May 18, 2026 • 47 mins
Coralie Fargeat's film The Substance has made quite a splash and drummed up a lot of conversation. In this classic, Anney and Samantha peel back the layers of ageism, consumption, quick fixes, misogyny, self-hatred, and desperation.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Any and Samantha.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Welcome to Stuff Never Told You production by Heardio, and
welcome to another classic for today.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I thought we would bring back the one we did
at the time.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I guess it's still kind of a Spoiled Saturdays, but
at the time it was very spoiled on the substance,
just because we've had a lot of conversations about kind
of ozimpic culture what that looks like. And I sent
you that post I saw about a horror movie that's
(00:46):
coming out specifically about that, and I think the substance
has come up in a lot of those conversations.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Right, He's made his name in that genre body horror slash.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, yeah, well, and I mentioned that I have some
friends who are taking some of these substances and we
call it the substance jokingly. So that has just been
on my mind lately. So please enjoy this classic episode.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
I wope this stuff I Never Told You production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
And welcome to a special New Year's edition of Spoiled Saturdays.
Content morning before we began disordered eating, agism, sexism, general grossness,
I guess, but yeah, this is a New Year's movie,
New Year, New You, that's what I say.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Spoilers. That spoilers.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Thanks to your listeners for suggesting this movie. Thanks to
Christina who kind of suggested it after our Death becomes
her episode. I really really recommend that you go into
this movie knowing as little as possible at being said,
I'm not going to sugarcoat it's really gross.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
It does not hold back, but it's it's a bonkers
it's wild ride. It's a wild ride.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Traumatized honestly, Like I literally had to sit back for
a second and then turn off a familiar show and
sit there, even though I'm like an hour past my
typical bedtime, and I was like, I have to watch
something else before I go to bed.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
I can't. I can't do this. So that took a
good hour of detoxing.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yes, detoxing.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yes, it's funny, because everybody was telling me I needed
to see it, and they were like, I can't even
explain to you. It's so wild, and I kind of like,
I've seen so much that's I'm sure I've seen it. Nope,
couldn't predict that one. So I love it. I'm so
excited to talk about it. Okay, so here's the plot.
(03:10):
The Substance is a twenty twenty four sci fi horror
satire film, directed, written, and produced by Coralie Farja and
starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Dennis Quaid. It was
a co production between the US, the UK and France.
Since it debuted, it has been a critical and commercial
success and has generated a lot of conversation. Also has
(03:33):
a lot of really cool practical effects, and I suggest
looking up how they did them if you're interested, because
it's really cool. The movie opens on celebrity Elizabeth sparkles
to me Moore getting a star on the Hollywood Walk
of Fan. Then we see the progression of time as
it goes from being a star people take pictures with
that was kept clean to one that no one recognizes,
(03:56):
and people spill food on and eventually it cracks. On
her fiftieth birthday, Elizabeth is filming for her long running
aerobic show when she accidentally overhears that she is being
fired because of her age and is going to be
replaced by someone younger and more beautiful. After being formally
let go, she crashes her car while driving back to
(04:18):
her apartment. When she sees a billboard of herself already
being taken down at the hospital. A young orderly slips
her a flash drive that he says changed his life on.
It is an ad for something called the Substance, a
black market product that promises a better, younger, prettier version
of yourself. So Elizabeth is kind of thinking about all
(04:41):
this and sort of decides not to do it. She
runs into a man her age from her class from homeroom,
and he asks her if they can go get drinks sometime.
Elizabeth somewhat reluctantly agrees to get his number, which he
scribbles on a piece of paper that he then promptly
drops in the mumm and hands it to her. Anyway,
(05:02):
she decides, after a few drinks, to order the Substance,
which is a real secretive process that involves her going
by a number, going to a secret location where no
one is there. It's like the door doesn't even open
all the way. There's a lot of block boxes, and
(05:24):
that's how she gets the kit. It's kind of a
complicated process, but essentially here it is. There's a single
use activator daily syringes for stabilizer fluid from the spine
and an ivy of nutrients for both the matrix, the
original self and the other self, which is necessary because
(05:46):
once Elizabeth uses the activator, she collapses on the floor
and a younger version of herself emerges from a slit
in her back. She then, the younger version, has to
hook up the nutrients to her older self the main
and inject some stablaris or fluid drawn from Elizabeth to
keep her from deteriorating herself. She also has to sew
(06:07):
up the back. The way the system works is that
they have to switch every seven days, no exception. It's
made very clear that they are the same person. The
balance must be respected. There is no she and you.
You are the same. The younger version quality calls herself Sue.
Sue goes to audition for Elizabeth's old role on the
(06:31):
Aerobic show, which is now called Pump It Up, and
she gets it after a very sexy audition. Harvey's played
by Quaid and yes, that name was intentional. Harvey, the
producer who led Elizabeth go, is thrilled about her and
even agrees to make her odd scheduling situation work. Sue's
image replaces Elizabeth on billboards, notably one's visible from Elizabeth's apartment.
(06:57):
Sue becomes a huge success. While about to have sex
with someone, Sue starts to feel dizzy and realizes it
is time to switch back, but she doesn't want to,
so she breaks the rules and takes more stabilizer fluid
from an unconscious Elizabeth. The next day, when Elizabeth wakes up,
one of her fingers is completely dead like a corpse's Angry,
(07:19):
Elizabeth calls the number she'd used to order the substance
and tells them what happened. They remind her there is
no her and you, that they are the same, and
asks if she wants to quit. She refuses, and in
this conversation, Elizabeth keeps saying like she needs to respect
the balance. She has to respect the balance. Sue constructs
(07:40):
the sort of secret room in the bathroom tows Elizabeth's
unconscious body so she can have people over. Even though
she is really successful, she starts to have worries about
her own body becoming misshapen, even having a pretty nightmarish
hallucination where chicken bone comes out of her skin. But
she is offered the network's coveted New Year's Eve special
(08:02):
watch millions of people.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
She agrees.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
As Sue grows more successful and parties, Elizabeth becomes a
self hating.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Hermit who binges.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
She hate watches interviews with Sue where Sue insults her
she cooks from the cookbook Harvey gave her, like whole turkeys,
just food everywhere.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
She doesn't clean up.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
This is very spiteful on her part, where she's like,
you canna wake up and see this mess. Sue is
furious when they switch and and she sees the mess,
and she decides she will not switch back takes a
bunch of stabilizer fluid. A few months later, right before
(08:48):
the New Year's Eve show, Sue runs out of her
supply of this fluid and can no longer extract anymore
from Elizabeth. The supplier tells her the only way to
get more fluid is to switch, so that Elizabeth can
replenish the supply. Furious but very desperate, Sue switches back.
Elizabeth is now pretty much a walking corpse. Her bones
(09:12):
are breaking, she is hunched over, she has lost her hair. Outraged,
Elizabeth calls up the supplier, demanding that they put an
end to the whole thing. She wants it to stop.
The supplier impresses upon her that there is no going
back if she decides to do this, but Elizabeth insists,
ordering a serum to terminate Sue. Elizabeth injects Sue with
(09:34):
about half the serum before she stops, Realizing she doesn't
want to let go of the admiration and attention that
Sue is getting. She doesn't know how to live without her.
Sue wakes up the termination fluid, leaves them both conscious
and realizes that Elizabeth tried to kill her and attacks her.
After a vicious fight, Sue kills Elizabeth and goes to
(09:57):
film the New Year's Eve special. However, she doesn't have
any more stabilizer fluid and Elizabeth is dead, so her
body starts to deteriorate very quickly. Desperate, she tries to
create a newer, better version of herself by using the Activator,
the single use Activator, despite the warning. This leads to
(10:19):
the creation of Monstrosso Eliza Sue, a monstrous amalgamation of Elizabeth, Sue.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
And the new version. She kind of looks like the
rat King from the Last of Us two. To be
honest and.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Sorry about it anyway, she puts on Eliza Zue Monstrosso
Eliza Sue puts on the very Cinderella looking dress, puts
on a cutout mask of Elizabeth's face when she was younger,
and takes the stage.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
The mask soon falls to the audience's.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Horror, and she sort of gives birth to a breast
on live broadcast. People are freaking out. A man tries
to cut her hand and her head off. People are
calling her monster, and another even more grotesque head sprouts
in that place.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Her arm falls off. Blood is spewing everywhere, covering everyone,
including Harvey and the execs.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
He introduced Sue to like twenty one thousand liters of blood.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
I think that's the number that they used. Yep, everyone
is screaming.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Eliza Sue flees the studio, but eventually explodes, leaving a
face that inches along the pavement until it reaches Elizabeth
Star on the Walk of Fame. She imagines being famous
and hearing the cheers of the crowd as she melts
into a puddle of blood that is cleaned up the
(11:47):
next day.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Yeah, in that opening scene, someone drops ketchup and burger
and fries, so it's in the same pattern, So you
know that that's how are they open? And I was
that essentially, I'm traumatized, and that's all I have to.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Say about this. I get it.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
It was very heavy handed, I get it. I still traumatized.
