The Substance: Must Women Become Monsters to Defy the Male Gaze?

The Substance might be the most thought-provoking film I've seen this year. Even a week after watching it, I'm still trying to make sense of all the complex emotions it stirred and figure out why it left me feeling so conflicted.

I have been increasingly anticipating the film ever since The Substance premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival and received reviews calling it "shocking" and "breathtaking". As a fan of horror, body horror is something irresistible for me, so I really expected The Substance to deliver a visually spectacular experience. But instead of being dazzled by its visuals, I found myself more deeply impacted by the emotion called confusion—so much so that I feel compelled to share my bewilderment here.

Spoiler alert!

The protagonist of The Substance is Elisabeth Sparkle (played by Demi Moore), a once-famous Hollywood star whose career is in decline due to aging. Desperate to stay competitive, she turns to a black market drug called "The Substance," which leads to the birth of Sue (played by Margaret Qualley), a younger, enhanced version of herself inside her body. However, for Elisabeth and Sue to coexist peacefully, they must follow strict rules. When Sue, young and beautiful, breaks these rules, a fierce struggle for control of the body and mind ensues, spiraling the two into chaos.

The female body is undeniably the core element and theme in The Substance. The film’s uninhibited display of female nudity and grotesque body transformations suggest that it's essentially an exploitation film. In fact, director Coralie Fargeat's previous work Revenge was a classic example of an exploitation film, where the female lead exacts bloody revenge after being sexually assaulted. In that film, too, the body—both female and male—plays a central role.

However, while The Substance seems to embrace the hallmarks of exploitation cinema, it also seems to resist being confined to that category. On one hand, it tells a story about women, driven by appearance anxiety, transforming themselves into younger, sexier versions who perfectly fulfill the male gaze, only to eventually devolve into monstrous figures. On the other hand, the film carries obvious satirical undertones. When a monster with Elisabeth's face vanishes on the Hollywood Walk of Fame star bearing her name, I couldn't help but wonder: if The Substance is trying to critique or satirize something, what exactly is it targeting?

The most possible answer is women who willingly choose to objectify themselves like Elisabeth. The reasoning is straightforward: the entire film revolves around her submission to the male gaze as a means of satisfying her own desires, only to end in failure. Throughout the movie, before the gory climax, Elisabeth offers no resistance to the male gaze. When producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid) ends their contract due to audiences’ preference for younger faces, and Elisabeth’s endorsements are pulled down, it's clearly a significant career crisis. ’The problem, however, lies in Elisabeth’s immediate and uncritical acceptance of Harvey’s judgment that she is too old and no longer attractive. She quickly opts for the easiest solution: to become younger and more beautiful.

What confuses me is that if Elisabeth truly believes that the only solution is regaining her youth and beauty, it suggests her entire past success was solely due to her appearance. But even though the film tries to strip away much of her backstory, we learn that Elisabeth has won an Oscar, meaning she was a talented actress. She’s also shown to be an exceptional aerobics instructor—her talents extend beyond her looks. So here’s the film’s first paradox: a middle-aged woman who has succeeded on more than just her beauty can only think of regaining her youth when faced with a career crisis. She doesn’t demonstrate any intelligent thinking or weigh of her options—but rather displays a stress response, as if she is programmed to obey her anxieties about appearance. Even when she starts to question herself as Sue, the younger, more beautiful version of herself, succeeds, , she tries to prove her charm through dating men. For Elisabeth, her beauty—or lack thereof—dictates not only her opportunities but also her entire sense of self.

Then there’s the second paradox. With no prior standing in the world, Sue, Elisabeth's younger, more attractive double, manages to succeed purely based on her looks. Even though her success relies on Elisabeth's aerobics skills, the film’s focus shifts from the talent required to the seductive display of Sue’s body. The Substance essentially films Sue's body as if it were pornography, with the camera turning into a tool of the male gaze. Male characters, the filmmakers, and even the audience are complicit in objectifying her.

While it’s futile to apply real-world logic to this surreal film, Sue feels less like a younger version of Elisabeth and more like a humanoid doll. Sue has a perfect, mature body (with prosthetic breasts designed by the film’s makeup artists) but doesn’t exhibit mature behavior or thoughts. Like Belle Baxter from Poor Things, Sue’s psychological state doesn’t match her adult appearance—both women are childlike. Belle views sex as a playful activity, while Sue is obsessed with appearance and external recognition. Neither reflects on who they are or why they exist. They are both beautiful, immature, and thoughtless humanoid objects, yet both films define them as “women.”

The film’s third odd aspect is its climax. The monstrous hybrid of Elisabeth and Sue, “Monstro Elisasue,” takes the stage, her mask slipping to reveal a breast growing from her eye. The grotesque creation causes chaos in the audience, and it went around spraying blood until finally the contraption melts in the streets. This homage to Carrie could be interpreted as a form of revenge or as a way to subvert its sexualization through the grotesque female body. But the question remains: must women become monsters or non-human creatures to defy the male gaze?

If you've seen David Lynch's The Elephant Man, you'll notice that Elisasue’s design also references that film, but with a starkly different message. The Elephant Man portrays a man who looks monstrous but has a human soul, while The Substance suggests that beautiful women can transform into terrifying monsters. Under the male gaze, aging women like Elisabeth are seen as monstrous because they lose their sexual appeal. Once a woman can no longer be objectified, patriarchal culture classifies her as a monster. The film implies that women, when confronted with the male gaze, have only two options: submission or monstrosity.

So, who is The Substance really criticizing or satirizing? After considering the film's many paradoxical elements and its peculiar, darkly humorous ending, I can only conclude that it's targeting women who "willingly" allow themselves to be objectified. I struggle to see The Substance as a feminist film. Instead, I believe it exploits the gains of women’s liberation to reaffirm misogyny and reinforce patriarchal prejudices. It reduces a systemic problem to a matter of personal choice.

In the real world, feminism has fought for women’s bodily autonomy, enabling stars like 61-year-old Demi Moore and 29-year-old Margaret Qualley to appear nude on screen without fear of moral condemnation. Yet The Substance remains fixated on how women’s appearance and sexual allure define their existence. The film suggests that this mindset has been so deeply internalized by women that they are powerless to resist it, and women can only endure the male gaze until they lose their value as objects of desire. However, I don't believe feminism leads to such pessimism and despair, though there really are countless challenges.

As for its critique of the male gaze and patriarchal culture, The Substance may offer some insights, if anything. But it's clear this film won't stop them from objectifying women.