“The Substance” and the New Horror of the Modified Body

Summary

Critics at Large | The New Yorker Episode: “The Substance” and the New Horror of the Modified Body Release Date: October 3, 2024

Hosted by Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz, this episode delves into the evolving landscape of body horror in contemporary cinema, exploring how modern films reflect and critique societal obsessions with body modification and self-image.

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Introduction to Body Horror

The episode begins with the hosts immersing themselves in the subgenre of horror known as body horror. Vincent Cunningham initiates the discussion by questioning the essence of body horror compared to other horror forms.

Vincent Cunningham [00:11]: "How would you sort of taxonomize and, like, just describe what body horror is as opposed to other forms of horror?"

Alexandra Schwartz defines body horror by emphasizing its focus on the grotesque and intimate transformations of the human body.

Alex Schwartz [00:50]: "Body horror is characterized by really grotesque, intimate things being done to bodies on screen... there are a variety of ways to do really grotesque and intimate to bodies on screen."

Noemi Fry adds examples from classic films to illustrate the subgenre's hallmarks, such as the unsettling imagery in A Clockwork Orange.

Noemi Fry [01:05]: "Like many have been explored to truly gruesome degrees... the sense of the body being pushed to an unnatural and inhuman extreme."

Exploring “The Substance”

The conversation shifts to the film “The Substance”, a recent release starring Demi Moore. Vincent Cunningham provides an overview of the movie, highlighting its controversial nature and thematic significance.

Vincent Cunningham [02:20]: "This is the substance. Spoiler alert. Things do not go how she wants it to go. It is not good."

Alexandra Schwartz summarizes the plot, detailing how the protagonist, Elizabeth Sparkle, engages with a transformative substance that splits her into her younger self and a more perfected version.

Alex Schwartz [09:19]: "Elizabeth is put out to pasture. She goes home to her massive apartment and is then turned onto this thing called the substance, which turns out to be an injectable where when you inject it, you are split into two."

Reactions and Analysis of “The Substance”

The hosts share their visceral reactions to the film, discussing its effectiveness in portraying body horror and its underlying themes.

Vincent Cunningham [08:22]: "I left the theater and went to the bathroom... I was shocked by the emotional impact it had on me."

Noemi Fry critiques the film's approach, questioning whether it serves as a meaningful critique or merely employs shock value.

Noemi Fry [14:37]: "I did think that it used a pretty, maybe pretty simple political message just to be about this nastiness."

Alexandra Schwartz references the director's artistic statement, emphasizing the personal fears and societal pressures surrounding aging and body image that the film addresses.

Alex Schwartz [18:54]: "She gave an artistic statement... about making a deal with the devil... paying the hell."

The discussion touches on the film’s portrayal of the male gaze and the spectacle of female aging.

Noemi Fry [19:37]: "The camera is kind of trying to make the viewer complicit in that, in this phenomenon."

Discussion of “A Different Man”

Following “The Substance,” the hosts examine another recent film, “A Different Man”, which explores themes of physical transformation and identity through the lens of a man undergoing experimental treatment for a facial disfigurement.

Vincent Cunningham [23:57]: "Edward... is trying to work as an actor, but he also notices that people... have these... visceral reactions to the way he looks."

Alexandra Schwartz provides a detailed synopsis, highlighting the protagonist’s transformation and the ensuing psychological turmoil.

Alex Schwartz [25:59]: "He undergoes an experimental medical treatment... and ends up meeting someone who actually has his condition, Oswald, played by Adam Pearson."

Societal Trends in Body Modification

The conversation broadens to address real-world trends in body modification, such as cosmetic surgery, weight loss drugs like Ozempic, and the pervasive influence of social media on body image.

Alex Schwartz [41:17]: "After the first year of COVID there was a 40% increase in facial plastic surgery compared to the previous year."

Noemi Fry reflects on the societal pressures that drive individuals towards extreme body modifications in the pursuit of standardized beauty.

Noemi Fry [42:23]: "It all serves to aid in a kind of survival of the fittest type competition... what’s wrong with you?"

The hosts discuss how these trends contribute to a homogenized aesthetic, diminishing individuality in favor of a factory-set standard of beauty.

Vincent Cunningham [46:09]: "It is about standards... What happens when what we used to call beauty norms and beauty standards is almost like a metaphor."

Conclusion: The Current State of Body Horror

In their final analysis, the hosts conclude that the current wave of body horror films serves as a mirror to society’s relentless pursuit of physical perfection and the internal conflicts it engenders. They ponder the broader implications of these narratives on our understanding of self-acceptance and the inherent unpredictability of the human body.

Alex Schwartz [48:41]: "We are embodied. It is a struggle. It is beautiful. It’s something to wrestle with forever."

Noemi Fry [49:56]: "It’s a disaster when you age, because it’s all you have, you know?"

The episode wraps up with acknowledgments of the production team and a teaser for the next week’s topic, ensuring listeners remain engaged and anticipating future discussions.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Vincent Cunningham [00:11]: "How would you sort of taxonomize and, like, just describe what body horror is as opposed to other forms of horror?"
• Alex Schwartz [09:19]: "Elizabeth is put out to pasture... split into two."
• Noemi Fry [14:37]: "I did think that it used a pretty, maybe pretty simple political message just to be about this nastiness."
• Alex Schwartz [18:54]: "She gave an artistic statement... about making a deal with the devil... paying the hell."
• Vincent Cunningham [23:57]: "Edward... is trying to work as an actor..."
• Alex Schwartz [41:17]: "After the first year of COVID there was a 40% increase in facial plastic surgery compared to the previous year."
• Noemi Fry [42:23]: "It all serves to aid in a kind of survival of the fittest type competition... what’s wrong with you?"
• Alex Schwartz [48:41]: "We are embodied. It is a struggle. It is beautiful. It’s something to wrestle with forever."
• Noemi Fry [49:56]: "It’s a disaster when you age, because it’s all you have, you know?"