I was like, damn because like the way they made
sure to make the pretty sexy pictures versus the horrific
end pictures, like they want you to know what they're doing,
the director and the writer, And yes, point made, but damn,
I'm traumatized.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
I love how bonkers it was. And every time I've
shown it to somebody, they've been like, oh wow, I
did not know it was gonna go this hard, and
it really really.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Went hard.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah, So like we're not being cute in the mirror,
We're gonna be disgusting and grotesque, like like what you
think of me?
Speaker 4 (12:56):
So here we go.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yes, and we're gonna talk about that too, because the
director's got a lot of good quotes about that, including
about how the ways some people are describing this movie
versus other body horror movies that men have done and
the differences in that, which I think is really interesting.
And by the way, this director, we have talked about
her before. She also directed Revenge, which we talked about
(13:20):
in our rape revenge movies, and was inspired to write
this movie after dealing with internalized negative feelings about her
body aging and being forgotten as she grew older. The
character of Elizabeth is also in part inspired by Jane Fonda, who,
if you don't know, transitioned from being an actress to
an aerobic show and it's really interesting to read. I
(13:44):
believe her. The director and Demi Moore met six times
to discuss this role, because Demi Moore was like, I
don't know, I don't know, but they eventually were like,
really came together and created this.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Really working together. So I think that's great.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Obviously, when we talk about themes, one of the big
ones agism and sexism, how we treat women, and in
this movie, particularly women in Hollywood disposable, expendable. Literally At
one point when Elizabeth is getting fired, it's a really
(14:31):
grossene or Dennis Craid's character, Harvey is eating all of
this shrimp and he just says it just stops at
fifty And Elizabeth asks what stops and he's like m
and he doesn't have an answer, but he's firing her
because she's fifty and they always want.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
This younger, better version.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
In quotes something to someone to be washed away and
forgotten as you age, like your wiped away from your
Hollywood star, no matter how much they've done our sacrifice,
because she'd won awards, she'd been working for them forever,
and how much pain they might have put their bodies
through to meet these standards. And it's really upsetting because
(15:17):
she had given so much of herself.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
It was her birthday.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
When they fired her, and they give her such a
bland gift that says you were great.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
Right actually barely talk to her, hands up box like moth.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah, and it's the happy French cookbook that we'll talk
about later.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
I love the same way he says I love my wife,
and he does such a random statement.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
I'll where did that come from?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Okay, he was gross.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
And I read a really cool article before this talking
about how this movie is kind of a really dark
fairy tale because you have your quote chrone your young maid.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
But he would be the devil. He's got like this
snackskin boots.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
He's got that like kind of really creepy smile in
the way he's always consuming something.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Interestingly, the actor Dennis Quait himself like really went out
to bat and spoke for the very thing that he represented,
like he was campaigning for Donald Trump, and I find
that ironic. I'm like, so you understand what this film is, right,
you know, they're like implicating here what.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
And that role was originally going to be played by
Rayleiota but he died.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Uh yeah, I'm.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Kind of glad I didn't see him in favorable.
Speaker 5 (16:46):
He would have been great, But I'm really glad that's
not the last memories of him I love.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Yeah, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Fair, that's fair. But then it's also.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Very clear when we look at the difference between how
people at the studio treat Elizabeth versus how they treat Sue,
it is stark. They can't wait to get rid of Elizabeth.
They're angry she's been here as long as she has.
But Sue, they're like, oh, yes, you need seven days
off every other week. We can do it. We will
(17:27):
work around it. You're the best, You're so amazing. Have
our New Year's Eve show, please. So it makes it
very stark in that way, and I do think it's interesting.
We'll talk about this more later too, But when Elizabeth's
doing her workout show, she's saying things like you got
to get that beach bud. You don't want to be
(17:47):
a jellyfish on the beach, like all this stuff. So
she's really internalized all of this as well. And then
when Sue goes toed to the audition for the show
right before she goes in someone else auditions, and the
two men who are casting kind of snidely are like,
(18:07):
too bad, her breast aron in the right place.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
They're implying that her nose, she would look better if
her breast was on her face instead of her nose,
criticizing her nose.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah, yes, which comes back to the end for sure,
for sure. And then there's kind of a constant refrain
about pretty girls should always smile, which a lot of
us have heard, but also towards the end becomes very
grotesque because Sue is losing her teeth.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
And cannot give a full smile.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, yeah, trum tust, it's gross.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
I'm not gonna deny it. I love it.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Here's the quote from av Club, in a scene that
merely hints at the revulsion to leering network executive Harvey
Dennis Quaid has a mouthful of shrimp when he informs
Elizabeth that she's being put out to pasture. The themes
in the Substance are mostly expressed visually, and the casting
of the film's male characters is a vicious comment in itself.
The movie is populated by mediocre looking men passing judgment
(19:17):
on women who are frankly way out of their league.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yeah, the neighbor was a stark reminder of like what
he really thought he was owed. He'd be like, yes,
I'm gonna take that silas as a yes, we'll see
you tonight. Yes, yes, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
He's not cute in any least way.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
No, And then with Elizabeth he was like, stop being annoying,
But with Sue he's like, oh, you're never annoying. Please
come up a drink with me.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
I'll help you reach you.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
I love your show. It's so good yep. And then
there there's also just the constant remind of how Sue
being young is better in terms of the billboards that
(20:09):
you see, the ripping down of Elizabeth and quickly replacing
it with Sue's.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Mirrors. There's a lot of mirrors.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
This maybe actually doesn't have a lot of dialogue, and
that was done purposely, but there's a lot of like
looking into mirrors, and having when Elizabeth it's her turn,
and always having Sue kind of watching over her through
her like wide apartment windows, and not being able to
forget that she was fired and Sue was hired, and
(20:38):
Sue is the one that people appreciate, and a door
now and it used to be her and in fact
she breaks. She has a poster framed poster of her
when she was younger, and she throws one of her
awards at it and cracks the eye of it, so
(20:58):
even her younger self hanging over her. And then how
we view age and I think this is very over
the top, done in a fun way with how the
makeup effects of what happens to Demi more. They even
have stages. There's one that's like Crone Gollum and then
(21:22):
let's to Sue.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
That's what they called it.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
What I was watching, I was like, this is like
a corpse, Like she looks like the way her finger
in the beginning, it's like bone and decayed skin, which
I learned a new term have exploitation, which is what
it sounds like, but using older women as the villain
or something really scary or something disgusting, And this movie
(21:48):
really leaned into that really really leaned into it, and
it's I really recommend reading how they did the special
effects of it because it's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
But it took a lot.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
It took a long time to apply, it took a
lot to act in it, and me More was apparently
really determined, like, we're going to get this right. Even
if I have to deal with this, we don't want
to disrespect the makeup, So if we have to take
it off and do it again, we'll do it again.
And then the casting of Diviny Moore was also very
purposeful because she has kind of gone through this and
(22:28):
she's had a lot of quote since then.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
I think she was very.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Unsure and I get it that this movie would be
exercise or not. But now that it is, she's had
a lot of comments about what she thinks about it.
But from av Club, here's another quote. The complexities of
making a living based on one's looks and the emptiness
that it's left when that life is no longer possible
provides a rich text for More.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Whose it girl.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Days in the mid eighties also led to a long
career as a famous movie star. But More is sixty
two and is surely aware of her changing status within
the industry. Going back to their other quote, though, I
do think it's interesting that, I mean, she aged very well,
but still she's being kicked out because she's fifty.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
There's so much because agism has always played her, whether
it's the character she plays with so indecent proposal. That
was absolutely the beginning part of the beginning of her career,
all those sexy movies ghosts, Like she was known as
the it girl in the eighties and nineties and so
(23:32):
her going into that and then getting older, but like
every age they would feature her as like looking amazing
at thirty, looking amazing at forty. They really did that,
and then Ashton Kutcher came along after Bruce Willis. There's
so much conversation about her aging and whether or not
she's aging gracefully or what she's doing, and her stepping
(23:54):
in and out of out like limelight, whether she was
dating someone who was or marrying someone's significantly younger, playing
these characters, not playing these characters, being a mother, you know,
like these she kind of represents that conversation, like, to me,
more is an icon in itself because of that, and
now she's in this age and time where things are
(24:16):
being fixed, whether it's ozimbic or whether it's plastic surgery,
and so everybody's watching her because she's always been kind
of that representation, oddly without being said that she's that representation.
