Shadow Selves
FEAR OF REPLACEMENT
You can read it as a film about self-hatred & self-destruction, but I also look at The Substance through the lens of struggling to have healthy relationships with myself and other women my partner is seeing or interested in in a society that pits everyone, especially people of the same sex, against one another. Let me explain. Although a little unbelievable because Demi Moore is an eternal babe, her character in the movie struggles with the choice between getting to vicariously experience societal acceptance again through a younger, "better" version of herself or living with her legacy alone as an
aging and increasingly irrelevant star. Even when it becomes obvious that the younger version, the metaphorical embodiment of her self-hatred, is literally out to destroy her, she opts to continue with the cloning procedure. Margaret Qualley takes her job, her life and becomes a hot shot super fitness star within weeks, partly due to the knowledge and expertise she has access to vis a vie her connection to Demi Moore's character, a famous fitness coach.
Moore thus develops animosity towards her younger version for easily getting everything she's had to work so hard just to maintain. In a similar vein, I find it really easy to resent a new person/crush in your partner's life for not having put in all of the time and energy that you have. It isn't logical, fair or even reflective of what's actually going on; it's just a feeling that quickly pops up for me, even with relationships that are in the earliest stages of forming or even potentially forming.
These competitive scripts go deep. I received messaging early on telling me that I needed to compete with people of the same sex for men's attention. In high school, I remember feeling floored by the realization that I was misdirecting my anger towards a girl that my then-boyfriend had cheated on me with. The entire school somehow seemed to have an opinion on his decision to leave me for this other, younger girl and her social status quickly plummeted. It seemed to trigger something for people seeing him leave me - a cute, involved, generally well-liked sophomore - for a less popular, less well-known freshman. This was a confusing time for me, because I was hurt, of course, but I was also reading The Bell Jar and trying to emulate my feminist hero, Kat Stratford in 10 Things I Hate About You.
Unfortunately, she was a freshman and hung out with fringe social groups, so the masses were not kind to her. Slut-shaming ensued, and one day, when I joined in on some of the slut-shaming in a moment of self-pity (which I had tried not to do because I thought it would make me seem pathetically attached to him and anti-feminist), my older, wiser friend asked, "wasn’t he the one who cheated on you?", cheekily insinuating that if anyone was a "slut" here it was the guy. While it's funny going back to a time when slut was even a mildly derogatory term, the point here is that there are so many little incidents like this that I can think of where the dominant culture planted that fear of replacement in my brain if I didn’t continually perform my sexuality to earn people's attention and approval. Be sexy, put yourself out there, but obviously don't cross the line of coming between a hot, well-liked couple.
The Companion (2025) comes to mind as another recent film in this feminist line-up that satirized the expectations around the transactional, service-providing aspect of romantic relationships and took it a step further: the girlfriend could literally be shut down or reprogrammed if she didn't give her boyfriend the girlfriend experience that he wanted. I don't realize how deep these scripts go until I find myself feeling scared of other people my partners are interested in and their ability to replace me as the newer, shinier model, or rather, compete with me for that coveted emotional intimacy spot. I am aware of the harm in this thinking, not only to any potential relationship I could have with the partner of my partner's partner (if that felt right to both parties) but to myself as well, as it turns relationships into transactional, service-providing exchanges. It means that I am the villain of my own story, reducing myself and others to someone who provides services like sexual performance, giving attention, doing emotional work....etc, rather than seeing us as all part of mosaic of beautiful connections that form naturally. When Sue, the younger version, starts to disrupt the balance by drawing more of Demi Moore's life force than she's supposed to in order to extend her time in the sun, it felt familiar, that feeling of taking something vital from myself to work on my insecurities and the subsequent recovery & regeneration period of coming out of the hazy cloud of insecurities and anxiety to try and focus on your my self-worth again. Which is of course the boring antidote to these annoying feelings of insecurity.
APPETITE
After their encounters with younger people who represent or help them to actualize their desires, the two older, successful women Moore and Kidman play both discover newfound appetites and rage: appetites for things they assumed they couldn't have and rage towards those who have held them back. It's like the glasses have been taken off and they are seeing the world clearly for the first time. Of course, we never seem to direct our anger at the companies selling us products or the people who stand to gain something from exploiting us, but, rather, direct it inward. After wading into the taboo BDSM waters with an intern, Kidman in Babygirl becomes angry with her confused husband for not having engaged with her sexual desires and making her feel ashamed of them.
Babygirl raises the questions: do you have to sacrifice everything else in your life for that one forbidden desire? If you suppress that desire or compromise it in some way, are you living the truest version of your life? How far will you go to live that truest version of yourself?
The intern's role in Babygirl appears to be liberating a married couple from outdated notions about sexuality (for the husband it's believing that "female masochism is a male fantasy") and encouraging each other's exploration of their appetites (or, because this is a film about female sexual liberation, mostly just Kidman's appetite). The younger intern starts Kidman on the path of forming a relationship with her anger, which is the first step in her journey toward accepting the part of herself that has these desires. We see her husband bear the brunt of that anger for the second half of the film, but I think by the end she understands that he isn't the only one she should direct it to.