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By providing a thorough exploration of both cinematic works and their real-world parallels, the hosts offer listeners a nuanced understanding of the contemporary body horror landscape and its reflection of societal anxieties surrounding self-image and bodily autonomy.

Transcript

[Alex Schwartz]

Welcome to Critics at Large, a podcast from the New Yorker. I'm Alex Schwartz.

[Noemi Fry]

I'm Noemi Fry.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And I'm Vincent Cunningham. Now, each week on this show, we make sense of what's happening in the culture right now and how we got here. I'm just, like, hesitating to even bring it up, but the three of us have spent the last few days immersing ourselves. I think really the right way to say it is subjecting ourselves, depending on kind of where you stand, to a specific subgenre of horror known as body horror. How would you. How would you sort of taxonomize and, like, just describe what body horror is as opposed to other forms of horror?

[Alex Schwartz]

Well, I think body horror is characterized by really grotesque, intimate things being done to bodies on screen, which sounds basic, and yet there are a variety of ways to do really grotesque and intimate to bodies on screen.

[Noemi Fry]

Right.

[Alex Schwartz]

So many of which have been explored to truly gruesome degrees.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

Like, one thing that just immediately came to my mind are the propped open eyeballs from A Clockwork Orange. Definitely the veins, the red veins starting to spider out and the tears starting to come. And that kind of the sense of the body being pushed to an unnatural and inhuman extreme.

[Vincent Cunningham]

That's right.

[Noemi Fry]

Yeah. Or even the idea of a body lacking containment. Right. The body flayed open or the body becoming mutable and raw in ways which we aren't used to being confronted with, I think is one thing that characterizes the subgenre.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Right. And success in it is to make you sort of squirm and feel uncomfortable and less at home in your own body. And, you know, body heart is having a real moment right now, which is why we're talking about it. There is a new film out called the Subject. You may have heard about it. It's very controversial. People are really chattering about this movie. It stars Demi Moore as an aging actress who makes a sort of technologically driven Faustian bargain to unleash a younger, spryer, quote, unquote, more perfect version of herself.

[Alex Schwartz]

One single injection unlocks your DNA and.

[Noemi Fry]

Will release another version of yourself.

[Vincent Cunningham]

This is the substance. Spoiler alert. Things do not go how she wants it to go. It is not good.

[Noemi Fry]

There's been a slight misuse of the substance. And how.

[Vincent Cunningham]

As we're gonna talk about today, this is a bit of a thematic trend in movies right now. There's another film just out called A Different man, about a lonely guy who undergoes an experimental medical trial to change his physical appearance. This drug seems to have the Potential to actually heal you. The implications are life changing. The face has fallen off in clumps. I'm sure it only looks like clumps to you. Perhaps any potential risk is worth the reward. What these two movies share is a fixation on the lengths that we all go to to shape our own images, to bring them closer to what we think other people want to see. One thing I was thinking of as I watched is how it's easier for all of us and more common for all of us than ever to go to pretty deep extremes in modifying our bodies, whether through surgery or drugs like Ozempic or airbrushing apps that make us more Instagram ready. What I want to talk about is whether there is, like, on the horizon, a whole new way of thinking about bodies. One that that kind of changes for good our conceptions of what it means to be at home in ourselves and whether technology is hastening that change. That's today on Critics at Large. The Substance and the horror of the modified body. Okay, before I start my campaign of relentless self recrimination, forever stepping foot into a theater where the substance is playing.

[Noemi Fry]

Oh my God. Strong words, fighting words.

[Alex Schwartz]

Right out of the gate.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Before all of that, just curious, where do you guys generally fall on horror movies? I know some people try to stay away from them as a rule. Some people are obsessed with them. What's your deal with horror movies?

[Noemi Fry]

I like horror movies. I'm not a huge connoisseur. I don't think I've seen the full corpus by any means. I guess my feeling about it is that it gives us a set of tools to talk about social and cultural problems and changes through the lens of whether it's like gross out horror, you know, like body horror, whether it's sort of like serial killer type, you know, sort of like knife in the dark type stuff, you know, whatever. Whatever subgenre we're talking about with horror. I think it's kind of like, I kind of like genre in general or kind of like reduced genre or like, you know, somewhat trashy genre. So I embrace horror in that regard. Yeah, yeah.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Alex. Har. Yay. Nay.

[Alex Schwartz]

So my life was ruined for a time.

[Noemi Fry]

Oh, no.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Oh, no.

[Alex Schwartz]

Because I saw Psycho at the age of 12.

[Noemi Fry]

So. Okay, yes.

[Alex Schwartz]

Too early is a mistake.

[Noemi Fry]

Is a mistake.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah. And, you know, the boundary between the real and imagined was extremely porous for me as a kid. And so when that happened and at the same birthday party that that was.

[Noemi Fry]

It was at a birthday party.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yes, it was.

[Vincent Cunningham]

That's always where like the Bad stuff gets in.

[Alex Schwartz]

We watched Psycho at night and Carrie in the morning, so you can't wait. Horror was something I had to stay away from for many, many years. And then much more recently I've gotten more into horror and I'm really open to it now in a way that I was absolutely closed before.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Okay.

[Alex Schwartz]

And the other thing that I am into body movies in general. I first became aware of the genre of body horror by watching an episode of Ren and Stimpy, which I was absolutely not allowed to watch as a child. So I don't even know how this came to me. And there's one where. Who's the little one? Is it Wren?

[Noemi Fry]

That's Ren.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah. So there's this episode called Wren's Pecs in which Ren wants to have huge pecs because he wants to go to Hollywood and basically be like this, you know, oh, my God, amazing, big buff guy. And so he has to get extra flesh to flesh himself out. And he gets it from Stimpy's butt.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Your fat cells.

[Noemi Fry]

Don't worry, Wren. After all, I am a card carrying professional donor.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Oz, Stimpy, you are my true friend.