So this perfectly made sense. Like the only other person
that may like even come close to this, I don't know, baby,
(24:39):
I don't even think Nicole Kinman was that, But that
was not something that was a part of her conversation either.
Even though it is, it isn't like she was always
in that forefront in that conversation.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Oddly, Yeah, I hadn't thought about that part. But yeah,
she definitely definitely has been and this was an episode
where it could have been many many parts. But she
does have a lot of good quotes if you want
to look them up, where she was talking about how
she feels now this movie has come out and resonated
(25:11):
with people, and how it's made her think about some
of the way she's been treated or thinks she's seen
in her own life. Also, interestingly, I love this. Several
women have written about how this movie made them feel
better about aging.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
I mean, you definitely do hold on to a moment.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
I say this as I've made episodes of like I'm
aging and I need help, like where I'm like, maybe
it's not so bad, I shouldn't do things.
Speaker 6 (25:37):
Yeah, because in the end she wanted to go back
to face, you know what I mean, Like it was
that kind of conversation like I wasn't so bad that
I shouldn't have done this because this wasn't worth it.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
But yeah, it kind of has that crash out of
like maybe.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
It's not worth it because the price you have to pay,
whether it's having to take out fillers or like melting
fills out of your face because you realize it's actually
not doing you well, or having breast implants, and not
that there is anything wrong with these things, but like
the repercussions sometimes the health like crisis that have to
have happened with some people afterwards because there's not enough
(26:16):
information or they got they went to the wrong place. Yeah,
you know, that's definitely a conversation and I think that
kind of comes back to her trying to put her
old face back on.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, And I think that to me, one of the
saddest parts of the movie, if not the saddest part,
is when she does agree to go on that get
the drinks with the guy, yeah, who is perfectly nice,
perfectly average, but perfectly nice. And she puts on makeups,
she looks great, and then she keeps seeing her reflection
(26:46):
or she sees Sue, and she just keeps taking off
her lipstick and applying it and putting on more makeup
and then taking it off and like just viciously scrubbing
it off.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
And it's so sad.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
So you're like, just go, you look great, just you
can do this, but she can't make it out the
door and she never goes, and it's a very very
sad part.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
And in the end.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Sue kills Elizabeth, who at that point does almost pretty
much personified death.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
So age comes for you all he does it. Sue's
gonna get old too.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
But yeah, going back to what you were saying, another
theme in this is the quote best self, which in
this case is the younger, better version. This kind of perfectionism.
I read I'm not sure if this is true, but
I read that Margaret Quality wore prosthetics to make everything
(27:48):
like more symmetrical and perfect.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Well, I would assume this is without any research, that
they had to make our look absolutely perfect, and we
know that's not the case. So whether it's brush, whether
it's edited, like they had to make her even though
she's beautiful as is, there's something there's always cellul like,
there's always a little birthmark, there's always these things. So
(28:13):
I'm sure that she had to do extra. She had
to do extra, whether it's taping up of things. Uh,
obviously she had to get like first thing I thought.
I was like, Oh, she definitely went and got.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
Wax like like everything everything, And we know people are hairy,
come on, her mother was a hairy woman like Annie McDowell,
who was also an another nineties icon, was was not.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
She's naturally dark hair, so that that just happens, you know,
So for her not have any hair, I'm like, yeah,
she definitely.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Definitely had to Yes, yes, and that I mean that
is the thing of we've talked before about, you know,
constantly beingmbarded with those images of this is perfect, this
is what I have to do, that's how I look.
And if you don't fit that, how do you fix it?
How what can they sell you to quote fix it?
(29:07):
And this is when we come to the conversation of
quick fixes. This is literally a black market drug that
she has to go to a strange location to pick up.
There's no one there. They never refer to her by
her name, only her number. You have to drain your
spinal fluid, you have to sew up your back, you
(29:31):
have to be unconscious for a week like that. That's
kind of the desperation she felt, especially as somebody who
that was her career, and that was how she had
so long to find herself and so long found meaning.
That's how desperate she was. She was like, Okay, I'll
(29:53):
try this. And by the way, the substance video she
watched is very like tech. It's a dude narrating it.
Every time she talks to him, he's like, I told
you to respect the balance. Like it's very it has
that vibe of like a tech bro. We can make
(30:14):
money off of these women.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
However, there are men that do it. They run into.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Yes, I'm wondering now that I think about it, is
it the orderly dude?
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yeah, you had the same scar.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Okay, okay, yes, you run into his older version and
he's like, has she started trading you yet? Has she
started stealing the time. So even for him, the person
who recommended it to her, he was like, oh no,
(30:47):
I shouldn't You shouldn't have done this. I shouldn't have
shouldn't have done this. Here is another quote from aby Club.
These combined with an aesthetic of syringes and latex clubs
best described as medsbas chic of okaing parioical cures like
ozimbic and botox that encourage people, mostly women. Let's be
real to pump themselves full of barely regulated substances whose
(31:08):
side effects won't be clear for a few more decades
so they can make themselves more palatable to patriarchal beauty standards.
None of this will prevent the lumpy men who rule
the world from throwing you away when you don't give
them a boner anymore. As Elizabeth Sparkle rudely discovers early
on in the film, Elizabeth is extremely famous, Billboard famous,
(31:28):
Walk of Fame famous, and has been for decades. You'd
think this would give her the slightest bit of leverage
when it comes to renegotiating her contract as the host
of the aerobics program that broadcast her tight body and
sparkling smile into millions of American homes every week.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
You'd be wrong.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
And that's another thing. Is she doesn't. It's these men
who decide she's done. She doesn't decide that. They're just
decide it. And it's because of her age. And I
do think you know the title the substance when you're
talking about so we don't even know what it is
and we don't know how it works. But she was
(32:06):
willing to give it a try. I didn't want to
put in here after things go terribly awry. The Eliza
su prosthetic took six hours to apply. Quality said it
made her very claustrophobic, but it's really cool. I just
can't recommend enough to look up how they made it
and how they did it and the blood and everything,
(32:28):
oh my gosh. But Farjah said of that, the only
gaze that matters is her own. It's the reconciliation between
all of the parts, the moment she reveals what was
inside her guts but we are told to hide, be
ashamed of everything is out. The butt is on the head,
and the boobs are everywhere, and all those parts have
been benicized about are kind of exploded, and she is
(32:50):
finally and she finally has some tenderness for herself. And
that's true, and a lot of suits looking in the mirror,
but she's putting on her ear rings, her dress and
combing her hair. It's like the nicest she's looked at
herself in the mirror. And I mean, of course it's
really sad ultimately, but when she presents herself to her audience,
(33:13):
she's like, it's me. I'm still the same person. I
don't understand why you're reacting this way, as if I'm
a monster.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
I hadn't.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Really I'm glad I read that quote because I was
just kind of like, oh, she's putting on earrings.
Speaker 6 (33:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
I was like, she's trying to be presentable. She's gelious.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
But it could also I do also wonder like it's
partially in a conversation of like, no matter how much
suffering you're going through, you still have to dress up
and present yourself like women constantly would do so well.
Women may like talking about women who have babies and
are pregnant, they get themselves nice, They do their nails,
they get their toes done, so when they're looking at it,
it looks nice. Like these things that they do, whether
(33:50):
it's for others or themselves, it is literally a thing
like I have to be presentable, No matter the disastrous
situation I'm in, or if I'm just eating up of
every orphice and then non orphus things that shouldn't be bleeding.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
She did try to make herself resentable.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
She did, like even the mask she put the smile
on with the lipstick, So.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
Yeah, I'm not being an ode to the joker, to
be honest.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
At that point though, she was literally crashing out here
we go.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Yeah, well, I love how like nobody noticed it too.
I think that's really telling that nobody noticed something was
a miss until.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
That was the part that I'm like, he let her in?
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah what uh huh? Like they put her on the
on screen.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
There were so many well, there's so many things I
had questions about because I'm like, this doesn't work this way.
I know that's absurd, but my question on one of
the parts was like wait uh. At one point she
was you know the fluid that which is the food
for yours for your part fluid this if you are
where did she get that food?
Speaker 4 (35:05):
Because she was almost suffocating.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
You get it from the substance it came.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
Only has seven day supply.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
You can get refilled without doing the The problem is
she ran out of stable stabilizer fluid. But it's like
a subscription.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
She just kept getting it.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Okay, Yeah, I was like, she's just suffocating, but she
doesn't have food, like that's why she's a nosebleeding.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Well, that does bring us to my next point, consumption.
That's a big theme in this a lot of food
and eating uh in this movie I've already talked about
in a Quaid and the shrimp, very gross, very visceral.
