By Emmanuel Narh
“Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself – younger, more beautiful, more perfect?”
This haunting question opens “The Substance”, setting the tone for a visceral critique of our obsession with beauty. It is a fitting entry point into a film that, while framed as horror, unfolds more as an outrageous parable about society’s subconscious beauty anxieties.
Although this movie is marked as a horror, The Substance transcends genre expectations. As a sociologist, I found myself drawn not to the blood, but to the disturbing ways it mirrors everyday realities. The film offers a mirror to society – one that reflects our fixation on youth, perfection, and the increasingly violent divide between what is deemed beautiful and what is not.
At its core, The Substance exposes how beauty standards are constructed and enforced in our everyday lives. The film suggests that beauty, especially for women, is closely tied to young age. The movie shows Margaret Qualley (the young) as embodying the desirable body, which is slender, curvy in the right places, with “medium” firm breasts – an image replicated endlessly in media, on billboards, and in fashion magazines. These images do not only shape our desires but also compel us to reimagine ourselves according to the dictates of an idealized self.
The dichotomy between what is “beautiful” and “not beautiful” is sharply drawn in the film. Beauty in this movie is portrayed as sensational and desirable, while anything outside its bounds – aging, fatness, perceived “disgust” – is rendered invisible, disposable, and even weird. This is evidenced in one of the most striking moments where Demi Moore’s character is discarded for a younger, more “beautiful” version of herself – Margaret Qualley – an act that reflects how beauty has become a key currency in everyday life. Thus, in the Substance we learn how beauty functions as a symbolic resource. Those who possess it are rewarded socially (scenes of Margaret having more friends and hangouts) and economically (job offer), while those who do not are sidelined (scenes of Demi Moore spending endless moments in the bathroom).
The film raises pressing questions: Should beauty wield so much power? Why must the old self be punished for making way for the new? In dramatizing the violent conflict between the “self” we are, and the “self” society wants us to be, The Substance becomes a bold, even brutal, critique of our current beauty regime. It is a fearless takedown of the absurd, punishing standards that influence not only how we look, but how we live. Beauty indeed has power and reinforces social inequality.