RAGE
It's always beautiful seeing actresses take on such complex roles and give such full-body performances. Even while playing into these roles, Kidman feels enraged by the limitations society at large has placed on her as a nurturer/caregiver/person who is expected to provide emotional support. None of these roles are her true self. With an intern, she finds ways of challenging those limitations by engaging in a sexual relationship where she is able to push these societal boundaries and find a space in which she can explore her true self. We see a similar indulgence when Moore gorges herself on meat (displaying an almost supernatural appetite), as she becomes slowly consumed by rage watching Qualley waltz into everything she now has to work so hard for just because she's young and smiles a lot. The power she holds is the power that comes from giving into her appetite quite literally.
There's an anger in me that comes from a deep pain I've felt for as long as I can remember from trying to please everyone around me, failing (predictably), and feeling guilty for letting people down. Not saying that men don't fawn too (they do), but this is the shame piece I find so damn relatable: women especially are taught at a very young age to anticipate others' needs and feel bad when we perceive that we aren't able to fulfill those needs. This pain is exploited our entire lives and manifests in us feeling responsible for other people's feelings (not just romantic partners obviously) and prioritizing them above our own. This becomes especially hard if you have multiple partners and are trying to juggle several people's wants and needs. When I don't meet someone's needs in a poly relationship, or even perceive that I'm not meeting them, it taps into a deep-seated guilt I have over not having the capacity to give the people I care about what they want. The degree to which this desire to please is ingrained in me means that it's not even about what people are actually expressing in terms of their wants; I have already internalized that I can never measure up because being only one person in an inherent failing. And, while guilt is an effective motivator, it will never be an intrinsic motivator; something that helps you to actually embody or live your ideals.
Another particular pain point with poly for me is when I feel like my own biggest barrier to realizing my goals. I want to show up to support my partners' other relationships and actualize a vision I have of us all supporting each other having a wider circle of love and support, expanding my own poly community with other kindred spirits and going on my own healing journey. I remind myself that I don't actually want to be anyone's sole source of support. I've been balancing two relationships for going on six years now and, while some things come a little easier now, I still struggle with basic feelings of fear, envy, guilt, worries about desirability, insecurity, anger, and confusion and frequently feel bad for doing so after all this time. "I want this but I feel like I'm going to die" is an incredibly apt tagline to the popular zine by Clemintine Morrigan called "Love Without Emergency" (which I am still getting through). I guess I've finally realized that there are no inroads and you have to just give yourself compassion. Most poly literature simply does not address misogyny and this internalized competition among women and seeing ourselves as products to be consumed and I just haven't read enough queer lit to be more enlightened yet. Morrigan writes, "'Jealousy' does not do justice to the extreme embodied distress that people can feel when they are attachment injured or trying to navigate polyamory." I need to see other people, other women particularly who struggle with my level of anxiety, express this particular pain and that was what was particularly compelling about the range of expression in these films.
AGING
I think everyone who's grappling with their own aging will understand the feeling of lightly resenting younger people for how comparatively easy they have it. Demi Moore is supposed to have just turned 50 in this film so I'm at a different stage of accepting my aging body than she is, but I've already noticed that I have to work a little harder for some things that came easier before my thirties. I'm at a point in my life where a great day is getting enough sleep and a pulled back muscle can take me out for a week. I think every decade comes with new aging insights, both exhausting and exciting. In this decade, I've noticed that routines are becoming more and more essential to my mental and physical wellbeing. Exercise, getting a good night of sleep, taking supplements, eating healthy, going to therapy - it's not so much that I will hate myself if I get off these routines, but I'll notice their absence more quickly now, and it will take a lot more willpower to re-establish those routines.
In The Substance, the theme of valuation coming from youth and beauty was portrayed differently than in Babygirl. I don't relate to the fame aspect or having a career that hinges on my appearance/desirability (no more than the average person), but there is a particular struggle with poly I'm finding resonance with of never feeling like you can relax your standards for personal upkeep because of the perceived threat looming on the horizon that comes with your partners having the freedom to date other people. Are they cuter? Younger? In school? Doing some amazing good for humanity kind of work? Different ages/life experiences bring lots of rich layers to relationships. It's amazing what even a few years of difference brings up for me these days as I settle into my routines. Maybe it's a way we console ourselves as we age.
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All of these feelings come from somewhere and live as inner demons/shadow selves. I love it when actors literally or metaphorically have to compartmentalize parts of themselves because society cannot accept their full selves. I'm obsessed with the guteral noises Nicole Kidman made when she finally had an orgasm with the intern. It wasn't sexy - it was something more feral that she wrenched painfully from the depths of her being despite layers of shame keeping it down. Demi Moore literally becomes a hideous monster and the layers of anxiety shed like snake skin. Ironically, she finally seems free and unburdened by her appearance.
In these films, Moore and Kidman have gone on so long living in their prisons of pain and repression that when, given the chance to be themselves, they end up fragmenting those parts of themselves that they haven't accepted in order to preserve them in a safe zone away from society's harsh spotlight. But this fragmentation crashes at some point because they are forced to face these conflicting parts of themselves. In all three movies, once they have named those shadow selves and brought them into the light, they have to find a way of integrating or becoming them. It's a thrilling ride.
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