July 8, 2025 • 47 mins
Grab your anti-aging routine and get ready to become another person as we discuss the 2024 film The Substance and the lengths people will go to have a younger self.
(Originally released in October of 2024)
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/broads-next-door--5803223/support.
(Originally released in October of 2024)
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/broads-next-door--5803223/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
People always ask for something new, It's inevitable.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Well it stops.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? Younger,
more beautiful, more perfect? One single injection unlocks your DNA
(00:39):
and will release another version of yourself. This is.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
The substance.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Shoe shoe, shoe, You're hired.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Let's go.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
A perfect balance of seven days each the one and
only thing not to forget. You are one you can't
escape from yourself.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
There's been a slight misuse of the substance.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Hello, neighbors, lovers, friends, and betterselves. Grab your hand cream
and stand in front of your full length mirror for
seven days, because today we're talking all things. The substance
stealing more and more time from me, completely without consideration
to the consequences.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
She's a selfish Would you like to stop?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Stop? You are the matrix. If you are not satisfied,
you can put an end to the experience and go
back to being just you on your own. Would you
like to stop?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Will it go back to the way it was before?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
What has been transferred won't come back, but you can
stop the experience as of now.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Would you like to stop, to go back to being just.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
You on your own, Hi, Hello, how is everyone? I
hope you've all been hanging in there. It's definitely been
an interesting time for everyone. There's kind of a surreal
quality and de ja vu happening all at once. I
(02:58):
have wanted to see The Substance for a long time
since I heard what was it was about, and I
did finally get to watch it a few weeks ago
when it was released for streaming. I only knew the
premise of it. I wouldn't even watch a trailer for
it because I feel like trailers sometimes ruin everything. And
(03:23):
if you're like me, if you're an I don't even
want to watch the trailer. I don't want. I want
to know as little as possible. Then don't listen to
this episode. Watch it first because there will be light spoilers.
I'm not gonna ruin the ending, but I am going
to talk about things that happen in the movie and
different plot points, as well as things this Substance has
(03:47):
been compared to, including something that I do to myself.
So let's do this. This is not going to be
a deep dive episode because I don't want to completely
spoil it if you haven't seen it, but I do
want to talk about some different themes in the movie.
Play some clips, give.
Speaker 6 (04:08):
This story, bring this story to life. I think would
be my life since I'm a kid. I think about how,
you know, I have to live with my own image,
and how I learned to be super violent about it.
And it made me feel that I was never good
enough and at each age you have a reason that
(04:31):
you can find that's something not enough. And I questioned
myself about the violence of it. And when I was
past my forties and aiming too my fifties, it became
even more violent that now this is it.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
I'm going to be erased. It's the end of it.
Speaker 6 (04:48):
And I felt that it was so absurd, but at
the same time so real, this so being here that
I wanted to say, Okay, I have to do something
with it. It's time now to I kind of say enough.
I want to let this yes violence go out and
hopefully make a tint.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
That was director Coralei Parge responding to what her inspiration
was for the film. This is an article from Vogue
by Daisy Jones called Weirdly this substance made me feel
better about aging. Here's something I rarely admit out loud.
(05:28):
Every day I'm plugged with extisential dread. I just don't
understand how everyone's walking around like normal while also carrying
the knowledge that we are hurtling towards death, all of us,
that time only plunges onwards, never backwards, and then eventually
the sun will swallow the scorched earth. Anyway, I watched
(05:49):
Coralie Farge's masterful body horror The Substance recently, and in
a twisted sort of way, it made me feel better
about all of it. The film that I thought would
accelerate my fear of aging beyond its already abnormal level,
actually made me feel okay about the whole thing. The
Substance follows fifty year old Elizabeth Sparkle de me Moore,
(06:10):
a Hollywood star who finds herself at a point in
her career when the men around her are on the
lookout for a younger, perkier replacement. She then takes a
neon substance, which Bear with Me causes her to sort
of give birth to a glistening twenty somethingter version of herself, Sue,
played by Margaret Qually. Both versions must take turns inhabiting
(06:34):
the world for seven days or else risk grizzly side effects.
If you haven't seen the film yet, you can imagine
what happens next, although you absolutely won't be able to
envision where it goes. The film's portrayal of the aging
process is visceral and extremely physical, ludicrously so. The camera
(06:57):
zooms in on Sue's taut luminescence flesh, which bounces in
the light, causing the men around her to stare agog
like cartoon characters. By comparison, Elizabeth slowly becomes more haggard,
her breast drooping and stretched like melted putty, her hair
brittle and harsh like wires. The actual person becomes completely irrelevant.
(07:19):
It's all about the biological properties of the human body.
The breast in their location, the tightness of the skin,
the wideness of the smile. Two batter tits aren't in
the middle of her face, remarks one gloating producer. It's
an acknowledgment that youth is a mostly corporeal concern, while
the patriarchy is the apparatus for which that concern is
(07:42):
constantly centered and weaponized. Essentially, for a Jade takes the
absurdity of beauty standards and turns the dial up to
one hundred. Most women know intellectually that their worth does
not diminish with age, that they're the same person that
they were at twenty two, but more life experience. But
in this substance, you actually feel it. It's like a
(08:05):
curtain being momentarily lifted, each question unfurling in its wake.
Why are women made to feel worthless the longer we live?
Why is my value dependent on the specific elasticity of
my skin? Why are men largely immune from so many
of the same concerns. These questions are so obvious, but
(08:26):
that doesn't mean we always remember to ask them. At
every age, we can find something wrong with ourselves which
can make us feel like monsters. The French filmmaker told
Vogue earlier this year. I thought that if I could
create something meaningful about these issues, it could also serve
as a form of liberation. When I first turned the
(08:49):
movie on and you see to mean more and she's
doing her exercise routine. She's in front of the cameras,
her hair so long, her legs are so long, she
looks so oh beautiful. She starts walking down this hallway
and you see pictures of her over the decade. You
can tell she was some kind of film star. Plus
(09:10):
we did get this Hollywood Boulevard star montage at the beginning,
which was really well done. But she's walking down this
hallway and people start saying happy birthday to her, and
it's her fiftieth birthday. But I had, since I knew
nothing about this film going in other than she takes
(09:30):
some kind of substance. I was like, she must have
already taken the substance because she looks amazing. But then
they use that same lighting and those same angles to
show the ways that we can all rip ourselves apart
in front of the mirror. And I think that also
(09:50):
was a really good parallel to show how paparazzi shots
are just they'll post like the most unflattering thing and
then these people have to hear the entire world's commentary
on it.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
In the public space.
Speaker 6 (10:07):
How you know I was fitting or not fitting the
kind of stay and we're expected from me or that
I should were expected from me? And how during my
whole life and focusing on different things during time like
it led to a huge self hatred that you're seeing
(10:28):
that okay, you're not good enough, that this part of
your body has to be changed, and when you're finally
happy with this part, it's another part that's gonna worry you.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
And it's truly an endless, endless cycle. My last my
current fixation right now, which really just made me think like, okay,
maybe this is completely body dysmorphia is my hands. I
was like, my hands look old now, because that's what
I'll do if I get to whatever weight I've made
(10:57):
up in my head, and then my face looksy I want,
my hair looks the way I want, and whatever else.
It's this endless cycle of things that could be wrong.
It's something I really try and work on. But when
we're being honest.
Speaker 6 (11:14):
A circle that is, you know, kind of generating. I
think such a different way that we can take our
position in the public space because basically, I think as women,
we constantly have to care about our body. We can't
ignore it, you know, because I think the outside world
doesn't ignore.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
It, like.
Speaker 6 (11:36):
And for you know, the beginning of civilization. I think
we've been put in a place where we were kind
of seen or used and valued for what we were
looking like. And I think it has a massive impact
in how we position ourselves in society and how we
get to internalize this violence and yes, so basically I
(12:04):
felt okay, for me, this is the time, and I
felt strong enough, you know, in my filmmaking to address
it in the genre that I love, because I had
done my fative film, and I knew that this movie
was going to be more difficult to make, it was
going to be more challenging also on an emotion.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Her first film is called Revenge, and it's a rape
revenge film. A lot of people say that it devised
the genre for me. I didn't particularly enjoy it, but
I don't like any of those kind of movies that
follow that plot. It's really, it's really, it's hard for me.
(12:41):
So that's not a jab at her. It's just hard
for me to watch the whole rape and then violence
thing play out, especially because it just doesn't happen like
that in real life, unlike the substance, which does happen even.
Speaker 6 (12:58):
Because it's really confronts, you know, me with like things
that are vivid. But I knew that it was a
step that I had to do now because I felt
that everything that I felt inside and that I think
we are used to hide, you know, behind the pearly
smiles I wanted it to let go and to kind
(13:19):
of splatter the world with it, saying, yes, this is
a reality of it, this is what's happening, this is
what the world is doing to us. And it's not subtle,
it's not you know, little, it's not.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Delicate.