[Alex Schwartz]

And so there's a scene where they're just like carving Stimpy's butt or using needles to kind of eject Ren with Stimpy, welp, the patient's open and receptive pectoral implant material. And that the grossness of that has indeed stayed with me.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Usually the horror movies that really fuck me up are the ones that are, like, paranormal, that are, like, about fear and ghosts and the spiritual world and the invisible or whatever. That's what really scares me. And I'm really more worried about the parts before the scares than I am about the scares themselves. Like, it's like very. I guess it's very Roosevelt of me. You know, like, the only thing to fear is fear itself.

[Alex Schwartz]

Right.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It turns out to be true of me. Okay, so let's get into it. Our first object of consideration today, the substance. This is the sophomore film by a pervert named Coralie Farja, who wrote and directed this movie, which is in theaters now. Would anybody like to synopsize this work of absolute depravity?

[Alex Schwartz]

Wow. Vincent is. Vincent is not just putting English on the wall.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Vincent.

[Alex Schwartz]

Vincent.

[Noemi Fry]

Not gilding the lily.

[Alex Schwartz]

Oh, yeah.

[Noemi Fry]

He's not mincing words. He's being full throated.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I left the theater and went to the bathroom at Alamo. And on my way out, there were three young girls, one of whom was just on the floor with her head not crying.

[Noemi Fry]

On the floor, like lying down on.

[Vincent Cunningham]

The floor, sort of in the position of knees in her chest. Sitting on the floor with her knees up, holding herself with her hands in her head like a depression era mother. Just thinking about, just thinking about what life now entailed for her.

[Noemi Fry]

Oh my God, I came out like punching the air.

[Alex Schwartz]

Well, this could be the difference between, I mean, I think what age?

[Noemi Fry]

Fuck yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

I think the age of which you see this movie matters. Okay, I'm. I'm going to. I have feelings about this movie. I think Nomi and Vincent's feelings are probably a tad stronger than mine. So I'm going to attempt a synopsis.

[Noemi Fry]

Yes, please.

[Alex Schwartz]

How about that? You guys up to fight? So this movie is about a former actress who has then gone on to become a kind of fitness TV person whose name is Elizabeth Sparkle. She's played by Demi Moore. At the start of the movie, we see her doing her fitness program. It's very 80s Jane Fonda. There are ankle warmers involved in this kind of insanely high cut spandex leotards. And she is told by the executive of the company where she works, a man by the unsubtle name of Harvey, played by Dennis Quaid, that she is now too old to be doing this business.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And I have to give people what they want. That's what keeps the shareholders happy. And people always ask for something new. Renewal, it's inevitable at 50.

[Alex Schwartz]

Well.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It stops.

[Noemi Fry]

What stops?

[Vincent Cunningham]

What, what stops? You know, the.

[Alex Schwartz]

That is not answered. But you can imagine life for a woman, you know, menopause, therefore death. Yes. So Elizabeth is put out to pasture. She goes home to her massive apartment and is then turned onto this thing called the substance, which turns out to be an injectable where when you inject it, you are split into two. The old version of you and a young, beautiful, perfected version of you. You have to, it turns out, give birth to this other person through your own spine. So we get some real cracking open of the body.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It's the first real moment.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah. And it's sort of like. Yeah, A full grown woman emerges from the spine.

[Noemi Fry]

Cri crack.

[Alex Schwartz]

Cri crack.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Is that the spine?

[Alex Schwartz]

That's the spine. Just cri crack and open. And this other self is played by Margaret Qualley. She goes by the name Sue. And here's the catch. The catch is that the two selves share sort of a life. So one can go out and be in the world for seven days and then has to give life over to the other one. They are told that they absolutely cannot disobey the seven day rule. And in the meantime, the body who's off duty is kind of just schlumped insensate on the bathroom floor, wherever, you know, she might be, and has to be injected with a kind of liquid food and also has to be punctured by a needle so that substance from her can be taken and ingested by the other one. And this is how it's supposed to work. Obviously, it doesn't all go to plan. The Margaret Qualley figure wants to keep staying out and about, much like a teen with a curfew, longer and longer. And that, it turns out, has some real ramifications for Elizabeth.

[Noemi Fry]

Very good, Alex, thank you.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Very good. Those consequences are that it steals her life force and she turns slowly and slowly into a witch in a. In a fairy tale, of which this movie is sort of a specimen. This is like totally. The texture is that of fairy tale. Didn't you feel that way, Nomi, that it's like.

[Noemi Fry]

Yeah, it's a fable in a lot of ways. And it's a fable. And there's also kind of like the vibe is very much like the witch's curse or, you know. Yeah, it's like Faust or it's like the picture of Dorian Gray or any of those metaphors for, you know, making a deal with the devil. Much like Led Zeppelin in their prime.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Famously.

[Noemi Fry]

Yes, famously. In order to be successful, young, beautiful, there's always hell to pay, you know, and the Demi Moore character is paying the hell.

[Alex Schwartz]

Let's say, for example, when the Margaret Qualley character first wants to stay beyond her seven days and extracts even more spinal fluid and shoves it into her thigh to be able to do that. Finally, when she trades places and Elizabeth Sparkle, Demi Moore wakes up, she discovers that her index finger on one of her hands has been shriveled, but also kind of.

[Noemi Fry]

It's like green.

[Alex Schwartz]

It's become the finger of an old crone. It has like a yellowing, brittle nail on it, and it has all kinds of arthritic lumps and bumps.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yes.

[Alex Schwartz]

And she looks at this as if she spread another head from her hand. She's horrified that this could happen. Yeah.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And there's a shot on the finger, like the initial finger moment. There's a shot that just goes from the fucked up, slightly crooked fingernail on down the finger where the locus of this moment of body horror is aging itself. It's just like the actual dermis, right?

[Alex Schwartz]

Yes, totally.

[Vincent Cunningham]

That's the horror.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah.

[Noemi Fry]

I mean, it's all part of kind of the swirl of the vocabulary that this movie traffics in and that it's. It tries to make its point through. But, Vinson.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Noemi Fry]

Why is this movie so depraved, in your opinion?

