesn't tick all the boxes of having perfect representation of aging women. Just my two cents, you're one of my favorite movie creators so I'm obviously going to keep watching your vids, just felt compelled to defend what'll almost certainly be my favorite movie of the year.
I enjoyed The Substance, but I actually agree with your entire analysis. I heard someone say Elizabeth Sparkle is essentially a Kardashian, who during her career perpetrated the very thing that led to her demise. So for Elizabeth, an old decrepit body IS her worst nightmare because she’s in Hollywood. The way she looks is linked to her career, which due to a lack of any community seems to have become her entire life. I do think there was an opportunity to highlight the city/industry as part of the disdain of old bodies, but we’re never shown an old person content with their life so it does line up with the points being made.
But what about that old man that warned her and gave her the substance in the first place? The film wanted to hightlight this all can happen to men, too
I do feel that the perception of Elizabeth as lacking agency comes from the fact that, while the movie does repeat it, the "you are one" concept is hard to wrap our heads around. Elizabeth is Sue - meaning that even if the roles were inverted (with who we perceive as Elizabeth being the one inside Sue) the result would be exactly the same. Any version of Elizabeth resent her aging body. Sue is Elizabeth's agency - her self hatred and destructive tendencies embodied.
If you think old women aren’t horrified by their own bodies you really really didn’t get it! I went to see it exactly because of my own sense of horror at my aging body! I loved it.
"all the elderly women you know whose bodies are not so different"? wtf are you on about? I worked in a hospital I don't think I've ever seen an elderly lady look like that. Do you see elderly people in such a grotesque exaggerated way?
That’s what I’m saying! So many people, the creator of this video and in the comments, think Demi Moore looks very young for 60 when she, aging wise, looks standard for a 60 year old (wrinkles, texture of her skin etc.). She’s just an attractive woman. So many people have never been around old people and so they genuinely believe that these highly exaggerated versions of aging are actually standard.
I'll be 3000% honest, and I'm soo guilty of this myself as a recovering English major - could the research into Hagsploitation have colored too strongly your perception of this film? Via authorial intent, I'm not seeing a conscious drafting of that line of history within this film so much as I'm seeing a feminine substitution/response of an extraordinarily tired film trope of "man creates thing that he thinks will be a thing of beauty - thing metamorphasizes out of his control - thing leads to his undoing - we are not to play god/nature is the true keeper of all things sacred and balanced" a la Frankenstein. I think the one line in particular, "there aren't any movies about old men rejecting their place in society/spiraling out of control," is perhaps too simplistic of a framework - there are so many movies about men rejecting "their place" in traditional society and it leading to their undoing - I think its just born out of the fact that women, historically and in modernity, are seen as being two-dimensional in their character development/portrayal, thereby their "descent into madness" via "rejection of place in aging" is played very straight whereas mens are given so much more delicacy, depth and care in their stories. For men its never about "their downfall by rejecting place," no, no, its the masculine-coded Icarus flying too close to the sun, "man attempting to play God" rather than accepting himself as ordinary. With that being said, there absolutely is a place for this line of reasoning and analysis (ie via a reading in contrast with Hagsploitation). If anything though, I got ultra-personally-close-to-the-subject for the writer/director to Elizabeth and a chastising/______sploitation for Sue. Her (Sue's) problems, struggles and ambitions are pictured as being cheap, superficial, fleeting, naive, and ultimately at the behest of an industry intent on exploiting her for their own gain, never mind any sort of potential benefit it may have for her (which, based on the movie is what exactly?) whereas with Elizabeth her concerns are handled with depth, fleshed-out, and are a particularly hard-pinched nerve for the women who saw the movie with me both young and aging. I think everyone innately grasps the struggles of trying to remain "beautiful," in a society hell-bent on chewing through you like the shrimp (prawns?) displayed at the very beginning of the movie. It seemingly invokes an unshakeable, yet seemingly conversely unspeakable, or to be abashed of reality that women dare not speak its name - "I'd give anything to stay young and beautiful - to have that same gaze transfixed upon me that I know I once had," whether it be plastic surgery, imaginarily "cosplayed" out via fan-fic writing, or the black-pill, saying everything about "her," and in effect "me" is superfluous, glib, doesn't understand and is worthy of hatred and disgust in its own form. Think about "women who hit 30 and start talking about all the things Gen-Z is doing wrong on Tik-tok," like, "that'll really show 'em how hip and with it you really are." There seems to be no true neutrality and this movie seems to hit a nerve with the women in my life in such a way that it's impossible to walk away without distaste, and I think its worthy of really dwelling on that for the sake of teasing out what it really is their feelings are in reaction to - the men who control society, the patriarchy's unceasing dominance, trying to carve out a place outside of those things while fighting an unrelenting struggle under it, or maybe even complicity/surrogacy in that process as an individual who then went on to have the leopards eat their face? I can't say, it's not a subject super-familiar to me, but at the very least I got an honest, tormented portrayal where even maybe their was no straight-forward or satisfactory reading to be had - kind of feels a bit far outside my wheelhouse. Also yes I am a loser and I have no life, enjoy the comparatively book-length essay by RUclips comment standards!
the monstro is supposed to be a literal interpretation of the beauty standards like if men love boobs so much why wouldn’t they love a body covered in boobs and throwing up a single boob…
While I love your analysis, and appreciate your reservations, I think the entire point of the film was to make us question WHY we read certain things (particularly ageing, but also visible disability) as monstrous. Do I think it overshot the mark, and that it's dedication to horror tropes alienated an unfortunately large portion of the audience from that message and from Elisabeth as a human being? Yes. But all I could think about throughout the entire film is in just how much pain Elisabeth, and later ElisaSue, must be, and it made me desperately sad. I think the scene where Elisabeth tries to straighten her leg, but her knee won't cooperate, is essential in this: where first her pain about ageing was psychological, it is now very physical, too. She is not a monster, she is a person in pain.
@@kj7067 did you miss the part where she has monster in her name at the end? We read the scenes as monstrous because we're told to by the literal director
@@user61920 assuming you're asking in good faith (yes, I did see that - it was fairly difficult to miss): I don't think that changes my point at all? Because, let's be real: what does she do to deserve the title? She's not a monster in the sense that we would call a serial killer a monster. All she wants to do is be with her audience, her fans, and tell them that she missed them. That is literally all she does. Apparently, what earns her the title of 'monster' are her physical imperfections, and I do think that's something the movie asks us to actively think about.
BD, I really appreciate your takes on how we devalue aging people in society. I am an older person and I often hear derogatory things said about aging women in commentary. Often a younger RUclipsr I really respect will say something or many things very ageist. There is so much to discuss about the value of a person as they become older. These are such important conversations to have. Thank you again.🌺
Your analysis of the Hag's role in film is fascinating! However, I think your commentary on this film touches only the surface, while the substance delves into themes that deserve a deeper look. Firstly, there’s the fear of death, which is central to her obsession with aging. Aging itself represents the slow approach to mortality, yet it serves an even more compelling purpose here. For me, it's clear that the film portrays how this is tied with capitalism’s demand for productivity, suggesting that our worth is directly linked to our ability to work. When Elizabeth transforms into Sue, the first thing she does is attend a job interview, reclaiming her place in the workforce. This, to me, is a far stronger message than the supposed gerontophobia often cited. The film's "monster" isn’t inherently terrifying-it’s the way society devalues her as an aging woman, pushing her into a self-perception based solely on desirability and productivity. She becomes the nightmare that haunts her (and most women), unable to find peace with her mortality and trapped in societal expectations defined by patriarchy. I don't think it's fair to evaluate a movie based on the audience reaction. In any case, it's revealing our societal current state on these topics, and therefore expressing it's inherent artistic value that way. Finally, and I don't see this point stressed enough, this story tackles addiction and drug dependence. Beyond mere "obsession," the reliance of Elizabeth on both the substance and Sue herself illustrates a more nuanced dimension. She’s drawn back repeatedly during the film on whether to continue with the decision she has made, but always does, culminating in her inability to kill Sue. Because, without her, she feels she’ll lose herself entirely. It’s a much more refined take on the mainstream depiction of drug abuse, telling a truer and sadder story: that addiction is not an individual's problem, but rather the way society deforms our morals and desires so that the only thing we can rely on to "fulfill" ourselves is to somehow liberate ourselves through external means, and in the darkest case, all of it to be productive or fit societal expectations. That final scene-a brilliant, tragic end, where not even in death is she free from the twisted identity society has imprinted on her. This film confronts the darkest corners of our psyche: not only the fear of decay and death but the terror of straying so far from societal norms that we lose something of ourselves in the process. Or maybe it leaves the question: what is left inside us when these horrors are taken away? The film hits themes that resonate deeply with the LGBTQ+ community and others struggling under societal expectations and common issues with drug abuse. Reducing it to just a portrayal of aging women, for me, does it a disservice. Cheers!
Elisabeth character is never fully camp because her struggles with self hate and addiction are real and serious. I think it’s great that she doesn’t act like a looney toon most of the time because of what she represents.
Love your analysis! I feel though as if you're missing out on another perspective, being the 'deal with the devil/sell your soul' part. I really did feel a lot of empathy for Elisabeth when, at multiple points, she just wasn't able to withstand or end her deal with the devil (and I say this as a man in his 30s) and it felt like a commentary on society (maybe celibrity culture specifically) where a person like Elisabeth simply cannot feel self-worth anymore. Then again, as also pointed out by you, mixed feelings about the film. It just felt like it could've been better than it turned out to be.
I can understand how it would be viewed as "hagsploitation," but you failed to mention the point of the movie, which is not to be a horror film for the sake of it. It portrays the pressures that women, especially in Hollywood, have to face regarding the aging process and being left to the dust, only valued for their physical beauty and youth, and the negative effects of chasing after the fountain of youth can lead to.
I saw a surprising amount of elderly ladies when I went to see this film, and they seemed to really enjoy it! A pair of them (two friends) stayed until the end of the credits. I find that the best way to know how a demographic feels about representation is to ask people of said demographic. What is offensive to some, is empowering to others.
It probably might not have been offensive. But even if it was and they didn't show it rudely doesn't mean it's empowering. This isn't a trans slasher situation.
My friend and I both went to see this for an "angry ladies night out" and we enjoyed it though we also didn't find it perfect by any means. And I agreed with the video about screams and gasps and laughter at the old woman form. It was sad and frustrating. As a lover of horror movies, it's something I've been noticing more and more and it has become one of my least favorite things. Oh no, saggy boobs! The world is ending! Look at this old lady kid herself into feeling desirable or wanting to be attractive still. How dare she. Still, it brought on some interesting conversations. And we also stayed in the theatre after the credits just talking. Though I'm 37 and she's, like 45 so I'm not sure if we are the elderly ladies you saw (we are in st. Louis). 😂 But I damn mear feel that way sometimes.
@@boo_in_stlou nah, these ladies both had white hair (and in a different country xP) but I'm glad you enjoyed the film even if you found it flawed. I gotta say, I am almost your age, so if we're counting that as "elderly" I want in!! lol
22:20 literally standing ovation from my living room. this is the same exact thing that happened in my audience, SO much laughter and screaming and more laughter when she’s basically just old. and you’re the only person I’ve seen sum up EXACTLY how I’ve been feeling about the movie since I saw it. the jump scares/humor are not discouraged by the movie, they’re even encouraged, and that feels so antithetical to the quite obvious message of the movie. I never comment on things but I was literally cheering during your video like a football game because you nailed it on the head. edit: also remembered I thought the exact same thing about how it felt like it was trying to be camp but it didn’t go far enough one way or the other for me
Honestly, if you think elderly people look anywhere near as Elizabeth after she's had life drained from her, literally, it shows how detached americans are from old age thanks to asylums.
The fear of aging is rooted in the fact that women have been oppressed by men and their survival depended on appeasing them, and men with pdf file tendencies at that. The older women get the harder they are to control, and that is undesirable for the gender that's had to nerf women throughout history to placate their own ego. We all know that we're only seen as valuable in our youth, in our desirability to men, even if we don't want them. We have seen older women devalued and mocked so long that we inherently recoil from the inevitable transformation into them. The patriarchy made us afraid of our own growth. It's deeply sick. Fight the programming. The more women opt out the more we can dismantle the corporations and the societal forces telling us that's our main value
For me, I thought The Substance put the horror of self-loathing so viscerally onto screen. It was true body horror. The fear and hatred of our own bodies. We are taught to hate ourselves so much. Killing the “old” version of ourselves in pursuit of perfect. Normally this sort of murder just becomes fuel for TikTok before and afters. But this movie really showed how intense this emotional suffering can be and how it can fully consume you. I certainly walked away from the movie wanting to address my own body issues before they escalate to what was portrayed.
Aging in my opinion is objectively horrible and disgusting, because we can never consent to it, we are forced to „accept“(gaslight) ourself into thinking that watching yourself slowly rotting away, and loosing your bodily autonomy, and even yourself, is this „beautiful“ part of nature…
Happy to see Christopher Lasch’s the Culture of Narcissism get a mention! Super underrated. Recently listened to an episode of the 1Dime Radio podcast that provided a solid guide to the work of Christipher Lasch. Highly recommend it
You are much smarter and more well educated on every subject brought up in this analysis than I am. I’m also a cis-man so I can’t speak to how a woman’s body is portrayed (and we definitely need male “hagsploitation” films). I personally loved the film, and despite the lack of backstory - something I’m never too concerned about with film as I can just go along for the ride - I felt fully empathetic towards Elizabeth, Sue and Monstro Elizasue. There were so many moments I felt whiplash from laughing at the “grotesque imagery” to grieving what the world puts someone like Elizabeth through. And all of those emotions were aided by the fact I knew this film was directed by a woman and was coming from personal experience. I could laugh, cry and gasp along with a filmmaker expressing their own angers and frustration. The only issue I ever really have when it comes to this analysis - along with many other analysis’s of movies - is that we dig so deep into the history of film and we spend so much time asking “if this helps or not” and we focus so much on the bigger picture and on how the movie effects US in THIS time period that we overlook the simple miracle that: A woman was paid to directed a dope ass horror film and employ people - including actors who’ve been overlooked - to have fun and tell her story. Even if Demi Moore’s performance clashed, I’m so happy she got to do something this fun and pray we get a resurgence of fun roles for older actors!