You can hear him eating m uh him with the
(36:00):
cigarette like it zooms in. You can hear it very
viscerally as well. This is also how we see some
female rage because I'm both extremes of eating and not eating.
Because previously Elizabeth had been pretty shut off from being fired,
like any anger about it or anything visibly. But when
(36:23):
she starts to see Sue is taking her time or
again they are one, but to her it feels like
Sue is taking her time. That's when she's watching the
She's watching Sue being interviewed and making fun of her
and being like, oh that she's out of my generation.
She's more like my mom's age or whatever, my moms generation.
(36:47):
And that's when Elizabeth gets out the French cookbook and
starts to make everything in there, a lot of meats
like blood sausage, and it's very rage filled, it's very bitter.
And she does do it to get back at Sue,
because when Sue comes to it's just a mess. It's
(37:11):
an absolute mess. Food everywhere, dishes everywhere, it's really nasty.
But she kind of starts, she stops giving a She
also like starts yelling at the guy across the hall,
like slams the door open. She's just not not into
it anymore. A lot of people were relating to that
to get related to the pandemic, like this, what's resonating
(37:34):
with me? But also when we talk about consumption, I
would say we've discussed this before, but a lot of.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
The way.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Camera shots have typically been used to film women, it's
very like objectifying of body parts, very pornographic, and so
it's like you're consuming just this part, are just this part,
And the director has talked about that and and that
(38:07):
kind of goes back to why she wanted to make
the objectified parts explode or become gross because.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
She gives birth to a boob from her forehead.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
So that was a very interesting interview.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
She's done about this movie.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
But also self loathing is a big theme because they
both they're the same person. It says again, all all
throughout the movie, respect the balance, you are one. But
they hate each other. And we've discussed before the self
comparison trap of always comparing yourself to your younger self
(38:53):
or even like future worries about your older self. To
literally dry heaves at the loot of switching back and
calls her Elizabeth, her sick mother.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
They do.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
More than once try to kill each other, but in
the end it's Elizabeth. Elizabeth can't do it, but Sue can,
and Sue does. Sue kills her, but Elizabeth can't give
up Sue because she loves her too much, or she
loves the idea of being young and worshiped and having
an audience love her too much and it's too powerful
(39:31):
for her to let go. And she does say things
like when she's Eliza, Sue like.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Why you love me?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Is me?
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Is still me?
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Like she just wants that love, that adoration, and is
willing to make all these sacrifices and go through all
this pain for those who are watching, who would throw
her away in a second to succeed. I also think
there's a theme of addiction in here, being kind of
(40:05):
addicted to that feeling.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
And maybe even to the idea of eventually like being
younger when you could. And then there are a lot
of this.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
As I said, there's not a lot a dialogue in
this movie, So a lot of this is how you're
seeing yourself when people are seeing you, and it's reflected through.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Mirrors or images. The never ending hallway.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
At the company, the studio that feels very much like
the shining Alissa wilcomes In of The New York Times
wrote in the end, that's what the substance does best,
not just remind us about the observed standards for female
beauty and the destructive power of celebrity, but turn the
mirror back on us. The sharpest critique isn't about bodies,
but about the way we've trained ourselves to look at
(40:59):
those and the effect that has on her own. The
movie is, appropriately enough a mirror, and our discomfort reveals
our own hidden biases and fears about ourselves, being older,
being famous, being seen, being loved, being usurped by someone
younger and hotter. It's all here, nothing like a mirror
to remind you what lurks beneath a career spent in
(41:22):
front of cameras, first as a celebrated actress and then
as a celebrity fitness instructor on a show called Sparkle.
Your life with Elizabeth abruptly ends when an executive decides
she's too old to be worthy of being seen. He
gets to decide if anyone wants to look at her,
and if he turns the cameras away, does she even exist?
(41:42):
So a lot a lot to be said about this movie.
These are just a few of my thoughts. But before
we close out this episode, I did want to touch
on some irl news stories because it has generated a
lot of conversation and a lot of headlines.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
One is I'm only going.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
To touch on this very briefly because I thought it
was funny. But Kim Kardashian criticized this movie.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
Oh really very very.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Funny because people are like interesting, And one of my
favorite comebacks was, it's like Ai criticizing Terminator.
Speaker 4 (42:17):
I think she learned to appreciate this movie soon, though.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
I feel bad, like I it was just funny because
it seems so out of touch, Like I'm not saying
they're not standards I'm not saying anything like that.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
It was just so out of touch.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
I wonder though, what she baited, maybe because like, why
would Kim Kardi. I've not heard her talk about movies ever,
so this is interesting that that's a that's even a thing.
So what did they go after her? Being like, you're
the representation, You're who they're talking about. So she's all
in micro gonna be like what No, Like, I can't
imagine she even watched this movie.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
I feel like she had her review and most of
the things I read were I don't know where it
came from, but most of the things I read didn't
feel like she had been baited by them.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
They were just kind of like, oh.
Speaker 4 (43:07):
Yeah, interesting.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
I saw a headline recently about a couple of months ago,
and I wanted to talk about it about how they
felt like getting older meant they were disappearing, like they
were no longer seen and what that meant the freedom
and the costs.
Speaker 4 (43:22):
And I saw that I think I think it was
before the movie.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
So people are talking about how aging has seen that,
and I was like, huh, because again, part of my
conversation is like, I obviously we're all growing older, but
we were getting to a specific age where I'm like,
I'm technically at midlife, So what does that look like?
And have I disappeared and what does disappearing mean?
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Yeah, Like I said, a lot of people wrote, especially
around the pandemic, and we've talked about this a lot,
how our bodies changed during the pandemic in ways that
we might not like given standards that we are surrounded
by in society. And people were saying, you know, I
(44:07):
found this. I really related to this, whether they are saying, oh,
it made me feel better about aging, and some people
were just like, it was nice to.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
See something about it.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
So yeah, I think that is a conversation that's really
happening right now. We should come back and talk about that.
Another thing that happened I got a lot of headlines
was parjap pulled this film from Poland's Camera Image Film
Festival after quote highly misogynistic comments from the festival's founder, Merricks.
(44:39):
Fuadovitz published He pubished an essay titled Time for Solidarity
in Cinematography World, and this essay was his response to
a petition issued by the organization Women in Cinematography in
which they were calling for the event to do more
around supporting women in the industry, and the founder's response
(44:59):
was not great because he said, quote, it raises a question,
can the pursuit of change exclude what is good? Can
we sacrifice works and artists with outstanding artistic achievements solely
to make room for mediocre film production. So he's basically
saying women cinematographers are mediocre, they shouldn't make room for them.
(45:23):
So she pulled the film and it was a whole thing.
The backlash was pretty intense and immediate, and the founder
claims he was misinterpreted. He said he'd been working with
that organization WIC and posted a diversity and inclusion proposal,
though WIC claimed they wrote it and he only posted
(45:43):
it after everyone got mad at him, which sounds about
right too me.
Speaker 4 (45:47):
Right, but I, oh no, just kidding, I just claimed it.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Yeah, but this movie has gotten a lot of awards buzz,
so we'll see what happens. I did want to end
with this quote from Farjah. I needed the substance to
be bloody, to be excessive, to have a real strong
message that it's time for a change, for a real change,
and the change cannot be delicate, it cannot be gentle.
(46:13):
It cannot be small. It needs to be massive, It
needs to be everywhere, and it needs.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
To be now.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
So she really but when we're saying she didn't pull
hold back, she did not hold back. So yeah, I
highly recommend it. It is very gross, but traumatized.
Speaker 4 (46:35):
I'm to leave it at that.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Yes, I mean when we say it's body are it's
mm hmm traumatized. Well, thanks for going on this journey
with me, Samantha, and thanks to everybody who recommended it. Uh.
If you have any recommendations, we would love to hear from.
You can emails at Stephanie Momsteph at i Heeartneeda dot com.
(46:58):
You can find us on Twitter and Blues Guy at
mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram and TikTok as stuff
I've Never Told You for us on YouTube. We have
a tea public store, and we have a book you
can get wherever you get your books.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
It's always to our super producer Christina, executive producer My and.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Your contrutter Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for
listening Stuff Never Told You Direction by Heart Radio.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
For more podcast from my Heart Radio, you can check
out the heart Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Any and Samantha.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Welcome to Stuff Never Told You production by Heardio, and
welcome to another classic for today.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
I thought we would bring back the one we did
at the time.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
I guess it's still kind of a Spoiled Saturdays, but
at the time it was very spoiled on the substance,
just because we've had a lot of conversations about kind
of ozimpic culture what that looks like. And I sent
you that post I saw about a horror movie that's
(00:46):
coming out specifically about that, and I think the substance
has come up in a lot of those conversations.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Right, He's made his name in that genre body horror slash.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, yeah, well, and I mentioned that I have some
friends who are taking some of these substances and we
call it the substance jokingly. So that has just been
on my mind lately. So please enjoy this classic episode.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Hey, this is Anny and Samantha.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
I wope this stuff I Never Told You production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
And welcome to a special New Year's edition of Spoiled Saturdays.