[Vincent Cunningham]

Well, first of all, it did to me the thing that I don't like, which is like. And it's weird because that it did this through gore, which is usually something that does not bother me. But there are some really revolting images in this movie.

[Noemi Fry]

It's pretty gross.

[Vincent Cunningham]

The increasing levels of, like, pus and sort of dry skin of this spinal hole into which sue keeps, like, jamming these needles to draw more life force from Elizabeth Sparkle. Just like pus has never. It's just so disgusting. And I find myself like, a junkie's.

[Noemi Fry]

Infected track mark, basically.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And I just found myself body hurting from how hard. I was just, like, preparing for the next moment, like that. I was like, oh, God, it's gonna come. It's gonna happen. So, yes, depraved in that way and in that way, effective. I don't mean to say that I thought the movie was bad, but I did think that it used a pretty, maybe pretty simple political message just to be about this nastiness. I think it might be. We might. For me, I was like, am I experiencing a novel political phenomenon or am I just watching somebody, like, ride on a very common set of ideas to fuck with me visually? Well, can you just, like, how much does Farjack actually care about the male gaze? The sort of. The spectacle of female aging, all of the other things where it's like, here's something that's, like, ripe for transformation into something that I can just, like, mess with people? Or is that a fucked up dichotomy? And I shouldn't be thinking like that.

[Noemi Fry]

It seemed opportunistic to you, in other words.

[Alex Schwartz]

Okay, okay, so you mean that. Yeah, it's not revelation, but what ideas are you talking about? Because, like, what do you think the ideas of the movie are?

[Vincent Cunningham]

So I'll talk about one sort of thing about the movie, the sort of one sci fi element of the movie that actually did change my ideas about something. And then I'll be like. Then I'll ask, does the movie do. Enough of this. Okay, so the substance is a subscription service. Yes, hello.

[Noemi Fry]

I'd like to order. Address? 1057 Beverly Canyon.

[Alex Schwartz]

Write this down. 35 North. Byron Alley.

[Noemi Fry]

35 North.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It's almost like it made me think of, like, GOOP or something where, like, you get some, like, sort of supplement that's Supposed to change your life. And I thought that was really interesting. Right. Certain forms of. New forms of being a consumer feed this effect in us. Feed the sort of. The sides of us that are. Are dysmorphia of various kinds or whatever. But I just wonder if the movie did enough of that. If it was trying to do that. Change my ideas about the present or if it was just trying to use the present in order to freak me out. Does that make sense? Yeah. I don't know. So does it work as critique or is it trying to be critique? Am I asking for something that the movie does not want to give me?

[Noemi Fry]

It's definitely trying to be critique. I think for me, the movie maybe as a woman in her 40s, not to pull that trump card.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It's just. That's a fact about you.

[Noemi Fry]

It's just a fact. It's just a fact. Younger than ever.

[Vincent Cunningham]

That's right.

[Noemi Fry]

Life supple. Anyway, moving on. I found the movie to be a total gross romp. But I do think is ultimately in the service of a strong critique of what it means to be. I mean, not just an aging woman. I think a woman in general, but also mostly. Yeah. A woman who is aging past her quote, unquote, sell by date, you know.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Noemi Fry]

But I do think it gets at something very real.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah. I mean, the movie was certainly made as a critique. Coralie Farja, the director, has said that explicitly. She gave an artistic statement when the movie opened at Cannes this past spring, saying that when she hit 40, she started to have these feelings of horror and self revulsion. That the idea that her body was going to kind of just keep aging and what the aging process was like. And then she had that kind of double horror. Wow. Why do I feel this way? How is it that I've so internalized these messages from society that I am disgusted at myself? And so the film, you know, the film has that. It doesn't have many ideas, which I'm okay with. I don't need it to be a bunch of ideas. Yeah.

[Noemi Fry]

It's certainly a blunt instrument.

[Alex Schwartz]

It's a blunt instrument. But I would also, you know. So I enjoyed the movie. I really did like it a lot. I thought that the grotesque high gloss of it also. It's not just disgusting things, but some of the things that are allegedly the least disgusting are kind of the most. Like the way the movie ogles, the way the camera ogles the body of Margaret Qualley. Especially when she is on the dance floor doing her new fitness routine. You just are basically pressed face first into her flesh, just staring at her. You know, the idea is like, eat it up. This is youth, this is beauty.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And the technical term is we're up her ass a lot.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, thank you, Vincent. That's exactly right. And I think. No, you're completely right. And I think the camera is kind of trying to make the viewer complicit in that, in this phenomenon. I don't know. The movie is not really. I mean, this movie is not trying to propose an alternative completely. It's just supposed to show you the extremes of this experience. But the reason why body is so important is because there is nothing else going on in these people's lives. There is no soul in their lives. There is no inner life. There is no mind. There is no pursuit, aside from television, watching television, being on television. You know what happens to the body during aging? Yeah, these things can be very distressing. I think the compensation is that you have a whole other life. And it's like the life that happens inside your body that your body facilitates and enables. And, you know, of course, such a life, naturally, is nowhere to be seen. And what's so bleak about the movie, it's this sense that nothing can compensate. The body itself is not a pleasure. It's not even a pleasure to have it. Like, there are a lot of. A lot of what Margaret Qualley's character does is kind of just marvel at herself, her own. Like she is the external gaze looking at herself, male, female, whatever it is, because there's no one inside to see out.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Critics at large will be right back. In a few words, though, can you tease the movie you want to talk about? Just give us a hint where you're going.

[Alex Schwartz]

What if a woman conceived a child with an automobile and also enjoyed ending the lives of others by using a chopstick that she otherwise employs to keep her hair in a very nice French twist?

[Vincent Cunningham]

God damn, you know that you want to hear it. Stick around.

[Alex Schwartz]

Hi, this is David Remnick. I'm proud to share the news that.