Speaker 6 (13:37):
It's huge, it's violence, it's everywhere, and it's and it's yeah,
it is excessive. So that way I really kept I
knew for my instinct that the movie needed to be at.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
The level of that.
Speaker 6 (13:52):
That was kind of the you know, for me to
be faithful to what I had written and why I
had written it, I needed to be like, with that
much violence and excess on screen.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, I remember.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Sorry, This is a clip from Next Best Picture on YouTube,
and I'm gonna cut him off. There have been so
many takes on the substance. I'm sure you have your own,
and before I share my own, this was one of
my favorites. And the video is by Sir sugar Meat
(14:30):
on YouTube. It's half an hour long, but I'm just
gonna play the beginning for you, and it's titled The
Barbie Movie Walked so the Substance could run.
Speaker 7 (14:44):
Do you guys remember the Barbie Movie it was more
than a year ago, which is honestly like eight decade
ago in today's digital landscape, So I don't blame you
if you forgot, but I remember that the premiere was
so fun dressing up in pink and seeing it in
theater with my friends telling each.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Other that you are kinno.
Speaker 7 (15:00):
I've seen all the Barbenheimer crossovers and general memes.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
It was truly a cultural phenomenon.
Speaker 7 (15:05):
But as much hype as it generated, was it truly
a femininomenon.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
The movie had no way, no.
Speaker 7 (15:12):
Gender roles, the patriarchy, beauty standards, and also the general
existential crisis that Barbie goes through.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
However, the way the.
Speaker 7 (15:18):
Film delivered these messages were quite on the nose and
spelled out for you in the character's dialogue, sometimes even
out of the blue, especially towards the end of the movie.
Not to say that this automatically made it.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
A bad movie.
Speaker 7 (15:30):
The movie is self aware and purposely camp. I don't
think all films have to present their messages in subtle,
layered ways in order for them to be fun or
good to watch. But let's just say that I personally
felt like there was a lot to be desired, fun movie,
but it didn't really make me reflect and you know,
it is pretty much an anti marketing ad for Mattel.
(15:51):
It didn't really change me in any way, you know,
And I don't think it succeeded in changing the viewpoints
of others who probably could have benefited from the basic
messaging of the movie. Fast forward to a week ago.
I keep hearing praise for this new movie called The Substance. Now,
all I knew about this movie was that it was
about beauty standards and it featured body horror. Now I
am not a huge body horror person, but I do
(16:12):
love a good.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Movie about beauty standards.
Speaker 7 (16:14):
I think it is a timeless concept and one that
I find personally relatable, and considering all the praise it
was getting, it piqued my interest. I was curious about
how they were going to combine the themes of beauty
standards with elements of body horror and a way that
got general audiences raving And oh my god, did I
receive the movie experience of the year. This movie remained
squarely on the theme of body dysmorphia, even though Demi Moore,
(16:37):
who plays the main character, is already thin and beautiful.
The lighting and angles that the director chose purposely highlighted
the signs of her age. There's also a staunch contrast
between the mature stylings and nervous mannerisms of Elizabeth versus
the juvenile stylings and confident mannerisms of her younger self, Sue.
The movie even hits you over the head with multiple
reminders that Elizabeth and Sue are the same person, meaning
(16:59):
that the contempt they have for one another is merely
just content that they have for themselves, with all of
that contempt stemming from a disdain for Elizabeth's body. Yet, somehow,
despite its simplicity, the substance was really effective at making
me reflect upon how I view my own body, which
brings me back to Barbie. It's fascinating to me here
we had two movies that were both very cam attempted
(17:20):
to critique these standards placed upon women and was over
the top on the nose with their messaging. Yeah, one
seemed to affect me much more.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Than the other. Why is that?
Speaker 7 (17:29):
Well? After rewatching both back to back, I realized that
the substance was really just what the Barbie movie was
too cowardly to be.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Wow, I'll add a link to that full video, but
I really agree with that in so many ways. I
did a Barbie episode before the movie came out, and
it was really really excited about it, and I felt
so let down by it, which is something I haven't
(17:56):
even talked about publicly because I know it had such
a positive impact for so many people, and people were
having fun with it, so I didn't want to completely
rain on the parade. But it did just feel so
in your face that I felt like there was just
so much room to do more there, and when there's
(18:20):
moments like Barbie getting cellulite, but you know, it's still
Margo Robbie. Just there were things that didn't work for me.
But there are a lot of parallels the executives dudes
in the Barbie world who run things versus the dudes
(18:40):
and the substance that run things, who I think are
much more accurate. This movie has so much of bodies
on display, and about like twenty minutes in, I felt
bad about my body, which I was not expecting, but
Sue but just looked so good, Like my butt hasn't
(19:04):
looked like that literally since I was like twenty four. Uh,
And I wasn't expecting to have that reaction, And then
I also kept thinking, well, Demi Moore looks so so
good and she's sixty, which is not supposed to be
the takeaway. Kim Kardashian watched it within the last few
days and tweeted, She's like, just watched the Substance, Demi Moore,
(19:28):
you look so good and it's like, oh, Kim so close,
which Demmy Moore does look insanely good. But I don't
think that's supposed to be our takeaway from the film.
But maybe maybe it is. H me and Kim.
Speaker 8 (19:46):
Let's hear Corley Farge, the writer and director, talk a
little bit in an interview with Room or TV about
the extreme harm of self in the subst stents or No, I.
Speaker 9 (20:02):
Need to talk to you about male gaze. So we
talk about male gaze all the time, and yet in
the Substance there are a lot of women's bodies on display.
Can you tell me how you were able to handle
how the camera sometimes looks at these bodies with leccheriusque gaze,
with disgust, with sympathy.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
How did you achieve that? Yeah, Like the movie is all.
Speaker 6 (20:23):
About women's bodies, Like how our bodies can be seen
from the outside, all the expectation, you know that society
can project on it, how we can and to kind
of tyrannize our bodies to kind of fit some you know, expectations,
outside expectations. And also I think how it the external
(20:46):
gaze kind of shape our own relationship to our body.
So I think it was really for me showing how
the external expectations out side kind of leaders to look
at our own.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Body in a certain way.
Speaker 6 (21:04):
And I think there is Elizabeth's body when she's inside
her bathroom, which is kind of symbolizing her inner world,
and she's facing herself in a totally non sexualist way.
It's the nudity of who she is, almost as she
was looking in the mirror to her inner thoughts, and
(21:27):
we see all the vulnerability, all the dubs, all the
self hatred that she grew up, you know, to develop
because like she felt she didn't meet anymore the expectations
of the outside world. And I think the violence that
I put on the bodies like really reflects the violence
that I feel regarding those issues and the violence that
(21:51):
we can really do to our bodies, you know, like
when you read all the things that women can do
to extend their leg to you know, do their booths,
to do crazy dyets.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
I did myself, like to.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Take some I'm gonna pause her real quick because one
thing that this substance really reminded me of with the
taking one week off, is recovering from procedures and the
brutality of that. I've only had one day of plastic
(22:26):
surgery in June of two thousand and nine when I
was twenty four, but I had a breast reduction and
he did a little bit of LiPo in the stomach
and kind of under the art like armpits, and it
was so painful. It was the most painful thing I
(22:51):
think I've ever experienced recovering from that. And that's like
the extreme of it, even just doing facial seizures and injections,
you like. I don't know if any Housewives fans saw
Tamra Judd when she was recovering from a chemical peel
(23:13):
and a CO two laser at the same time, and
it looked like her face was going to fall off,
but then after the old face peels off, there's this beautiful, young,
new face underneath. It's also one of the reasons that
I hesitate to think that a lot of things that
people do that get done are actually surgery, even though
(23:35):
I know surgery does happen a lot. I think people
are doing a lot more regenitative aging, which we'll talk
about a little bit more later. That's the kind of
stuff that I like to do. And even from that,
you swell up, you brewse. You have all this down
time before your cells regenerate and absorb your stem cells
(23:59):
and salmon's sperm and all those other stuff we're putting
into our faces. It's an extremely extremely violent process. Same
with dyeting. Okay, back to back to Coray, how.
Speaker 6 (24:18):
Do you call this ribs off? Like to have the
barbie die?
Speaker 7 (24:23):
Like?
Speaker 6 (24:24):
All those stuff are so absurd, and they are so
I think representative of, you know, some pattern that is
kind of impossible to escape. And I felt that from
a very young age. So I really wanted to go
very far because I think that's what I felt like
(24:45):
everything like, can it can.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Go very very far to harm yourself?
Speaker 9 (24:49):
Yes, I couldn't help but think back to my collection
of Jaine Fonda workout videos, and I always thought Jane
Fonda was so fascinating in that I feel like her
fitness career was kind of a marriage of her sex
symbol status as well as her feminism that you know,
telling eighties housewives that they can work out and be
(25:10):
just like Jane. But that's kind of muddy with diet
culture as well. Can you speak on that and also
the difference between Elizabeth's era of fitness videos ensues.