I don't want male hagsploitation because it'd be an old man in a wifebeater and dirty tighty whities on a couch watching old westerns drinking beer and burping while smoking four packs of cigarettes cleaning his beloved antique rifle from 1862 that's actually a reproduction. Plus we already get enough of male hagsploitation with Donald Trump
On the point that Elisabeth having no agency and being a victim I think Broey missing the the fact that Sue and Elisabeth are one, most of her misfortune is of her own making.
But.. are they really? The movie makes it pretty clear they are distinctly separate consciousnesses with different goals and ambitions. The movie can throw around the line "You are one" but if they show the complete opposite then it defeats the purpose
@@Itsalwayscloudyincleveland Wasn't Sue created from Elisabeth? Their consciousness may be separate, but she was born from Elisabeth's consciousness. In a way she's a manifestation of Elsabeth's self-disgust or self-hatred towards herself. At least that's how I saw it, maybe the film could've been clearer though.
@@mmem4264 You're right in that Sue was created from Elisabeth. But the obfuscation comes when we are trying to understand what Elisabeth is getting out of this arrangement. To be reductive for a second, Sue is essentially an independent young attractive clone of Elisabeth. But we are not shown any tangible benefit Elisabeth receives in this relationship (which literally only goes so far as they can screw the other over if they take too much time). She's actually pretty resentful of Sue early on. This narrative confusion creates obvious thematic confusion.
@ I wonder if it’s like vicariously living through your child? Sue came from her and is living the life she can’t let go of. Sure she’s not actually experiencing it but she also kind of is. Does that make sense?😂
There's this movie called Ash Wednesday staring Elizabeth Taylor and she's basically this woman who gets head to toe surgery to make her husband still want her. Everyone treats her like she's gorgeous for a woman in her forties but her husband still wants his side piece who's the same age as their daughter (I think she was one of the daughter's friends). It came out in 1973 and it's on RUclips.
I loved the fact that Demi Moore didn't play the role so over the top and cartoonish like the other characters in the film, because for me it showed that her pain is real.
In my oppinion "The Substance" was about how lack of self-acceptance leads one to ruin greater than they thought they were at the beginning. Think of all these popstars not wanting to allow themself to age and inject themselves with tons and tons of botox and other artificial crap just to look younger, but at the end, they end up destroyed and wasted like Elisabeth during the end of the movie, and moreover, comically deformed and unrecognisable, just like the Monstro clone who was the last part of Elisabeth to die. It's not about aging really, it's about not wanting to accept Yourself the way You are. Elisabeth wanted to save herself, but as she started injecting Sue with the "termination" serum, she was struck with remorse, repeating over and over again "I need You", as she tried to revive her youthful clone. She was bratty, abusive, unresponsible, but she was like a child of hers and she didn't want to allow this part of her to die, even if it ment even further degradation if her "matrix" body... I see it not only as the character showing compassion for something they created, but also as not wanting to let go of what we used to be in order to accept ourselves as we are now. I think this is the point of the movie - accept Yourself the way You are and love Yourself. Because if You won't, You will only destroy Yourself, trying to love the image of Yourself that is either untrue, or will never come back. Lack of self-acceptance led both Elisabeth and Sue to their deaths.
To me the film did an incredible job of offering the female perspective of aging and body dysmorphia. The setting is Hollywood which is a major perpetrator or anti aging propoganda and the entire film felt like it was from the perspective of a woman so deeply entrenched in that world. It felt like everything was a metaphor for what was going on in her mind. When it showed her as an old woman, it was shown to the audience from her perspective; her body terrified her. That's the reality women deal with and i don't think there's anything wrong portraying that because it's what we go through due to societal pressure. This film showed us our illness and opened up conversation on aging that has been dormant. This film had a genuine shock value that I haven't seen films attempt for a long time, I loved it
Omgeee Broeyyyy i have a similar criticism for the movie OLD! The part where the woman who has a physical disability where her bones fuse as she gets older. But on the island this obviously speeds up her deformity, and the ppl around her yell and scream as she becomes more and more deformed ... and they just watch her die slowly as she keeps bumming into rocks in a cave. .. The " scary part" is that she has a disability 😢 shit broke my heart
You have done an excellent job explaining your opinion on these films, and what you think may link them, however, I disagree with your takeaway from the films. "What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?" isn't a film about youth or growing old. It's about a variety of topics: mental illness, revenge, sibling rivalry, and the desire to be wanted. "Blanche" wanted to be desired by her parents (who favored "Jane," thus leading to the sibling rivalry). Jane wanted mass desire from the public, and didn't care about her parents. Jane isn't bothered by her age, other than in one scene early in the film when she sees she is no longer a child, and cannot be passable performing the child songs she sung during Vaudeville. Jane's desire is to be wanted and admired by the public again, as she once was as a child performer. Jane lost her stardom when she was still young, not as a result of her aging. Jane had stardom and was desired as a child but it wasn't enough. Blanche had stardom and was desired, but that wasn't enough. "The Substance" hits the viewer hard in making its point that its all about youth, but, as was said in so many words throughout the film, for "Elizabeth" it isn't about youth as much as about being desired, and not just desired but obtaining/keeping mass desire from the public. "Elizabeth" was desired as a person, as was shown in the scene when her old classmate asks her out. But, Elizabeth craves MASS desire and admiration. That is the root cause of "Elizabeth" wanting to look younger - if she was still desirable, she would not care about her age. "Sue" obtains the desire that "Elizabeth" craves and wants to keep, but that isn't enough. These are characters who have an inner emptiness that mass desire fulfills. These types of stories are becoming more and more prevalent, or relatable, in today's world due to the inner emptiness of modern society in general. Same points can be applied to many of the social medial "influencers" in today's world.
I enjoyed The Substance, but I can see where you're coming from with how the disgust at Elizabeth's aged body. Personally as I watched I was captivated by the bizarre world it created. I think Demi Moore's character being so naturalistic among this almost cartoonish world emphasizes how it feels like the world is against you as a woman just for existing.
In the 1976 psychological horror film Burnt Offerings, Karen Black's character - like Demi Moore's - grows older and more decrepit in the service of restoring a demonically possessed old, decaying house. Once completed, she is subsumed into the interiors of the structure (novel version), presumably dissolving away similarly to Moore at The Substance's end. Again, the old woman, Cronus-like, is on a trajectory leading to her devourment, whether she likes it or not or has a say in the matter. And it is her alter ego, either a younger self or a newly restored house that becomes the preferred physical ideal. Either way, age is synonymous with blight and ugliness and must be destroyed - or hidden away. 🤔
One thing I liked about the substance is how it flips this trope on its head and the younger woman is the one stealing vitality from the older one. Unlike something like Pearl or the old hagsploitations where the older woman is a danger to youth Sue is literally sucking the life out of Elizabeth. I don’t think it was a perfect movie but I did think it was doing some really interesting things.
Hi, I really like your videos and I’ve been following you for a while! Although I don't agree with everything in your criticism of this video, mainly because I think that Elisabeth's body at the end of the substance is not a realistic portrait of an elderly person, intentionally. Furthermore, I would like to recommend a Brazilian film called ¨Aquarius¨, it has a beautiful message about the passage of time and portrays an older woman and her body naturally, I think you would like it!
Because femininity is valued based on physical beauty and fertility and as you get older you lose it. Plus butt hurt men really love reminding you that you're not as sought after on the dating market.
@@LLlap not really because as we get we care less about relationships and more about friendship and pets. Believe it or not picking up a man's dirty socks isn't the great privilege you think it is.
@@doesitmatterwhoiam8838 reminisce on the times somebody approached you who was way out of your league and you had to let him know in front of your friends. dwell on who hurt those butt hurt men.
@LLlap you're assuming I did stuff like that. I was always kind to men that asked me out when I was young. I should have said "bitter" instead of butt hurt. It's just I've noticed men being overly rude to women lately, probably because of the bear thing.
Just today, I decided to cancel my facelift appointment. I’m 30 years old. I am falling so prey to these pressures. Seeing this video recommended after making the cancellation decision was serendipitous
Feminist art is not feminist activism or scholarship. The movie is viscerally effective, that’s what matters. Reflection on our reactions to being terrified of an old woman’s body come after the movie, after being moved and terrified.
@@facetsofus2008 that's your opinion, I found it to be thoroughly ineffective. Every woman portrayed in the film was vain and hollow caricatures through their *own* choices.
I think I was thrown off by the perspective of punishment. Personally, I saw it as a consequence. Self-esteem evolves with age. Therefore, we need to actively work on it throughout our lifetime. If you don't or you won't you will suffer the consequences. I fail to see why how a consequence of your own actions is punishment?
I can't say I'm a fan of hagsploitation, but I'm most certainly a fan of body horror, and the Master David Cronenberg in particular, one of my Top Ten Favorite Filmmakers. As someone diagnosed with a number of disabilities, namely Autism with Preserved Intellect, Anxiety Disorder, Hypothyroidism, and several allergies to cats, shellfish and spring pollen, not to mention having undergone pectus excavatum surgery at age 16, and having been stung by bees, wasps and jellyfish with all the resulting side effects, I have always seen body horror cinema as a huge way to help me embrace my disabilities and not look at them as something that sets me apart, but rather as part of something more natural than the so-called "normal" world we're constantly told to be a part of. I actually get more joy out of visual depictions of bodily distortion, mutation, dismemberment and transformation (especially when done with practical FX) because the common enforced public perception of "normal" to me is stifling, conformist and repressive.
This is going to sound crazy - but I saw it as being a movie inspired by drugs and David Cronenberg much more than I saw it as a commentary on aging. I mean, yeah, obviously, there's the aging part that is the primary catalyst for all the events, but I guess I tend to be much more deeply enamored by the subtle parts of movies, the less-than-obvious messaging, and my favorite has to be unintentional messaging - like the parts that tell on themselves or slip out. While the top-line crisis is yes, aging, and I'm sure there's messaging to be derived from it, I saw it rather as a crisis of spiraling inward, "an internal problem masquerading as an external one," whereby an unmistakeable (to me) tussle with amphetamines acted as the crazy-making catalyst. Maybe aging is the gun and I find the bullets much more interesting. I could go on and on, but imagine this, a person with real spark in the entertainment industry finds her age catching up to her, a sudden crisis and firing from her life's work leads to a chance encounter where she's offered amphetamines to help with her problems and she's "rejuvenated" from a full person (Elizabeth Sparkle, notice the full name with a history), to an empty reflection of what the audience, producers, capitalism itself supposedly holds most fondly, a beautiful know-nothing, golden p*ssy girl roughly age 25 with no background and the barest syllable the still manages to constitute a name (Sue). These amphetamines (IRL, and here I tell on myself ironically) have a finite hype-period, after which you, "spend a week eating food on the goddamned couch," while your "performant" life is put on hold. This leads to permanent damage in your real self the longer you press on, creates a warped and deranged person and the real kicker - there's a thousand fuxers like you feeding the machine everyday for a barely distinguishable group of shareholders and an audience who, if they knew the real you, would scream in horror and bludgeon you to death. The point I got from the movie was, you have something just as you are, you have the option to be beloved by a small group of people who know you if you can stomach being impressive to no one publicly and not even yourself privately. To attempt to kill this public persona is madness, but investing everything you have into her will literally destroy you - but again, we don't even see the real audience until the very end (implying this projection of our perfect selves is a mere fantasy we create for ourselves with the barest whiff of real external input) and that people like you end up as mere grease in a machine. It's better to be honest, to "respect the balance," to aspire to who we think we are and who we want to be while always keeping our history at the forefront, lest we run dry and have not but a mere clipping of our former selves to plaster over who we truly are, what we've become with deranged self-hatred. TL;DR, "I'm a man actually and totally gender-blind." Oh also, "I love amphetamines and it's unmistakable that somewhere on here does them as well." Chadsplained like the best of them - oh also also I referenced Requiem For A Dream and Videodrome as my two bases. Love your videos
I haven't seen this perspective on The Substance. As someone who thinks The Fly is a masterpiece, I so appreciate its usage as a foil here. I was unfamiliar with the notion of hagsploitation. I feel that you're really on point with this interpretation and I'm so happy you've posted a video on it. You're right, I was scared of Elizabeth's aging body in a dehumanizing fashion that aligns with hagsploitation. Perhaps the framing of her form reflects the director's inability to restrain or identify the depth of her own fears, because I do believe the heart of this movie was deeply empathetic. Or maybe it was a way of telling the truth about those fears. But in seeing so much that I could empathize with in this film, I overlooked the undeniable "yuck" factor toward what is ultimately a caricature of real aging... which of course feeds into the widely accepted terror around women showing any imperfections. That sagging breast moment got the biggest reaction in my theater too, and that speaks to how foreign our media renders the aging female form. So I agree, maybe not the most helpful film in that sense. I think The Substance resonanted so much because of how personal and authentic it was in contrast to its stylized presentation. We need more movies about the inner lives of all sorts of women across different genres & styles. So much to reflect on. I love how your videos make me think about stories (and notably, the subtleties of their execution) more deeply.
i think what's interesting is how a lot of the people who watch the movie think it's laughing at Elisabeth while i think it's the total opposite. Sure, we're supposed to laugh at some of the scenes, but it's more catharsis than mockery. The last scene is absolutely tragic to me and it feels strange to see people who did not empathize with Elisabeth because she is too "superficial"
This exactly. I found myself laughing a lot because... well, it's absurd. And yet I was still sad that Elisabeth didn't complete the termination and live out her life as an extremely fashionable and shockingly athletic grandma, or that Monstro wasn't stable (in the physical sense) or accepted because I was rooting for the both of them.
