Is Being an Older Woman Really as Bad as 'The Substance' Claims?
The film makes a gory case against misogyny turned inward and the dissing of women past a certain age. But how true is it?
Even if you haven’t seen the film, you probably know from award-season hype that The Substance with Demi Moore is about an aging film star whose TV career tanks when the producers decide she’s too old. In a fit of despair and in order to keep her job, she signs up for injections of a black market “substance” that promises to keep her young forever.
But as in all Faustian deals—even when the devil is a hypodermic needle—there’s a catch. When the substance releases a 20-something version of herself (Margaret Qualley), the younger self must hibernate every seven days in order to replenish the older version. That’s because the older version is her “real” self—the Source. The younger one is just a copy. If the 7-day rule is not strictly adhered to, things will go very, very bad.
Which of course they do.
By turns funny and tragic, The Substance is concerned with an older woman’s internalization of misogyny. Her addiction to the false praise of “fans” who claim to love her. And her failure to anchor herself in any resource beyond her physical appearance.
The Substance makes a compelling statement about the lengths some women will go in order to stay young, desirable, and employed. The film’s roots go all the way back to the poisoned apple and truthful mirror of Snow White. It evokes The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, and even to a degree The Emperor’s New Clothes.
Its more recent echoes include cult movies like Requiem for a Dream (a psychodrama about addiction) as well as Terry Gilliam’s black comedy Brazil (about hyper-consumerism and the celebration of deforming plastic surgeries in a dystopian future).
As if that’s not enough, The Substance even harks back to the many-headed Hydra of Greek mythology, the slaying of which was one of the Twelve Labors of Hercules.
According to Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, the Hydra is a metaphor for the ego. Every time you try to kill it, the ego comes back in a different form. Tries to overshadow and overthrow the true self. Grows another head. Which is exactly what happens in The Substance during its bloody over-the-top climax.
The Golden Globes didn’t get it wrong when it acknowledged Demi Moore’s tour de force performance. As the young-looking copy of herself takes longer and longer to return to the required 7-day hibernation, Moore’s character gets older and older. And the changes are irreversible. Her transition from insecure 50-year-old to hunchbacked witch to grotesque monster is chilling.
Unfortunately, that’s where the film goes wrong. Instead of mining its powerful themes, it turns into Stephen King’s Carrie, spewing 21,000 liters of fake blood. For horror fans, that’s probably a thrill. But for people like me, who didn’t realize it was a horror flick—meh, gross, and yuck!
The decision to go full body-horror on a film with so much to offer may have cost Moore and writer/producer/director Coralie Forgeat their Oscars this year. During its entire history, only one horror film has ever won an Academy Award. That happened in 1991 when The Silence of the Lambs won Best Picture, Best Director (Jonathan Demme), Best Adapted Teleplay (Ted Tally), Best Actor (Anthony Hopkins) and Best Actress (Jodie Foster).
But if The Substance was a bad call for the Oscars, it was a good call for the box office. On a budget of $18 million, it has raked in about $80 million so far. We can expect to see more from its feminist director.
Still, the film has many serious shortcomings—like isolating Demi Moore’s character in a world without backstory, family, or friends. How did she get to be so alone on her 50th birthday? Why doesn’t she have any psychological, spiritual, or professional resources?
The filmmaker has said she consciously chose to leave out the backstory, preferring instead to reveal character through action. But she may also have wanted to amplify the longstanding, seemingly endless problem of ageism and sexism. If so, she’s certainly got a point. Misogyny and age-discrimination are painfully real.
For example—
Just last year, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) won a discrimination lawsuit involving a 78-year-old receptionist who was terminated from her job one month after being named employee of the year.
Also within the last year, the EEOC settled several large age discrimination complaints totaling millions of dollars in fines, fees, penalties, and payments to those affected. Including a $7 million settlement with Scripps Medical Clinic Group for forcing physicians to retire at age 75.
Perhaps you recall that in September of 2022, longtime Canadian TV newscaster Lisa LaFlamme was fired at the age of 58 after letting her hair go gray during the pandemic. Her bosses claimed the mid-contract termination was the result of business decisions. But the network’s parent company later revealed that her dismissal was “based on superficial criteria and concerns, including possibly her age, appearance, and gender identity.”
Then there’s this unforgettable 2018 essay for The Hollywood Reporter, written by Linda Thomason, creator of the highly successful show Designing Women. She stated that ousted CBS chief Les Moonves was known for his misogyny and refusal to green-light shows with women he considered opinionated and unattractive. “If I don’t want to f—k them, why would I cast them?” was his alleged mantra, Thomason wrote.
And remember that 2015 Amy Schumer skit on Comedy Central when she happens upon a picnic with Tiny Fey, Patricia Arquette, and Julia Luis-Dreyfus, who are celebrating the latter’s “last f*ckable day.” That’s when the media decides you’re not believably f*ckable anymore. Which can mean your career may soon be coming to a close. Unless you’re lucky enough to land a gig playing someone’s mom.
