Contains spoilers.
When Stanley Kubrick needed a truly disturbing haunting for the bathroom of room 237 of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining (1980), he latched onto one of the most effective and elemental terrors imaginable: an old woman. More specifically, a nubile young woman who rises from a bathtub to seduce main character Jack Torrance, and then reveals her true form as a sore-ridden, saggy-breasted crone, cackling at her own deceit.
It’s a scene that I suspect plays differently depending on the viewer’s sex. For a man, the horror comes from identifying with Jack. He, too, is aroused by the youth and beauty of the ghost’s first form; he, too, is appalled when he realises he has been tricked into lusting for old, degraded flesh. For a woman watching, the horror isn’t about what you want. It’s about what you are — or what you will become. You will age into monstrosity, and your only power will be the power to disgust. Every female body contains the terrible fact of its own future.
Coralie Fargeat’s new satirical body-horror The Substance contains a lot of visual nods to The Shining: corridors with sinister geometric carpet, blood pouring down walls, a bathroom decorated in an upsettingly lurid shade of red. But the most important nod of all is this: it’s a movie about the horror of female ageing, in which the ultimate nightmare is a woman’s body made grotesque by time. This time, though, it’s not a male filmmaker seeing this horror from the outside. It’s a female filmmaker seeing it from the inside.
The film’s concept is a bit complicated and pretty clever. Elisabeth Sparkle (played by Demi Moore) is an Oscar-winning actress turned fabulously successful aerobics instructor (shades of Jane Fonda), just hitting her 50th birthday — which is the point at which “it stops”, as her repellent producer (Dennis Quaid) tells her. “People always ask for something new.” She loses her show. She loses her celebrity. She loses her purpose.
Enter the substance — a mysterious black-market medicine that promises to create the best version of you. When Elisabeth injects it, she gives birth to a whole second self through a gory vaginal split in her back. The new her (played by Margaret Qualley) is young, luscious and beautiful, and takes the name Sue. The only snag is that, while Elisabeth and Sue have separate bodies, their existence is shared: one of them can live for seven days while the other lies insensate. Disturb that balance, and you pay a price.
Of course, the characters (character?) can’t simply follow the rules. As Sue steps into Elisabeth’s old life and job, it becomes unbearable to sacrifice herself so the older body can live. “Just one more day,” she whispers to Elisabeth’s prone body, as she draws another dose of serum from the spine. The cost is borne by Elisabeth, who becomes more decrepit with every liberty Sue takes. Unable to coexist, they end up in a battle to survive that neither ultimately will win. Sue will end up savagely kicking a wizened, hunchbacked Elisabeth to death.
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SubscribeWhen you are young it doesn’t even cross your mind for a second that you might get old. So, as you age you have to keep telling yourself over and over that you are still young – you just can’t be old, can you? But the mirror shows a different picture. The mirror must be wrong and it’s all a matter of putting filler in a crack or two. And then a habit is developed for life – how to prove that the image in the mirror is wrong.
The main thing for staying young, more than anything else, is to be fit for life. This doesn’t mean going to the gym every day. It means being fit and active, not parking a few feet from the shop because it’s raining. Mental activity is important as well. People get into habits to keep busy and busy-ness is not the same as fitness. I look around me and see how unfit my contemporaries are; they may have busy social lives but this means getting in a car and meeting somebody in Starbucks. Obviously I will die in a few years but it will be better to be fit when the time comes.
Why would any intelligent, mature, person make the movie described, why would they spend time watching it? So much of real life out there – important things.
Re older women, many of them are very interesting, and attractive. I feel sorry for anyone that doesn’t appreciate them. The transient power of youthful female beauty is the engine of life, but just a phase – there is so much more.
The loss of looks and the associated power over men is generally felt to be a tragedy by those women who have traded on and profited from their looks. The late great dame Maggie Smith demonstrated the power of talent over looks and aged both naturally and beautifully.
Agreed. To name but one and she made a fortune out of not having plastic surgery
“to age as a woman is to become hated” Yeah. Like Maggie Smith was hated.
Or Judi Dench
Or the Queen
All British. There’s something about the culture that is more authentic.
Or the Queen Mother. Both very beautiful women in their youth.
Maggie Smith was the exception that proves the rule.