Everyone gets their day in the sun. Everyone gets a twilight. It's fair and emotional growth and maturity helps people grow out of fantasy mindsets which should be gone by 30.
You raise some very valid points. I found this film to be courageous and somehow facile or shallow at the same time and couldn't quite figure out why. I think you nailed why the supposedly feminist message rang hollow. I also noticed that Demi was playing someone who was being put out to pasture at 50 when she herself is 61. That disparity in age between her cosmetically enhanced body and expectation for someone who is 61 felt weird and sort of made the meta-narrative feel even more unavoidable.
Reminds me of that quote that "the problem with Americans is that they never see their grandmother's t*ts" an againg body isn't just terrifying to us- it's foreign. Anyway representation matters
Huh. I don't even recall a sagging breast moment. Maybe I'm inundated by the nonchalance to nudity in dutch film. The film didn't scare me, but the 'spinal fluid extraction' made me cringe everytime (I had a lumbar punction at a young age and needles+spine tends to get a reaction out of me. The scene where she keeps coming back to the mirror for that date made me really sad if nothing else.
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
Hi! This is just my own takeaway from The Substance - obviously I am expecting people to disagree since the movie has gotten vastly positive reviews. The general response to my take (on here and IRL) has been that xyz is "the point" of the movie, but for me it relies a bit too heavily on those assumptions. But that's just me! Debate away.
here's my Letterboxd review of the film!: letterboxd.com/broey_deschanel/film/the-substance/
I like your takeaway, it's coherent. And I love that you included cinema history in it and gave us the name of the two genres the movie is composed of. Very informative!
Whilst I don't disagree with your thesis, as an actor/performer myself, I did find the themes resonant with my own lived experience. Personally, i think the film starkly highlighted how the entertainment industry often pushes the body to its limits and cuts you off from building meaningful relationships without any consideration for the persons wellbeing or what their quality of life would be after they retire/are no longer seen as a profitable commodity.
Personally, I thought the body jumpscares represented injury and body strain. Additionally I thought it was intentional and poignant to showcase Elizabeth with no friends/loved ones/support network. As performers we are conditioned to be shallow and selfish...and above all prioritise our careers over everything else. Wanting a work life balance is seen as you not taking the "opportunity" seriously enough. I saw Elizabeth as a woman who gave her entire life to performing and afterwards realising she has been left with nothing.
To me, the most horrifying aspect of the film was how starkly it showcased the industry pushing people to their physical/ emotional limits, the social pressures to commodify yourself through performing beauty and the inevitability of being discarded no matter how much or how long you try to conform to the shallow, unrealistic and unachievable standards of beauty set by executives.
Make a video on "Why are we so afraid of young men"
What has a critic ever created? NOTHING! They just rip into creations of others.
Those who can make movies do,those that can’t criticise 👎🏼
@@Brahmabullzshe could, but hasn't the internet already done that for us with the man vs bear conversation? a video on that topic would basically just be a rehash of that convo, because it's pretty clear from statistics alone why anyone would be afraid of young men...or even just men, in general. she could even tie it all together by doing an analysis of Alex Garland's 2022 "horror" film, Men. and I'd still watch any or all of those videos.
Whilst I widely agree with your points about hagsploitation, I think a point has been missed about Demi Moore being cast who, as you said, barely has any signs of aging. I saw that as the point. She has been fired and her career ended because she's turned 50, and now she can't stop looking at herself and hating what she sees. We, as an audience, see an almost flawless superstar, but it's still not good enough according to Hollywood. She is sitting in the restaurant looking gorgeous whilst the man who controls her future gorges sloppily on shrimp whilst leering at the young waitress. This is what Hollywood is all about.
I loved how margaret qualley is low key worse looking than Demi Moore she had to really hate herself to go thru all of that. like so many people who struggle with body issues and yet are told they are beautiful. or people getting plastic surgery and becoming “uglier”. she mistreats herself so deeply beyond just taking the substance. If I took the substance, I wouldn’t put myself in a sad hidden room I would put myself in a giant fluffy bed. I see it as a parable in loving yourself.
I totally understand why they cast Demi - and that this was the point of her assuming this role. The reason I bring up her young looks is in relation to the idea that actual aged bodies are not visible to us in cinema, and in media more broadly!
There fun though
Sure, but Broey didn't contradict this point!
@@Maya-md9yt margaret qualley is not worse looking than demi moore
I got emotional hearing your empathy for the older women who might have been watching this in a theater and heard that type of audience reaction. This is the type of compassion that's so often missing from media criticism & analysis 💞
Elisabeth gave up everything for fame, including her relationships. That's why she has no friends. That's why no one comes looking for her when she goes missing for actual months. She only has the approval of the board of men and the world at large. She has no intimacy. She is afraid of what true vulnerability means, which is partly why she stands up her date.
Elisabeth hates herself. That's why all of her violence is inward and why she doesn't attack people who push these insecurities onto her. That's why she saves Sue from termination. "You're the best part about me." Except that she isn't. When Sue uses the activation liquid again she creatres a "better, more perfect" version of them. This is a monster that combines the two of them, and its the first time we see anyone look in a mirror without hating themselves. Later, they are punished for daring to be a woman in public who doesn't care that she's ugly.
The whole point of the "bum shot" of older Elisabeth is to contrast the one thousand bum shots of Sue that we've seen before. And these shots are not meant to titilate, they're meant to leer. We leer at Sue's body, and then when we are presented with Elisabeth's elderly body we are presented with "isnt this what you like to see?" And the answer should have been NO the whole time, not just when looking at Hag!Elisabeth.
Later, when Elisasue falls apart, we see Elisabeth actually happy for the first time: when she doesn't have a body at all.
@@Dycehart love this
You ate this one up
Yeah, I thought that was pretty obvious in the character. Didn't quite follow Broey's argument there.
@@michaelotis223 normally I enjoy Broey's analysis, but this time I definitely got the sense she did not like the movie and this video reflects that and in her pinned comment. This analysis misses a lot of what the movie was going for and I often find she holds the live audience's reaction to the movie to be The Reaction of the film and that coloured this video quite a bit. We also had people laughing in our theatre, but I genuinely believe that this laughter is from the catharsis of horror, not from the mockery of Elisabeth's body. I wish she had met it on its own terms and in the context of Hagsploitation the depiction of older women on screen, rather than comparing it so much to The Fly, which is more about a man's hubris.
@@Dycehart Agreed. It seems to me that Broey is pointing out her experience watching the film with an audience, moreso than tackling any actual shortcomings of the film itself. There's no mistaking the theme of self-loathing in almost every frame of Fargeat's movie. Self-loathing isn't something Cronenberg was actively commenting on, so it sounds like Broey disingenuously faulting The Substance for not doing something that The Fly did. Its like she's trying so hard to justify why this film left her uncomfortable.
It's something I myself fall into whenever a movie didn't meet my arbitrary standards. That's why I always remind myself to take any movie I watch for what it is and what the storytellers were going for, as opposed to what I would have personally liked the movie to be.
Executives can act like they know what the audience want but having positive or atleast entertaining senior citizen stories (especially women) is something we’ve all been fond of throughout. Give them roles, give them dignity. Problem solved.
I very much agree with you. However your words "give them dignity" makes it feel to me like this would some act of mercy. If we let men act all over the place regardless of their age, why not the women too? There are plenty of senior actresses (i.e. over 50) who act rings around younger ones. And who also look very well (for their age, or regardless), so that cannot be a reason not to give them roles.
@ I was referring to workplace safety
No one is entitled to roles or stardom. And executives don’t dictate what sells. Such a strange and silly attitude this is.
@@xaviarnl Let men? What are you on about? Men in Hollywood are doing insane things to their bodies to get and keep roles. So many steroids, insane diets, and purposeful dehydration for a more cut look. The grass ain’t greener sweetie..
@@PokhrajRoy. have you seen Thelma? Recommend
Maybe it's because I had a different viewing experience streaming this movie at home, or maybe it's because I'm pushing 40, have never been conventionally attractive, and have a doctor who tried to get me to take Ozempic to change my body, but this movie impacted me and I did empathize with Elisabeth from start to finish. I could feel my self hatred and the pressure I feel to change myself to suit the expectations of others reflected in every tragic scene. The hardest part for me to watch was when Elisabeth breaks down in front of the mirror and stands up her date. It was way too familiar and uncomfortable. Even the scenes where she covers herself up from head to toe to leave the house, and the fear she seems to feel that someone will see and judge her are difficult to sit through. Demi Moore's more grounded and subdued performance gave me the feeling that Elisabeth believes she doesn't belong or doesn't deserve to belong in this world, which makes Margaret Qualley's performance make more sense in comparison. It's one of the most uncomfortable movies I have watched in a long time, and it's not because of the unrealistic older body that they came up with. It's because it does hold up a mirror for me.
@AN-tw7uj Hate the Ozempic doctor, with all the risk that thing brings
Take care and change doctor if you can
For me, the difference in Moore and Qualley's performance emphasizes that Sue is not a "real" person. She is an act, a charade. Moore is the actual human being who comes back home and binge-eats as a failed means to cope with her depression and dysmorphia.
I think it's leaning a lot more towards "tragic" rather than "punishment" since they made a point of covering the audiance in her blood, implying she is not to blame.
I'm not sure if this interpretation is correct but I saw the agieng body of Elisabeth to be less about really ageing and more about our collective fear of what ageing looks like, her hunched back, her sagging limbs, she didn't really look human at all. In this way it's not as exaggerated as the fly but to me it's still half way there.
I think watching this video also solidified how much I enjoyed that the film separated Elisabeth and Sue into two bodies and not two alter egos inhabiting one body. It does actually a few interesting things:
1. It puts Sue as an unreachable idea for Elisabeth. To some extent Sue is an extension of Elisabeth yet Elisabeth cannot enjoy her younger body. She can only take part in her success and beauty indirectly, and due to her rapidly growing self hate, this becomes enough.
2. It shows how fragile Sue is and how self hate can be contagious. As Elisabeth hates herself, so does Sue hate Elisabeth, despite the fact that they are one. Despite the fact that the Substance does not prevent ageing at all, it just gives you another body. Sue is this unreachable standard and at the same time, also subject to the whims of the studio execs. If she isn't found attractive anymore, her fate will be that of Elisabeth's, and she resents that.
3. There is a broader point here that just as Sue takes life from Elisabeth. We similarly rob our parents of their youth. We stand on (for better or worse) on the shoulders of those who come before us. From the moment of childbirth to independence. The elders of our life, their experience, their trauma, their habits, are all passed down to us. Their lives, to some extent can/will mirror ours. Yet despite this, we place a premium on youth and despise ageing, even though it is their lives we take.
At one point Elisabeth was the pinnacle of beauty, at another point it was Sue. Following this I think MonstoroElisaSue actually just represents (or could be read as) the constant mutation of these beauty standards. How they are so contradictory and sometimes so opposed to one another from one generation to the next, that if they manifested as a body we would acknowledge them for what they really are, something monstrous.
Edit: I also want to add during the scene where Elisabeth the hag is shown, It struck me as deeply sad. Not because of her ageing, but because she sees herself of so little value that she is willing to have the life literally sucked out of her for a brief participation in being young.
Not sure if anyone will read, but this was a great video as always
Great comment!
my grandmother used to say, "beauty is pain," when I complained about shoes or clothes being uncomfortable. She is right in a much darker sadder way than I realized. I have always been a bit of a rebel when it comes to beauty standards, eschewing the need to wear makeup all the time and color my gray hairs. But the pressure is there. People comment on my hair all the time. I asked my husband if someone ever told him he should dye his grays so he'd look younger. Literally never. I can't imagine how a literal sex symbol like Demi Moore must feel in terms of the pressure to look young. I kind of love how she keeps her long dark hair too, many women cut their hair short bc "long hair is for young women" (another thing my grandma said) but fuck that, her hair is incredible.
I read your comment and it’s great. It’s almost like a blog post
I completely agree with all the points you made. I felt so too.
THANK YOU!! i worked in elderly care and elisabeth’s forms when she’s bald and hunched are NOT natural. they are pushed to extreme proportions
I actually feel like for me the horror was more so the fact that her body had rapidly morphed without her being able to process the changes but I do appreciate your take
i heard that this film is also an allegory for motherhood and pregnancy. especially when elisabeth is screaming "i made you, you would be nothing without me" at the tv. the extreme gore around being inhabited and invaded in ones own body. being left alone to grow old. i need to look into this more but i am curious on your read through that lens!
Especially with the “sagging breasts” thing. Motherhood and pregnancy can make your breasts sag long before the aging process hits you.
oooh I love this take! Thank you for sharing
"Invaded" ...