Content morning before we began disordered eating, agism, sexism, general grossness,
I guess, but yeah, this is a New Year's movie,
New Year, New You, that's what I say.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Spoilers. That spoilers.
Speaker 2 (02:01):
Thanks to your listeners for suggesting this movie. Thanks to
Christina who kind of suggested it after our Death becomes
her episode. I really really recommend that you go into
this movie knowing as little as possible at being said,
I'm not going to sugarcoat it's really gross.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
It does not hold back, but it's it's a bonkers
it's wild ride. It's a wild ride.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Traumatized honestly, Like I literally had to sit back for
a second and then turn off a familiar show and
sit there, even though I'm like an hour past my
typical bedtime, and I was like, I have to watch
something else before I go to bed.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
I can't. I can't do this. So that took a
good hour of detoxing.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Yes, detoxing.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yes, it's funny, because everybody was telling me I needed
to see it, and they were like, I can't even
explain to you. It's so wild, and I kind of like,
I've seen so much that's I'm sure I've seen it. Nope,
couldn't predict that one. So I love it. I'm so
excited to talk about it. Okay, so here's the plot.
(03:10):
The Substance is a twenty twenty four sci fi horror
satire film, directed, written, and produced by Coralie Farja and
starring Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, and Dennis Quaid. It was
a co production between the US, the UK and France.
Since it debuted, it has been a critical and commercial
success and has generated a lot of conversation. Also has
(03:33):
a lot of really cool practical effects, and I suggest
looking up how they did them if you're interested, because
it's really cool. The movie opens on celebrity Elizabeth sparkles
to me Moore getting a star on the Hollywood Walk
of Fan. Then we see the progression of time as
it goes from being a star people take pictures with
that was kept clean to one that no one recognizes,
(03:56):
and people spill food on and eventually it cracks. On
her fiftieth birthday, Elizabeth is filming for her long running
aerobic show when she accidentally overhears that she is being
fired because of her age and is going to be
replaced by someone younger and more beautiful. After being formally
let go, she crashes her car while driving back to
(04:18):
her apartment. When she sees a billboard of herself already
being taken down at the hospital. A young orderly slips
her a flash drive that he says changed his life on.
It is an ad for something called the Substance, a
black market product that promises a better, younger, prettier version
of yourself. So Elizabeth is kind of thinking about all
(04:41):
this and sort of decides not to do it. She
runs into a man her age from her class from homeroom,
and he asks her if they can go get drinks sometime.
Elizabeth somewhat reluctantly agrees to get his number, which he
scribbles on a piece of paper that he then promptly
drops in the mumm and hands it to her. Anyway,
(05:02):
she decides, after a few drinks, to order the Substance,
which is a real secretive process that involves her going
by a number, going to a secret location where no
one is there. It's like the door doesn't even open
all the way. There's a lot of block boxes, and
(05:24):
that's how she gets the kit. It's kind of a
complicated process, but essentially here it is. There's a single
use activator daily syringes for stabilizer fluid from the spine
and an ivy of nutrients for both the matrix, the
original self and the other self, which is necessary because
(05:46):
once Elizabeth uses the activator, she collapses on the floor
and a younger version of herself emerges from a slit
in her back. She then, the younger version, has to
hook up the nutrients to her older self the main
and inject some stablaris or fluid drawn from Elizabeth to
keep her from deteriorating herself. She also has to sew
(06:07):
up the back. The way the system works is that
they have to switch every seven days, no exception. It's
made very clear that they are the same person. The
balance must be respected. There is no she and you.
You are the same. The younger version quality calls herself Sue.
Sue goes to audition for Elizabeth's old role on the
(06:31):
Aerobic show, which is now called Pump It Up, and
she gets it after a very sexy audition. Harvey's played
by Quaid and yes, that name was intentional. Harvey, the
producer who led Elizabeth go, is thrilled about her and
even agrees to make her odd scheduling situation work. Sue's
image replaces Elizabeth on billboards, notably one's visible from Elizabeth's apartment.
(06:57):
Sue becomes a huge success. While about to have sex
with someone, Sue starts to feel dizzy and realizes it
is time to switch back, but she doesn't want to,
so she breaks the rules and takes more stabilizer fluid
from an unconscious Elizabeth. The next day, when Elizabeth wakes up,
one of her fingers is completely dead like a corpse's Angry,
(07:19):
Elizabeth calls the number she'd used to order the substance
and tells them what happened. They remind her there is
no her and you, that they are the same, and
asks if she wants to quit. She refuses, and in
this conversation, Elizabeth keeps saying like she needs to respect
the balance. She has to respect the balance. Sue constructs
(07:40):
the sort of secret room in the bathroom tows Elizabeth's
unconscious body so she can have people over. Even though
she is really successful, she starts to have worries about
her own body becoming misshapen, even having a pretty nightmarish
hallucination where chicken bone comes out of her skin. But
she is offered the network's coveted New Year's Eve special
(08:02):
watch millions of people.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
She agrees.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
As Sue grows more successful and parties, Elizabeth becomes a
self hating.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Hermit who binges.
Speaker 2 (08:14):
She hate watches interviews with Sue where Sue insults her
she cooks from the cookbook Harvey gave her, like whole turkeys,
just food everywhere.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
She doesn't clean up.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
This is very spiteful on her part, where she's like,
you canna wake up and see this mess. Sue is
furious when they switch and and she sees the mess,
and she decides she will not switch back takes a
bunch of stabilizer fluid. A few months later, right before
(08:48):
the New Year's Eve show, Sue runs out of her
supply of this fluid and can no longer extract anymore
from Elizabeth. The supplier tells her the only way to
get more fluid is to switch, so that Elizabeth can
replenish the supply. Furious but very desperate, Sue switches back.
Elizabeth is now pretty much a walking corpse. Her bones
(09:12):
are breaking, she is hunched over, she has lost her hair. Outraged,
Elizabeth calls up the supplier, demanding that they put an
end to the whole thing. She wants it to stop.
The supplier impresses upon her that there is no going
back if she decides to do this, but Elizabeth insists,
ordering a serum to terminate Sue. Elizabeth injects Sue with
(09:34):
about half the serum before she stops, Realizing she doesn't
want to let go of the admiration and attention that
Sue is getting. She doesn't know how to live without her.
Sue wakes up the termination fluid, leaves them both conscious
and realizes that Elizabeth tried to kill her and attacks her.
After a vicious fight, Sue kills Elizabeth and goes to
(09:57):
film the New Year's Eve special. However, she doesn't have
any more stabilizer fluid and Elizabeth is dead, so her
body starts to deteriorate very quickly. Desperate, she tries to
create a newer, better version of herself by using the Activator,
the single use Activator, despite the warning. This leads to
(10:19):
the creation of Monstrosso Eliza Sue, a monstrous amalgamation of Elizabeth, Sue.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
And the new version. She kind of looks like the
rat King from the Last of Us two. To be
honest and.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Sorry about it anyway, she puts on Eliza Zue Monstrosso
Eliza Sue puts on the very Cinderella looking dress, puts
on a cutout mask of Elizabeth's face when she was younger,
and takes the stage.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
The mask soon falls to the audience's.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Horror, and she sort of gives birth to a breast
on live broadcast. People are freaking out. A man tries
to cut her hand and her head off. People are
calling her monster, and another even more grotesque head sprouts
in that place.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Her arm falls off. Blood is spewing everywhere, covering everyone,
including Harvey and the execs.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
He introduced Sue to like twenty one thousand liters of blood.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
I think that's the number that they used. Yep, everyone
is screaming.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Eliza Sue flees the studio, but eventually explodes, leaving a
face that inches along the pavement until it reaches Elizabeth
Star on the Walk of Fame. She imagines being famous
and hearing the cheers of the crowd as she melts
into a puddle of blood that is cleaned up the
(11:47):
next day.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Yeah, in that opening scene, someone drops ketchup and burger
and fries, so it's in the same pattern, So you
know that that's how are they open? And I was
that essentially, I'm traumatized, and that's all I have to.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Say about this. I get it.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
It was very heavy handed, I get it. I still traumatized.
I was like, damn because like the way they made
sure to make the pretty sexy pictures versus the horrific
end pictures, like they want you to know what they're doing,
the director and the writer, And yes, point made, but damn,
I'm traumatized.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
I love how bonkers it was. And every time I've
shown it to somebody, they've been like, oh wow, I
did not know it was gonna go this hard, and
it really really.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
Went hard.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Yeah, So like we're not being cute in the mirror,
We're gonna be disgusting and grotesque, like like what you
think of me?