[Noemi Fry]

Three films from the New Yorker documentary.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Series have been shortlisted for the Academy Awards.

[Noemi Fry]

And they are incident, seat 31, Zoe Zephyr and Eternal Father.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And they all immerse you in the finest cinematic journalism, exploring themes of justice, identity, and the bonds that shape us. These extraordinary films, which were created by.

[Alex Schwartz]

Established filmmakers as well as emerging artists.

[Noemi Fry]

Will inform, challenge and move you. I encourage you to watch them along.

[Vincent Cunningham]

With our full slate of documentary and narrative [e-mail] video. This week's episode is sponsored by Neon's film Presence. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by David Koepp, Presence is a thrilling new ghost story about a family that moves into a new home and becomes convinced they are not alone. Starring Lucy Liu, Chris Sullivan and Julia Fox, Presence has been hailed as one of the scariest movies you'll see this year. Experience it in theaters on January 24. So, as I said, we've all been kind of on our own journeys of discovery, really, you know, stepping into our own bodies over the past couple of days. Prepping for this episode. Another film we watched. I actually watched it right before I watched the Substance. I did a little.

[Noemi Fry]

Okay, sicko.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I know, I know. Did a little doubleheader. Is a Different man, which is also just out in theaters. So in this movie, we have Edward. He is a man who lives alone, and he has a facial disfigurement, a genetic disorder. It's called neurofibromatosis. He is trying to work as an actor, but he also notices that people sort of have these, like, sort of visceral reactions to the way he looks.

[Alex Schwartz]

People can be cruel.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I imagine all unhappiness in life comes from not accepting what is. You all told me that Lady Gaga. People stare at him on the subway. He meets a neighbor who we later come to know, and she kind of screams when she first sees him. But he undergoes an experimental medical treatment. He takes a medicine that changes his appearance. This whole sort of, like, palimpsest of tumors and growths on his face. In the one moment, I think in this movie that can be called body horror, we see him just peeling it off, first in sort of translucent sheets and then in clumps. And then we see the very typically handsome face of Sebastian Stan. So then we see him living a sort of typical life. He brings women home, and he sort of is kind of reveling in his new sort of standard attractiveness. The neighbor who I just mentioned, who first screamed at his appearance, but later they kind of become friends, she's a playwright, and she has written a play called Edward about Edward, who now goes by the name Guy. And he starts to act in this play, which sort of moves him into the next sort of sequence in the movie, is that I would add one.

[Alex Schwartz]

Thing, which is that the movie kind of operates with a sort of switcheroo, which is that when Guy, the former Edward, then Guy, becomes this very conventional, handsome man because his condition had rendered him disfigured. His head was lumpy. One of his eyes was basically shut. Tumors Were growing kind of all over his face. Once he looks like Sebastian Stan, he ends up meeting someone who in real life does have his condition. The character in the movie is called Oswald. He's played by the English actor Adam Pearson, who does have neurofibromatosis. And the twist is that Oswald loves life. I guess they didn't teach you accents.

[Vincent Cunningham]

That Juilliard really go. I had an affinity for accents as a child, like moving around a lot. And it just sort of blossomed into one of my many useless talents. What's your other talent? Oh, well, I can go it off yodeling. I can juggle, I can sing, I can play sax. I'm no Coltrane and I'm learning to weave.

[Noemi Fry]

I'm ashamed to say, oh, what can't you do?

[Vincent Cunningham]

I mean, I can't whistle.

[Alex Schwartz]

I can teach you.

[Vincent Cunningham]

You.

[Noemi Fry]

You just put yours together.

[Alex Schwartz]

Where Edward was painfully shy, felt deeply stigmatized, and kind of was self stigmatized. It seems that Oswald totally embraces life. He has all these different skills. He's extremely charming. He has a nice English accent, which he's come by honestly because he's English. And he kind of sweeps in and basically seems to be living the life that Edward never believed was available. But here it's happening in front of his very eyes. And that experience is what drives Edward now Guy, increasingly insane, basically with jealousy, with confusion, with self hatred, with all the rest of it.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah. You know, which to me, you know, one of the visual themes of this movie, and it also is like later on pronounced out loud, is at the very beginning of the movie, one of the women that is looking at him is reading the book the Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison's first novel about a young girl named Pecola Breedlove, who all she wants, she's like been sexually abused by her father, all these horrible things. But she wants blue eyes. She's a young black girl who wants blue eyes and then is given them. And then all of the sort of strangeness that ensues from that. And it strikes me that this movie is kind of at the beginning, the first half of the movie before he changes. And then we meet Oswald and all that. It feels like it's about kind of disfigurement. It's about like isolation. But then it matures sort of into being a movie about identity. It really does. What it reminded me the most about was like the racial passing novels of the 20s and 30s by someone like Nella Larson in her novel Passing, for example, where it's like the person who Passes out of their. Out of. Not necessarily a disfigurement, but something that could be understood as an identity. Then has it shown to him that you could have been okay how you were?

[Noemi Fry]

Yeah, I guess I underst. I totally. I think you're right completely in kind of, like, pointing out the main kind of ideas that the movie seems to kind of, you know, signal at. But for me, the movie itself just really toppled under these different conceits. I think they're all there, and each of them could have been developed into a more coherent whole. But for me, it was very unevenly, kind of, like, distributed and, like, sewn together. I was like, am I supposed to. You know, there's parts that are, like, clearly supposed to be satirical and funny. And I was like, okay, but, like, how does this jibe with other. With stuff that's actually, like, really distressing? You know what I mean? Like, it's actually. I was like, wait, this is. You know. And I feel like I understood what the movie was trying to do, but to me, the way it connected these different kind of tendencies ultimately kind of fell flat.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Alex, what are you. You're looking off wistfully. I want to know what you felt about a different man.

[Alex Schwartz]

I'm just drinking up everything Nomi has to say, frankly, because I hated this mo.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I hate it, too.

[Noemi Fry]

I hated it, too.

