What body horror says about the beauty industry’s use of false expertise.
So on the nose it will cause a bleed, The Substance offers a bold and cutting criticism of female beauty standards. Written and directed by Coralie Fargeat and starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, this film arrived in cinemas last week — and has received raving reviews from critics and audiences since its debut at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Screenplay.
I was thrilled when Polyester Zine offered a preview with Mubi in my home in Manchester. It is a film that leaves you bubbling with the desire to discuss it, which is why the live podcast that Polyester offered was well-suited. I have grown to love horror so much in a brief amount of time; I’m still warming up to the subgenre of body horror, but The Substance made me realise that it is fine to squirm. The beauty industry lures us to bleed and cut at ourselves to pay for perfection. The film is unflinching — because we must not look away from the dangers of female beauty standards.
At the centre of this compelling and cautionary tale is the titular Substance — the product that promises to give actress Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore) so much more and instead takes everything. The Substance looks like a one-of-a kind product, and only advertised on a pen drive. It’s only available in some sketchy building that is a minimalist marvel on the inside. It is like no beauty procedure we have ever seen; in spite of the singularity of the product, the Substance has a lot of similarities with modern beauty treatments. It presents itself as a scientifically-sound product. Terms abound, such as "activator," "stabiliser," "matrix," mentions of DNA. This jargon is why customers fall for the trap the Substance sets up — that beauty is equal to life. Of course, there are scientific benefits to youth: strength, better control of your bodily functions, sharper cognitive abilities. But beauty is not a benefit of youth that is lost due to age. The hunt for beauty is a maze of madness that women are trapped in from their childhood until their deaths. For society, girls and women, no satisfaction is guaranteed. The Substance and other beauty products present themselves as a logical solution. With just a few twists of a telescope in a lab, beauty can be achieved.
The branding of the Substance is also strictly business. A no-nonsense sans serif font on a crisp, cold, blank screen. It’s a product that looks like it knows what it’s doing. But beauty is only skin deep. Beauty products often use a clean appearance in their branding to gain the trust of customers. “Pure, clean, gentle." There's hardly a product label that doesn't use these words. Yet according to Skin Deep, up to 80% of products may contain one or more hidden hazards that are not even listed on product labels. The Substance, though fictional, is the most dangerous of them all. Every new product insists that it will resolve all your issues with previous products, but as they all continue to prioritise their profit over your health, they all end up the same.
Elisabeth’s 50th birthday, a day that is supposed to be a golden celebration of her life, is punctured by views of her alleged decay. Her boss, Harvey (Dennis Quaid) grotesquely munches on shrimp as he fires her for being too old. On her way home, Elisabeth sees construction workers tearing down a billboard with her face. She leans in to get a closer look as if she’s looking at the wreckage of a car crash. The focus that society forces women to place on their looks is very dangerous, as Elisabeth’s distraction leads her to get into a car accident. At the hospital, she is deemed the "perfect candidate" by one of the doctors, and given a pen drive with a number and a note saying, "It changed my life." Elisabeth watches the advert and then throws the pen drive away. After a lonely birthday celebration leads to her vomiting in the toilet, Elisabeth retrieves the pen drive and makes a call.
The events of Elisabeth’s birthday are presented as a prompt for the question: “Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself?” But already the product presents faults as a means for perfection. Elisabeth has to scramble through the bin to get it. When she goes to collect the Substance, she has to duck under a door to go inside. Decades of these beauty standards and yet the Substance and other modern beauty products seem to pride themselves on the difficulties of just obtaining the procedure.
The hassles of the Substance are just beginning with the purchase. The application of the procedure involves injecting a neon green liquid into your body. Neon green is the official colour of toxic substances in film. After no immediate results, Elisabeth turns away from the mirror, disappointed. Suddenly she is writhing in agony on her bathroom floor. Her back tears open, and Sue (Qualley) is born.
I have neglected many beauty treatments and routines because, as well as doing my best to reject society’s toxic beauty standards, they sound completely exhausting to maintain. This is very true for the Substance. One week, Elisabeth lives as herself and the next as Sue. While one is out and about, the other lies lifeless, fed from a food matrix with a tube. Sue must stabilise herself everyday with fluid from Elisabeth’s body. They must switch every seven days, no exceptions. The beauty industry presents itself as a form of leisure, enjoyment even, but that is only superficial.