The amount of women I meet irl who dread every birthday after 25 and question their worth is depressing. We're taught that aging is scary, and your experience in the theatre just proved that further. I really wish we had more "normal" looking people on screen and that youth wasn't so coveted, because no matter what, youth only lasts for a short period of time, and aging is a privilege. I cannot handle horror movies personally so won't be watching this or the fly, but really appreciated your dive into them!
Being scared of aging to a certain degree makes sense though and that applies to everyone, not just women.
When you age, your body becomes less capable. You get weaker. You get tired faster. Your body starts to malfunction and to fix it you start taking pills to help you with your conditions (i.e for blood pressure etc). You have less energy to do things. Your organism becomes more fragile. And beyond all that you face your upcoming death that comes closer every year. And you start looking at your life and think, "did I live up to my potential? Did I spend my time meaningfully? What legacy do I leave behind? Did I have fun? Am I happy with the life I've lead?
I had a similar experience during The Substance with people laughing at a scene I found to be very tragic - when Monstro Elisasue tries to wear Sue's NYE blue dress, ripping it as she struggles to fit it onto her "monstrous" new body, stabbing the earrings through her skin, doing everything she can to dress up what is very much a societally non-viable body into one that feels beautiful to her, I felt the same sense of dread and helplessness I felt in early transition - trying to fit into a piece of clothing that is clearly made for someone with very different proportions than you but feeling like you don't deserve to walk outside unless you can somehow manage it. Elisasue had a surprising amount of what seemed like an innocent hopefulness - "maybe no one will notice". It hit really hard as a trans woman. And of course the filmmakers did not intend for this reading, but I can't help but notice how the way older cis women are treated is much the same as non-passing (or even in many cases well-passing) trans women are treated. "Monstrous" fits very well for the way we are both viewed, as is the simultaneous farcical and fearful way that people view our femininity. Idk just some thoughts
love reading this, i felt so much of it too while watching as a transitioning trans man (who's still seen as someone who's corrupting a "sacred feminine" body to be something that is as "ugly" as the masculine self) watching that third act! it's incredibly sad and tragic just as much as it is chaotic and thrilling, just felt so much sympathy for elisasue
I found it really endearing because i thought she was finally loving herself and i was like "work girl" lol but then she hid her face. I guess the monster form is supposed to be consequence of insecurity? but that itself feels shallow...
@@sapphic.flower i didn't see anything as a punishment tbh, coralie seems like a "more is more" director to me, so i do enjoy how elizabeth/sue don't really "learn" anything and it all plays out in the tragic ending. elisasue hiding her face elavated the real sadness of the whole scene to me!
you just made me cry i felt this also watching the substance as a 6 foot trans girl in a 5 feet dominated country it's very sad to some even if im attractive ... a freak show they will never look at me as a woman or a girl even if my waist size is as small as my hand i will never be enough cause im TRANS i loved the substance cause you can interpret it in many different ways
I'm glad I'm not the only one who had an emotional reaction to the 3rd act of this film. I've noticed a lot people who relate to Elisasue tend to be gay, trans, disabled, or neurodivergent
Being an older woman, I love this dive into hagsploitation (I didn't know this term until this video), but also, see the point this movie tries to make very differently.
First of all, I don't think this movie is about beauty per se, more about fame and the sick Hollywood star system. It literally *eats* people's lives, especially those of women, devouring them, deforming them and then throwing them away when they're sucked dry of youth, beauty and energy. And yet, though in the end it has cost them everything, these former stars long for that blip of time when they were relevant. It's hollow, it's nothing, it's dehumanizing, but it is everything they had, everything they were. Working in this industry, I think "The Substance" captures this feeling of longing for this fame, which is abusive love, but the love they know - while also showing us the totally misogynistisc way in which this system works.
I think this is why Sparkle doesn't age realistically at all. I know this might be hard to grab if you're younger and unfamiliar with older bodies, but this is not an old woman! This is clearly a monster, the sort of Baba Yaga witch-monster figure that is so prevalent in European mythology.
And I find it hard to describe, but seeing this as an older woman, I found the images very very powerful. Yes, she is terrifying and monstrous, but she also has the power to destroy the whole system. And she does! The sagging boob is part of this imagery - it is the s3xual subverted to something this system can't deal with. A s3x symbol, reclaimed by women themselves. This is something I (and many older women) would love to be, I think; a monster that finally gets their way with the patriarchs that took everything from them.
This is a totally different read, but I'm wondering if - if you'll rewatch this movie in twenty, thirty years - you'll understand more of this point of view.
Yeah, though I'm only 27, this was really satisfying and empowering to me!
My grandmother would agree with you. She told me that her aging body being able to scare and disgust men was the most freeing and empowering thing she experienced after years of being raped and abused by older males when she was young.
I would not call the substance hagsploitation film. I would say it's more about the self hatred that women are taught in society. I liked the different tones that the film and it was done on purpose between the younger and older self. Elisabeth could have been happy with the former high school school mate but she didn't think she deserved it due to self hatred that woman are taught. The scene where she is getting ready in the bathroom then she hates on herself is the point of the movie. Also how once women pass the age of reproduction we are taught we hold no value in society.
Besides Demi Moore would've noped the fuck out if she knew that's the type of movie we're making in the age 2024
Can a film about the self hatred that women are taught in society and also how once women pass the age of reproduction we are taught we hold no value in society, where the self hatred is the point of the movie not also be influenced by hagsploitation or pyschobity films?
However as a 56 year old woman myself who never liked herself as a young woman I now don’t give a crap. This is the joy of being older 😊
@ hell yeah!
@dolphingang3767 i'm not sure what your experiences in life are, but in their first encounter she was clearly awkard, and hell, maybe even looked down on him, sure, but by the time she was like "you know what? let's give it a chance, why should i stop going out?", she didn't believe she, herself, was good enough for him or to even put a foot out the door.
She was way too ashamed to even show up, when who knows, he may have not cared about the finger, but she panicked, and couldn't fix it the way she envisioned it, so now it was, in her eyes, all over for her. she might as well just stay inside forever and make a mess because who cares right? she is as good as dead looking like that. (it's not what i think, but it's what the movie conveys, and i and others with self image issues, body dismorphia, even eating disorders and who are constantly judged as a woman based on their "fuckability" (you are as good as dead past 30 for many men), well, i'm sure they understand the feelings conveyed, and it wasn't that her friend wasn't good enough, but that she didn't deem herself good enough anymore to even go on a simple, chill date, or even put a foot outside.
"Outside of horror, when do we ever see a sagging breast on screen" !!!
Thank you, that is so succinctly put! I've been thinking about this for years now, and there is SO much that we just never see on screen. I have never seen an authentic and sympathetic portrayal of a person who is "ugly" or "unattractive". You do not see their bodies, you do not see them have sex, and you do not see them unless they're in the background or if they exist for the audience to mock or be horrified by.
And I feel like this is the fate of any person deemed "ugly" by the current trend of beauty standards.
And it's so insidious because I know so many people who shy away from so many social interactions because of media and this narrow definition of what a person looks like makes them feel so undeserving of anything.
Like, no wonder my 22 yo friends are using retinol.
just look at reviews of videos games where women aren't "attractive enough." men through literal temper tantrums
Idk if it's just death we associate aging with, thinking of the societal dismissal that comes with it.
Yeah for women it’s definitely that sense of being rejected by society, being ignored or having your personhood denied. I think these movies just feed that fear (and therefore patriarchal standards lol) when we should cherish aging
Both
I agree, I think women’s fear of aging is different from just fearing death. I for one can’t wait to become a hag, I will fully embrace the freedom of societal invisibility. Crones RISE UP 😌
Yeah, I agree. I believe it's less fear of death, and more fear of the devaluation that comes with aging for women under patriarchy.
It's the same dynamic as in abuse: idealization (of youth and innocence) - devaluation (of the aging woman and independence/strength) - and finally discard (of the old woman and her wisdom).
100%, definitely not just about death, especially for women
I was in The Substance with my best friend. And next to us sat a older Woman in like her late 50s. She definetely had another Experience than us. I also think that this will BE movie hitting a Lot Harder when I too grow old.
But honestly the Scene where Elisabeth makes herself ready to go out for her Date and has a full Meltdown Literally resonated with me on a deeper level.
I really felt for Elisabeth and felt her self loathing and I Loved the way it was portrayed.
Im so curious what the experience of someone 50+ watching this would be. I’m 31 and spent the pandemic partly just dreading becoming 30 (an age i think society/pop culture also made taboo). I felt like the pandemic (among other things at the time) robbed me of my ‘best years’ (26-29). I’ve had this crippling fear/paranoia of aging/dying since high school that’s only gotten worse with time/unrelated traumas.
Maybe it’s just bc my life/wellbeing have improved so much in other areas that i was able to watch The Substance without spiraling. But i honestly left the theater sort of refreshed? It made me reflect on all the Special Episodes of disney channel sitcoms about bulimia and such i grew up with, the controversies around Barbie’s appearance (i think a documentary came out in the 90s/00s), etc.
I kind of disagree with OP’s point abt Elisabeth’s very old body, bc it’s so cartoonishly old; her toes are fused together, her knobby knees have knobs on knobs (she literally has to break her leg to stand back up), her hunched back is practically an upside down U. For me personally the movie was saying ‘rotisseriepossum, if everything you think about your aging body were correct, you’d have to look like this cartoon prosthetic. Calm the fuck down.’
@rotisseriepossum For context I am 22 and maybe I should watch the movie with my mother who turned 54 but she has a weak stomach. I definitely have self esteem issues whilst looking probably fine idk 😅 But I too stood in front of my mirror finding every flaw and not being able to leave my house even though my boyfriend says I'm beautiful. I also have some issues with my body that I have gained a bit of weight since the start of the healthy relationship. So my clothes don’t fit anymore. Oh I also have the feeling with the Pandemic. I turned 18 in the first lockdown here in Germany. 18 is the big birthday in our country. I also had my last school year and my final year with the final exams (I caught covid right before the most important)and I feel so robbed because I loved school and my friends and I am really sad that the best school experience was cut short but not the Prior years where I had no friends. Obviously there are people who lost much more than me, but yeqh thats my feeling.
I have to say I dont see an issue with how Elisabeths aging body is shown. Yes its completely over the top, but thats because Sue/she sucks her own life force out of the original body. Its not like she is aging normally. I didn’t saw the horror that her body was old but that she herself had so much self hate that she willingly destroys her perfectly good body for it. Like substance (pun intended) abuse where addicts ruin their health body and shorter their life time drastically.
@@rotisseriepossumI’m 49 and I have semi- joked that watching the Substance was an unwitting act of totally bludgeoning emotional self- harm. Two days after watching it I had the experience of seeing 6 people get served ahead of me at a bar, feeling more profoundly invisible than I ever have in my life and I completely blame having recently watched the Substance for the feeling of despair that washed over me. It was a brutal experience emotionally and I couldn’t stop thinking about it for a good couple of weeks.
I have been waiting for someone to talk about the way in which Elizabeth’s ageing body was presented in the film and was hoping it would be a menopausal woman, but Maia has hit every point I would have wanted to see and read. I’m really grateful for her perspective, which has articulated my discomfort with the film better than I ever could have.
@@rotisseriepossum
The "getting ready" scene has also hit me, even though I'm in my 20s
I personally feel a couple of your critiques of the film would have made the film worse/not what it is if - for example - Moore’s performance had been more camp or if there was more of a character back story/fleshing out of character. Moore’s character is a foil to the cartoonish ridiculous nature of Hollywood execs & outlandish standards of society. In writing a character that is as camp as the world in which they inhibit, you cease to have contrast. As with an archetypal characterization (not knowing a lot of details, history, etc.) about her character - it makes it easier for people to project themselves & therefore see themselves in Moore’s character & the struggles her character faces. If you have some long winded character exposition of her history & personal story - the character would lose relatability as opposed to a blank canvas to be projected onto. There is more empathy to be found when you can see yourself in a character rather than trying to relate to an ultra specific backstory that you can’t really see yourself in. I don’t want to know who her friends are, how she got her career, or why she is alone. But I can relate to the feeling of being alone - & that’s the point.
Genuinely as somebody with body dysmorphia I'd have HATED it if Demi gave a camp performance, it'd have made no sense. She starts subdued and reserved bc everyone else around her is crazy (they believe in beauty standards) & can be carefree (bc they aren't the ones suffering from beauty standards) and then she gradually becomes more unhinged as she's dragged into their craziness & goes fully insane bc she breaks under the world's pressure. Making a movie like that camp makes it unserious und disrespectful to the subject matter. I've been really frustrated with Broey's recent takes bc they have THOROUGHLY missed the point in so many movies!
Yesss you put it into words so well! The genius of this movie for me was in the feeling of having a mirror shoved in my face - "This is you. This is the over-the-top cartoonish depiction of the exact circumstances you're creating for yourself by hating your appearance."
And so much of the critique I've heard around the movie (including a lot of what's covered in this video) is where it falls flat on the repudiation of Hollywood's attitude towards aging. And honestly, I see where they're coming from because without the personal connection, I don't know if I would have liked it at all. If I wasn't able to project all these other layers of my own personal experiences onto it because it delved further into some backstory about the specific personal experiences Elisabeth went through that made her internalize those ideas so deeply, it would have at the very least been less impactful for me as a young woman.
Is that a shortcoming of the filmmaking, like Broey said in her pinned comment? Quite possibly. But it's one of my new favourite movies of all time because I cannot stop thinking about it.