[Alex Schwartz]

I hated it.

[Noemi Fry]

Okay.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Oh, I did not hate it.

[Alex Schwartz]

And I'm gonna choke, you guys.

[Vincent Cunningham]

But okay, please, please, please, okay, please.

[Noemi Fry]

Articulate what I wasn't able to because I was like, I can't believe I'm.

[Alex Schwartz]

Just breathing calmly to try to, you know.

[Noemi Fry]

Yeah, I was like, I can't believe everybody said this was, like, a fantastic movie, because I was already. And in the beginning, I was, like, kind of on board, you know? But then I was just like, what the fuck is going on here? Like, what is this movie trying to say? Like, you have this Oswald character who, by the way, never shuts the fuck up. Like, he's supp. He's, like, supposed to be this, like, you know, urbane, like, happy. Go. Lucky British man who has this, like, you know, condition and yet is, like, he's made some money in investments in university, you know, or whatever. I'm like, what the fuck are we talking about here? You know? Like, in what point are we making here? So are we saying, oh, it's great to be disfigured? And it's actually, like, if you change your attitude, it's a walk in the park.

[Alex Schwartz]

So this is my. I like how I'm screaming, I'm loving it. This is bringing me around to the locus of what I so dislike and sort of abhor in this movie. Nomi. So the movie works according to this principle that, you know, it's very much, be careful what you wish for. Same as with the substance. Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it. And then what would you do? But the way that the movie shows the consequences of this are to introduce this kind of doppelganger who is as delightful and light on his feet and charming and happy and able to enjoy life as the former Edward was not. But what it doesn't do is explain why. And what it doesn't do is locate any of that in the human interior. And so instead, you just have this incredibly superficial parable that is about surfaces. And yet I found it to be grotesquely, just grotesquely inhumane in the way it dealt with each of these characters. To me, it reminded me of the power of positive thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. One of the great American lies.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Trump's past it.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yes. Which is, if only you go in with a great attitude, if only you put a smile on your face, if only you call people by their first name, you know, and shake their hands, life is gonna be just grand for you. Don't worry about any other causes, don't worry about any structural inequalities, don't worry about any kind of ways of seeing. Because we're talking about in both of these movies being obsessed with how others see you and only being able to look through their eyes. And what's implied is that Oswald is able to look through his own eyes and just feel happy. Go lucky. And so in a weird way, it completely blames, I felt, the character of Edward for not being able to have a commencement likeness, for not being able to just grin and get on with it and pretend stuff is cool, when actually you can see that stuff is very much not cool. I do think, though, Vincent, that your comparison to Works of Passing is really fascinating and interesting. Cause the one thing that I would say differently than what you said before is I don't think the moral of the. Of Works of Passing is, look, you could have been so happy if you just stayed where you are.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Not always.

[Alex Schwartz]

Not always. But I think the moral is really the change you undergo is going to be such a harm to your soul and shake you from any rightful way either. In an ideal scenario, you're gonna be. We're talking about works of racial passing. So in an ideal scenario, you'll live a White life. Meaning you'll be living a lie and, you know, you'll be. That is its own kind of body horror. You're gonna be split in two like, you know, kind of like the substance, weirdly. And that, I think, is communicated in this movie, that if you betray what you are, things will not end well.

[Vincent Cunningham]

When we're back, horror in the era of body plasticity. Don't go away. Sit your body right there. Listen to some advertisements, and then bring that right back and listen to critics at large from the New Yorker. The Run Through Evogue is where you'll.

[Noemi Fry]

Meet all the most exciting people in fashion and culture. I am Fran Leibowitz.

[Vincent Cunningham]

We should be the mayor of New York.

[Alex Schwartz]

We all support that.

[Noemi Fry]

We support that. Very nice, Nikki.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yes.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It's been really great being in this beautiful pink room.

[Noemi Fry]

All right, Usher, can you hear us?

[Vincent Cunningham]

I can hear you.

[Noemi Fry]

All right.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Can you hear me?

[Noemi Fry]

We can. We can.

[Vincent Cunningham]

All right, here we are.

[Noemi Fry]

On the podcast, you'll learn how Vogue really works.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Sometimes we'll come in for a second.

[Noemi Fry]

Or even third run through until we are awok.

[Alex Schwartz]

Can you tell us what awok means?

[Vincent Cunningham]

It means aw. Ok. And I went to ok. I'm Cho Menardi.

[Noemi Fry]

And I'm Chloe Mel.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And we're the hosts of the Run through with Vogue, where fashion and culture collide.

[Noemi Fry]

Join us. It's awok.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. All right, given everything we've said, what exactly then is the horror? Guys, I guess this is what I really want to know. What is the horror in body horror right now?

[Noemi Fry]

I think there's the drama of difference. There's obviously, like, it's almost moot to say that the sort of, like, we need to accept everyone as they are, you know, discourse of diversity and, you know, and all that goes along with it is in some ways, you know, very much significant, you know, and is taught and is, you know, kind of passed around as gospel. But I think what these movies are showing us and what this moment of body horror is showing us, there is something very fearsome about difference still, whether it's the difference of being like a woman who is different from the kind of the category of the feminine ideal, right? Whether it's a man like Edward who differs from the kind of mainstream conceptions of quote, unquote, normalcy. Both of these movies make a point about that through body horrific exaggeration and grotesquery.

