“MEN WILL NEVER UNDERSTAND!” screamed my housemate, after we finished watching “The Substance” (2024) — the exact same reaction I had after seeing “Sunset Boulevard” (1950) for the first time last Saturday at the Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square.
“The Substance” and “Sunset Boulevard,” two films set in completely different time periods that use drastically different artistic styles and cinematic techniques, promote the same message about the beauty standards and body dysmorphia that women face — particularly due to the toxic norms of the Hollywood entertainment industry.
In “The Substance,” Demi Moore plays a former Hollywood star rejected from continuing as the host of an aerobics TV show because of her age. Struggling with self-hatred over her changing body, she turns to a magical serum called ‘The Substance,’ which allows her to transform into a younger, more conventionally ‘beautiful’ version of herself. However, she must revert to her original form every seven days. Unable to resist the fame and attention her younger body brings, she delays the transformation, ultimately exhausting the serum and morphing into a terrifying, deformed monster — the price she has to pay for succumbing to the temptation to alter herself.
Similarly, “Sunset Boulevard” follows Norma Desmond, an aging silent film star who refuses to accept that her fame has faded. Secluded in her mansion, she surrounds herself with portraits from her glory days, obsessively rewatching her old films and holding onto the illusion that the world still loves her. When struggling screenwriter Joe Gillis enters her story and becomes entangled in her delusion, he delivers the film’s defining line: “There’s nothing tragic about being 50, not unless you’re trying to be 25.” Norma’s obsession eventually spirals into madness, culminating in a chilling final scene: After committing murder, she descends the grand staircase, believing she is acting in a movie once again, though she is actually awaiting arrest.
While the former is set in contemporary Hollywood and the latter in the ’40s and ’50s, both emphasize the timelessness of the toxic standards that Hollywood imposes on women’s beauty and physicality. The excruciatingly grotesque, gory images of Moore’s character’s gradual physical decay in “The Substance” capture the horror of the internal war that haunts countless women. We constantly battle between accepting the loss of youth and beauty — and resenting ourselves for it — or sacrificing everything to feel young again, only to be consumed by the guilt of not living in the present.
The delusion and psychosis that Desmond embodies, coupled with the film’s phenomenal choice of suspenseful music, leave viewers with an unforgettable, suffocating sense of discomfort. We fear facing the same fate: being haunted by an irretrievable beauty that will never return.
Women’s beauty and physicality are constantly held under scrutiny by society; we are always subject to a verdict upon the propriety of looks. Beauty does not always age like fine wine, but beauty standards sure do — and they hit women harder than ever. It’s more important now than ever to love your body as it is, to cherish your beauty in the present and to remember that you are far more than what’s reflected on the outside.
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