Speaker 4 (12:56):
So here we go.
Speaker 2 (12:57):
Yes, and we're gonna talk about that too, because the
director's got a lot of good quotes about that, including
about how the ways some people are describing this movie
versus other body horror movies that men have done and
the differences in that, which I think is really interesting.
And by the way, this director, we have talked about
her before. She also directed Revenge, which we talked about
(13:20):
in our rape revenge movies, and was inspired to write
this movie after dealing with internalized negative feelings about her
body aging and being forgotten as she grew older. The
character of Elizabeth is also in part inspired by Jane Fonda, who,
if you don't know, transitioned from being an actress to
an aerobic show and it's really interesting to read. I
(13:44):
believe her. The director and Demi Moore met six times
to discuss this role, because Demi Moore was like, I
don't know, I don't know, but they eventually were like,
really came together and created this.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Really working together. So I think that's great.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Obviously, when we talk about themes, one of the big
ones agism and sexism, how we treat women, and in
this movie, particularly women in Hollywood disposable, expendable. Literally At
one point when Elizabeth is getting fired, it's a really
(14:31):
grossene or Dennis Craid's character, Harvey is eating all of
this shrimp and he just says it just stops at
fifty And Elizabeth asks what stops and he's like m
and he doesn't have an answer, but he's firing her
because she's fifty and they always want.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
This younger, better version.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
In quotes something to someone to be washed away and
forgotten as you age, like your wiped away from your
Hollywood star, no matter how much they've done our sacrifice,
because she'd won awards, she'd been working for them forever,
and how much pain they might have put their bodies
through to meet these standards. And it's really upsetting because
(15:17):
she had given so much of herself.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
It was her birthday.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
When they fired her, and they give her such a
bland gift that says you were great.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
Right actually barely talk to her, hands up box like moth.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yeah, and it's the happy French cookbook that we'll talk
about later.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
I love the same way he says I love my wife,
and he does such a random statement.
Speaker 4 (15:42):
I'll where did that come from?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Okay, he was gross.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
And I read a really cool article before this talking
about how this movie is kind of a really dark
fairy tale because you have your quote chrone your young maid.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
But he would be the devil. He's got like this
snackskin boots.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
He's got that like kind of really creepy smile in
the way he's always consuming something.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Interestingly, the actor Dennis Quait himself like really went out
to bat and spoke for the very thing that he represented,
like he was campaigning for Donald Trump, and I find
that ironic. I'm like, so you understand what this film is, right,
you know, they're like implicating here what.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
And that role was originally going to be played by
Rayleiota but he died.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Uh yeah, I'm.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
Kind of glad I didn't see him in favorable.
Speaker 5 (16:46):
He would have been great, But I'm really glad that's
not the last memories of him I love.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Yeah, yeah, that's.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
Fair, that's fair. But then it's also.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Very clear when we look at the difference between how
people at the studio treat Elizabeth versus how they treat Sue,
it is stark. They can't wait to get rid of Elizabeth.
They're angry she's been here as long as she has.
But Sue, they're like, oh, yes, you need seven days
off every other week. We can do it. We will
(17:27):
work around it. You're the best, You're so amazing. Have
our New Year's Eve show, please. So it makes it
very stark in that way, and I do think it's interesting.
We'll talk about this more later too, But when Elizabeth's
doing her workout show, she's saying things like you got
to get that beach bud. You don't want to be
(17:47):
a jellyfish on the beach, like all this stuff. So
she's really internalized all of this as well. And then
when Sue goes toed to the audition for the show
right before she goes in someone else auditions, and the
two men who are casting kind of snidely are like,
(18:07):
too bad, her breast aron in the right place.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
They're implying that her nose, she would look better if
her breast was on her face instead of her nose,
criticizing her nose.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Yeah, yes, which comes back to the end for sure,
for sure. And then there's kind of a constant refrain
about pretty girls should always smile, which a lot of
us have heard, but also towards the end becomes very
grotesque because Sue is losing her teeth.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
And cannot give a full smile.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, yeah, trum tust, it's gross.
Speaker 1 (18:51):
I'm not gonna deny it. I love it.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Here's the quote from av Club, in a scene that
merely hints at the revulsion to leering network executive Harvey
Dennis Quaid has a mouthful of shrimp when he informs
Elizabeth that she's being put out to pasture. The themes
in the Substance are mostly expressed visually, and the casting
of the film's male characters is a vicious comment in itself.
The movie is populated by mediocre looking men passing judgment
(19:17):
on women who are frankly way out of their league.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
Yeah, the neighbor was a stark reminder of like what
he really thought he was owed. He'd be like, yes,
I'm gonna take that silas as a yes, we'll see
you tonight. Yes, yes, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
He's not cute in any least way.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
No, And then with Elizabeth he was like, stop being annoying,
But with Sue he's like, oh, you're never annoying. Please
come up a drink with me.
Speaker 4 (19:46):
I'll help you reach you.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
I love your show. It's so good yep. And then
there there's also just the constant remind of how Sue
being young is better in terms of the billboards that
(20:09):
you see, the ripping down of Elizabeth and quickly replacing
it with Sue's.
Speaker 1 (20:15):
Mirrors. There's a lot of mirrors.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
This maybe actually doesn't have a lot of dialogue, and
that was done purposely, but there's a lot of like
looking into mirrors, and having when Elizabeth it's her turn,
and always having Sue kind of watching over her through
her like wide apartment windows, and not being able to
forget that she was fired and Sue was hired, and
(20:38):
Sue is the one that people appreciate, and a door
now and it used to be her and in fact
she breaks. She has a poster framed poster of her
when she was younger, and she throws one of her
awards at it and cracks the eye of it, so
(20:58):
even her younger self hanging over her. And then how
we view age and I think this is very over
the top, done in a fun way with how the
makeup effects of what happens to Demi more. They even
have stages. There's one that's like Crone Gollum and then
(21:22):
let's to Sue.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
That's what they called it.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
What I was watching, I was like, this is like
a corpse, Like she looks like the way her finger
in the beginning, it's like bone and decayed skin, which
I learned a new term have exploitation, which is what
it sounds like, but using older women as the villain
or something really scary or something disgusting, And this movie
(21:48):
really leaned into that really really leaned into it, and
it's I really recommend reading how they did the special
effects of it because it's fascinating.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
But it took a lot.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
It took a long time to apply, it took a
lot to act in it, and me More was apparently
really determined, like, we're going to get this right. Even
if I have to deal with this, we don't want
to disrespect the makeup, So if we have to take
it off and do it again, we'll do it again.
And then the casting of Diviny Moore was also very
purposeful because she has kind of gone through this and
(22:28):
she's had a lot of quote since then.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
I think she was very.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Unsure and I get it that this movie would be
exercise or not. But now that it is, she's had
a lot of comments about what she thinks about it.
But from av Club, here's another quote. The complexities of
making a living based on one's looks and the emptiness
that it's left when that life is no longer possible
provides a rich text for More.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Whose it girl.
Speaker 2 (22:54):
Days in the mid eighties also led to a long
career as a famous movie star. But More is sixty
two and is surely aware of her changing status within
the industry. Going back to their other quote, though, I
do think it's interesting that, I mean, she aged very well,
but still she's being kicked out because she's fifty.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
There's so much because agism has always played her, whether
it's the character she plays with so indecent proposal. That
was absolutely the beginning part of the beginning of her career,
all those sexy movies ghosts, Like she was known as
the it girl in the eighties and nineties and so
(23:32):
her going into that and then getting older, but like
every age they would feature her as like looking amazing
at thirty, looking amazing at forty. They really did that,
and then Ashton Kutcher came along after Bruce Willis. There's
so much conversation about her aging and whether or not
she's aging gracefully or what she's doing, and her stepping
(23:54):
in and out of out like limelight, whether she was
dating someone who was or marrying someone's significantly younger, playing
these characters, not playing these characters, being a mother, you know,
like these she kind of represents that conversation, like, to me,
more is an icon in itself because of that, and
now she's in this age and time where things are
(24:16):
being fixed, whether it's ozimbic or whether it's plastic surgery,
and so everybody's watching her because she's always been kind
of that representation, oddly without being said that she's that representation.
So this perfectly made sense. Like the only other person
that may like even come close to this, I don't know, baby,
(24:39):
I don't even think Nicole Kinman was that, But that
was not something that was a part of her conversation either.