All the women mentioned above are The Every Mother. My mother and yours. They are beautiful as capital M Mother. Not as capital S Sydney Sweeney. We can do the same for Father, that “paltry thing, a tattered coat upon a stick”. People love old women who age into their archetypal role. It’s the narcissists who kick and scream like 2 year olds that we rightly mock. Women, grow up.
Might be yours, not mine, and I hardly think they’d be considered the archetypal mother.
I think that women judge themselves more harshly than men judge them. What women call saggy, men often think of as larger and fuller, those crows feet show wisdom and humour, the thinner lips speak interesting and sparkling conversation, rather than dull and self absorbed chat that sometimes comes from younger, fuller lips.
As a man in his fifties, myself and my peers wouldn’t want a woman much more than ten years either way, and we absolutely feel sexual attraction for women in that group.
You can appreciate the looks of younger women, but it’s rather like appreciating a Ferrari, they look nice but you don’t actually want one.
Older women, strut confidently through life, don’t mar your looks with unnecessary surgery, you’re still desirable to us!
Sometimes they do. I suspect the women who are hit hardest by ageing are the ones who have spent all their time obsessing about appearance and have failed to develop the things that are supposed to come with maturity. They have invested everything in declining assets.
Boy, you’re really having a go! When will you have vented your spleen?
It’s simply true. And I dare say there are male equivalents. Some people seem to grow and mature and become interesting as people. Some simply fail to do so. It’s not hard to spot. Their behaviour and tastes are like those of teenagers, either of their own era or of the current one. It’s embarrassing.
Are you suggesting then, that as a 71 year old, I should be satisfied to just set around smoking a pipe and listening to classical music instead of driving my convertible roadster fast while listening to loud rock and roll music?
You are SO right about how we men in our 50’s, or at least the vast majority of us, look at younger women.
It is rather like looking at a piece of art. It may be attractive to look at but would you really want to hang it in your bedroom or would you be willing to pay the price for it?
No, better to just appreciate it where it is and move on.
The Ferrari is a great example though. It is gorgeous to look at but miserable to ride in over anything more than a local jaunt. You gotta worry about where you park it. The insurance is insane and the property taxes outrageous. They are finicky and expensive to maintain. When it is all said and done, just not worth it.
That’s a load of rubbish. Women judge themselves more harshly than men judge themselves.
I’m glad I read the first part of that. Until I did, I thought I was going to age and eventually die, but now I realise that ageing only happens to females I don’t need to worry about getting old anymore.
All flesh is like grass, and all its loveliness is like the flower of the field. The grass withers,the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.
–Isaiah 40:8
Agelessness and the search for perfection are equal curses. Only fools pursue them.
Every time I read one of these feminist analyses I feel exhausted just contemplating any of it, and stumped both as to why women put themselves through so much of this neurotic nonsense and why men seem, in some nebulous manner, to be ultimately to blame for it.
The terms “Karen” and “terf” are not hag hate.
They have nothing to do with age.
Incidentally, the only times I’ve heard the terms “Karen” and “terf” used they were used by women. I’ve never heard men use those terms.
I’ll just leave this here:
“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.”
– Anais Nin
Such a limited view of womanhood and all its ages
I suggest that the esteemed readers of this outfit click on this link and read a sober, mature treatment of the topic: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/invisible-women-50s-male-gaze_n_63a38c4fe4b033ea8cc577aa
Not as dramatic and titillating as the treatment of the topic in here but much more useful and enlightening.
The only way to live, in the end, is to accept your mortality.
Gosh, what a radical idea. Who would have thought? It’s not as if aging is a new, contemporary experience.
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: Growing old is horrid, until one considers the only alternative.
We’re all familiar with the horrors of witchtrials. Of course, WE wouldn’t participate in them, would we? The author, and this film, suggests that perhaps… actually, not only that we.might but that – in a less-clearly defined way – we do. Furthermore, that it’s women who’re just as active participants by self-demonising the aging process.
I’m not sure this is generally true (i’m not female, obviously) but that it contains an element of truth that we all might recognise seems to be true.
Very many older women have a degree of wisdom that society would be much poorer without. As i age, that can be appreciated, so it pains me to witness the psychological self-harm that the prospect of fading youthfulness seems to induce, according to this narrative. Isn’t it time that we all stopped beating ourselves up in this, and other ways?