[Alex Schwartz]

I do think that a lot of the latest crop of body horror movies are looking at female experience. There are Women directors, often younger women directors who are kind of staring this right in the face. I'm thinking not just of the substance, but also a movie I saw recently called Titane by another French director, Juliet de Cornault. Titane is a very interesting movie. It came out in 2021. I remember when it came out because I just knew there was a movie that everyone was saying a woman has sex with a car in. I was like, what could that mean? And after seeing the movie, I'm still not 100% positive. But basically, in Titan, what happens is this young girl gets into a car crash at the start of the movie. She seems to be sociopathic. She has a titanium plate placed in her head. That's what Titan means in French, titanium. And as an adult, she is a kind of exotic dancer who works at auto shows. And whenever anyone tries to make close, intimate contact with her, whether it's threatening or unthreatening, she ends up killing them using a chopstick that she sticks through their ear or throat or any other, you know, orifice or place that might present itself. Meanwhile, she's pregnant with the car, and so something is growing inside of her. She, after causing great destruction, starts to pass as a young boy. She does this thing. Part of the horror of the movie is because she's passing as male. She is trying to bind her body, both her breasts and her stomach, and flatten them. So it's like this grotesque trying to suppress her gender in order to keep passing. And that's really painful to see. I mean, look, we all modify our bodies. I think that's a huge part of this. Body modification is to be human in all different kinds of ways. If you shave your legs, if you brush your hair. Guys, look at the world we're living in. I, at the age of 37am Like, I haven't done Botox in my forehead yet.

[Noemi Fry]

I know what's wrong with you?

[Alex Schwartz]

Is that a problem?

[Vincent Cunningham]

Is that bad?

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, Is that bad? And then I think to myself, no. I'm like, I am just living in my body and. But I've done, you know, I don't know, I've gotten some laser hair removal. Can I just confess it on air? Like, where does one draw the line? It's very confusing. How are we supposed to look? How are we supposed to be? How are we supposed to accept these bodies?

[Noemi Fry]

It's really confusing. And I think the line has been kind of pushed extremely quickly. I don't know if you remember this, but this was in the early to mid aughts. There Was a show on mtv. It was the Real Life franchise. But I believe this particular episode was called Real Life. I want a perfect body.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I don't know if I saw that. I've seen many.

[Noemi Fry]

Yeah.

[Alex Schwartz]

You remember this?

[Vincent Cunningham]

I'm not sure if I. Yeah, yeah. Oh, God. Real Life. Great. Great franchise.

[Noemi Fry]

Great show.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Don't know if I've seen this one.

[Noemi Fry]

So I remember there was a particular guy, and I literally think about him like, once a week for whatever reason. This was like, 20 years ago. Like a young sort of bro y, like, broad chested, you know, like, you know, hunk quote, unquote. But he hated that his calves were skinny. When I'm at the gym, I do.

[Vincent Cunningham]

A very hard training routine.

[Alex Schwartz]

And every day that I lift, I.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Train my calves first.

[Noemi Fry]

And when you do that day in.

[Vincent Cunningham]

And day out for five or six.

[Noemi Fry]

Years, you don't see any progression or any growth.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It really does put a big question.

[Noemi Fry]

Mark in your head of what to.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Do or where to go from here.

[Noemi Fry]

And so he was seeking calf implants because he wanted. He kept saying that he wants to be the total package.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah, okay, me too. My workouts have been better than ever.

[Alex Schwartz]

Watching people look at my legs and notice that something's different.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It just really feels good to show.

[Alex Schwartz]

Them off and say, hey, look it, check it out.

[Vincent Cunningham]

I got a nice, calm, total packages there.

[Alex Schwartz]

Do I quit working out and say.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Screw it or just keep going?

[Noemi Fry]

And I remember it seemed to me like, absolutely fantastic, you know, and it was obviously presented as kind of an extreme, extreme version of, like, kind of. I mean, this was 20 years ago, but now, as you say, Alex, you're 37, you old crone. I can't believe you haven't gotten Botox yet. You know, if you haven't gotten botox by the time you're like, 28, as a professional woman in a coastal elite, what's wrong with you?

[Alex Schwartz]

I mean, we're kidding about it, but we do have numbers on our side. Like, what you say, Naomi, is true. It is the number of interventions, cosmetic interventions, that exist and the number of people taking advantage of them have both totally exploded. Like, we know right now that after the first year of COVID there was a 40% increase in facial plastic surgery compared to the previous year.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Right.

[Alex Schwartz]

I mean, what do we do with that number? Is it because people were looking at their faces in zoom squares? I would say probably, possibly. It's a time in which more things are available, but also, we're looking at ourselves so much more with selfies, with social Media with looking at, you know, the kind of widespread dysmorphia of looking at other people who have either had digital or real enhancements. You know, Ozempic has been a huge thing in the past year. This basically allegedly miracle drug that allows for dramatic weight loss. But like, I'm also thinking of what was the deal with buccal fat removal last year?

[Noemi Fry]

Because it's trends, remember that when people.

[Alex Schwartz]

Of course it's trends, but like trends that are more accessible and seem to be sold as more necessary in some way than ever before. Like I understand a trend being like getting a septum piercing, a trend being like take the fat out of your cheek so that you can have a more defined, chiseled look. That's quite a trend.

[Noemi Fry]

Yeah. And it all serves to aid in a kind of like survival of the fittest type competition, it seems, because it's like. What do you mean you have like a round face.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Round.

[Noemi Fry]

Why isn't it as sleek and, you know, aerodynamic as a young seal's? You know, like remove whatever fat pads you have in the thing and like, you know, put filler in your whatever because otherwise what's wrong? You're kind of like being left behind with your like God given face, you know, and what's wrong with you and the other side of it. And you know, like our colleague Gia Tolentino five years ago, you know, wrote this viral essay about Instagram face for the website, for the New Yorker website which talked about this aesthetic of sameness. It was this sort of like feline, upswept, you know, kind of like aerodynamic facial features that have become more and more common and shared among more and more women in this era of kind of injectables and so on. It's like literally everybody looks the same. It's crazy. Like, actually just today I saw a picture from Paris Fashion Week and it said like Paris Jackson, you know, Michael Jackson's daughter, like sitting, you know, front row at whatever, like Stella McCartney or something. And I was like, that's Paris Jackson. I thought that was Victoria Beckham. I was like, I don't recognize her.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah, it does seem that there are more ways and more ways that you just like weirdly discover that people have started. I mean, not unlike the sort of buccal fat removal of the fat in the face. I've learned that guys are out here getting. Did you know that you can get a height implant that you can. I mean people are like a height imp.