Even though it is, it isn't like she was always
in that forefront in that conversation.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Oddly, Yeah, I hadn't thought about that part. But yeah,
she definitely definitely has been and this was an episode
where it could have been many many parts. But she
does have a lot of good quotes if you want
to look them up, where she was talking about how
she feels now this movie has come out and resonated
(25:11):
with people, and how it's made her think about some
of the way she's been treated or thinks she's seen
in her own life. Also, interestingly, I love this. Several
women have written about how this movie made them feel
better about aging.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
I mean, you definitely do hold on to a moment.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
I say this as I've made episodes of like I'm
aging and I need help, like where I'm like, maybe
it's not so bad, I shouldn't do things.
Speaker 6 (25:37):
Yeah, because in the end she wanted to go back
to face, you know what I mean, Like it was
that kind of conversation like I wasn't so bad that
I shouldn't have done this because this wasn't worth it.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
But yeah, it kind of has that crash out of
like maybe.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
It's not worth it because the price you have to pay,
whether it's having to take out fillers or like melting
fills out of your face because you realize it's actually
not doing you well, or having breast implants, and not
that there is anything wrong with these things, but like
the repercussions sometimes the health like crisis that have to
have happened with some people afterwards because there's not enough
(26:16):
information or they got they went to the wrong place. Yeah,
you know, that's definitely a conversation and I think that
kind of comes back to her trying to put her
old face back on.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, And I think that to me, one of the
saddest parts of the movie, if not the saddest part,
is when she does agree to go on that get
the drinks with the guy, yeah, who is perfectly nice,
perfectly average, but perfectly nice. And she puts on makeups,
she looks great, and then she keeps seeing her reflection
(26:46):
or she sees Sue, and she just keeps taking off
her lipstick and applying it and putting on more makeup
and then taking it off and like just viciously scrubbing
it off.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
And it's so sad.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
So you're like, just go, you look great, just you
can do this, but she can't make it out the
door and she never goes, and it's a very very
sad part.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
And in the end.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
Sue kills Elizabeth, who at that point does almost pretty
much personified death.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
So age comes for you all he does it. Sue's
gonna get old too.
Speaker 2 (27:25):
But yeah, going back to what you were saying, another
theme in this is the quote best self, which in
this case is the younger, better version. This kind of perfectionism.
I read I'm not sure if this is true, but
I read that Margaret Quality wore prosthetics to make everything
(27:48):
like more symmetrical and perfect.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Well, I would assume this is without any research, that
they had to make our look absolutely perfect, and we
know that's not the case. So whether it's brush, whether
it's edited, like they had to make her even though
she's beautiful as is, there's something there's always cellul like,
there's always a little birthmark, there's always these things. So
(28:13):
I'm sure that she had to do extra. She had
to do extra, whether it's taping up of things. Uh,
obviously she had to get like first thing I thought.
I was like, Oh, she definitely went and got.
Speaker 5 (28:23):
Wax like like everything everything, And we know people are hairy,
come on, her mother was a hairy woman like Annie McDowell,
who was also an another nineties icon, was was not.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
She's naturally dark hair, so that that just happens, you know,
So for her not have any hair, I'm like, yeah,
she definitely.
Speaker 2 (28:45):
Definitely had to Yes, yes, and that I mean that
is the thing of we've talked before about, you know,
constantly beingmbarded with those images of this is perfect, this
is what I have to do, that's how I look.
And if you don't fit that, how do you fix it?
How what can they sell you to quote fix it?
(29:07):
And this is when we come to the conversation of
quick fixes. This is literally a black market drug that
she has to go to a strange location to pick up.
There's no one there. They never refer to her by
her name, only her number. You have to drain your
spinal fluid, you have to sew up your back, you
(29:31):
have to be unconscious for a week like that. That's
kind of the desperation she felt, especially as somebody who
that was her career, and that was how she had
so long to find herself and so long found meaning.
That's how desperate she was. She was like, Okay, I'll
(29:53):
try this. And by the way, the substance video she
watched is very like tech. It's a dude narrating it.
Every time she talks to him, he's like, I told
you to respect the balance. Like it's very it has
that vibe of like a tech bro. We can make
(30:14):
money off of these women.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
However, there are men that do it. They run into.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Yes, I'm wondering now that I think about it, is
it the orderly dude?
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Yeah, you had the same scar.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
Okay, okay, yes, you run into his older version and
he's like, has she started trading you yet? Has she
started stealing the time. So even for him, the person
who recommended it to her, he was like, oh no,
(30:47):
I shouldn't You shouldn't have done this. I shouldn't have
shouldn't have done this. Here is another quote from aby Club.
These combined with an aesthetic of syringes and latex clubs
best described as medsbas chic of okaing parioical cures like
ozimbic and botox that encourage people, mostly women. Let's be
real to pump themselves full of barely regulated substances whose
(31:08):
side effects won't be clear for a few more decades
so they can make themselves more palatable to patriarchal beauty standards.
None of this will prevent the lumpy men who rule
the world from throwing you away when you don't give
them a boner anymore. As Elizabeth Sparkle rudely discovers early
on in the film, Elizabeth is extremely famous, Billboard famous,
(31:28):
Walk of Fame famous, and has been for decades. You'd
think this would give her the slightest bit of leverage
when it comes to renegotiating her contract as the host
of the aerobics program that broadcast her tight body and
sparkling smile into millions of American homes every week.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
You'd be wrong.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
And that's another thing. Is she doesn't. It's these men
who decide she's done. She doesn't decide that. They're just
decide it. And it's because of her age. And I
do think you know the title the substance when you're
talking about so we don't even know what it is
and we don't know how it works. But she was
(32:06):
willing to give it a try. I didn't want to
put in here after things go terribly awry. The Eliza
su prosthetic took six hours to apply. Quality said it
made her very claustrophobic, but it's really cool. I just
can't recommend enough to look up how they made it
and how they did it and the blood and everything,
(32:28):
oh my gosh. But Farjah said of that, the only
gaze that matters is her own. It's the reconciliation between
all of the parts, the moment she reveals what was
inside her guts but we are told to hide, be
ashamed of everything is out. The butt is on the head,
and the boobs are everywhere, and all those parts have
been benicized about are kind of exploded, and she is
(32:50):
finally and she finally has some tenderness for herself. And
that's true, and a lot of suits looking in the mirror,
but she's putting on her ear rings, her dress and
combing her hair. It's like the nicest she's looked at
herself in the mirror. And I mean, of course it's
really sad ultimately, but when she presents herself to her audience,
(33:13):
she's like, it's me. I'm still the same person. I
don't understand why you're reacting this way, as if I'm
a monster.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
I hadn't.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Really I'm glad I read that quote because I was
just kind of like, oh, she's putting on earrings.
Speaker 6 (33:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
I was like, she's trying to be presentable. She's gelious.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
But it could also I do also wonder like it's
partially in a conversation of like, no matter how much
suffering you're going through, you still have to dress up
and present yourself like women constantly would do so well.
Women may like talking about women who have babies and
are pregnant, they get themselves nice, They do their nails,
they get their toes done, so when they're looking at it,
it looks nice. Like these things that they do, whether
(33:50):
it's for others or themselves, it is literally a thing
like I have to be presentable, No matter the disastrous
situation I'm in, or if I'm just eating up of
every orphice and then non orphus things that shouldn't be bleeding.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
She did try to make herself resentable.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
She did, like even the mask she put the smile
on with the lipstick, So.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
Yeah, I'm not being an ode to the joker, to
be honest.
Speaker 3 (34:20):
At that point though, she was literally crashing out here
we go.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Yeah, well, I love how like nobody noticed it too.
I think that's really telling that nobody noticed something was
a miss until.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
That was the part that I'm like, he let her in?
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah what uh huh? Like they put her on the
on screen.
Speaker 3 (34:44):
There were so many well, there's so many things I
had questions about because I'm like, this doesn't work this way.
I know that's absurd, but my question on one of
the parts was like wait uh. At one point she
was you know the fluid that which is the food
for yours for your part fluid this if you are
where did she get that food?
Speaker 4 (35:05):
Because she was almost suffocating.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
You get it from the substance it came.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
Only has seven day supply.
Speaker 2 (35:12):
You can get refilled without doing the The problem is
she ran out of stable stabilizer fluid. But it's like
a subscription.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
She just kept getting it.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
Okay, Yeah, I was like, she's just suffocating, but she
doesn't have food, like that's why she's a nosebleeding.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Well, that does bring us to my next point, consumption.
That's a big theme in this a lot of food
and eating uh in this movie I've already talked about
in a Quaid and the shrimp, very gross, very visceral.
You can hear him eating m uh him with the
(36:00):
cigarette like it zooms in. You can hear it very
viscerally as well. This is also how we see some
female rage because I'm both extremes of eating and not eating.
