The Substance & The Rise of Feminist Body Horror

The Substance is one of the most potent examples of feminist body horror in years.

This stomach-turning film, winner of Best Screenplay at Cannes this year, has garnered lots of conversation this autumn. Director/Writer Coralie Fargeat wrote the script as a means of grappling with turning forty and the difficult emotions surrounding losing her youth. The grotesque horror flick exposes the dark side of the beauty industry, fame, and our twisted relationship with youth as a society.

The Substance adds another fantastic entry to the recent surge of feminist body horror.

The Substance

As women, we are highly susceptible to prescribed self-loathing from the barrage of media seeking to profit from it. Aging, for women especially, is often sadly viewed as the death of our desirability and importance. Messaging throughout media, from magazines to movies, tells young women that their youth is their power. When a famous, talented woman passes away, social media typically floods with almost exclusively images of her youth.

Plastic surgery and diet products have maintained popularity and power over the lives of women for decades. Often, young women are cited as victims of these societal ills, but older women are even more likely to suffer from eating disorders and spend thousands to correct perceived flaws with surgical procedures.

On a breakdown of the most common plastic surgery procedures done by each generation in 2022, most are entirely unnecessary and purely aesthetic; tummy tucks, butt lifts, and rhinoplasties are at the forefront. Leora Behavioral Health also found that 47% of patients change their appearance to “enhance their physical appearance” and “achieve a more youthful look.”

Women learn to treat our existence as if it hinges on the commodification of our physical form. The aesthetic of our outer appearance is treated with the utmost importance, and women are willing to lower their quality of life to theoretically attain it. It’s not hard to understand how the premise of The Substance was conceived.

The film follows Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore), a former star celebrity whose fame is dwindling. She finds solace in an illicit substance, allowing her to create a dual version of herself – a younger, hotter version. The caveat is that she must switch off with this “better” version. Each gets to live seven days, in turn, lest there be serious consequences. Margaret Qualley plays Sue, the younger version – who instantly explodes into hyper-sexualized stardom. 

In an interview with Vogue, Fargeat says,

“At every age, we can find something wrong with ourselves, which can make us feel like monsters…your image defines you and your self-worth. But I thought that if I could create something meaningful about these issues, it could also serve as a form of liberation.” 

The film’s shiny sequences of Sue dancing in sparkly leotards perfectly contrast grimy shots of misogynistic male characters’ gluttony and spitting rage. The bright, colorful stylization of the film is a perfect expression of its core theme. We see beauty as an ideal, even when it is soulless, fake, and has true ugliness behind it. The hyper-sexualization of women in media teaches women that they have only one true value. As a viewer, we understand why Elisabeth Sparkle is willing to destroy herself to attain this desirability. 

One of the most powerful scenes in the film shows Sparkle preparing for a date. She has an opportunity to find fulfillment and happiness as her true self. She stands up her date, finding herself too embarrassed by her aging appearance to go out. It is tragic to watch a beautiful woman fold in on herself because she feels she can’t match up to a version of herself decades younger. Yet, this sickness is a reality for millions of women. 

Feminist Body Horror

Over the past two decades, feminist body horror has been on the rise. These films deserve a watch by anyone who enjoyed The Substance.

Julia Ducournau’s debut feature, Raw, is a body horror that explores the taboo of female sexuality through the metaphor of cannibalism. Justine begins Veterinary school and develops strange symptoms after a hazing ritual involving eating raw meat.

The film plainly explores the female coming of age. Justine begins to explore relationships, gets her first bikini wax, and struggles with new adulthood. However, her newfound cannibalistic hunger parallels and exists alongside her self-discovery. The body horror aptly expresses the monstrous treatment of female desire and sexuality. Ducournau focuses on understanding the female body and perspective rather than fetishizing its pain or mutilation. 

This remains true with Ducournau’s Palme d’Or winning film Titane, which, like The Substance, explores the horror of gender expectations and violence against women. Ducournau is a master of creating sympathetic pain in the viewer. In Titane, grueling and lengthy scenes of discomfort help us to understand a complex and tortured lead. The film is able to somehow perfectly balance gory, shocking extremity and a tear-jerker story of found family and belonging. 

Mina Ninagawa’s Helter Skelter feels like a precursor to The Substance. The film is highly stylized with bright jewel tones and long, hyper-feminine montages. However, it centers around blatant commentary on the commodification of beauty and the female body.

The film follows Lilico, a model who tries to retain her image as her body decays from years of illicit plastic surgery. Her self-destruction exposes the effects of the beauty industry in Japan on female consumers and stars alike. Less gory and monstrous than other films on this list, the film opts for a more surreal approach. We watch Lilico’s downward spiral, and even her self-destruction becomes fetishized and profitable. 

Why Body Horror?

In the words of legendary body horror filmmaker David Cronenberg: “I think of horror films as art, as films of confrontation. Films that make you confront aspects of your own life that are difficult to face.” 

Body horror allows for the exploration of the grotesque, the strangeness of existence, and our relationship to societal change and growth. Body horror is innately tied to surrealism. The surrealist movement had an interest in the Freudian dichotomy of women being both great objects of desire and terror. It is an incredible vessel for female filmmakers to question our socialization and the treatment of the female body.

It is incredibly inspiring and captivating to see female filmmakers creating such captivating and meaningful feminist work. Films like The Substance help the horror genre to be taken more seriously. Here’s to more gruesome, disgusting films about girlhood to come.