Women are coerced into ascribing to rigid Western beauty standards because, supposedly, we will achieve success and respect in our lives through this beauty. For such a presumably pleasant prospect, maintaining beauty is no walk in the park. Every aspect of maintaining the treatment of the Substance is painful. Is there really pleasure in beauty if it comes at the cost of all comforts? Elisabeth sacrifices her health, her personhood for an image of perfection that is Sue. Throughout the film, no monetary price is mentioned for the purchase of the Substance, but the cosmic price is very clear. The Substance promises to resolve all the problems Elisabeth believes she has with her appearance, but the fine print is that her internal appearance suffers much more. In perhaps the most poignant part of the film, Elisabeth is preparing for a date with an old classmate. But everytime she prepares to leave, a billboard of Sue pushes her back to the bathroom to change her appearance again and again. The Substance has not liberated Elisabeth, it has imprisoned her.
The advertising of the Substance constantly reminds Elisabeth that she and Sue are one. But with a separation from her older body, Sue gives voice to Elisabeth’s insecurities. She is comfortable spouting the vitriol that pushed Elisabeth to use the Substance in the first place. When she goes out with colleagues one night, Sue tells an unconscious Elisabeth “Don’t eat too fast,” so she isn’t forced to end her night too early to take care of Elisabeth — or herself. Elisabeth does "eat" too fast and Sue reuses the stabiliser… for an eighth day. Elisabeth now unfortunately relies on Sue for her self-confidence and Sue cannot function without Elisabeth. They need each other but they resent each other. They lash out at each other, often — Sue by abusing the Substance, which rapidly ages Elisabeth, and Elisabeth by spending nights eating junk food. Female beauty standards demand that you tear at yourself just so you can buy the requisite products to fix it. In one article from The Review of Beauty, the Substack newsletter that robs the industry of its beauty sleep, Jessica DeFino writes: “The void between the Beauty we crave and the beauty we’re sold can’t be filled with a 0.5mL syringe of hyaluronic acid — and anyway, the point is not to fill the void but to feel the void.” Elisabeth and Sue have a biological connection, but instead of being mother and daughter, they are much less feeling. The battle we see between them is of a creator and its product.
Elisabeth and Sue being viewed as products by Harvey and the rest of the executives is highlighted in the nature of their dream role. It’s not a major blockbuster but a fitness show. We understand that The Substance is set in the 21st century, though a workout show hosted by an actress is more reminiscent of Jane Fonda’s workout DVDs from the '80s. This fitness show represents the wellness culture of Los Angeles very well, and Elisabeth’s termination highlights how little Harvey and the executives know about their female target audience. An older woman hosting a workout show would not isolate younger women and would inspire older women to join in. It is a role where age and experience are valuable. When men say they desire youth in women, they mean naïveté. Clare Chambers, professor of Political Philosophy, said in The Review of Beauty on society’s obsession of youth within women: “It is idealising the point in a woman's life when she is less experienced, less wise, less competent, less powerful.” Society pressures women to go backwards to maintain their beauty, all to prevent us from progressing to question why these standards exist in the first place. It’s the system’s attempt to maintain control over women. “The more legal and material hindrances women have broken through, the more strictly and heavily and cruelly images of female beauty have come to weigh upon us," writes Naomi Wolf in The Beauty Myth. Modern beauty standards and products exist to move our attention away from the possibility of liberating ourselves from them.
The Substance and its titular product highlight the false advertising that is practised industry-wide. The Substance and all other products present themselves as a solution. But our bodies aren’t a problem. No formulaic beauty product can lead women to perfection because it doesn’t exist. The beauty industry coercing women into tearing themselves bloody to suit a standard that never satisfies anyone is more flawed than we ever could be. 🌀
Sandra Ubege is a writer and author of The Musing Notes. She enjoys consuming, critiquing and commenting on culture. Sandra can be found on Twitter, Instagram, and whatever magazine shops are nearby.