I watched “The Substance” in a dual way, I believe. First, I watched it as a woman, connecting to what has been described by NEIU’s Independent writer, Jasmine Rodriguez, as the “patriarchal schema“. There are these eerie moments that feel all to familiar: The Men are always too close to the camera, invading space, their emotional stupidity obvious within patriarchy, this perfect double that is implanted in your head, bowing down to all the standards of beauty and hegemonic femininity society creates – making all of us ready for consumption and dismissal… I saw all of those things.
And then I watched it as a trans woman, specifically. It felt like watching two movies at the same time, with a double consciousness. It first hit me when “The Substance” is being described by a raspy voice, saying:
Have you ever dreamed of a better version of yourself? Younger, more beautiful, more perfect.
One single injection […] that will release another version of yourself. You are the matrix. Everything comes from you, and everything is you. It is simply a better version of yourself. You just have to share […] A perfect balance […] You are One. You can’t escape from yourself.
Close ups of needles. So many needles. So many injections. I remember that I have to take a shot of Estrogen tomorrow. The close-up of the needle feels like home. And isn’t this exactly what we strive for? Using body modification to become that: A better version of ourselves that feels livable, survivable? You want to become something you feel within, turn a “fantasy” into reality. But also this: You can’t escape from yourself. There is this perfect double implanted in our head – a perfect fantasy I want to embody. I want to give birth to it from the Matrix that is my body.
But things soon start to turn drastically: The fantasy born out of my matrix begins to despise and torture the body that gave birth to it. Soon there are scars left on the original body, the matrix is being debased, obliterated. And this other self will always stay connected to pure fantasy, even though it is embodied. It is. Embodied. Fantasy. Instead of re-creating herself with her new possibilities, Elisabeth does nothing but to reproduce the fantasy of her own past (lost) life. Instead of venturing out, expanding herself, challenging the world that tries to put her down, she loses herself in a realm of “perfect beauty” designed to subjugate her over and over again. She stays unchallenging, turning her existence into an advertisement. And as much as she’s being consumed by the world around her, she mostly consumes herself.
And on her way she forgets: “That you’re still worth to exist. You matter. It is eating away at you.” And I ask myself: How often have I been in this dysmorphic mirror scene in which she tries to ‘fix’ the ‘flaw’, over and over again, until she stays immobile, lost to the world. The more you fall in love with the fantasy, the harder you cling to its embodiment; the more you degrade the matrix, the more you become your own worst abuser. Towards the end of the movie, both sides end up hating each other and while the old and depleted Elisabeth looks at the perfect body spread in front of her, her thoughts must be ‘you’re the only lovable (liveable) part of me’.
The movie is as hard to watch as my own perception of self can be to endure sometimes. It is simultaneously a meditation, and a nightmare. A tale of abuse; societal – internal. And as Harvey speaks these words: “This is my creation, I shaped her for success,” Richard Strauss’ Zarathustra theme comes up in reminiscence to the “Barbie” movie, meditating on the meaning of these words for women and femmes in the 21th century. What we see at the end is a confrontation with the monster within; society’s monstrous creation saying “It’s still me!” before it gets killed with blood getting spilled on everybody – the audience, unchallenging participants of this tyranny.
This piece of art, embedded in literary traditions like “Jekyll and Hyde” or “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” as well as in cinematic history from Lynch to Cronenberg, is not only a testament to the way women are treated in society – or furthermore: A depiction of how ‘women’ are being created as subjects in this society. It is also a bridge towards the trans experience. At least for me, a very personal, spooky, horrifying one, inviting me to meditate further on the things I want to push away that plague me every day if I want to or not. Together with “Barbie” and “Poor Things” it completes my feminist cinema experience of ‘23/’24 and YOU SHOULD DEFINITELY WATCH IT!