It all sounds pretty bad, but the needle has moved a little since then
This year, Law & Order fans are hoping to see if romance finally blooms between 61-year-old Marissa Hargetay and her longtime partner Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni). Elsewhere in the TV universe, women over 50 have headed shows like Hacks, Grace & Frankie, Dead to Me. And even The Morning Show. Because yes, boys and girls, Jennifer ‘Rachel’ Aniston is now 56 years old.
In 2021, the charming 30-something cast of Sex and the City came back as senior citizens in And Just Like That. Which was praised by some for its portrayal of aging—but pilloried by others for reinforcing negative stereotypes about older women.
Movies have recently served up 62-year-old Emma Thompson in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande, and The Book Club with Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen—all of them over 70.
If you’ve noticed anything strange about all this
maybe it’s that old devil called the double standard. As Amy Schumer’s 10-year-old skit makes quite clear, men don’t have a last f*ckable day.
As the misogynist producer in The Substance, 70-year-old Dennis Quaid waves a limp and overtly Freudian crawfish at Demi Moore during a lunch meeting. All of the male power figures in the film are paunchy white-haired guys who can’t take their eyes off the bouncing derrière of Moore’s youthful replacement in her pink thong leotard. But their jobs are not in question.
As long as you’re in its hyper-realistic isolated world, The Substance seems painfully real. Remove it from its lab setting and place it in the real world, and it fizzles a bit. Because the real world is more complicated.
Do women suffer workplace discrimination based on age? Absolutely. Has today’s media given more space to older women in lead roles? Yes. Despite the aforementioned EEOC cases, women have made enormous strides in the workplace.
Fifty-two women are now CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. And Commander Sunita Williams, who is 59 years old, just returned from eight months on the International Space Station where she set records for the number of space walks and hours logged by a woman astronaut.
In the real world, real women are accomplishing great things. They are not allowing the voices of misogyny to wreck their psychic lives. But for women who have not yet connected with their core reality, the wish to remain young and desirable has got plastic surgeons laughing all the way to the bank.
Recently, 88-year-old Jane Fonda said if she had it to do all over again, she would never have had a facelift or the ones that followed. Had she acted on that hindsight, she’d be in the ranks of Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet, Emma Thompson, Jodie Foster, and Julianne Moore—none of whom have surgically altered their appearance.
Unfortunately, many younger women didn’t receive the memo. A few days ago, while walking to my local Trader Joe’s, I came across an “age remedy clinic,” offering Botox, liposuction, dermal fillers, and body contouring to women of all ages. But all of the images posted in its windows were of women still in their 30s. And indeed plastic surgeons have boosted their marketing to women in this age group, claiming that it’s better to keep yourself looking young than to wait till you’re 50 and try to push the clock back 25 years.
For their sake, it’s good to know the injectable black-market substance in Demi Moore’s wonderful, terrible film is fiction. For now there’s only Ozempic, Wegovy, and the knife. For wiser women, there is the time-honored wisdom of Coco Chanel: "You can be gorgeous at thirty, charming at forty, and irresistible for the rest of your life."
©2025 Andrew Jazprose Hill/All rights reserved.
Thanks for reading/listening. Please hit the like, share, and/or comment buttons to help others find my work.
The problem is we live in a patriarchy, and white youth and beauty are the standards by which all women are judged. As we age, women feel as if they're becoming invisible. Getting hired at any job is significantly more challenging for women over 50 than it is for men, even more so for women of color. I lost both of my careers right before turning 50. I'm 12 years into an ongoing attempt at resetting. I wrote a whole book about it, but the publisher couldn't figure out how to promote it to the huge audience of women over 50. Their PR person was in her 20s and she seemed annoyed at even having to consider promoting the book. I paid my own way to Book Fair to do a book signing in their booth.
I was a finalist on a national TV show for a DIY Competition (unrelated to the book) and the male host (who was my age, BTW) asked me on-air how it felt to be on the show with 'so many younger women.' I felt fine, but apparently the producers had some issues. They fired their older female host during this weeks long competition and the male host was released a couple of years later. For women in TV and Film, the pressure is far more intense. That's why Demi Moore (who is a year older than me) looks like she's 50, she has had significant amounts of architectural preservation. Not that I fault anyone for that, because I absolutely do not, but it is an interesting juxtaposition to the message of the film.
I have not acquiesced to these archaic, ageist standards, yet I have struggled regardless. Getting back on track professionally, even with my skills and experience, has not worked out for me as of yet. Even here on Substack, being an older female writer has proven challenging. So, to answer your question, yes, it is as bad as it seems. I don't feel compelled to be anything other than who I am, though occasionally with pink hair should the mood strike. I have never lied about my age or seen it as a negative, I'm aging DISgracefully and unapologetically. I'm not alone, and none of us are going gentle into that good night.
Thank you for this post, which represents our reality as women. I like Coco Chanel’s opinion that we are irresistible as we age. I don’t plan to get any surgery and will age naturally. As we age we seem to become invisible to the opposite sex. But it’s fine. I’m experiencing life now as grandma and my kids lovingly call me glamma. This ageism and sexism is a challenge though!