This analysis seems heavily influenced by an experience with an American audience. In my cinema the sagging breast shot was perceived purely comedically because her blasé boyfriend expected Sue to return from the bathroom and instead met Elizabeth in her final stage. Fargeat is French and the production mainly European. I don‘t think they planned for the image of sagging breasts to be horrifying.
I also think you missed the mark on distinguishing aging from decomposing. What is actually horrifying are the extensive necroses, shedding of body parts and supernatural deformations. She essentially turns into a corpse not just an old woman. I doubt seniors would relate to that any more than they do to zombies.
And most importantly Elizabeth is punished for doing what advertising and media production tell her to. This is the message of the film, that society does not allow for women to age and ridicules them for trying to avoid it. It makes perfect sense for Elizabeth to be a relatively straight character hammered to a pulp by over the top characters to convey this point. It is not her personal failure, it is exactly the societal critique you call for in these dire times.
Totalmente, aquí desde Europa ....nada que ver con California/USA....esta asumido y no produce Horror....la ideología estar bueno y ser joven es una de las locuras americanas 😅
💯
I think you made a great point about the decomposition not merely representing ageing but self annihilation and ego death. I think it’s supposed to allude to the fragility of our bodies and self concept vs finding deeper meaning or connection.
I can’t help but feel we watched a different movie here. I can agree that the film leans too much into the horror of an older body but the reason it’s so punishing to Elizabeth is because of her own complicity in peddling the wellness industry & impossible beauty standards. Sue berating her for her being outdated was about the endless vicious cycle of women who hurt each other at the expense for temporary success. Their days mimic very much like the behavior of addiction. I didn’t see the movie being about burning your youth away either, but that sue’s hedonism is enjoying her own super power without any consequences to her as it can only hurt Elizabeth. I also find it strange not a single mention of ozempic here. It’s not subtle about even down to the fact that you inject it and sue doesn’t need to eat. It’s not about about ozempic specifically, but the horrible beauty industry under capitalism imo
This 👆
Every time I see the thumbnail of a Broey Deschanel new video about some film made by a female I open it hoping that is going to be a good review, and instead it is almost always a lukewarm review at best and at worst a "look how this dude made a similar movie and its better than this" video. I understand the nuances this channel is presenting in this video. Still, I felt that this film offered me a mirror to look at the relation with my own body, how society interprets the depiction of a decaying limb as a jumpscare, and felt empathy for all women who also perceive their own bodies as a prison to escape from at all costs. It is not a bad movie.
I don't think she "hates" the movie, she gave a pretty positive response on Letterboxd and also pointed out the good and flaw aspects of it. I also really like this movie, but I actually 100% agree with Broey's take
@@rosielisamoreno I'm sorry, is she not allowed to enjoy movies directed by men about women more than movies about women by women? This is an extremely odd comment
I just watched it last night and even as a 43 year old man it hit me hard. I’m not sure why now, but this year in particular, has hit me really hard in regards to aging. Well, I do know, it’s because I noticed it significantly. Even without the societal pressure and standards, aging is hard in general. The world has changed so much at a certain point you realize it’s not “your” playground anymore. It’s just hard, especially if you don’t feel accomplished and have nothing and no one.
@@bobtaylor170i hope god remembers u name dropped him and gives you a nice commission for it whenever u get up there
I'm also a man and only turning 30 in 2 months, but even I was looking in the mirror inspecting all my flaw like Elizabeth after watching this movie... 😭
lowkey one of the top places to see normal aging bodies is public pools. i used to lifeguard at a ymca and the old ladies that came in for water aerobics were so cute, one of the woman who led the classes was 97 and her back was super hunched but she had the most energy of any teacher there. there were also this group of old russian ladies that would come in and float and gossip as their husbands walked back and forth in the shallow end. all very cute, just a bunch of old ladies living their lives and taking care of their bodies. i remember a long time ago seeing some post about how europe has nude spas and seeing saggy grannies and gramps as young kids helped them learn, everyone gets there, no one can escape age. i'm from the midwest and to me this movie feels especially catered to la/california creatures, there really is something about picking demi moore who is beautiful, don't get me wrong, but has been so worked on she looks uncanny. be kind to yourself, embrace aging, it's a wonderful thing to grow old.
what a great point about public pools! i kind of love how the women there didn't care either, they were swimming, dammit. look or don't look. and they were taking care of their bodies, such a beautiful thing. I took a yoga class with seniors when I was 19 and let me tell you those women knew their shit. there is almost something freeing about being an old woman bc you no longer have to perform femininity in the way the world seems acceptable.
So well said.❤
You're right. In real life, I find old ladies really adorable. I teach an elderly woman piano and I love how excited she gets when I teach her a new song- learning piano is sort of on her bucket list. I just love interacting with old women and find them very endearing. Hollywood may use them for horror but reality is much different.
Yup, as a Spaniard myself, I'm starting to think this hagsploitation and detachment from the elderly body is specially poignant in white american/protestant society, but maybe not so much in other cultures, like eastern europe or meditarranean, where the extended family interactions are still a vital part of your life, or even Scandinavia where saunas are commonplace. That's not to say neglect of the elderly isn't a big issue in Spain and the fear of aging/body expectations is as intense, but I could guess we maybe spend a bigger deal of time with our grandparents that they don't feel as alien. Again, I may be making a lot of assumptions, America's a big place with lots of religious and ethnic backgrounds and I'm sure many americans have more going with their grandparents other than that relative you see in nursing homes, but those are my two cents
Gracias amigo
That Demi Moore's body barely shows signs of aging is THE POINT. We see the casting call for someone under 30 yo. And every day we listen to women talk about how much fewer opportunities they receive. I think we saw a realistic look at what most women go through. Society doesn't wait until you're 80 or even 40 to tell you they want someone younger, creating an obsession with trying to pass for as young as possible
Literally. Just look at the discourse happening online. Post 25, women have nothing to offer. They've hit the 'wall' and are suddenly gross and old and rapidly declining. Hell, even the movie itself makes this reference when Dennis Quaid's character says this all while struggling to urinate (ultimate irony cause it's usually gross old men with no concept of their own decline saying this). Plenty of actresses have come out and said they've felt devalued after a certain age, and denied roles. This is in stark contrast to their male costars who got acting gigs well into their middle and old age. We've just recently had a breakthrough with Monica Bellucci playing the oldest Bond girl, meaning that shock and horror she was of an age with her co star, Daniel Craig. It's extremely pervasive, to the point that you cant escape it.
@@TheaTheGeniusThe old men know their worth. It was never their looks, but money and status. Men are born poor and grow rich, while women are born rich and grow poor in the sexual marketplace. Yeah, the gross old men say that. While the entitled young women say broke men ain’t shit. All is fair..
@@TheaTheGenius it's because hollywood is run by gross old men
Ehhh, idk if I agree that The Fly is even trying doing the same thing as The Substance in terms of its scare mechanism. Yes, the transformation of a man into a supernatural fly being played for horror is a lot less objectionable than a woman’s transformation into an old woman, but isn’t that the point? Personally, I think that The Substance is self aware enough that it knows it’s hoisting the horror trope of the “terrifying aging female body” onto a humanized and sympathetic protagonist, and thereby asking the audience- especially the female audience- to reflect on why these images scare us so much when these physical attributes (sagging skin and breasts, age spots, yellowing nails, hair loss) await all of us later in our lives. To me, between the absurd third act, the complete break from reality represented by Monstro Elisasue, and the in-text reckoning with body dysmorphia, this film aims to confront women with the physical realities of aging and also to make us consider how absurd our fears of them are. How absurd the prevalence of aesthetic surgeries is. How absurd our aversion to seeing the aging female body is. I think a more abstract metaphor divorced from the cultural baggage of gender like is used in The Fly would’ve been far less effective. This is a gendered movie about a gendered issue using a gendered vision of horror to help a female audience reckon with these uncomfortable realities about our bodies without getting sucked into the predatory anti-aging industry that has no real interest in our physical, mental or spiritual wellbeing
i completely agree with this.
100% agree with this. I do think this film holds up a mirror to audiences (especially female audiences but it can apply to anyone ofc) in that it simultaneously depicts these issues as absurd and even humourous without ever losing its sense of empathy for the people who suffer from said issues. It makes us confront ourselves by reckoning with its absurdity. Also i feel Elisabeth is the only one not over the top because her outside view of other characters is an external projection of what she internally feels.
19:43-20:00
I think to some degree the fact that signs of aging await everyone is part of the reason old people (especially women) are dismissed and excluded. Just like blaming the victim of an assault makes a person feel like they’re safe because they won’t make the “mistakes” the victim made, it’s a way to avoid those fears
I was surprised that you viewed Psycho as a jumping off point for Hagsploitation and not Sunset Boulevard. Norma Desmond feels more like a prototype for many of the characters that came to define the subgenre.
Not horror enough maybe. I love that film.
I would say whatever happened to baby Jane is the true originator of the Hagsploitation genre.
I think she missed half the point of the movie she is talking about and probably doesn't have enough cinema history under her belt
Was thinking the same.
Yes, Sunset Boulevard, Fedora
I think it’s interesting that our critiques of stories featuring women seem to insist that these stories need to be soft and compassionate at the core. Why can’t stories about women be shallow, loud, angry, violent, and disgusting because the artist is purposefully channeling those unpleasant feelings into their art? Why can’t it be a scream of frustration instead of a feminist masterpiece? Why can’t it be seen as an exaggerated reflection of the way society insists on our youth and then mocks us when we destroy our natural bodies with procedures and medications in the pursuit of that youth and beauty? To me the aged body of Elizabeth in full nude is more related to the body dysmorphic fears of how an aged body looks and not the reality of one
I absolutely agree. The Substance is a goddamn horrifically amazing work of art and I don't give two sh*ts if anyone puts it down for not being "feminist masterpiece". It's heartbreaking and dark and it's also a wild ride that's camp to its core. I walked out of a packed theater and EVERYONE of all genders absolutely either loved it or were shook to their core. It doesn't matter if it's something we "needed", it's something we got. It's made by a woman and it's absolutely amazing.
exactly
Similar vein in how people try to make lesbians love of women somehow inherently more pure than other genders. It’s really weird lmao
Totalmente❤🎉
You didn't think Demi Moore cackling to herself like an old school witch and throwing foodmush around the kitchen and at the TV was over the top? You thought that was a subdued performance? Oooookayyyy
She points out that was the only scene where she gets to go all out. The rest of the movie she is pretty much relegated to victim.
@@littlebunse5 I'm with you, the movie and everyone in it was horribly over the top.
In our critique of The Substance I find that we forget that it is written and directed by a woman who has materialized her self loathing in this script. I think it's social implications feel so superficial because in the end, self loathing can feel so strongly seperate from our circumstances outside of ourselves. Old Elizabeth is not similar visually to the old women mentioned and is an over exaggeration of that purposefully. It's seemingly a representation of how horrific we already find it. I think it's interesting how the substance in your analysis was compared to films directed by men. Not that they can't make the films (Poor Things being in my top 4) but it's just a different way of looking at aging women. I find a lot of the criticism of the substance not taking into account and empathizing with how personal this film is. It may not feel good but let's be fucking real, being a socialized femme in society does NOT feel good. Elizabeth inevitably silently pining for love through beauty and fame while seeing how isolated she is made me boo fucken hoo
Coralie Fargeat is 48 now, so she was maybe three or four years away from Elizabeth's age at most when she started this project.
There ya go! I AGREE
@@AT-rr2xw exactly! It's a very personal expression and reconning of her own self loathing and anxiety
being personal doesn't give you a shield against exploiting that very own experience for spectacle. if anything, it makes your views on this societal issue more transparent.
@@majejejentathe experience in question is her own. Is it exploitation or is it reckoning with a very shameful part of being femme in this society? Again, the hag in question is an exaggerated version of an elderly woman. An image of unrealistic and irrational anxiety we have about ageing
I disagree. Elisabeth’s transformation is into a monster - in her eyes, in society’s eyes. While she is just aging rapidly - an aging woman is the monster she so desperately seeks to escape from. I think The Substance does a great job at holding up the mirror many times in the film and I think we can all see ourselves in Elisabeth and the struggle she has with herself / Sue.
I don’t agree that the aged body of Elisabeth is supposed to scare the audience. It scares Elisabeth. She becomes the thing that she is most afraid of - showing signs of aging, not being desirable by society anymore. But that doesn’t make her ugly.
This film has a message of self love more than anything to me. A cautionary tale of what can happen when we change ourselves for patriarchal society and the monster it creates within us.
I left The Substance feeling beautiful, and sorry for all the times I thought I wasn’t.
You are missing a major point:
The old woman Elizabeth becomes is a CARICATURE of older women’s bodies. The point is for the audience to laugh and be horrified at a physical avatar of our perceptions of older bodies. It is meant to have us question our incorrect perceptions and expectations.
This is why all the weird things men say about women’s bodies come to pass, like the boob on the face.
The film isn’t a mirror. It’s a malicious compliance to all the horrific thoughts we have about women’s bodies. What would happen if that chicken drumstick went right to my thighs?
This!
But compliance to these misogynist tropes and archetypes doesn’t produce anything new or interesting if it’s framed in a way in which the audiences initial response is simply fear and then laughter. I was also in a cinema where everyone, mainly young men and women, laughed at these shots. Is the point not here that devoid of the empathy and poignancy that films like Baby Jane and The Fly cultivate, The Substance just ends up reproducing the very misogyny it attempts to critique.
@@lomoonoo55 I believe satire is the word you're looking for. The Substance satirizes these concepts. The laughter and horror you get from the audience IS the purpose and is the new contribution to the conversation. You are supposed to notice this reaction and then begin to have the same reaction to the beauty standards held up in real life. It breaks them down by shoving the absurdity in your face. This is the new and interesting take everyone is seemingly missing.