Because previously Elizabeth had been pretty shut off from being fired,
like any anger about it or anything visibly. But when
(36:23):
she starts to see Sue is taking her time or
again they are one, but to her it feels like
Sue is taking her time. That's when she's watching the
She's watching Sue being interviewed and making fun of her
and being like, oh that she's out of my generation.
She's more like my mom's age or whatever, my moms generation.
(36:47):
And that's when Elizabeth gets out the French cookbook and
starts to make everything in there, a lot of meats
like blood sausage, and it's very rage filled, it's very bitter.
And she does do it to get back at Sue,
because when Sue comes to it's just a mess. It's
(37:11):
an absolute mess. Food everywhere, dishes everywhere, it's really nasty.
But she kind of starts, she stops giving a She
also like starts yelling at the guy across the hall,
like slams the door open. She's just not not into
it anymore. A lot of people were relating to that
to get related to the pandemic, like this, what's resonating
(37:34):
with me? But also when we talk about consumption, I
would say we've discussed this before, but a lot of.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
The way.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
Camera shots have typically been used to film women, it's
very like objectifying of body parts, very pornographic, and so
it's like you're consuming just this part, are just this part,
And the director has talked about that and and that
(38:07):
kind of goes back to why she wanted to make
the objectified parts explode or become gross because.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
She gives birth to a boob from her forehead.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
So that was a very interesting interview.
Speaker 1 (38:26):
She's done about this movie.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
But also self loathing is a big theme because they
both they're the same person. It says again, all all
throughout the movie, respect the balance, you are one. But
they hate each other. And we've discussed before the self
comparison trap of always comparing yourself to your younger self
(38:53):
or even like future worries about your older self. To
literally dry heaves at the loot of switching back and
calls her Elizabeth, her sick mother.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
They do.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
More than once try to kill each other, but in
the end it's Elizabeth. Elizabeth can't do it, but Sue can,
and Sue does. Sue kills her, but Elizabeth can't give
up Sue because she loves her too much, or she
loves the idea of being young and worshiped and having
an audience love her too much and it's too powerful
(39:31):
for her to let go. And she does say things
like when she's Eliza, Sue like.
Speaker 1 (39:39):
Why you love me?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Is me?
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Is still me?
Speaker 2 (39:42):
Like she just wants that love, that adoration, and is
willing to make all these sacrifices and go through all
this pain for those who are watching, who would throw
her away in a second to succeed. I also think
there's a theme of addiction in here, being kind of
(40:05):
addicted to that feeling.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
And maybe even to the idea of eventually like being
younger when you could. And then there are a lot
of this.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
As I said, there's not a lot a dialogue in
this movie, So a lot of this is how you're
seeing yourself when people are seeing you, and it's reflected through.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Mirrors or images. The never ending hallway.
Speaker 2 (40:37):
At the company, the studio that feels very much like
the shining Alissa wilcomes In of The New York Times
wrote in the end, that's what the substance does best,
not just remind us about the observed standards for female
beauty and the destructive power of celebrity, but turn the
mirror back on us. The sharpest critique isn't about bodies,
but about the way we've trained ourselves to look at
(40:59):
those and the effect that has on her own. The
movie is, appropriately enough a mirror, and our discomfort reveals
our own hidden biases and fears about ourselves, being older,
being famous, being seen, being loved, being usurped by someone
younger and hotter. It's all here, nothing like a mirror
to remind you what lurks beneath a career spent in
(41:22):
front of cameras, first as a celebrated actress and then
as a celebrity fitness instructor on a show called Sparkle.
Your life with Elizabeth abruptly ends when an executive decides
she's too old to be worthy of being seen. He
gets to decide if anyone wants to look at her,
and if he turns the cameras away, does she even exist?
(41:42):
So a lot a lot to be said about this movie.
These are just a few of my thoughts. But before
we close out this episode, I did want to touch
on some irl news stories because it has generated a
lot of conversation and a lot of headlines.
Speaker 1 (41:59):
One is I'm only going.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
To touch on this very briefly because I thought it
was funny. But Kim Kardashian criticized this movie.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
Oh really very very.
Speaker 2 (42:08):
Funny because people are like interesting, And one of my
favorite comebacks was, it's like Ai criticizing Terminator.
Speaker 4 (42:17):
I think she learned to appreciate this movie soon, though.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
I feel bad, like I it was just funny because
it seems so out of touch, Like I'm not saying
they're not standards I'm not saying anything like that.
Speaker 1 (42:29):
It was just so out of touch.
Speaker 3 (42:31):
I wonder though, what she baited, maybe because like, why
would Kim Kardi. I've not heard her talk about movies ever,
so this is interesting that that's a that's even a thing.
So what did they go after her? Being like, you're
the representation, You're who they're talking about. So she's all
in micro gonna be like what No, Like, I can't
imagine she even watched this movie.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
I feel like she had her review and most of
the things I read were I don't know where it
came from, but most of the things I read didn't
feel like she had been baited by them.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
They were just kind of like, oh.
Speaker 4 (43:07):
Yeah, interesting.
Speaker 1 (43:08):
Interesting.
Speaker 3 (43:09):
I saw a headline recently about a couple of months ago,
and I wanted to talk about it about how they
felt like getting older meant they were disappearing, like they
were no longer seen and what that meant the freedom
and the costs.
Speaker 4 (43:22):
And I saw that I think I think it was
before the movie.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
So people are talking about how aging has seen that,
and I was like, huh, because again, part of my
conversation is like, I obviously we're all growing older, but
we were getting to a specific age where I'm like,
I'm technically at midlife, So what does that look like?
And have I disappeared and what does disappearing mean?
Speaker 1 (43:44):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Yeah, Like I said, a lot of people wrote, especially
around the pandemic, and we've talked about this a lot,
how our bodies changed during the pandemic in ways that
we might not like given standards that we are surrounded
by in society. And people were saying, you know, I
(44:07):
found this. I really related to this, whether they are saying, oh,
it made me feel better about aging, and some people
were just like, it was nice to.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
See something about it.
Speaker 2 (44:16):
So yeah, I think that is a conversation that's really
happening right now. We should come back and talk about that.
Another thing that happened I got a lot of headlines
was parjap pulled this film from Poland's Camera Image Film
Festival after quote highly misogynistic comments from the festival's founder, Merricks.
(44:39):
Fuadovitz published He pubished an essay titled Time for Solidarity
in Cinematography World, and this essay was his response to
a petition issued by the organization Women in Cinematography in
which they were calling for the event to do more
around supporting women in the industry, and the founder's response
(44:59):
was not great because he said, quote, it raises a question,
can the pursuit of change exclude what is good? Can
we sacrifice works and artists with outstanding artistic achievements solely
to make room for mediocre film production. So he's basically
saying women cinematographers are mediocre, they shouldn't make room for them.
(45:23):
So she pulled the film and it was a whole thing.
The backlash was pretty intense and immediate, and the founder
claims he was misinterpreted. He said he'd been working with
that organization WIC and posted a diversity and inclusion proposal,
though WIC claimed they wrote it and he only posted
(45:43):
it after everyone got mad at him, which sounds about
right too me.
Speaker 4 (45:47):
Right, but I, oh no, just kidding, I just claimed it.
Speaker 2 (45:52):
Yeah, but this movie has gotten a lot of awards buzz,
so we'll see what happens. I did want to end
with this quote from Farjah. I needed the substance to
be bloody, to be excessive, to have a real strong
message that it's time for a change, for a real change,
and the change cannot be delicate, it cannot be gentle.
(46:13):
It cannot be small. It needs to be massive, It
needs to be everywhere, and it needs.
Speaker 1 (46:17):
To be now.
Speaker 2 (46:19):
So she really but when we're saying she didn't pull
hold back, she did not hold back. So yeah, I
highly recommend it. It is very gross, but traumatized.
Speaker 4 (46:35):
I'm to leave it at that.
Speaker 2 (46:37):
Yes, I mean when we say it's body are it's
mm hmm traumatized. Well, thanks for going on this journey
with me, Samantha, and thanks to everybody who recommended it. Uh.
If you have any recommendations, we would love to hear from.
You can emails at Stephanie Momsteph at i Heeartneeda dot com.
(46:58):
You can find us on Twitter and Blues Guy at
mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram and TikTok as stuff
I've Never Told You for us on YouTube. We have
a tea public store, and we have a book you
can get wherever you get your books.
Speaker 1 (47:08):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (47:08):
It's always to our super producer Christina, executive producer My and.
Speaker 1 (47:11):
Your contrutter Joey. Thank you and thanks to you for
listening Stuff Never Told You Direction by Heart Radio.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
For more podcast from my Heart Radio, you can check
out the heart Radio app Apple podcast or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff Mom Never Told You News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Samantha McVey
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