Today women in Hollywood continue to ruthlessly fight for beauty and the eternal desire for everlasting youth due to the societal pressure that women must look young to be cast, to be successful or to be desired. The male gaze has been winning for so long but Coralie Fargeat has arrived to put a stop to it.

This narrative can be found in many films, yet two of them have taken this topic to a bold extreme depiction – Death Becomes Her and The Substance. Both films focus on women willing to go to great lengths to obtain permanent beauty and youth. Who cares what the cost is. For decades society has been obsessed with women and their outward appearances, determining their value based on arbitrary inches and subjective hair color choices. Hollywood has been one of the biggest proponents of pushing this age-old narrative. But who stands to gain and who stands to lose from this belief? Are you scratching your head? I did. Did you guess women? You’re right! 

In both films, women who are youthful and gorgeous secure the things their hearts desire most: money, fame, success, and even the attention of men. Not such a bad thing, right? Sure, until the inevitable happens–aging. The gigs become less frequent, the money starts to dry up, the success is beginning to be spoken about in past tense, and men are no longer lining up for a chance. Queue panic and desperation! This central theme of female identity and worth being inextricably linked to appearance suddenly takes a devastating nosedive. 

The Substance is a delightfully macabre body horror film that shares a similar central theme yet employs a contemporary feminist twist. It continues to explore the absurd narrative that women are highly valued for their physical beauty rather than their deeper substance. Coralie Fargeat goes a step further though and highlights the ways pressure is placed on women due to social media and how technology amplifies the distortion of women’s self-perception in today’s increasingly image-driven world. And above all, what women are capable of causing to themselves. 

Although both films utilize dark comedy, they hold a similar core theme: the price for vanity is often paid at the expense of oneself. Women have historically been kept under a microscope thanks to unrealistic beauty standards that are still prevalent today and while this concept has been slowly changing over the last three decades, there is still much work to be done to undo such treacherous narratives. With The Substance Fargeat has created a masterpiece purposefully deconstructing such outdated standards within Hollywood by eliciting shocking reactions with the extremes taken by her main characters. She has motivated women all over the world to channel our inner Carrie’s and set fire to these notions.

On the surface these films appear to be based on mere looks, but the deeper messages that are being conveyed are consistent with long held cultural reflections of the societal norms placed on women that ultimately shape the way we as women view ourselves. The increasing use and popularity of social media has only further enabled and perpetuated this pressure, unknowingly pitting women against one another as we struggle to maintain a healthy view of ourselves while watching likes increase on those who look younger and prettier. The Substance excels when it comes to illustrating how women are often led to believe that our worth is found in our appearance alone and that being a person of substance won’t get them far enough. 

Thanks to directors like Fargeat, the way society views women is being redefined. The focus is shifting towards a way where the identity, agency, and beauty of women can be portrayed in a way that is empowering and healthy. The Substance barreled through boundaries and questioned who really controls the narrative that encompasses women’s bodies. It’s because of filmmakers such as Fargeat that there can be a nuanced critique of these societal norms found within film, as well as a way to challenge the ever-present male gaze that has traditionally dominated Hollywood. It’s high time we set fire to that gaze.

The Substance is not only revolutionizing the Hollywood ways but it also serves as an exhibit about what happens when we become too hyper fixated on our appearance according to others and they remind us that women are so much more than our looks–we are empowered through our substance. With an increase in women directing, writing, and acting in these films, I’m confident that narratives will continue to evolve, and the portrayal of women as mere objects of beauty will increasingly shift to reflect the complexity, diversity, and multifaceted nature of who we truly are.