@@nathanielholzgrafe5274 Of course this movie has satirical elements. I guess I disagree with you as to how successful that satire is in encouraging us to interrogate misogyny and body standards in contrast to films that are less tonally inconsistent (I.e. The Fly). Satire isn’t some untouchable form; it can be both effective and ineffective.
@@lomoonoo55 I would argue it’s immensely effective, as both you and I are here discussing it, along with countless others in countless other videos commenting on this movie and misogyny/beauty standards. What exactly would have to happen for this to not be effective?
26:18 to me, moores detachment from her actual physical age just added to the sadness i felt during my watch. all of this was so unnecessary. She was still good-looking but the everraging war on her body forced her to take these ends.
exactly!! it really helped to bolster the body dysmorphia theme
I somewhat disagree with the point about Demi Moore's acting being too subtle to fit the tone.
While the message was in some ways packaged very simplistically in The Substance, the fact that Moore starts out more subdued and almost timid but is *then* driven into unhinged behavior was an interesting addition.
In the first part, she is such a contrast to Quaid's disgusting shrimp-eating/spitting producer. And the fact that she acts more natural makes the bathroom scene where she's examining her body more poignant. It's precisely *because* she is not a "hag" initially, not even in some campy acting way that makes the transformation into a caricature of aging truly work.
As much as I like the camp and high contrast deep lines of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, having Elizabeth start in that state would be wrong.
While I did enjoy The Substance I do agree that its more sparse approach to storytelling does open the film up to the audience laughing at the characters as opposed to empathizing with them.
It’s been interesting seeing some takes saying that discussing women and ageism is ‘not that original or new’ which in some respects sure I can see that perspective but on the other hand as you pointed pointed we continue to see this fear of aging all over social media.
The Hollywood aspect is what hurts the empathy. It’s really not that serious that she’s not famous af anymore. It’s first world problems but actually worse. Also most actresses don’t complain about this when they’re young. When this stuff benefits em.
I think that's the point. Our endless desire to point and laugh at another's expense coming at the price of our ability empathize with someone who may actually be suffering at the hands of an injustice. This is what leads to the... "explosive" ending that makes this film shine. The blood is on *our* hands
I took a horror class in school and never really reconciled the concept that what we're so terrified of - aging, "disfigurement" - is some people's everyday reality.
i think your critique that the film victimises elisabeth too much is a little off base. i don't like to state what the 'point' of any movie is because i think that's a bit reductive, especially for a movie like the substance which has so many potential readings, but for me this victimisation of elisabeth throughout the film is an intentional part of its narrative. elisabeth is a victim of her own cruelty towards herself - she despises the body she sees as aged so much that she repeatedly ruins her own life in a myriad of ways. i found that very poignant.
I think there is a miss understanding that Elizabeth and Sue are not the same person. They are: Sue says “I can’t go back inside you” when she decides to stay in the younger body “for ever”, AND, when given the opportunity to stop, Elizabeth decides not to, because she enjoys going into the younger body. Elizabeth isn’t a victim of Sue, as much as an alcoholic isn’t a victim of their drunk self, but because she oscilantes between bodies, it’s easier for her (and for us) to forget it’s actually just one person harming herself. She is also not a victim of her quest for youth, she is just an addict hooked on the high of being praised by a male dominated Hollywood industry, and that’s the tragedy. I see how the movie can rely on what it’s trying to condemn, but I also think its purpose is not to educate us. It’s just a horror story made to entertain us, based on a very real problem (both for celebrities and non-celebrities), augmented for our amusement.
Aging as a woman is not the fear of death, but the fear of invisibility - of living a life stripped of your value as a person because you are no longer pleasing in the eyes of society. It’s this fear of having to continue living completely silent
Exactly
Who says? Not us.
When the movie finished, I wasn't left feeling like Elisabeth was a helpless person or guilty for the way she wound up. She is a woman who has identified her value as a human being with her appearance. And that's what makes this films message special to me: it's a realistic situation for so many women of all ages today. Demi Moore's performance could not be campy because she is playing herself. And she is us. The contrast between the grotesque and funny parts of the film with the fact that Elisabeth, like many other women, sees herself as a shell of a human being is why this film is interesting to me at all. The world is playing us. She's not that old. She's not ugly in the slightest, but she doesn't see any value in herself as a human being if she's not what was expected of her. Unfortunately, many women today think the same about themselves and don't see how much they can contribute to everything around them, regardless of how they look or how old they are. When the movie finished, I felt like a part of my brain that always looks for the nearest mirror so that I can fix myself has melted away. The most relatable moment for me in the movie is when she damaged her body so much that she only wanted to come back to the way she was a couple of days before. In that moment she began to realize she didn't need to butcher herself at all because what the way she was beautiful. But it was too late.
I think you misunderstood The Substance. Or at least parts of it. I personally wasn't scared of Elizabeth because she was turning into an old lady. I felt bad for her that she was aging so quickly because she is losing years. And look, no 50 year old wants a weird finger that doesn't match the rest of you. Plus, it wasn't normal age either. She was becoming deformed. This wasn't just turning old. I wasn't scared of her but FOR her.
this conversation around the substance’s depiction of aging reminds me a lot of the critiques abt the fat suits used in films like the whale. the audience cannot be expected to truly empathize with what they understand, rationally, to just be prosthetics. our ability to truly see these characters as people is diminished by the fact that we know this is not how they “really” look.
There's a great line cat has in Song of ice and fire about how there's nothing worse than being an ugly or old woman.
I love that line. Catelyn thinks this around the time she first meets Brienne. Cat's viewpoint is informed by the extremely patriarchal society she lives in. Women are seen as inherently weaker, like they cannot possibly be strong in the way that men are, and therefore Brienne is a freak of nature for being big, strong, and skilled in combat. Brienne may not even be very ugly by our standards, but characters within the story see her as abnormally hideous, almost monstrous, because she does not conform to the very strict gender roles for women.
It also reminds me of Cersei, who is fiercely jealous of the power that men are allowed simply by virtue of being men. She attempts to gain power through her beauty and sexuality, but fears she will be usurped by the "younger and more beautiful queen" of her prophecy.
So you have two characters, one of whom somewhat yearns to conform to the feminine role but is completely barred due to her size and strength, and copes with this by adapting into a man's role. And one who conforms to the feminine role and attempts to operate within its narrow constraints while despising every second of it.
I could talk about gender in ASOIAF all day. There is so much to unpack...
Meh…I think the reason this analysis doesn’t work for me is because she is Sue. She is not be victimized by another, she has internalized misogyny to the point where she is victimizing herself. Someone else pointed out that she doesn’t use her “second chance” as a younger self with influence to make any change. She simply reclaims the position she had within a system that threw her away. The scenes I have seen of this movie and her naturalistic portrayal feel painful and horrifying in that someone could do that to themself. I can’t imagine it being played as campy. I think everyone else being over the top keeps the focus on her, because that is really where the horror lies, even if outside forces are the underlying cause.
As an openly gay guy who has been out since the '90s, I can say indisputably that the same worship of youth has been adopted by gay men for decades. But today, we have the "hot daddy" trope... which has always been around, but is finally being embraced by the gay subculture. It's too bad that females don't yet have the same thing. Bring on the "hot mamas"!
Oh no, a love for older women is definitely something present in lesbian subculture as well
Isn't that (at least in part) what the whole "Mother" trend is about?
Milfs?
@@DotRD12 That's great to hear!!!
As a lesbian, it's definitely huge in lesbian culture - praying it hits the mainstream
I think a lot of critique is missing the fact that Carolie Fargeat is in her late 40s, she's nearing "middle age". Unlike a movie like X - this is a woman nearing that age range, likely lamenting her feelings about that, not a man just writing something for shock value. It possibly lacks compassion bc well, when it comes to insecurities about ourselves, we tend to not be compassionate towards ourselves; as women, we're allowed to be angry and messy with our feelings - I don't think every piece of media from us, about us, should be nice and compassionate all the time. The Horror genre does use the trope of evil aging older men too, Saw being a popular example but, we have the flipside with X and Harold - not just Pearl.
I feel like it's disingenuous to call Demi Moore's final stage of rapid aging a normal old body. Sure, people get very wrinkled and hunched over and lose hair, but the proportions of Moore in this scene are fairly inhuman, with her upper back and knees especially bulbous beyond anything. But even if it was just a very old body, I still think the audience can empathize with a character who's put so much stock into her appearance that, to see it rapidly taken away from her, can be devastating. The fact we don't see her relationships on screen might suggest that she doesn't have meaningful ones, she maybe has put everything into a career that relies on her looking a certain way, so losing the one thing she has is obviously very painful. It's tapping into the fear of aging that can be quite traumatic especially for women. And if some audiences aren't reacting in an empathetic manner, isn't that inevitable given the disgust people show towards older women like you mentioned? A movie like this that's gone from the arthouse to the mainstream very quickly isn't going to achieve its intended effect with a lot of general horror audiences, who go to the movies to be freaked out and gawk at what's on screen typically. Artists shouldn't necessarily be held accountable for shallow or mistaken interpretations that some audience members come to. And to say it fails as a critique discounts the many women who've resonated so heavily with it, I don't think people are only getting "wow this is insane/fucked up" out of it. I dunno, I'd agree that it isn't the most scathing critique of beauty standards, but let's not project that onto it when it's not necessarily the filmmaker's main intention. If Fargeat wanted to make that movie, then she would've made a more restrained character-focused piece instead of a heavily stylized film that's clearly influenced by exploitation cinema and the New French Extremity. I think there's room for The Substance in the "feminist cinema" canon, even if it doesn't tick all the boxes of having perfect representation of aging women. Just my two cents, you're one of my favorite movie creators so I'm obviously going to keep watching your vids, just felt compelled to defend what'll almost certainly be my favorite movie of the year.
I enjoyed The Substance, but I actually agree with your entire analysis. I heard someone say Elizabeth Sparkle is essentially a Kardashian, who during her career perpetrated the very thing that led to her demise. So for Elizabeth, an old decrepit body IS her worst nightmare because she’s in Hollywood. The way she looks is linked to her career, which due to a lack of any community seems to have become her entire life. I do think there was an opportunity to highlight the city/industry as part of the disdain of old bodies, but we’re never shown an old person content with their life so it does line up with the points being made.
we do see older people content with their looks and their age, it’s just that it’s only men, which i think is very intentional.
But what about that old man that warned her and gave her the substance in the first place? The film wanted to hightlight this all can happen to men, too
I do feel that the perception of Elizabeth as lacking agency comes from the fact that, while the movie does repeat it, the "you are one" concept is hard to wrap our heads around. Elizabeth is Sue - meaning that even if the roles were inverted (with who we perceive as Elizabeth being the one inside Sue) the result would be exactly the same. Any version of Elizabeth resent her aging body. Sue is Elizabeth's agency - her self hatred and destructive tendencies embodied.
If you think old women aren’t horrified by their own bodies you really really didn’t get it! I went to see it exactly because of my own sense of horror at my aging body! I loved it.
I literally got an anti-aging cream ad while watching this😭
"all the elderly women you know whose bodies are not so different"? wtf are you on about? I worked in a hospital I don't think I've ever seen an elderly lady look like that. Do you see elderly people in such a grotesque exaggerated way?
That’s what I’m saying! So many people, the creator of this video and in the comments, think Demi Moore looks very young for 60 when she, aging wise, looks standard for a 60 year old (wrinkles, texture of her skin etc.). She’s just an attractive woman. So many people have never been around old people and so they genuinely believe that these highly exaggerated versions of aging are actually standard.