It’ll be interesting to see the wider reaction to this film. Demi Moore is a great actress… full stop. She was great when young, she’s perhaps even greater now. That should be all we need to take on board, but she deserves great credit for portraying this subject, and the author of this piece credit too for the way she’s set out her analysis.
Well said.
“i’m not female, obviously“
We all know that to be a lie.
But, whatever.
I just don’t recognise the world as described by Sarah Ditum here. Nor do I recognise Victoria Smith’s idea that women are conditioned to feel ashamed.
Out of all the many women I have known during my life I have only ever met one acquiantance that was anxious about her aging body, she was worried that she would lose her husband, I felt very sorry for her.
All the others are too busy working, looking after children and grandchildren, taking up new hobbies (especially golf for some reason, wacking a ball really hard with a five iron must have something in it for the mature female psyche), swimming and yoga, travelling, spending time with friends etc etc.
Feminists will see the world through their distorting lens, I feel sorry for them too. Life for most of us really is’nt like that.
Hear, hear.
My wife is ageing graciously. I love every inch of her, and I suspect many husbands share this view of their ageing wives.
But honestly, she has too much to do living her life, to worry about what I, other men or society in general thinks about her body. That’s another of the things I love about her.
Ditto. My wife is 61 and attractive as ever.
72 and ditto!
Pretty much the same for me and lynn. However she does have one annoying behaviour. She likes throwing out old stuff and she sneaks some of my stuff out as well.
I can think of half a dozen genuinely ugly women in my circle who are fascinating to men women and children wherever they go. There’s a story by Italo Calvino about this.
Sadly, the booming plastic surgery industry proves that very, very many women (and men) are body-obsessed and extremely reluctant to go gentle into that good night.
Some are, but it’s good old fashioned vanity and in extreme cases narcissism. It’s not because they’ve been conditioned or brain washed (by the patriarchy presumably).
No it’s not.
“very, very many . . .” ?
Let’s look at the figures:
In 2023, according to the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, 25,972 procedues took place, 93% on women, 7% on men.
There are approximately 35 million females in the UK. Let’s say 10 million of those are children. That leaves approximately 25 million adult females.
Correct me if I am wrong, but that means less than a quarter of a percent of all adult females had plastic surgery in 2023, for whatever reason. That is a tiny percentage of British women having plastic surgery.
Wow. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons 1,575,244 surgeries comprising only the 25 most common cosmetic procedures were performed by its members in 2023 in the U.S. Add to those the thousands more procedures that are done by non-members. Americans must be much more vain or far less naturally attractive than you Brits!
https://www.plasticsurgery.org/documents/news/statistics/2023/cosmetic-procedure-trends-2023.pdf
Surely the latter. 🙂
Let’s hope it stays that way – though Botox is more common, and scarily uncontrolled.
Thanks for the comment, I am glad to read it. The campaigning from feminists about how ‘society makes them feel’ seems to me to be largely a reflection of their own personal issues, rarely held in the wider female population. Hag hate in this instance is a destructive projection of an insecurity around aging – and why should that issue be foisted onto all women? There are so many wonderful mothers and grandmothers out there. Maiden, Mother, Matriarch doesn’t sound too bad to me.
I suspect the women blessed with good looks and perhaps less else, cannot stand to lose that unearned power and privilege, and we all have to hear their screaming about how unfair it is. Welcome to the real world.
And I might add, the ones who have spent their lives focussing on their appearance (and that of others) and failing to develop any other strings to their bow – like kindness, empathy, genuine interests, an ability to converse about non trivial topics. In other words, they are shallow.
The power that attractive young women have is scary. I was hanging out with one a while back and it was pretty eye opening. Just walking into normal shops it was a battle to get anyone to listen to me as they fell over her. What I’m saying is if you were blessed with this sort of power, wouldn’t we all end up riding that wave of invites rather than sitting alone in a library reading Tolstoy in order to not ‘be shallow’? I’m not so sure.
So I’m not sure I blame them for being preoccupied about losing this power, but I’m also not shedding a tear when they complain about it. They are essentially coming back to earth to experience life as a normal person.
It is possible to be attractive, sexy, empathic, intelligent, have a biting wit, and a well-developed intellect and also be female. Much harder to be taken seriously in a male-dominated profession with those qualities, however.