Speaker 6 (25:20):
When I started to write the film, I knew that
I wanted to find a device that would allow me
to film the bodies. So I knew when I decided
to have my character being an actress, because I think
it's the heightened symbolism of you living in.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
The public eye. Is through the public eye.
Speaker 6 (25:40):
I said, yes, but I need something that's where I'm
going to be to express in a filming way, the
relationship to the skin, the relationship to move your body,
to the way people.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Are looking at your body.
Speaker 6 (25:53):
And that's where this you know image of the aerobic
you know, fitness came because I grew up with the
Syndrick Quawford aerobic.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
That's what it reminded me.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
And it was this world I was like kind.
Speaker 6 (26:13):
Of fascinating about the obsession of you know, like hiding
the stuff to have perfect you know, the stomach to
have perfect, uh, to always kind of have this overexposed body,
to want to kind of shape and reshape and reshape
(26:33):
and reshape. And when I kind.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Of research a little bit about.
Speaker 6 (26:38):
Jane Fauna, like what also strike me is I think,
I think it's very different thing, but she started to
do those fitness you know kind of thing at a
moment where her actress career was you know, rare referring,
you know, and I think, like in my film in
the Substance, like there is first fall for the actress,
(27:02):
like which is like, Okay, she doesn't get to be
a movie star anymore because like society has decided that
she's not young enough or not, you know, she doesn't
represent like the dream. So our only way to kind
of stay in the lights, to keep getting love on
her is like doing this fitness shoe because there is
(27:22):
still some lights, there is still a camera looking at her,
and it's she's still you know, like the star of
the show, but it's already kind of a step down exactly.
Speaker 9 (27:34):
I think what was perhaps most disturbing for me watching
the film was I was thinking to myself that, you know,
I could maybe take the substance. But I'd be really
nice to my twelve and I make it a little
bed and it'd be totally fine.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Was that intentional?
Speaker 9 (27:45):
Was to kind of turn a mirror even on women,
to examine their own biases?
Speaker 6 (27:50):
I mean yes, I mean like, who wouldn't want to
take it?
Speaker 4 (27:54):
I mean I wouldn't and I do like the crazy
as you just heard I do the crazy stuff. I
would be way too jealous of my younger self. I
don't know I would. I would just go and see
like a really good I don't.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
That that's the problem.
Speaker 6 (28:15):
I think, like even when you know that it's going
to destroy you, you know, even when you know what's
going to do, like I think when you have so
much pressure on you, when you feel that it's really
going to make a difference about the place you're going
to have in society, like I think you're ready to
go again with the devil, you know.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I think it's like the faust.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
I think if most of us were twenty two again
for a week, we'd it would be over it. I
don't know, going having all the knowledge.
Speaker 6 (28:49):
Packed and to be honest, like having written the substance
and made this feel about it, maybe if it was
like this, I would take it knowing that it's going
to be you know, that's something important that I want
to say, like I hope the movie with empower and
you know, brings some freedom to many women that I
(29:13):
really don't want it to become a new injunction, like
you have to feel good about yourself otherwise you didn't
do it right.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Currently I'm out of time, but I could talk about it.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
So I feel like I've had my own journey around
placing a lot of value, especially when I was younger,
on my body and what it looked like, and that
if it wasn't then that I was less valuable. But
what I've come to really see, and I do believe
it is an ongoing journey, Like we come up against things.
(29:50):
But there's a couple of things, which is, you know,
we have the circumstances of our collective consciousness that has
for a long time seen women's value as diminishing as
they age, as they're being certain, you know, idealized body types, faces,
looks that are you know, more desirable than others. But
(30:12):
at the end of the day, I feel that all
of that is in service to us, that it's happening
for us not to us that it is there, essentially
so that we can actually get to the place that
is of self love and self acceptance, because you know,
what other people do or don't do is irrelevant. How
(30:34):
we hold it is everything, and that's what creates our
reality and our experience. It's like you believing that your
upper lip was not acceptable then made you insecure, but
thereby you did something but to get to the place
now where that doesn't actually matter.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
But you wouldn't have known that without that experience. Very true,
It's very true.
Speaker 10 (30:53):
I'm going to lean into self love for my last question.
This is a question I've gotten in the habit of
asking a lot lately, because I think it's very important.
In this industry we give each other awards.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I think that is super cool. When she keep doing that.
Speaker 10 (31:04):
I find that nobody says good job to themselves nearly enough.
I want to know something you each accomplished, making the
substance that you know you'll be able to look back
on and say, I am so proud of what I
did there.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
I mean, I think I read to me Moore's memoir
this year, and I highly recommend it. She really talks
about her struggle with aging, especially after her breakup with
Ashton Kutcher. I hate him, but he was so much
younger than her, and the public made such a big
(31:36):
deal about it. At the same time, her ex Bruce Willis,
had a really big age difference with his wife that
no one flinched at. So it seems like she really
had this moment of loneliness and darkness. She did, and
she's very candid about that, so I highly highly recommend
her book. I think in a lot of ways, I
(31:59):
expected this to be a lot more violent. I heard
about people leaving the theaters and stuff, and I'm very
sensitive to violence. This I think is more gore. And
then I also think I'm really just desensitized to the
violence of the self. What about you. I love that
(32:23):
the use of prosthetics, some of them are so wild,
but I think for our brains, I think maybe that's
why some people walked out of theaters. I think we
have such a re action to that. And it looks
so amazing compared to the Uncanny Valley of the CGI stuff.
Speaker 11 (32:44):
Yes, and I just heard people lost their minds, and
I would imagine seeing it at midnight with a theater
full of people it must have just been exacting.
Speaker 5 (32:55):
First of all, it's a it's a genre I wasn't
familiar with.
Speaker 11 (32:58):
But for those who to know, it's a rom com
obviously from.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Just on some light entertainment. There is some laughs in
it though I believe it. I mean I believe people laugh.
Speaker 11 (33:11):
I saw it, and I will say, you know, one
of the downsides of it's very exciting when you host
a show like this because people send you links to movies,
and while I was watching this movie, I really had
a sense of, Oh, I really wish I was watching this.
Speaker 5 (33:23):
It's definitely I encourage people to see it in the
theater because it's a it's it's a it's a powerful
shared experience.
Speaker 11 (33:30):
Yes, it's really. I mean it's interesting too because you
mentioned you haven't worked in a genre before. So when
you see a script like this, like do you can
you tell right away? I mean it must be impossible
to can see what it's going.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
To look like.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
First of all, I mean for those who don't know,
so it's it's dealing with aging, yes, and the kind
of male perspective of the idealized woman that we as
women have bought into, and that male gaze and on
paper because it goes to such a unique and telling
(34:01):
this story. I looked at and I thought, well, this,
if it works, could be amazing or it could be
a disaster.
Speaker 11 (34:08):
Yeah, and definitely a disaster version of this movie where
right now I'm sitting here being like, so that look
like fun.
Speaker 5 (34:19):
Yes, crawling on the ground and a hunchback.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
I don't want to give too much away.
Speaker 11 (34:25):
Yeah, Well, it is interesting because you play sort of
a fitness expert, sort of a like a jazzer size
if you will. Aerobics, yes, kind of.
Speaker 5 (34:34):
I think, you know, Jane Fonda in her Jane Fonda
video Workout Days was I think.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
The writer director's you know, inspiration and.
Speaker 11 (34:44):
So I should know.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
There's a couple of things that.
Speaker 11 (34:47):
Seem very taxing to me, and so far as what
you had to go through for this film.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
One, you had to actually do a lot of aerobics.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
We did have to learn some routine.
Speaker 11 (34:55):
Yeah, I mean there was no I mean they're not cgiing,
you're out there doing a robin.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I know we were doing those.
Speaker 11 (35:01):
Moves, yes, And then there's a lot of sort of
what seems to me to be practical makeup. I would
imagine you were both moving a lot and then also
having to sit still for a greater amoment.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Yes, so I had.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
There's quite a bit of prosthetics, and so I sat
in the chair anywhere from six to nine and a
half hours with a good you know, two hours to
take it off.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Wow, that is a real commitment.
Speaker 5 (35:24):
To I will just say it's a much easier thing
to read on paper.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yes, but I'm so glad I have the experience.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
I feel like I have tremendous respect for those who've
really gone all in where the whole film is. That way,
I may be thinking twice before jumping into one again.
Speaker 11 (35:45):
Yeah, yes, you know the other thing I'll say, because
you are. You're so fantastic in this film.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
You act the lights out.
Speaker 11 (35:53):
But also when you read the script, there's not a
ton of dialogue.