I'll be 3000% honest, and I'm soo guilty of this myself as a recovering English major - could the research into Hagsploitation have colored too strongly your perception of this film? Via authorial intent, I'm not seeing a conscious drafting of that line of history within this film so much as I'm seeing a feminine substitution/response of an extraordinarily tired film trope of "man creates thing that he thinks will be a thing of beauty - thing metamorphasizes out of his control - thing leads to his undoing - we are not to play god/nature is the true keeper of all things sacred and balanced" a la Frankenstein. I think the one line in particular, "there aren't any movies about old men rejecting their place in society/spiraling out of control," is perhaps too simplistic of a framework - there are so many movies about men rejecting "their place" in traditional society and it leading to their undoing - I think its just born out of the fact that women, historically and in modernity, are seen as being two-dimensional in their character development/portrayal, thereby their "descent into madness" via "rejection of place in aging" is played very straight whereas mens are given so much more delicacy, depth and care in their stories. For men its never about "their downfall by rejecting place," no, no, its the masculine-coded Icarus flying too close to the sun, "man attempting to play God" rather than accepting himself as ordinary. With that being said, there absolutely is a place for this line of reasoning and analysis (ie via a reading in contrast with Hagsploitation). If anything though, I got ultra-personally-close-to-the-subject for the writer/director to Elizabeth and a chastising/______sploitation for Sue. Her (Sue's) problems, struggles and ambitions are pictured as being cheap, superficial, fleeting, naive, and ultimately at the behest of an industry intent on exploiting her for their own gain, never mind any sort of potential benefit it may have for her (which, based on the movie is what exactly?) whereas with Elizabeth her concerns are handled with depth, fleshed-out, and are a particularly hard-pinched nerve for the women who saw the movie with me both young and aging. I think everyone innately grasps the struggles of trying to remain "beautiful," in a society hell-bent on chewing through you like the shrimp (prawns?) displayed at the very beginning of the movie. It seemingly invokes an unshakeable, yet seemingly conversely unspeakable, or to be abashed of reality that women dare not speak its name - "I'd give anything to stay young and beautiful - to have that same gaze transfixed upon me that I know I once had," whether it be plastic surgery, imaginarily "cosplayed" out via fan-fic writing, or the black-pill, saying everything about "her," and in effect "me" is superfluous, glib, doesn't understand and is worthy of hatred and disgust in its own form. Think about "women who hit 30 and start talking about all the things Gen-Z is doing wrong on Tik-tok," like, "that'll really show 'em how hip and with it you really are." There seems to be no true neutrality and this movie seems to hit a nerve with the women in my life in such a way that it's impossible to walk away without distaste, and I think its worthy of really dwelling on that for the sake of teasing out what it really is their feelings are in reaction to - the men who control society, the patriarchy's unceasing dominance, trying to carve out a place outside of those things while fighting an unrelenting struggle under it, or maybe even complicity/surrogacy in that process as an individual who then went on to have the leopards eat their face? I can't say, it's not a subject super-familiar to me, but at the very least I got an honest, tormented portrayal where even maybe their was no straight-forward or satisfactory reading to be had - kind of feels a bit far outside my wheelhouse. Also yes I am a loser and I have no life, enjoy the comparatively book-length essay by RUclips comment standards!
the monstro is supposed to be a literal interpretation of the beauty standards like if men love boobs so much why wouldn’t they love a body covered in boobs and throwing up a single boob…
While I love your analysis, and appreciate your reservations, I think the entire point of the film was to make us question WHY we read certain things (particularly ageing, but also visible disability) as monstrous. Do I think it overshot the mark, and that it's dedication to horror tropes alienated an unfortunately large portion of the audience from that message and from Elisabeth as a human being? Yes. But all I could think about throughout the entire film is in just how much pain Elisabeth, and later ElisaSue, must be, and it made me desperately sad. I think the scene where Elisabeth tries to straighten her leg, but her knee won't cooperate, is essential in this: where first her pain about ageing was psychological, it is now very physical, too. She is not a monster, she is a person in pain.
@@kj7067 did you miss the part where she has monster in her name at the end? We read the scenes as monstrous because we're told to by the literal director
@@user61920 assuming you're asking in good faith (yes, I did see that - it was fairly difficult to miss): I don't think that changes my point at all? Because, let's be real: what does she do to deserve the title? She's not a monster in the sense that we would call a serial killer a monster. All she wants to do is be with her audience, her fans, and tell them that she missed them. That is literally all she does. Apparently, what earns her the title of 'monster' are her physical imperfections, and I do think that's something the movie asks us to actively think about.
BD, I really appreciate your takes on how we devalue aging people in society. I am an older person and I often hear derogatory things said about aging women in commentary. Often a younger RUclipsr I really respect will say something or many things very ageist. There is so much to discuss about the value of a person as they become older. These are such important conversations to have. Thank you again.🌺
Your analysis of the Hag's role in film is fascinating! However, I think your commentary on this film touches only the surface, while the substance delves into themes that deserve a deeper look.
Firstly, there’s the fear of death, which is central to her obsession with aging. Aging itself represents the slow approach to mortality, yet it serves an even more compelling purpose here. For me, it's clear that the film portrays how this is tied with capitalism’s demand for productivity, suggesting that our worth is directly linked to our ability to work. When Elizabeth transforms into Sue, the first thing she does is attend a job interview, reclaiming her place in the workforce.
This, to me, is a far stronger message than the supposed gerontophobia often cited. The film's "monster" isn’t inherently terrifying-it’s the way society devalues her as an aging woman, pushing her into a self-perception based solely on desirability and productivity. She becomes the nightmare that haunts her (and most women), unable to find peace with her mortality and trapped in societal expectations defined by patriarchy. I don't think it's fair to evaluate a movie based on the audience reaction. In any case, it's revealing our societal current state on these topics, and therefore expressing it's inherent artistic value that way.
Finally, and I don't see this point stressed enough, this story tackles addiction and drug dependence. Beyond mere "obsession," the reliance of Elizabeth on both the substance and Sue herself illustrates a more nuanced dimension. She’s drawn back repeatedly during the film on whether to continue with the decision she has made, but always does, culminating in her inability to kill Sue. Because, without her, she feels she’ll lose herself entirely. It’s a much more refined take on the mainstream depiction of drug abuse, telling a truer and sadder story: that addiction is not an individual's problem, but rather the way society deforms our morals and desires so that the only thing we can rely on to "fulfill" ourselves is to somehow liberate ourselves through external means, and in the darkest case, all of it to be productive or fit societal expectations.
That final scene-a brilliant, tragic end, where not even in death is she free from the twisted identity society has imprinted on her. This film confronts the darkest corners of our psyche: not only the fear of decay and death but the terror of straying so far from societal norms that we lose something of ourselves in the process. Or maybe it leaves the question: what is left inside us when these horrors are taken away?
The film hits themes that resonate deeply with the LGBTQ+ community and others struggling under societal expectations and common issues with drug abuse. Reducing it to just a portrayal of aging women, for me, does it a disservice. Cheers!
i don't think they were saying it's *only* anything. As with any compelling piece of art, there are many takeaways and lenses to view things through.
Elisabeth character is never fully camp because her struggles with self hate and addiction are real and serious.
I think it’s great that she doesn’t act like a looney toon most of the time because of what she represents.
Love your analysis! I feel though as if you're missing out on another perspective, being the 'deal with the devil/sell your soul' part. I really did feel a lot of empathy for Elisabeth when, at multiple points, she just wasn't able to withstand or end her deal with the devil (and I say this as a man in his 30s) and it felt like a commentary on society (maybe celibrity culture specifically) where a person like Elisabeth simply cannot feel self-worth anymore. Then again, as also pointed out by you, mixed feelings about the film. It just felt like it could've been better than it turned out to be.
Elizabeth is her own monster and villain. That’s the point. “Remember you are one.”
I can understand how it would be viewed as "hagsploitation," but you failed to mention the point of the movie, which is not to be a horror film for the sake of it. It portrays the pressures that women, especially in Hollywood, have to face regarding the aging process and being left to the dust, only valued for their physical beauty and youth, and the negative effects of chasing after the fountain of youth can lead to.
I saw a surprising amount of elderly ladies when I went to see this film, and they seemed to really enjoy it! A pair of them (two friends) stayed until the end of the credits. I find that the best way to know how a demographic feels about representation is to ask people of said demographic. What is offensive to some, is empowering to others.
It probably might not have been offensive. But even if it was and they didn't show it rudely doesn't mean it's empowering. This isn't a trans slasher situation.
My friend and I both went to see this for an "angry ladies night out" and we enjoyed it though we also didn't find it perfect by any means. And I agreed with the video about screams and gasps and laughter at the old woman form. It was sad and frustrating. As a lover of horror movies, it's something I've been noticing more and more and it has become one of my least favorite things. Oh no, saggy boobs! The world is ending! Look at this old lady kid herself into feeling desirable or wanting to be attractive still. How dare she.
Still, it brought on some interesting conversations.
And we also stayed in the theatre after the credits just talking. Though I'm 37 and she's, like 45 so I'm not sure if we are the elderly ladies you saw (we are in st. Louis). 😂 But I damn mear feel that way sometimes.
@@boo_in_stlou nah, these ladies both had white hair (and in a different country xP) but I'm glad you enjoyed the film even if you found it flawed. I gotta say, I am almost your age, so if we're counting that as "elderly" I want in!! lol
22:20 literally standing ovation from my living room. this is the same exact thing that happened in my audience, SO much laughter and screaming and more laughter when she’s basically just old. and you’re the only person I’ve seen sum up EXACTLY how I’ve been feeling about the movie since I saw it. the jump scares/humor are not discouraged by the movie, they’re even encouraged, and that feels so antithetical to the quite obvious message of the movie. I never comment on things but I was literally cheering during your video like a football game because you nailed it on the head.
edit: also remembered I thought the exact same thing about how it felt like it was trying to be camp but it didn’t go far enough one way or the other for me
Honestly, if you think elderly people look anywhere near as Elizabeth after she's had life drained from her, literally, it shows how detached americans are from old age thanks to asylums.
Yep!
The fear of aging is rooted in the fact that women have been oppressed by men and their survival depended on appeasing them, and men with pdf file tendencies at that. The older women get the harder they are to control, and that is undesirable for the gender that's had to nerf women throughout history to placate their own ego. We all know that we're only seen as valuable in our youth, in our desirability to men, even if we don't want them. We have seen older women devalued and mocked so long that we inherently recoil from the inevitable transformation into them. The patriarchy made us afraid of our own growth. It's deeply sick. Fight the programming. The more women opt out the more we can dismantle the corporations and the societal forces telling us that's our main value
Well said.
For me, I thought The Substance put the horror of self-loathing so viscerally onto screen. It was true body horror. The fear and hatred of our own bodies. We are taught to hate ourselves so much. Killing the “old” version of ourselves in pursuit of perfect. Normally this sort of murder
just becomes fuel for TikTok before and afters. But this movie really showed how intense this emotional suffering can be and how it can fully consume you. I certainly walked away from the movie wanting to address my own body issues before they escalate to what was portrayed.
Aging in my opinion is objectively horrible and disgusting, because we can never consent to it, we are forced to „accept“(gaslight) ourself into thinking that watching yourself slowly rotting away, and loosing your bodily autonomy, and even yourself, is this „beautiful“ part of nature…
Happy to see Christopher Lasch’s the Culture of Narcissism get a mention! Super underrated. Recently listened to an episode of the 1Dime Radio podcast that provided a solid guide to the work of Christipher Lasch. Highly recommend it
I was sooooo into the video until she said “ it doesn’t commit to being camp” WHAT ARE YOU EVEN SAYINGGGGG
i felt the same way lol
honestly, The Substance is one of the most ridiculous films I've seen in a while, and I love it
@@norsegodoflove exactly!!! Like if it is anything in this world….. it’s camp. How on earth does it not commit?
yes! sue's scenes and the bloodbath in the ending were so camp
@@nikkismodernlife I know!!! Everyone leaving the theater all agreed it was so campy and we all loved it for that
You are much smarter and more well educated on every subject brought up in this analysis than I am. I’m also a cis-man so I can’t speak to how a woman’s body is portrayed (and we definitely need male “hagsploitation” films). I personally loved the film, and despite the lack of backstory - something I’m never too concerned about with film as I can just go along for the ride - I felt fully empathetic towards Elizabeth, Sue and Monstro Elizasue. There were so many moments I felt whiplash from laughing at the “grotesque imagery” to grieving what the world puts someone like Elizabeth through. And all of those emotions were aided by the fact I knew this film was directed by a woman and was coming from personal experience. I could laugh, cry and gasp along with a filmmaker expressing their own angers and frustration.
The only issue I ever really have when it comes to this analysis - along with many other analysis’s of movies - is that we dig so deep into the history of film and we spend so much time asking “if this helps or not” and we focus so much on the bigger picture and on how the movie effects US in THIS time period that we overlook the simple miracle that:
A woman was paid to directed a dope ass horror film and employ people - including actors who’ve been overlooked - to have fun and tell her story. Even if Demi Moore’s performance clashed, I’m so happy she got to do something this fun and pray we get a resurgence of fun roles for older actors!
I don't want male hagsploitation because it'd be an old man in a wifebeater and dirty tighty whities on a couch watching old westerns drinking beer and burping while smoking four packs of cigarettes cleaning his beloved antique rifle from 1862 that's actually a reproduction.
Plus we already get enough of male hagsploitation with Donald Trump
On the point that Elisabeth having no agency and being a victim I think Broey missing the the fact that Sue and Elisabeth are one, most of her misfortune is of her own making.
But.. are they really? The movie makes it pretty clear they are distinctly separate consciousnesses with different goals and ambitions. The movie can throw around the line "You are one" but if they show the complete opposite then it defeats the purpose
@@Itsalwayscloudyincleveland Wasn't Sue created from Elisabeth? Their consciousness may be separate, but she was born from Elisabeth's consciousness. In a way she's a manifestation of Elsabeth's self-disgust or self-hatred towards herself. At least that's how I saw it, maybe the film could've been clearer though.
@@mmem4264 You're right in that Sue was created from Elisabeth. But the obfuscation comes when we are trying to understand what Elisabeth is getting out of this arrangement. To be reductive for a second, Sue is essentially an independent young attractive clone of Elisabeth. But we are not shown any tangible benefit Elisabeth receives in this relationship (which literally only goes so far as they can screw the other over if they take too much time). She's actually pretty resentful of Sue early on. This narrative confusion creates obvious thematic confusion.
@ 🤔
@ I wonder if it’s like vicariously living through your child? Sue came from her and is living the life she can’t let go of. Sure she’s not actually experiencing it but she also kind of is. Does that make sense?😂
There's this movie called Ash Wednesday staring Elizabeth Taylor and she's basically this woman who gets head to toe surgery to make her husband still want her. Everyone treats her like she's gorgeous for a woman in her forties but her husband still wants his side piece who's the same age as their daughter (I think she was one of the daughter's friends). It came out in 1973 and it's on RUclips.
I have never seen the movie, but it was definitely one of his daughter's friends.
I loved the fact that Demi Moore didn't play the role so over the top and cartoonish like the other characters in the film, because for me it showed that her pain is real.
PS: GREAT VIDEO!!!