[Noemi Fry]

Oh, like legs, the stretching of the legs.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Like there's like adding My eyes are wide open. Artificially tall men among us. All kinds of things that.

[Noemi Fry]

Not to mention the turkey hair transplant revolution.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Hair transplant, all kinds of things. Now, we should say that part of this revolution is. This goes back to our talk about identity before, is enabling people who feel true dysphoria, trans people and others who are allowing real flourishing in the lives of some people. And that's fantastic. But it does seem like the presence, the sheer technological presence of all these different ways to make ourselves, as you said, Nomi, earlier, different than we have been or are.

[Noemi Fry]

But difference in the service of often of sameness. You know what I mean?

[Vincent Cunningham]

Right, right, right, right.

[Noemi Fry]

Or standardized, I guess I would say.

[Vincent Cunningham]

It's so funny, I should just say.

[Alex Schwartz]

About all these movies, which is, to me, horrifying things.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Standardizing.

[Noemi Fry]

Standardizing.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah, that. That's so true. And it did make me think. One thing that I thought about these movies is like, why is everybody white in them? And I was like, oh, wait, they're about typicality. They're about like, what is the typical. What is this? Like, they. It kind of like in order to set a control for just like, who people want to be like, it has to kind of be like that. But yeah, it is about standards in this, like, very. Like, what happens when what we used to call beauty norms and beauty standards is almost like a metaphor. What happens when all of a sudden it is possible to look like there is a factory set standard. It's like a really scary thought.

[Alex Schwartz]

You know, we're at a time, because of all these options for modification, when we're kind of sold this illusion that we all have more power over our bodies, and yet bodies still disobey. You know, bodies are unruly. Bodies do not do what you want them to do at all times. Bodies betray you, bodies embarrass you, bodies gross you out and other people out. And so that, I think, is why this genre has a lot of territory to work with at the moment. Some of the interventions, it did not strike me as surprising that someone would go for the substance, not knowing anything about the substance. No, it did not strike me as surprising that someone would be sold like, you know, a miracle injection that might be able to change a facial disfigurement, you know, every day.

[Noemi Fry]

It's every day, bro.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yeah, but as Jake Paul would say, every day. And again, it kind of comes back to this idea of, you know, but what is changing about you? If the surface is changing, what is changing within? And I think the kind of horror idea maybe is like nothing, maybe that there is no fundamental change. I mean, every time we talk about this kind of modification, I still think about that billionaire Brian Johnson, who I think we've talked about on the show before.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Yeah, he's a friend of Pod.

[Noemi Fry]

He's a recurring character.

[Alex Schwartz]

He's an anti hero on the pod.

[Vincent Cunningham]

No, if we're still doing this podcast on 150 years, it's his fault. Continue.

[Alex Schwartz]

Yes, basically, he will still look as.

[Noemi Fry]

Fresh as a daisy.

[Alex Schwartz]

I would say he's a nemesis.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Okay, fair enough.

[Alex Schwartz]

Is that possible? Yeah. He basically has a lot of money and he's using it to inject himself with all kinds of plasma and blood, much of it obtained from his own son in an effort to live forever. And he seems to believe that he will.

[Noemi Fry]

Hello, the substance.

[Alex Schwartz]

Hello, the substance. Hello, extraordinary hubris. Yeah. The other thing about the substance, I think, is that it is about the relationship between generations. Are you living at my expense? You know, in this case, there really is the symbiotic thing going on between this guy, Brian Johnson and his son, who's donating his own biomatter to enable his father not merely to live forever, but to. To be this, you know, like, weirdly.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Wet looking, gray figure. It's like you are literally a vampire. Don't you get it? Don't you realize it?

[Alex Schwartz]

I know, and I'm not trying to just judge this one guy, but I think it's fine. Okay, but just. That's not even big enough for what I wanna do.

[Noemi Fry]

Yeah, it's an extreme extreme.

[Alex Schwartz]

But what I wanna ask is, I think kind of like the human journey. This is how big I'm going.

[Vincent Cunningham]

The human journey.

[Noemi Fry]

You know, from the dawn of time, we are embo.

[Alex Schwartz]

We are embodied. It is a struggle. It is beautiful. It's something to wrestle with forever. And I think even just as you think that you've caught up to your current embodiment, something changes. And so how do we make our peace with it? And I do. It brings me back to what you were saying before, Nomi, I'm into this now. I'm like, yeah, these movies may help us weirdly make our peace with it.

[Noemi Fry]

I'm telling you, I came out of the substance and I was like punk rock. And what you said, Alex, was so inspiring, how there's no interior in this movie. And that's why, of course, it's a disaster when you age, because it's all you have, you know? And again, what a fool's errand to just put all your chips on the surface. It's not gonna end well.

[Vincent Cunningham]

This has been Critics at Large. Our senior producer is Rhiannon Corby and Alex Barish is our consulting editor. Our executive producer is Stephen Valentino. Conde Nasts head of Global audio is Chris Bannon. Alexis Quadrado composed our theme music. We had engineering help today from James Yost with mixing by Mike Kutschman. You can find every episode of Critics at [e-mail] critics and you can email [e-mail] with the subject line Critics. Next week we're talking about the new Donald Trump Bible. That's right, the Apprentice. Trump's legal team actually tried to block this film from being released, but it's finally coming out, so we'll see you next Thursday for that.

[Noemi Fry]

Hi, I'm Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the number one true crime podcast, Crime Junkie. Every Monday, me and my best friend Britt break down a new case, but.

[Vincent Cunningham]

Not in the way you've heard before.

[Noemi Fry]

And not the cases you've heard before. You'll hear stories on Crime Junkie that haven't been told anywhere else. I'll tell you what you can do to help victims and their families get justice. Join us for new episodes of Crime Junkie every Monday. Already waiting for you by searching for Crime Junkie wherever you listen to podcasts from prx.