Speaker 5 (35:57):
No, I mean, in fact, it's a it's a in
a way, it's a very intimate experience of someone.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
If you have watched the movie and you're one of
these people like me that looks up the original script
to see what gets cut out, there are a couple
scenes that were cut that you can read in the
original script, and I think that they cut them for ambiguity.
Sorry to me back to you.
Speaker 5 (36:24):
Being with themselves and really which is different. You have
to really show up and have done I think a
lot of prep work to have a full life of
the person you're playing, so that the subtleties can come
through just through your eyes and very small gestures.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I mean, most of my scenes were.
Speaker 11 (36:45):
Alone, and like I said, you feel you do see
the whole.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Breath of the character.
Speaker 11 (36:51):
This is again somebody's being replaced with their job because
they're fifty.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
There's a younger version of.
Speaker 11 (36:56):
You, played by Margaret Quality, who's wonderful. Dennis Qui plays
a fantastic creep in this film.
Speaker 5 (37:02):
Yes, he does just a real mean and I will
just warn everyone the same with Dennis. Eating the shrimp,
which you haven't seen, is by far the most violent
scene in the whole movie.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
Agree a million. I thought about it for days.
Speaker 5 (37:16):
Tearing the heads off with sound effects it.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
By the way, it's so funny.
Speaker 11 (37:25):
There's so many worse things in this film than eating shrimp.
That's what you thought was scary.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Let me because.
Speaker 4 (37:38):
There's also a lot of debate about if Sue and
Elizabeth Sparkle are two different people, like they have two
different consciousnesses, but I think that they are the same person,
as it reminds them throughout the film, you are one,
(37:59):
just obey the best. I think that it just does
such a good job of showing that self hatred by
physically literally in your face, splitting it into two. But
from those scenes that were cut from the script, I
think they were cut intentionally to make it more so
(38:22):
you wouldn't know for sure. Here's to me talking a
little bit about that.
Speaker 5 (38:27):
This program, and I'm fired from my own show because
I've aged out, and so it's at the depths of
kind of rejection despair, and I get offered a substance
with the promise of a new better me, not realizing
that that new better me isn't just me getting better, it's.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Actually an entity.
Speaker 5 (38:46):
That is of me, that emerges out of me, right,
that I have to share consciousness with.
Speaker 7 (38:54):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
And then there's a trade off.
Speaker 5 (38:58):
You have to sort of twide off with each other. Yes, one,
you can only be in each body one week at
a time, very strict.
Speaker 4 (39:07):
Very if you're if it's not see she says, you
can only be in each body for one week at
a time.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Strict.
Speaker 5 (39:15):
Stuff happens, stuff happens the you know, it's a it's
a it's it's definitely a trade off. And when you're
in the younger body where everyone's loving an adore you,
why would you want to go back into the older
body that's sad and depressed?
Speaker 9 (39:31):
Right right right?
Speaker 4 (39:34):
I wish they really would have done something this is
this would have made it an American movie and not
a French movie in English with American actors. But if
I was writing it to me, Moore's character would have
become her younger self manager on their off weeks, and
(39:54):
they would have just like taken down the industry from
the inside. But then I guess it would have been
the Barbie movie. So we circle back once listen to
the end of this.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Then this body pays the price.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
It really is quite a conversation.
Speaker 10 (40:10):
It's it's so much about what we tell ourselves in
our own mind.
Speaker 5 (40:15):
Which is what really moved me. I mean, the movie
is really about it. It's an unusual way of talking
about aging.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
But the thing that moved me most.
Speaker 5 (40:27):
Was about the violence that we have against ourselves, the
way in which we can negatively talk to ourselves. And
I always looked at it as if we were to
able to create a physical manifestation of that violence and
the way that we can be, the way that we
can exist and compare and despair, what would it look like?
(40:48):
And it becomes somewhat monstrous. Yeah, and that is, you know,
hence why this is considered body horror.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
It's definitely body whole. But my favorite scene in the
entire movie is when Demi Moore's character, Elizabeth Sparkle, is
getting ready to go out with this dorky guy from
high school she ran into. You can tell she kind
of doesn't even remember him, but he's like, you're the
most beautiful. You're still the most beautiful girl in the world.
(41:21):
And a few weeks into this whole thing, she's feeling
pretty down, she agrees to go out with him, and
there's this sequence of her getting ready, just looking at
herself in the mirror and applying more makeup and then
not being happy with it and taking it off and
applying more. And that was my favorite scene in the
whole movie because I've been there so many times, I've
(41:43):
canceled so many plans over stuff like that. I want
to talk a little bit more about that whole obsession.
So many people compare this substance to ozan pic and
these GLP one drugs that people are injecting. I think
(42:03):
it's much more like the regenerative medicine stuff. And Brian Johnson,
that forty six year old billionaire that sold Benmo and
then injects his son's blood into him. So that's what
I do. That's like the substance, except I don't have
an eighteen year old son, so I have to use
(42:24):
my own blood and sem cells. But I would like
to do a whole episode just talking about how wild
the world of regenitive medicine is. So I'm going to
have my doctor, doctor Wiggins from in Portland, come on
and talk about that and this whole I like it
(42:47):
because there are other benefits to it. It's not like
botox or filler where it's just aesthetic. It's just your
skin gets better in time and stuff. But also I
can realize that these things are really weird and my
goal is not to live forever. And I thought I
was this billionaire dude I would just like get reincarnated again.
(43:09):
And but you know, anyway, that's a different, different conversation.
But I want to play you a clip of Brian Johnson.
Is that even his name? I'm pretty sure it is. Okay,
this is just the intro of him being on Diary
of Ceo Urgin.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Eleven because that's where the data let me.
Speaker 4 (43:28):
Takes one hundred and eleven polls a day.
Speaker 9 (43:30):
Brian Johnson, the man who says two million dollars a
year to slow down his age.
Speaker 11 (43:34):
He's managed to reverse his bond ofgical age, already two
and eighteen.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Year old, projected to live to two hundreds.
Speaker 12 (43:40):
The only objective we have is don't die, and I've
hopped it into an algorithm that takes better care of
me than I count myself.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
It sounds overwhelming in the beginning, but trust me on this.
So my bedtime is at eight thirty and you had
one hundred percent sleep four months straight.
Speaker 4 (43:54):
Now what about hanky cranking?
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Not after eight thirty? Alcohol three ounces every morning.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
With breakfast, so breakfast, what my god?
Speaker 1 (44:01):
I know the day is eleven am and every calorie.
Speaker 4 (44:03):
He also washes his face with Sarah Vay's scilic Cecala
silic acid cleanser, which when I saw that, I literally
almost fainted. Just used the apricotscrum my guy by fer
It's life.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
You are very kind in bringing me some food. Presumably
this is what you eat.
Speaker 12 (44:24):
If you ask the body, what do you want to eat?
To be an ideal helm for this is you.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
No, this is not the answer because it's mushed up
things in a bowl, and that's whatever what your body
is going to stay unless it's like a really good
soup or mush Also, look up Brian Johnson. I did
get his name right, but it just sounds like such
a fake name. But he literally is afraid of death
and doesn't want to die. He also tried doing a
(44:52):
fat transfer because he lost so much facial volume, and
then people were telling me he looked like a robot.
He does kind of a marked zucker for look to him.
Not that you're a robot, mark, you're definitely a human man.
Speaker 8 (45:07):
Ooh.
Speaker 4 (45:08):
But so he did the whole fat transfer thing, but
he didn't have enough fat on his body, so he
used someone else's fat, which is so dangerous. I don't
know who the doctor was that did that, like you can't,
but anyway, it got infected. So it's interesting to see
because I don't know what having fat put into your
(45:30):
face has to do with living forever. It did remind
me of that scene in Sex and the City. Anyone
know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Thank you so much, everybody. I'll see you next.
Speaker 9 (45:42):
Week and in the meantime, take care of yourself.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
Thank you for listening to another episode of Broad's next Door.
I hope the week ahead for you is nice and
there's some relaxation in your future. If you work retail,
my heart is with you. I've been there. You'll make
it through. You'll never have to hear those songs again,
(46:16):
I promise everyone else. If you're having a tough time
with holidays or anything, feel free to reach out to
me at Broad's next Door or Daniella Screama on pretty
much anywhere, and also if you ever need to DM
me or just write something in the comments section. It's
(46:36):
a really supportive community. Next week, I am doing a
did I already say this? Next week I'm I'm doing
a Geen Bereney Ramsey episode for our first December episode.
So haven't done true crime for a long time, so
(46:59):
it's going to be a very interesting week for me.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review it
wherever you're listening to it. You can also find merch
at brodsnextstore dot com. I love you very much.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
Bye,
People always ask for something new, It's inevitable.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Well it stops.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? Younger,
more beautiful, more perfect? One single injection unlocks your DNA
(00:39):
and will release another version of yourself. This is.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
The substance.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
Shoe shoe, shoe, You're hired.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Let's go.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
A perfect balance of seven days each the one and
only thing not to forget. You are one you can't
escape from yourself.