I think it was – but less so now. And unless by “biting wit” you mean obnoxious, what you have described is many men’s ideal woman.
Yes – I think it’s a bigger shock losing your looks if you were once beautiful.
But for the girl who has read Tolstoy (or developed her mind and heart in any other way) there is much to look forward to. For the woman who has banked on looks alone it’s going to be tough.
This. Women don’t become “hated” as they become older, they’re just no longer as desired.
But I suppose narcissists can’t tell the difference.
You’re really taking advantage of the topic to slide in your usual misogyny, aren’t you David.
I think to qualify as misogyny it would have to be aimed at women in general, or women as such. That some women are like this can be seen by everybody, and is obvious from the rise in cosmetic surgery, Botox and the rest.
One hopes there isn’t a Mrs Morley.
Is this an example of YOUR “biting wit”?
This is very much a Hollywood problem being projected onto women at large. Agreed that this neurosis is thankfully not shared by most middle aged women, including myself (age 51).
Likewise. So it’s not just because I’m a man.
I suspect female narcissists might see things in the way she describes.
Stick the knive in even further, David. You poor thing were you waiting for a female to validate your observations? Don’t trust your feelings?
Agreed. Men age and die also, and sooner too. So I don’t see an old face and think regretful thoughts. I see an old face and think what a good job they have done living so long.
Hard to understand any other opinion for me.
They may not have done a good job and they may be just waiting to die.
Patience is a virtue.
Your pity smacks of arrogance and superiority. Had you made your point without “feeling sorry” for women who aren’t able to rise above society’s double standard, I might have given it some serious thought.
If I was being passive/aggressive – and “feeling sorry” for an opponent is used in that way sometimes regrettably – you would be correct, but I don’t think “arrogance and superiority” are what lie behind my words. Obviously I do think I am right, but that is not necessarily from a position of arrogance, and it may be objectively superior by virtue of actually being right.
I think in this instance, my “pity” or “feeling sorry” for ‘feminists’ is a feeling of sadness at a person, or persons, making a mistake that has an adverse effect on their life, and on the lives of people around them, it is what I see around me and it does make me sad.
The third paragraph is somewhat less than convincing
Sarah Ditum does not acknowledge that Demi Moore has made and continues to make her living from her physical beauty and now from appearing much younger than she is. It is little wonder that she fears losing her money-making looks. Apparently Moore also does not talk about her children other than the threat they posed to her physical attractiveness. Perhaps she should have spent more time with them and less on a film set while leaving them with a nanny. One of the strongest factors keeping men faithful to their ageing wives is the desire to maintain the respect of their children.
Quite right.
In a recent article Debbie Harry, who just turned 80, wondered how she got to be so old.
She then answered her own question… Just lucky I guess.
When was this film out? I have just checked my Cineworld and it is only available at 16:40 every day, so it must have been out for some time.
On IMDb it has 7.8, which is promising, but who goes to the pictures at 16:40??
It was released 20/09. No superheroes in tights quoting vapid one-liners though, so not a big release.
“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” Matthew 24:35
I prefer the “all flesh is grass …” one.
Seems an echo of “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde. Though there it considers a man.
Damn you! You beat me to it.
As a woman 2 years older than Demi Moore, I find the self-hating crone concept quite alien to me. I value my health and I’m happy that I’ve lived that long. I was considered quite attractive when young but I don’t miss the days of being chatted up all the time.
That said, I’m impressed at Demi Moore’s brave act even though I think Coralie Fargeat is the one with a real problem with ageing. All the same, the script does seem very clever and imaginative (certainly clever than Death Becomes Her).
It’s certainly a relief not to be hormone-driven any more!
Aging is a form of intelligence! Only certain “skin type” makes it superficial!
This reads like a therapist’s notes of how half the population engages in ritual self-loathing over a fact of life that spares no one. There is no ‘horror’ to female aging any more than that applies to men. Aging is a fact of life. One can do things to fight or slow the process, but it eventually wins.
You missed the point.
I vehemently object to the idea that “to age as a woman is to become hated” . This is blatantly false.
What might be true, however, is that aging women don’t enjoy the “free” status and validation society granted them as they were younger. They join the (quite) large club of adult people who have to pay for their own bus ticket (and their own meal at the restaurant).
