Elisabeth Sparkle Wouldn't Last a Day in My Shoes
Sorry that I'm writing this on Election Day…
I watched The Substance this week. I liked a lot about how the movie looked and I thought both Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley were great, but I couldn’t help but feel that Coralie Fargeat thinks her audience is stupid and can’t follow a basic plot. [I don’t think this is really a spoiler because it’s not relevant to the plot per se but skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to know anything about the movie…] There’s a part I can’t stop thinking about where we meet a guy who is also taking “the substance" and we have seen the younger version of him earlier in the movie. We know that because he has the same giant birth mark as the young guy. It’s such an obvious connection that even when they zoomed in on the young guy’s birthmark at the beginning of the movie I thought, “We are going to see the older version of him and know that it is him because he will have the same birthmark.” But Fargeat doesn’t think this birthmark is enough - she gives us like three other ways to recognize that it is the same person. He’s sitting in a cafe right outside the substance lockers and says a bunch of stuff about the substance and then he drops his little substance card and only then are we to be sure that this guy is also taking the substance! There are examples like this all over the movie and they annoyed me. Look, I’m not a loser - I thought the prosthetics were fun and I had a great time. But it really bothered me that the movie attempts to make a point about the endless hunger for youth and beauty and how damaging that can be to the soul and sense of self and it makes that point by reinforcing the fear of the aging body.
I have been theorizing to myself that not being “conventionally attractive” for my entire adult life (i.e. shaped like a potato and covered in moles? idk) has given me a sort of permission to opt out of the beauty rituals that so many people feel pressure to perform. I don’t worry about my skin that much, I don’t participate in diet culture, the thought of me getting a real beauty procedure of any kind is lol, etc. Like, the ugly cat’s already out of the ugly bag? [I can hear the people in my life who love me saying, “You’re not ugly!” but shhhh…I’m making a point!] There was a very recent time in my life where I felt pressured to perform a heightened version of femininity to make people forget that I’m fat or something, or at least to win their approval: “She’s hideous but she’s trying so hard! She is worthy of our love because she hasn’t given up on herself!” But recently I have felt that falling away too. I’ve been wearing really big pants that are extremely comfortable. If I’d had a Raven-style vision of the future when I was 25 and seen myself in these pants at 35, I’d probably have ended it right then and there. I’m also 100% positive that if I ever created a viral video about my skincare routine or something, there would be hundreds of people in the comments telling me to kill myself because I’m fat. That knowledge does something to your psyche, and it can crush you, radicalize you, or a million things in between. [I’m not making that up - I’ve seen it with my own eyes! Yesterday I watched a video by a girl who had both of her legs amputated and gained weight afterwards and there were hundreds of comments literally like, “Just because you lost your legs doesn’t give you an excuse to give up on your body!” Sorry, I’m not the sick one!!!]
I say all this to both explain why The Substance’s beauty critique fails to move me as much as it seems to be moving others AND to empathize with the plight of thin, rich, conventionally gorgeous women everywhere. I have no doubt that famous, gorgeous women feel a pressure to perform beauty and stave off aging unlike any I will ever experience, and it’s great that they have a movie that elucidates their plight. I actually count myself lucky that being excluded from the beauty conversation in every way, shape, and form radicalized me and gave me permission to opt out. I fear aging because I fear dying, not because I will no longer be conventionally beautiful. That ship sailed long ago, mama! I know I would not last a day in Elisabeth Sparkle’s leg-warmers. But I don’t think she would last a day in mine either.
Thank you for allowing me to ramble about The Substance in your inbox. It’s not like there’s anything else going on today, right? Also, just putting this out there…I quit my job and am looking for gigs. I am medium good at many things and will accept money for basically all tasks. Hit me up! Also, if you’re looking for temporary escape from the horrors of this life, I recommend turning the lights down low, lighting a tree-scented candle, and tuning into Little Women, Greta Gerwig-style. I hope you’re safe and happy and taking care of yourself and your loved ones!
thank you. I loved the film and I read a lot of negative reviews that made me feel that everyone who didn't like the movie disliked it because they didn't understand it, but yours proves that idea wrong.
I also read that "the director thinks we're stupid" several times and in that scene specifically I think that the many signs the old man was the young man, weren't for viewers, but were for Elisabeth because she was so deep in denial that she needed that many signs. But maybe I'm biased because I really liked the film.
edited for typos
This was a lovely read, but I just wanted to add that I think aging and loosing one’s good looks is particularly hard and salient for Elisabeth Sparkle and the real life women like her because their entire life they’ve been told that the ONLY thing of value about them is their appearance. Moreover, from an early age, they’ve been conditioned to think aspiring to beauty is the only aspiration worth having.
This is especially true about Demi Moore. I read her autobiography, and it broke my heart. Her mother paid someone to rape Demi when she was 16 (seriously, the mom was dating this guy, and she needed help moving. She told him she’d give him a couple hundred bucks, the keys to her apartment, and the afternoon alone with Demi to do whatever he wanted). They’re other points in the book where she talked about the extreme lengths she’d go to, to get in shape for parts. She didn’t think she was a great actor, so she thought the least she could do was look the part. And even after conquering the industry and fighting for pay equity for actresses, she was so desperate for Ashton Kutcher’s love that she did everything she could to make him happy. She had been sober for 19 years and started drinking because he did. She agreed to open up her marriage and isolated herself from everyone else in her life. Brutal stuff. And it’s not that I’m saying pretty people have problems too, because even with all that, hers is a charmed life. It’s that I genuinely believe she spent the vast majority of her life believing her only value was her appearance and her only aspiration to keep the men in her life happy. Aging is probably a gut punch like someone like that.