Speaker 5 (01:29):
There's been a slight misuse of the substance.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
Hello, neighbors, lovers, friends, and betterselves. Grab your hand cream
and stand in front of your full length mirror for
seven days, because today we're talking all things. The substance
stealing more and more time from me, completely without consideration
to the consequences.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
She's a selfish Would you like to stop?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Stop? You are the matrix. If you are not satisfied,
you can put an end to the experience and go
back to being just you on your own. Would you
like to stop?
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Will it go back to the way it was before?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
What has been transferred won't come back, but you can
stop the experience as of now.
Speaker 1 (02:31):
Would you like to stop, to go back to being just.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
You on your own, Hi, Hello, how is everyone? I
hope you've all been hanging in there. It's definitely been
an interesting time for everyone. There's kind of a surreal
quality and de ja vu happening all at once. I
(02:58):
have wanted to see The Substance for a long time
since I heard what was it was about, and I
did finally get to watch it a few weeks ago
when it was released for streaming. I only knew the
premise of it. I wouldn't even watch a trailer for
it because I feel like trailers sometimes ruin everything. And
(03:23):
if you're like me, if you're an I don't even
want to watch the trailer. I don't want. I want
to know as little as possible. Then don't listen to
this episode. Watch it first because there will be light spoilers.
I'm not gonna ruin the ending, but I am going
to talk about things that happen in the movie and
different plot points, as well as things this Substance has
(03:47):
been compared to, including something that I do to myself.
So let's do this. This is not going to be
a deep dive episode because I don't want to completely
spoil it if you haven't seen it, but I do
want to talk about some different themes in the movie.
Play some clips, give.
Speaker 6 (04:08):
This story, bring this story to life. I think would
be my life since I'm a kid. I think about how,
you know, I have to live with my own image,
and how I learned to be super violent about it.
And it made me feel that I was never good
enough and at each age you have a reason that
(04:31):
you can find that's something not enough. And I questioned
myself about the violence of it. And when I was
past my forties and aiming too my fifties, it became
even more violent that now this is it.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
I'm going to be erased. It's the end of it.
Speaker 6 (04:48):
And I felt that it was so absurd, but at
the same time so real, this so being here that
I wanted to say, Okay, I have to do something
with it. It's time now to I kind of say enough.
I want to let this yes violence go out and
hopefully make a tint.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
That was director Coralei Parge responding to what her inspiration
was for the film. This is an article from Vogue
by Daisy Jones called Weirdly this substance made me feel
better about aging. Here's something I rarely admit out loud.
(05:28):
Every day I'm plugged with extisential dread. I just don't
understand how everyone's walking around like normal while also carrying
the knowledge that we are hurtling towards death, all of us,
that time only plunges onwards, never backwards, and then eventually
the sun will swallow the scorched earth. Anyway, I watched
(05:49):
Coralie Farge's masterful body horror The Substance recently, and in
a twisted sort of way, it made me feel better
about all of it. The film that I thought would
accelerate my fear of aging beyond its already abnormal level,
actually made me feel okay about the whole thing. The
Substance follows fifty year old Elizabeth Sparkle de me Moore,
(06:10):
a Hollywood star who finds herself at a point in
her career when the men around her are on the
lookout for a younger, perkier replacement. She then takes a
neon substance, which Bear with Me causes her to sort
of give birth to a glistening twenty somethingter version of herself, Sue,
played by Margaret Qually. Both versions must take turns inhabiting
(06:34):
the world for seven days or else risk grizzly side effects.
If you haven't seen the film yet, you can imagine
what happens next, although you absolutely won't be able to
envision where it goes. The film's portrayal of the aging
process is visceral and extremely physical, ludicrously so. The camera
(06:57):
zooms in on Sue's taut luminescence flesh, which bounces in
the light, causing the men around her to stare agog
like cartoon characters. By comparison, Elizabeth slowly becomes more haggard,
her breast drooping and stretched like melted putty, her hair
brittle and harsh like wires. The actual person becomes completely irrelevant.
(07:19):
It's all about the biological properties of the human body.
The breast in their location, the tightness of the skin,
the wideness of the smile. Two batter tits aren't in
the middle of her face, remarks one gloating producer. It's
an acknowledgment that youth is a mostly corporeal concern, while
the patriarchy is the apparatus for which that concern is
(07:42):
constantly centered and weaponized. Essentially, for a Jade takes the
absurdity of beauty standards and turns the dial up to
one hundred. Most women know intellectually that their worth does
not diminish with age, that they're the same person that
they were at twenty two, but more life experience. But
in this substance, you actually feel it. It's like a
(08:05):
curtain being momentarily lifted, each question unfurling in its wake.
Why are women made to feel worthless the longer we live?
Why is my value dependent on the specific elasticity of
my skin? Why are men largely immune from so many
of the same concerns. These questions are so obvious, but
(08:26):
that doesn't mean we always remember to ask them. At
every age, we can find something wrong with ourselves which
can make us feel like monsters. The French filmmaker told
Vogue earlier this year. I thought that if I could
create something meaningful about these issues, it could also serve
as a form of liberation. When I first turned the
(08:49):
movie on and you see to mean more and she's
doing her exercise routine. She's in front of the cameras,
her hair so long, her legs are so long, she
looks so oh beautiful. She starts walking down this hallway
and you see pictures of her over the decade. You
can tell she was some kind of film star. Plus
(09:10):
we did get this Hollywood Boulevard star montage at the beginning,
which was really well done. But she's walking down this
hallway and people start saying happy birthday to her, and
it's her fiftieth birthday. But I had, since I knew
nothing about this film going in other than she takes
(09:30):
some kind of substance. I was like, she must have
already taken the substance because she looks amazing. But then
they use that same lighting and those same angles to
show the ways that we can all rip ourselves apart
in front of the mirror. And I think that also
(09:50):
was a really good parallel to show how paparazzi shots
are just they'll post like the most unflattering thing and
then these people have to hear the entire world's commentary
on it.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
In the public space.
Speaker 6 (10:07):
How you know I was fitting or not fitting the
kind of stay and we're expected from me or that
I should were expected from me? And how during my
whole life and focusing on different things during time like
it led to a huge self hatred that you're seeing
(10:28):
that okay, you're not good enough, that this part of
your body has to be changed, and when you're finally
happy with this part, it's another part that's gonna worry you.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
And it's truly an endless, endless cycle. My last my
current fixation right now, which really just made me think like, okay,
maybe this is completely body dysmorphia is my hands. I
was like, my hands look old now, because that's what
I'll do if I get to whatever weight I've made
(10:57):
up in my head, and then my face looksy I want,
my hair looks the way I want, and whatever else.
It's this endless cycle of things that could be wrong.
It's something I really try and work on. But when
we're being honest.
Speaker 6 (11:14):
A circle that is, you know, kind of generating. I
think such a different way that we can take our
position in the public space because basically, I think as women,
we constantly have to care about our body. We can't
ignore it, you know, because I think the outside world
doesn't ignore.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
It, like.
Speaker 6 (11:36):
And for you know, the beginning of civilization. I think
we've been put in a place where we were kind
of seen or used and valued for what we were
looking like. And I think it has a massive impact
in how we position ourselves in society and how we
get to internalize this violence and yes, so basically I
(12:04):
felt okay, for me, this is the time, and I
felt strong enough, you know, in my filmmaking to address
it in the genre that I love, because I had
done my fative film, and I knew that this movie
was going to be more difficult to make, it was
going to be more challenging also on an emotion.
Speaker 4 (12:21):
Her first film is called Revenge, and it's a rape
revenge film. A lot of people say that it devised
the genre for me. I didn't particularly enjoy it, but
I don't like any of those kind of movies that
follow that plot. It's really, it's really, it's hard for me.
(12:41):
So that's not a jab at her. It's just hard
for me to watch the whole rape and then violence
thing play out, especially because it just doesn't happen like
that in real life, unlike the substance, which does happen even.
Speaker 6 (12:58):
Because it's really confronts, you know, me with like things
that are vivid. But I knew that it was a
step that I had to do now because I felt
that everything that I felt inside and that I think
we are used to hide, you know, behind the pearly
smiles I wanted it to let go and to kind
(13:19):
of splatter the world with it, saying, yes, this is
a reality of it, this is what's happening, this is
what the world is doing to us. And it's not subtle,
it's not you know, little, it's not.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Delicate.
Speaker 6 (13:37):
It's huge, it's violence, it's everywhere, and it's and it's yeah,
it is excessive. So that way I really kept I
knew for my instinct that the movie needed to be at.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
The level of that.
Speaker 6 (13:52):
That was kind of the you know, for me to
be faithful to what I had written and why I
had written it, I needed to be like, with that
much violence and excess on screen.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, I remember.