Only narcissist entitlement prevents some women from seeing the difference.
Well, yes and no. There are compensations. In the UK, pensioners get a free bus (though the current government may withdraw this), so they don’t pay for their own bus ticket. And at 72 with arthritic knees and a walking stick, I do enjoy having men offer me their seat on buses.
It should be younger people, both male and female, who offer you their seat.
A little bit of misogyny creeping in there, Emmanuel.
After reading all your comments on this topic, I’ve come to this conclusion: Anything said by anyone that doesn’t praise ALL women is misogynist, sexist, racist, incorrect, and not up to your standard. You deny inescapable truths under the false guise that even one example disproves what’s true for all but one…when you don’t know for sure “one” exists. “Karen” doesn’t come close, although it includes several resident characteristics.
The term Karen originated as a term of abuse for obnoxious entitled middle aged, middle class women who were abusive to those they considered their social inferiors. People serving them usually – though it took on a racist connotation later.
It’s not hag hate – it’s the revenge of the underdog against privileged women with no manners. We’ve all met them, or seen them in action.
Again! You don’t seem to have any idea how much you hate women, David.
You’re being remarkably defensive. Do you have a reputation for being a bit of a Karen yourself?
WHAT DOES KAREN MEAN?Karen is a div > p > a”>pejorative slang term for an obnoxious, angry, entitled, and often racist middle-aged white woman who uses her privilege to get her way or police other people’s behaviors.
As featured in memes, Karen is generally stereotyped as having a blonde bob haircut, asking to speak to retail and restaurant managers to voice complaints or make demands, and being an div > p:nth-of-type(2) > a”>anti-vaxx , div > p:nth-of-type(2) > a:nth-of-type(2)”>Generation X div > p:nth-of-type(2) > a:nth-of-type(3)”>soccer mom.
In 2020, Karen spread as a label used to call out white women who were captured in viral videos engaging in what are widely seen as div > p:nth-of-type(3) > a”>racist acts.
https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/karen/
You don’t know what color I am!
What is the male equivalent of a “Karen”. Is there one or is it the old double standard? Like what is the male equivalent of a w***e?
You don’t know what color I am!
Conditioned when, and by whom? Girls, like all children, are now raised and educated predominantly by women. Are they doing it? Why? It’s certainly not men telling them to do it.
Sounds like neurotic women trying to find someone to blame for their neurosis.
I hope I can be forgiven for my shameless objectifying male gaze, but, honestly (REALLY honestly), I continue to look at my 65-year old wife as I have done almost every day during the four decades we have been married, and still think she is the most beautiful object in my life.
We’ e just ben re-watching Coupling. I love Sally-s take on female ageing: deep, deep philosophy!
I know a number of couples where one or both were never considered attractive yet have managed to stay together for 40 – 60 years. There is something more important than looks.
Money!
/
50% of humanity, somehow bred to hate their own ageing bodies? Nobody would prefer to have an old and failing body, and before the last few hundred years not many people would have lived to a great age anyway, but this argument is so overstated it becomes ridiculous. Narcissistic claptrap hardly begins to describe it, and UnHerd has disappointed me yet again.
Sarah. Have you ever heard of the word “spoiler.”?
My wife, the mother of our two children, is now 66, almost 67. She is as beautiful and attractive to me now as she was when I first fell in love with her in 1979. Just sayin’ …
I have but one question at this time: how can a “BUTT” be perfectly round?
Blessed rondeur remains with the English tongue
Thank you for telling ‘ageing’ correctly, haven’t seen that in a long time.
People, can we please try to remember that there is an ‘e’ in ‘ageing’?
Just maybe, This is evidence of Ageism by women towards men. As a 68 year old man I know that what I find attractive in women has steadily morphed as I’ve grown older. What I find most attractive now are women in their 40’s and 50’s’.
Maybe the fear written about here isn’t really a fear of growing old and ugly and becoming unattractive as much as it is about becoming unattractive to the handsome young men in their 20’s and 30’s?
Maybe it isn’t so much a rejection of their own aging but a rejection of aging men? I find little to sympathize with here.
Consciously planned exercise and dieting are not neurotic behaviors. Think about this: most speakers of Modern English do not have to say what type of stress they are talking about because they are exceptionally good at avoiding physical stress