In my oppinion "The Substance" was about how lack of self-acceptance leads one to ruin greater than they thought they were at the beginning. Think of all these popstars not wanting to allow themself to age and inject themselves with tons and tons of botox and other artificial crap just to look younger, but at the end, they end up destroyed and wasted like Elisabeth during the end of the movie, and moreover, comically deformed and unrecognisable, just like the Monstro clone who was the last part of Elisabeth to die. It's not about aging really, it's about not wanting to accept Yourself the way You are. Elisabeth wanted to save herself, but as she started injecting Sue with the "termination" serum, she was struck with remorse, repeating over and over again "I need You", as she tried to revive her youthful clone. She was bratty, abusive, unresponsible, but she was like a child of hers and she didn't want to allow this part of her to die, even if it ment even further degradation if her "matrix" body... I see it not only as the character showing compassion for something they created, but also as not wanting to let go of what we used to be in order to accept ourselves as we are now. I think this is the point of the movie - accept Yourself the way You are and love Yourself. Because if You won't, You will only destroy Yourself, trying to love the image of Yourself that is either untrue, or will never come back. Lack of self-acceptance led both Elisabeth and Sue to their deaths.
To me the film did an incredible job of offering the female perspective of aging and body dysmorphia. The setting is Hollywood which is a major perpetrator or anti aging propoganda and the entire film felt like it was from the perspective of a woman so deeply entrenched in that world. It felt like everything was a metaphor for what was going on in her mind. When it showed her as an old woman, it was shown to the audience from her perspective; her body terrified her. That's the reality women deal with and i don't think there's anything wrong portraying that because it's what we go through due to societal pressure. This film showed us our illness and opened up conversation on aging that has been dormant. This film had a genuine shock value that I haven't seen films attempt for a long time, I loved it
The Substance is elevated horror unafraid of being camp, which is good, actually
Omgeee Broeyyyy i have a similar criticism for the movie OLD! The part where the woman who has a physical disability where her bones fuse as she gets older. But on the island this obviously speeds up her deformity, and the ppl around her yell and scream as she becomes more and more deformed ... and they just watch her die slowly as she keeps bumming into rocks in a cave. .. The " scary part" is that she has a disability 😢 shit broke my heart
You have done an excellent job explaining your opinion on these films, and what you think may link them, however, I disagree with your takeaway from the films.
"What Ever Happened To Baby Jane?" isn't a film about youth or growing old. It's about a variety of topics: mental illness, revenge, sibling rivalry, and the desire to be wanted. "Blanche" wanted to be desired by her parents (who favored "Jane," thus leading to the sibling rivalry). Jane wanted mass desire from the public, and didn't care about her parents. Jane isn't bothered by her age, other than in one scene early in the film when she sees she is no longer a child, and cannot be passable performing the child songs she sung during Vaudeville. Jane's desire is to be wanted and admired by the public again, as she once was as a child performer. Jane lost her stardom when she was still young, not as a result of her aging. Jane had stardom and was desired as a child but it wasn't enough. Blanche had stardom and was desired, but that wasn't enough.
"The Substance" hits the viewer hard in making its point that its all about youth, but, as was said in so many words throughout the film, for "Elizabeth" it isn't about youth as much as about being desired, and not just desired but obtaining/keeping mass desire from the public. "Elizabeth" was desired as a person, as was shown in the scene when her old classmate asks her out. But, Elizabeth craves MASS desire and admiration. That is the root cause of "Elizabeth" wanting to look younger - if she was still desirable, she would not care about her age. "Sue" obtains the desire that "Elizabeth" craves and wants to keep, but that isn't enough.
These are characters who have an inner emptiness that mass desire fulfills. These types of stories are becoming more and more prevalent, or relatable, in today's world due to the inner emptiness of modern society in general. Same points can be applied to many of the social medial "influencers" in today's world.
The bit about you being sad for all the elderly women you know made me tear up ;(
I enjoyed The Substance, but I can see where you're coming from with how the disgust at Elizabeth's aged body. Personally as I watched I was captivated by the bizarre world it created. I think Demi Moore's character being so naturalistic among this almost cartoonish world emphasizes how it feels like the world is against you as a woman just for existing.
In the 1976 psychological horror film Burnt Offerings, Karen Black's character - like Demi Moore's - grows older and more decrepit in the service of restoring a demonically possessed old, decaying house. Once completed, she is subsumed into the interiors of the structure (novel version), presumably dissolving away similarly to Moore at The Substance's end. Again, the old woman, Cronus-like, is on a trajectory leading to her devourment, whether she likes it or not or has a say in the matter. And it is her alter ego, either a younger self or a newly restored house that becomes the preferred physical ideal. Either way, age is synonymous with blight and ugliness and must be destroyed - or hidden away. 🤔
i personally don't agree with this take but it was still very nicely worded and i love seeing different perspectives.
One thing I liked about the substance is how it flips this trope on its head and the younger woman is the one stealing vitality from the older one.
Unlike something like Pearl or the old hagsploitations where the older woman is a danger to youth Sue is literally sucking the life out of Elizabeth.
I don’t think it was a perfect movie but I did think it was doing some really interesting things.
Not one mention of the Picture of Dorian Gray? Smdh
Hi, I really like your videos and I’ve been following you for a while!
Although I don't agree with everything in your criticism of this video, mainly because I think that Elisabeth's body at the end of the substance is not a realistic portrait of an elderly person, intentionally. Furthermore, I would like to recommend a Brazilian film called ¨Aquarius¨, it has a beautiful message about the passage of time and portrays an older woman and her body naturally, I think you would like it!
Because femininity is valued based on physical beauty and fertility and as you get older you lose it. Plus butt hurt men really love reminding you that you're not as sought after on the dating market.
Ah yes, the karma.
@@LLlap not really because as we get we care less about relationships and more about friendship and pets. Believe it or not picking up a man's dirty socks isn't the great privilege you think it is.
Women: “I don’t want to get old, I look ugly”
Men: “Be my mommy!” “What a MILF!”
@@doesitmatterwhoiam8838 reminisce on the times somebody approached you who was way out of your league and you had to let him know in front of your friends. dwell on who hurt those butt hurt men.
@LLlap you're assuming I did stuff like that. I was always kind to men that asked me out when I was young.
I should have said "bitter" instead of butt hurt. It's just I've noticed men being overly rude to women lately, probably because of the bear thing.
Just today, I decided to cancel my facelift appointment. I’m 30 years old. I am falling so prey to these pressures. Seeing this video recommended after making the cancellation decision was serendipitous
I saw The Substance on Monday and literally as I was watching it I was thinking “a BKR vid would really rock this topic” and here we are 👏👏👏
BKR?
*rewind
Feminist art is not feminist activism or scholarship. The movie is viscerally effective, that’s what matters. Reflection on our reactions to being terrified of an old woman’s body come after the movie, after being moved and terrified.
@@facetsofus2008 that's your opinion, I found it to be thoroughly ineffective. Every woman portrayed in the film was vain and hollow caricatures through their *own* choices.
I think I was thrown off by the perspective of punishment. Personally, I saw it as a consequence. Self-esteem evolves with age. Therefore, we need to actively work on it throughout our lifetime. If you don't or you won't you will suffer the consequences. I fail to see why how a consequence of your own actions is punishment?
Slightly unrelated but Im not scared of aging im just scared of what it leads to ..a sad death
I’m not afraid to die. I’m afraid to look old and for my body to deteriorate ALOT as I age.
I can't say I'm a fan of hagsploitation, but I'm most certainly a fan of body horror, and the Master David Cronenberg in particular, one of my Top Ten Favorite Filmmakers.
As someone diagnosed with a number of disabilities, namely Autism with Preserved Intellect, Anxiety Disorder, Hypothyroidism, and several allergies to cats, shellfish and spring pollen, not to mention having undergone pectus excavatum surgery at age 16, and having been stung by bees, wasps and jellyfish with all the resulting side effects, I have always seen body horror cinema as a huge way to help me embrace my disabilities and not look at them as something that sets me apart, but rather as part of something more natural than the so-called "normal" world we're constantly told to be a part of. I actually get more joy out of visual depictions of bodily distortion, mutation, dismemberment and transformation (especially when done with practical FX) because the common enforced public perception of "normal" to me is stifling, conformist and repressive.
This is going to sound crazy - but I saw it as being a movie inspired by drugs and David Cronenberg much more than I saw it as a commentary on aging. I mean, yeah, obviously, there's the aging part that is the primary catalyst for all the events, but I guess I tend to be much more deeply enamored by the subtle parts of movies, the less-than-obvious messaging, and my favorite has to be unintentional messaging - like the parts that tell on themselves or slip out. While the top-line crisis is yes, aging, and I'm sure there's messaging to be derived from it, I saw it rather as a crisis of spiraling inward, "an internal problem masquerading as an external one," whereby an unmistakeable (to me) tussle with amphetamines acted as the crazy-making catalyst. Maybe aging is the gun and I find the bullets much more interesting. I could go on and on, but imagine this, a person with real spark in the entertainment industry finds her age catching up to her, a sudden crisis and firing from her life's work leads to a chance encounter where she's offered amphetamines to help with her problems and she's "rejuvenated" from a full person (Elizabeth Sparkle, notice the full name with a history), to an empty reflection of what the audience, producers, capitalism itself supposedly holds most fondly, a beautiful know-nothing, golden p*ssy girl roughly age 25 with no background and the barest syllable the still manages to constitute a name (Sue). These amphetamines (IRL, and here I tell on myself ironically) have a finite hype-period, after which you, "spend a week eating food on the goddamned couch," while your "performant" life is put on hold. This leads to permanent damage in your real self the longer you press on, creates a warped and deranged person and the real kicker - there's a thousand fuxers like you feeding the machine everyday for a barely distinguishable group of shareholders and an audience who, if they knew the real you, would scream in horror and bludgeon you to death. The point I got from the movie was, you have something just as you are, you have the option to be beloved by a small group of people who know you if you can stomach being impressive to no one publicly and not even yourself privately. To attempt to kill this public persona is madness, but investing everything you have into her will literally destroy you - but again, we don't even see the real audience until the very end (implying this projection of our perfect selves is a mere fantasy we create for ourselves with the barest whiff of real external input) and that people like you end up as mere grease in a machine. It's better to be honest, to "respect the balance," to aspire to who we think we are and who we want to be while always keeping our history at the forefront, lest we run dry and have not but a mere clipping of our former selves to plaster over who we truly are, what we've become with deranged self-hatred. TL;DR, "I'm a man actually and totally gender-blind." Oh also, "I love amphetamines and it's unmistakable that somewhere on here does them as well." Chadsplained like the best of them - oh also also I referenced Requiem For A Dream and Videodrome as my two bases. Love your videos
I haven't seen this perspective on The Substance. As someone who thinks The Fly is a masterpiece, I so appreciate its usage as a foil here. I was unfamiliar with the notion of hagsploitation. I feel that you're really on point with this interpretation and I'm so happy you've posted a video on it. You're right, I was scared of Elizabeth's aging body in a dehumanizing fashion that aligns with hagsploitation. Perhaps the framing of her form reflects the director's inability to restrain or identify the depth of her own fears, because I do believe the heart of this movie was deeply empathetic. Or maybe it was a way of telling the truth about those fears. But in seeing so much that I could empathize with in this film, I overlooked the undeniable "yuck" factor toward what is ultimately a caricature of real aging... which of course feeds into the widely accepted terror around women showing any imperfections. That sagging breast moment got the biggest reaction in my theater too, and that speaks to how foreign our media renders the aging female form. So I agree, maybe not the most helpful film in that sense. I think The Substance resonanted so much because of how personal and authentic it was in contrast to its stylized presentation. We need more movies about the inner lives of all sorts of women across different genres & styles. So much to reflect on. I love how your videos make me think about stories (and notably, the subtleties of their execution) more deeply.
i think what's interesting is how a lot of the people who watch the movie think it's laughing at Elisabeth while i think it's the total opposite. Sure, we're supposed to laugh at some of the scenes, but it's more catharsis than mockery. The last scene is absolutely tragic to me and it feels strange to see people who did not empathize with Elisabeth because she is too "superficial"
This exactly. I found myself laughing a lot because... well, it's absurd. And yet I was still sad that Elisabeth didn't complete the termination and live out her life as an extremely fashionable and shockingly athletic grandma, or that Monstro wasn't stable (in the physical sense) or accepted because I was rooting for the both of them.
As someone who never really felt pretty until I’ve gotten to be around 30 the thought of aging scares me. I feel once I look old I won’t be pretty.
Everyone gets their day in the sun. Everyone gets a twilight. It's fair and emotional growth and maturity helps people grow out of fantasy mindsets which should be gone by 30.
@@TheaStanhopenever! The 40s are the new 20s
You raise some very valid points. I found this film to be courageous and somehow facile or shallow at the same time and couldn't quite figure out why. I think you nailed why the supposedly feminist message rang hollow. I also noticed that Demi was playing someone who was being put out to pasture at 50 when she herself is 61. That disparity in age between her cosmetically enhanced body and expectation for someone who is 61 felt weird and sort of made the meta-narrative feel even more unavoidable.
Reminds me of that quote that "the problem with Americans is that they never see their grandmother's t*ts" an againg body isn't just terrifying to us- it's foreign. Anyway representation matters
Huh. I don't even recall a sagging breast moment. Maybe I'm inundated by the nonchalance to nudity in dutch film. The film didn't scare me, but the 'spinal fluid extraction' made me cringe everytime (I had a lumbar punction at a young age and needles+spine tends to get a reaction out of me. The scene where she keeps coming back to the mirror for that date made me really sad if nothing else.
Death Becomes her is more comedy than horror but I feel it has a similar message.