Speaker 4 (14:08):
Sorry, This is a clip from Next Best Picture on YouTube,
and I'm gonna cut him off. There have been so
many takes on the substance. I'm sure you have your own,
and before I share my own, this was one of
my favorites. And the video is by Sir sugar Meat
(14:30):
on YouTube. It's half an hour long, but I'm just
gonna play the beginning for you, and it's titled The
Barbie Movie Walked so the Substance could run.
Speaker 7 (14:44):
Do you guys remember the Barbie Movie it was more
than a year ago, which is honestly like eight decade
ago in today's digital landscape, So I don't blame you
if you forgot, but I remember that the premiere was
so fun dressing up in pink and seeing it in
theater with my friends telling each.
Speaker 4 (14:58):
Other that you are kinno.
Speaker 7 (15:00):
I've seen all the Barbenheimer crossovers and general memes.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
It was truly a cultural phenomenon.
Speaker 7 (15:05):
But as much hype as it generated, was it truly
a femininomenon.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
The movie had no way, no.
Speaker 7 (15:12):
Gender roles, the patriarchy, beauty standards, and also the general
existential crisis that Barbie goes through.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
However, the way the.
Speaker 7 (15:18):
Film delivered these messages were quite on the nose and
spelled out for you in the character's dialogue, sometimes even
out of the blue, especially towards the end of the movie.
Not to say that this automatically made it.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
A bad movie.
Speaker 7 (15:30):
The movie is self aware and purposely camp. I don't
think all films have to present their messages in subtle,
layered ways in order for them to be fun or
good to watch. But let's just say that I personally
felt like there was a lot to be desired, fun movie,
but it didn't really make me reflect and you know,
it is pretty much an anti marketing ad for Mattel.
(15:51):
It didn't really change me in any way, you know,
And I don't think it succeeded in changing the viewpoints
of others who probably could have benefited from the basic
messaging of the movie. Fast forward to a week ago.
I keep hearing praise for this new movie called The Substance. Now,
all I knew about this movie was that it was
about beauty standards and it featured body horror. Now I
am not a huge body horror person, but I do
(16:12):
love a good.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Movie about beauty standards.
Speaker 7 (16:14):
I think it is a timeless concept and one that
I find personally relatable, and considering all the praise it
was getting, it piqued my interest. I was curious about
how they were going to combine the themes of beauty
standards with elements of body horror and a way that
got general audiences raving And oh my god, did I
receive the movie experience of the year. This movie remained
squarely on the theme of body dysmorphia, even though Demi Moore,
(16:37):
who plays the main character, is already thin and beautiful.
The lighting and angles that the director chose purposely highlighted
the signs of her age. There's also a staunch contrast
between the mature stylings and nervous mannerisms of Elizabeth versus
the juvenile stylings and confident mannerisms of her younger self, Sue.
The movie even hits you over the head with multiple
reminders that Elizabeth and Sue are the same person, meaning
(16:59):
that the contempt they have for one another is merely
just content that they have for themselves, with all of
that contempt stemming from a disdain for Elizabeth's body. Yet, somehow,
despite its simplicity, the substance was really effective at making
me reflect upon how I view my own body, which
brings me back to Barbie. It's fascinating to me here
we had two movies that were both very cam attempted
(17:20):
to critique these standards placed upon women and was over
the top on the nose with their messaging. Yeah, one
seemed to affect me much more.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Than the other. Why is that?
Speaker 7 (17:29):
Well? After rewatching both back to back, I realized that
the substance was really just what the Barbie movie was
too cowardly to be.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
Wow, I'll add a link to that full video, but
I really agree with that in so many ways. I
did a Barbie episode before the movie came out, and
it was really really excited about it, and I felt
so let down by it, which is something I haven't
(17:56):
even talked about publicly because I know it had such
a positive impact for so many people, and people were
having fun with it, so I didn't want to completely
rain on the parade. But it did just feel so
in your face that I felt like there was just
so much room to do more there, and when there's
(18:20):
moments like Barbie getting cellulite, but you know, it's still
Margo Robbie. Just there were things that didn't work for me.
But there are a lot of parallels the executives dudes
in the Barbie world who run things versus the dudes
(18:40):
and the substance that run things, who I think are
much more accurate. This movie has so much of bodies
on display, and about like twenty minutes in, I felt
bad about my body, which I was not expecting, but
Sue but just looked so good, Like my butt hasn't
(19:04):
looked like that literally since I was like twenty four. Uh,
And I wasn't expecting to have that reaction, And then
I also kept thinking, well, Demi Moore looks so so
good and she's sixty, which is not supposed to be
the takeaway. Kim Kardashian watched it within the last few
days and tweeted, She's like, just watched the Substance, Demi Moore,
(19:28):
you look so good and it's like, oh, Kim so close,
which Demmy Moore does look insanely good. But I don't
think that's supposed to be our takeaway from the film.
But maybe maybe it is. H me and Kim.
Speaker 8 (19:46):
Let's hear Corley Farge, the writer and director, talk a
little bit in an interview with Room or TV about
the extreme harm of self in the subst stents or No, I.
Speaker 9 (20:02):
Need to talk to you about male gaze. So we
talk about male gaze all the time, and yet in
the Substance there are a lot of women's bodies on display.
Can you tell me how you were able to handle
how the camera sometimes looks at these bodies with leccheriusque gaze,
with disgust, with sympathy.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
How did you achieve that? Yeah, Like the movie is all.
Speaker 6 (20:23):
About women's bodies, Like how our bodies can be seen
from the outside, all the expectation, you know that society
can project on it, how we can and to kind
of tyrannize our bodies to kind of fit some you know, expectations,
outside expectations. And also I think how it the external
(20:46):
gaze kind of shape our own relationship to our body.
So I think it was really for me showing how
the external expectations out side kind of leaders to look
at our own.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Body in a certain way.
Speaker 6 (21:04):
And I think there is Elizabeth's body when she's inside
her bathroom, which is kind of symbolizing her inner world,
and she's facing herself in a totally non sexualist way.
It's the nudity of who she is, almost as she
was looking in the mirror to her inner thoughts, and
(21:27):
we see all the vulnerability, all the dubs, all the
self hatred that she grew up, you know, to develop
because like she felt she didn't meet anymore the expectations
of the outside world. And I think the violence that
I put on the bodies like really reflects the violence
that I feel regarding those issues and the violence that
(21:51):
we can really do to our bodies, you know, like
when you read all the things that women can do
to extend their leg to you know, do their booths,
to do crazy dyets.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
I did myself, like to.
Speaker 4 (22:06):
Take some I'm gonna pause her real quick because one
thing that this substance really reminded me of with the
taking one week off, is recovering from procedures and the
brutality of that. I've only had one day of plastic
(22:26):
surgery in June of two thousand and nine when I
was twenty four, but I had a breast reduction and
he did a little bit of LiPo in the stomach
and kind of under the art like armpits, and it
was so painful. It was the most painful thing I
(22:51):
think I've ever experienced recovering from that. And that's like
the extreme of it, even just doing facial seizures and injections,
you like. I don't know if any Housewives fans saw
Tamra Judd when she was recovering from a chemical peel
(23:13):
and a CO two laser at the same time, and
it looked like her face was going to fall off,
but then after the old face peels off, there's this beautiful, young,
new face underneath. It's also one of the reasons that
I hesitate to think that a lot of things that
people do that get done are actually surgery, even though
(23:35):
I know surgery does happen a lot. I think people
are doing a lot more regenitative aging, which we'll talk
about a little bit more later. That's the kind of
stuff that I like to do. And even from that,
you swell up, you brewse. You have all this down
time before your cells regenerate and absorb your stem cells
(23:59):
and salmon's sperm and all those other stuff we're putting
into our faces. It's an extremely extremely violent process. Same
with dyeting. Okay, back to back to Coray, how.
Speaker 6 (24:18):
Do you call this ribs off? Like to have the
barbie die?
Speaker 7 (24:23):
Like?
Speaker 6 (24:24):
All those stuff are so absurd, and they are so
I think representative of, you know, some pattern that is
kind of impossible to escape. And I felt that from
a very young age. So I really wanted to go
very far because I think that's what I felt like
(24:45):
everything like, can it can.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Go very very far to harm yourself?
Speaker 9 (24:49):
Yes, I couldn't help but think back to my collection
of Jaine Fonda workout videos, and I always thought Jane
Fonda was so fascinating in that I feel like her
fitness career was kind of a marriage of her sex
symbol status as well as her feminism that you know,
telling eighties housewives that they can work out and be
(25:10):
just like Jane. But that's kind of muddy with diet
culture as well. Can you speak on that and also
the difference between Elizabeth's era of fitness videos ensues.
Speaker 6 (25:20):
When I started to write the film, I knew that
I wanted to find a device that would allow me
to film the bodies. So I knew when I decided
to have my character being an actress, because I think
it's the heightened symbolism of you living in.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
The public eye. Is through the public eye.
