One of the film releases that is causing the most talk is The Substancedirected by Coralie Fargeat and interpreted by Demi Moore y Margaret Qualley. The film narrates the emptiness that a famous woman feels when she turns fifty and receives a bouquet of flowers with a dedication more typical of a funeral wreath than a gift. Elisabeth Sparkle, the protagonist of this story, is left overnight without a job, without an audience and completely alone. The director herself stated in an interview that the film is based on her personal experience when she turned forty and panicked about no longer being visible and that the phone would no longer ring. While men age, grow a belly, go gray or lose their hair and continue to enjoy success and work, women are required to have a specific physical appearance if we want to continue being simply “perceptible” to society.
For many women, death not only comes when the body stops, they also face a kind of social death much earlier. which usually coincides with the barrier of thirty. The most vulnerable to this symbolic death are those whose work is partly public. Singers, communicators, actresses, journalists, influencers. When they see that the positions for which they were previously hired (and for which they are now well prepared) begin to be occupied by much younger women without any experience, maintain a certain appearance It’s not a matter of vanity but of survival.
The movie is horror, prepare to see viscera, blood, fluids and hanging skin, but nothing compared to the real statistics. Surgery and cosmetic touch-ups are not fiction, but something that is already common among most mortals. According to the report ‘Perception and use of aesthetic medicine in Spain 2023’, practically half of the Spanish population (46.6%) has undergone some type of aesthetic medicine treatment. 69% are women and 31% men. Another chilling fact: between 14 and 20% are between 16 and 25 years old. Increasing socialization through screens, filters and virtual work meetings causes us to want to look like our unreal photos, some surgeons call it “selfie dysmorphia.” What there is not much data about is the mental problems that also go hand in hand with these tweaks: anxiety, depression, self-perception disorders and even suicide. Not to mention the physical health problems that can lead to, in the worst cases, causing death.
A study on the psychological impact of cosmetic surgery carried out by Albert Losken stated that “all cosmetic patients are psychiatric patients.” The use of the generic feminine would have been more accurate. In the film, Fargeat leaves the decision to inject the substance and stop the process to the protagonist, but is she the only one responsible? Or should we also challenge the constant social pressure of the media, advertising, fashion and social networks? From the moment we are born, women receive the message that our appearance is our greatest value. The dolls are heavily made up and have teenage bodies. The models who don’t have a single pore on their skin and always look childish. Women’s fashions that focus on the miniskirt, puff sleeves and Mary Janes. Among so many infantilizing images, there are hardly any stories that highlight how positive it is for women to be adults. Those who interpret the film as the price to pay for fame or excessive ambition are clearly not women.
Putting all the value on the physical is also dehumanizing. The film portrays this very well through the fragmentation of their bodies, with frames that focus on their ass or breasts and leave out their faces. Bodies that become merchandise for the entertainment industry, that are visual food, just like the chickens that the protagonist cuts up, stuffs and cooks at home. We are so accustomed to considering ourselves only a shell, that when someone asks us to describe ourselves we do it as if we were an uninhabited body: I am so tall, I weigh so much and my eyes are of such a color. Instead of describing ourselves from within: I am calm, I am sensitive to noise and I take long steps. The concept we have built of ourselves is never based on what we do or feel, but rather on what the mirror returns to us.
The only ray of hope that the film raises has to do with cultivate friendships and surround ourselves with people who value who we are. I would also add, to that list of survival over the years, reading books about feminism. Being aware that all the pressure does not come from us, but is imposed from outside, allows us to balance and resize our age. It is more important to have a healthy body than smooth skin. It is much more valuable to develop a rich inner world with many tools than to have a flat stomach. It is also urgent to change the way the media represents us. The terrible aesthetic pressure towards women that The Substance recounts is no exaggeration.