Speaker 6 (25:40):
I said, yes, but I need something that's where I'm
going to be to express in a filming way, the
relationship to the skin, the relationship to move your body,
to the way people.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Are looking at your body.
Speaker 6 (25:53):
And that's where this you know image of the aerobic
you know, fitness came because I grew up with the
Syndrick Quawford aerobic.
Speaker 4 (26:06):
That's what it reminded me.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
And it was this world I was like kind.
Speaker 6 (26:13):
Of fascinating about the obsession of you know, like hiding
the stuff to have perfect you know, the stomach to
have perfect, uh, to always kind of have this overexposed body,
to want to kind of shape and reshape and reshape
(26:33):
and reshape. And when I kind.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
Of research a little bit about.
Speaker 6 (26:38):
Jane Fauna, like what also strike me is I think,
I think it's very different thing, but she started to
do those fitness you know kind of thing at a
moment where her actress career was you know, rare referring,
you know, and I think, like in my film in
the Substance, like there is first fall for the actress,
(27:02):
like which is like, Okay, she doesn't get to be
a movie star anymore because like society has decided that
she's not young enough or not, you know, she doesn't
represent like the dream. So our only way to kind
of stay in the lights, to keep getting love on
her is like doing this fitness shoe because there is
(27:22):
still some lights, there is still a camera looking at her,
and it's she's still you know, like the star of
the show, but it's already kind of a step down exactly.
Speaker 9 (27:34):
I think what was perhaps most disturbing for me watching
the film was I was thinking to myself that, you know,
I could maybe take the substance. But I'd be really
nice to my twelve and I make it a little
bed and it'd be totally fine.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Was that intentional?
Speaker 9 (27:45):
Was to kind of turn a mirror even on women,
to examine their own biases?
Speaker 6 (27:50):
I mean yes, I mean like, who wouldn't want to
take it?
Speaker 4 (27:54):
I mean I wouldn't and I do like the crazy
as you just heard I do the crazy stuff. I
would be way too jealous of my younger self. I
don't know I would. I would just go and see
like a really good I don't.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
That that's the problem.
Speaker 6 (28:15):
I think, like even when you know that it's going
to destroy you, you know, even when you know what's
going to do, like I think when you have so
much pressure on you, when you feel that it's really
going to make a difference about the place you're going
to have in society, like I think you're ready to
go again with the devil, you know.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
I think it's like the faust.
Speaker 4 (28:37):
I think if most of us were twenty two again
for a week, we'd it would be over it. I
don't know, going having all the knowledge.
Speaker 6 (28:49):
Packed and to be honest, like having written the substance
and made this feel about it, maybe if it was
like this, I would take it knowing that it's going
to be you know, that's something important that I want
to say, like I hope the movie with empower and
you know, brings some freedom to many women that I
(29:13):
really don't want it to become a new injunction, like
you have to feel good about yourself otherwise you didn't
do it right.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
Currently I'm out of time, but I could talk about it.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
So I feel like I've had my own journey around
placing a lot of value, especially when I was younger,
on my body and what it looked like, and that
if it wasn't then that I was less valuable. But
what I've come to really see, and I do believe
it is an ongoing journey, Like we come up against things.
(29:50):
But there's a couple of things, which is, you know,
we have the circumstances of our collective consciousness that has
for a long time seen women's value as diminishing as
they age, as they're being certain, you know, idealized body types, faces,
looks that are you know, more desirable than others. But
(30:12):
at the end of the day, I feel that all
of that is in service to us, that it's happening
for us not to us that it is there, essentially
so that we can actually get to the place that
is of self love and self acceptance, because you know,
what other people do or don't do is irrelevant. How
(30:34):
we hold it is everything, and that's what creates our
reality and our experience. It's like you believing that your
upper lip was not acceptable then made you insecure, but
thereby you did something but to get to the place
now where that doesn't actually matter.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
But you wouldn't have known that without that experience. Very true,
It's very true.
Speaker 10 (30:53):
I'm going to lean into self love for my last question.
This is a question I've gotten in the habit of
asking a lot lately, because I think it's very important.
In this industry we give each other awards.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
I think that is super cool. When she keep doing that.
Speaker 10 (31:04):
I find that nobody says good job to themselves nearly enough.
I want to know something you each accomplished, making the
substance that you know you'll be able to look back
on and say, I am so proud of what I
did there.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
I mean, I think I read to me Moore's memoir
this year, and I highly recommend it. She really talks
about her struggle with aging, especially after her breakup with
Ashton Kutcher. I hate him, but he was so much
younger than her, and the public made such a big
(31:36):
deal about it. At the same time, her ex Bruce Willis,
had a really big age difference with his wife that
no one flinched at. So it seems like she really
had this moment of loneliness and darkness. She did, and
she's very candid about that, so I highly highly recommend
her book. I think in a lot of ways, I
(31:59):
expected this to be a lot more violent. I heard
about people leaving the theaters and stuff, and I'm very
sensitive to violence. This I think is more gore. And
then I also think I'm really just desensitized to the
violence of the self. What about you. I love that
(32:23):
the use of prosthetics, some of them are so wild,
but I think for our brains, I think maybe that's
why some people walked out of theaters. I think we
have such a re action to that. And it looks
so amazing compared to the Uncanny Valley of the CGI stuff.
Speaker 11 (32:44):
Yes, and I just heard people lost their minds, and
I would imagine seeing it at midnight with a theater
full of people it must have just been exacting.
Speaker 5 (32:55):
First of all, it's a it's a genre I wasn't
familiar with.
Speaker 11 (32:58):
But for those who to know, it's a rom com
obviously from.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
Just on some light entertainment. There is some laughs in
it though I believe it. I mean I believe people laugh.
Speaker 11 (33:11):
I saw it, and I will say, you know, one
of the downsides of it's very exciting when you host
a show like this because people send you links to movies,
and while I was watching this movie, I really had
a sense of, Oh, I really wish I was watching this.
Speaker 5 (33:23):
It's definitely I encourage people to see it in the
theater because it's a it's it's a it's a powerful
shared experience.
Speaker 11 (33:30):
Yes, it's really. I mean it's interesting too because you
mentioned you haven't worked in a genre before. So when
you see a script like this, like do you can
you tell right away? I mean it must be impossible
to can see what it's going.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
To look like.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
First of all, I mean for those who don't know,
so it's it's dealing with aging, yes, and the kind
of male perspective of the idealized woman that we as
women have bought into, and that male gaze and on
paper because it goes to such a unique and telling
(34:01):
this story. I looked at and I thought, well, this,
if it works, could be amazing or it could be
a disaster.
Speaker 11 (34:08):
Yeah, and definitely a disaster version of this movie where
right now I'm sitting here being like, so that look
like fun.
Speaker 5 (34:19):
Yes, crawling on the ground and a hunchback.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
I don't want to give too much away.
Speaker 11 (34:25):
Yeah, Well, it is interesting because you play sort of
a fitness expert, sort of a like a jazzer size
if you will. Aerobics, yes, kind of.
Speaker 5 (34:34):
I think, you know, Jane Fonda in her Jane Fonda
video Workout Days was I think.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
The writer director's you know, inspiration and.
Speaker 11 (34:44):
So I should know.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
There's a couple of things that.
Speaker 11 (34:47):
Seem very taxing to me, and so far as what
you had to go through for this film.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
One, you had to actually do a lot of aerobics.
Speaker 2 (34:53):
We did have to learn some routine.
Speaker 11 (34:55):
Yeah, I mean there was no I mean they're not cgiing,
you're out there doing a robin.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I know we were doing those.
Speaker 11 (35:01):
Moves, yes, And then there's a lot of sort of
what seems to me to be practical makeup. I would
imagine you were both moving a lot and then also
having to sit still for a greater amoment.
Speaker 2 (35:11):
Yes, so I had.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
There's quite a bit of prosthetics, and so I sat
in the chair anywhere from six to nine and a
half hours with a good you know, two hours to
take it off.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
Wow, that is a real commitment.
Speaker 5 (35:24):
To I will just say it's a much easier thing
to read on paper.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
Yes, but I'm so glad I have the experience.
Speaker 5 (35:33):
I feel like I have tremendous respect for those who've
really gone all in where the whole film is. That way,
I may be thinking twice before jumping into one again.
Speaker 11 (35:45):
Yeah, yes, you know the other thing I'll say, because
you are. You're so fantastic in this film.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
You act the lights out.
Speaker 11 (35:53):
But also when you read the script, there's not a
ton of dialogue.
Speaker 5 (35:57):
No, I mean, in fact, it's a it's a in
a way, it's a very intimate experience of someone.
Speaker 4 (36:05):
If you have watched the movie and you're one of
these people like me that looks up the original script
to see what gets cut out, there are a couple
scenes that were cut that you can read in the
original script, and I think that they cut them for ambiguity.
Sorry to me back to you.
Speaker 5 (36:24):
Being with themselves and really which is different. You have
to really show up and have done I think a
lot of prep work to have a full life of
the person you're playing, so that the subtleties can come
through just through your eyes and very small gestures.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
I mean, most of my scenes were.
Speaker 11 (36:45):
Alone, and like I said, you feel you do see
the whole.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Breath of the character.
Speaker 11 (36:51):
This is again somebody's being replaced with their job because
they're fifty.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
There's a younger version of.
Speaker 11 (36:56):
You, played by Margaret Quality, who's wonderful. Dennis Qui plays
a fantastic creep in this film.
Speaker 5 (37:02):
Yes, he does just a real mean and I will
just warn everyone the same with Dennis. Eating the shrimp,
which you haven't seen, is by far the most violent
scene in the whole movie.
Speaker 4 (37:12):
Agree a million. I thought about it for days.
Speaker 5 (37:16):
Tearing the heads off with sound effects it.
Speaker 2 (37:24):
By the way, it's so funny.
Speaker 11 (37:25):
There's so many worse things in this film than eating shrimp.
That's what you thought was scary.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Let me because.
Speaker 4 (37:38):
There's also a lot of debate about if Sue and
Elizabeth Sparkle are two different people, like they have two
different consciousnesses, but I think that they are the same person,
as it reminds them throughout the film, you are one,
(37:59):
just obey the best. I think that it just does
such a good job of showing that self hatred by
physically literally in your face, splitting it into two. But
from those scenes that were cut from the script, I
think they were cut intentionally to make it more so
(38:22):
you wouldn't know for sure. Here's to me talking a
little bit about that.
Speaker 5 (38:27):
This program, and I'm fired from my own show because
I've aged out, and so it's at the depths of
kind of rejection despair, and I get offered a substance
with the promise of a new better me, not realizing
that that new better me isn't just me getting better, it's.
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Actually an entity.
Speaker 5 (38:46):
That is of me, that emerges out of me, right,
that I have to share consciousness with.
Speaker 7 (38:54):
Right.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
And then there's a trade off.
Speaker 5 (38:58):
You have to sort of twide off with each other. Yes, one,
you can only be in each body one week at
a time, very strict.
Speaker 4 (39:07):
Very if you're if it's not see she says, you
can only be in each body for one week at
a time.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Strict.
Speaker 5 (39:15):
Stuff happens, stuff happens the you know, it's a it's
a it's it's definitely a trade off. And when you're
in the younger body where everyone's loving an adore you,
why would you want to go back into the older
body that's sad and depressed?
Speaker 9 (39:31):
Right right right?
Speaker 4 (39:34):
I wish they really would have done something this is
this would have made it an American movie and not
a French movie in English with American actors. But if
I was writing it to me, Moore's character would have
become her younger self manager on their off weeks, and
(39:54):
they would have just like taken down the industry from
the inside. But then I guess it would have been
the Barbie movie. So we circle back once listen to
the end of this.
Speaker 2 (40:06):
Then this body pays the price.
Speaker 5 (40:08):
It really is quite a conversation.
Speaker 10 (40:10):
It's it's so much about what we tell ourselves in
our own mind.
Speaker 5 (40:15):
Which is what really moved me. I mean, the movie
is really about it. It's an unusual way of talking
about aging.
Speaker 2 (40:24):
But the thing that moved me most.
Speaker 5 (40:27):
Was about the violence that we have against ourselves, the
way in which we can negatively talk to ourselves. And
I always looked at it as if we were to
able to create a physical manifestation of that violence and
the way that we can be, the way that we
can exist and compare and despair, what would it look like?
(40:48):
And it becomes somewhat monstrous. Yeah, and that is, you know,
hence why this is considered body horror.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
It's definitely body whole. But my favorite scene in the
entire movie is when Demi Moore's character, Elizabeth Sparkle, is
getting ready to go out with this dorky guy from
high school she ran into. You can tell she kind
of doesn't even remember him, but he's like, you're the
most beautiful. You're still the most beautiful girl in the world.
(41:21):
And a few weeks into this whole thing, she's feeling
pretty down, she agrees to go out with him, and
there's this sequence of her getting ready, just looking at
herself in the mirror and applying more makeup and then
not being happy with it and taking it off and
applying more. And that was my favorite scene in the
whole movie because I've been there so many times, I've
(41:43):
canceled so many plans over stuff like that. I want
to talk a little bit more about that whole obsession.
So many people compare this substance to ozan pic and
these GLP one drugs that people are injecting. I think
(42:03):
it's much more like the regenerative medicine stuff. And Brian Johnson,
that forty six year old billionaire that sold Benmo and
then injects his son's blood into him. So that's what
I do. That's like the substance, except I don't have
an eighteen year old son, so I have to use
(42:24):
my own blood and sem cells. But I would like
to do a whole episode just talking about how wild
the world of regenitive medicine is. So I'm going to
have my doctor, doctor Wiggins from in Portland, come on
and talk about that and this whole I like it
(42:47):
because there are other benefits to it. It's not like
botox or filler where it's just aesthetic. It's just your
skin gets better in time and stuff. But also I
can realize that these things are really weird and my
goal is not to live forever. And I thought I
was this billionaire dude I would just like get reincarnated again.
(43:09):
And but you know, anyway, that's a different, different conversation.
But I want to play you a clip of Brian Johnson.
Is that even his name? I'm pretty sure it is. Okay,
this is just the intro of him being on Diary
of Ceo Urgin.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Eleven because that's where the data let me.
Speaker 4 (43:28):
Takes one hundred and eleven polls a day.
Speaker 9 (43:30):
Brian Johnson, the man who says two million dollars a
year to slow down his age.
Speaker 11 (43:34):
He's managed to reverse his bond ofgical age, already two
and eighteen.
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Year old, projected to live to two hundreds.
Speaker 12 (43:40):
The only objective we have is don't die, and I've
hopped it into an algorithm that takes better care of
me than I count myself.
Speaker 1 (43:47):
It sounds overwhelming in the beginning, but trust me on this.
So my bedtime is at eight thirty and you had
one hundred percent sleep four months straight.
Speaker 4 (43:54):
Now what about hanky cranking?
Speaker 1 (43:56):
Not after eight thirty? Alcohol three ounces every morning.
Speaker 4 (43:58):
With breakfast, so breakfast, what my god?
Speaker 1 (44:01):
I know the day is eleven am and every calorie.
Speaker 4 (44:03):
He also washes his face with Sarah Vay's scilic Cecala
silic acid cleanser, which when I saw that, I literally
almost fainted. Just used the apricotscrum my guy by fer
It's life.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
You are very kind in bringing me some food. Presumably
this is what you eat.
Speaker 12 (44:24):
If you ask the body, what do you want to eat?
To be an ideal helm for this is you.
Speaker 4 (44:28):
No, this is not the answer because it's mushed up
things in a bowl, and that's whatever what your body
is going to stay unless it's like a really good
soup or mush Also, look up Brian Johnson. I did
get his name right, but it just sounds like such
a fake name. But he literally is afraid of death
and doesn't want to die. He also tried doing a
(44:52):
fat transfer because he lost so much facial volume, and
then people were telling me he looked like a robot.
He does kind of a marked zucker for look to him.
Not that you're a robot, mark, you're definitely a human man.
Speaker 8 (45:07):
Ooh.
Speaker 4 (45:08):
But so he did the whole fat transfer thing, but
he didn't have enough fat on his body, so he
used someone else's fat, which is so dangerous. I don't
know who the doctor was that did that, like you can't,
but anyway, it got infected. So it's interesting to see
because I don't know what having fat put into your
(45:30):
face has to do with living forever. It did remind
me of that scene in Sex and the City. Anyone
know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Thank you so much, everybody. I'll see you next.
Speaker 9 (45:42):
Week and in the meantime, take care of yourself.
Speaker 4 (45:55):
Thank you for listening to another episode of Broad's next Door.
I hope the week ahead for you is nice and
there's some relaxation in your future. If you work retail,
my heart is with you. I've been there. You'll make
it through. You'll never have to hear those songs again,
(46:16):
I promise everyone else. If you're having a tough time
with holidays or anything, feel free to reach out to
me at Broad's next Door or Daniella Screama on pretty
much anywhere, and also if you ever need to DM
me or just write something in the comments section. It's
(46:36):
a really supportive community. Next week, I am doing a
did I already say this? Next week I'm I'm doing
a Geen Bereney Ramsey episode for our first December episode.
So haven't done true crime for a long time, so
(46:59):
it's going to be a very interesting week for me.
If you enjoyed this episode, please rate and review it
wherever you're listening to it. You can also find merch
at brodsnextstore dot com. I love you very much.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
Bye,
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.