taCity

***This is a guest post by Fern Snedeker (they/them). Feedback, thoughts, and criticism are happily welcome at natesneds at gmail.com, and their other writing can be found at nathanielsnedeker.com***

In a world of self-commodification, never-ending branding in life (and death), and endless self-improvement, The Substance offers an macabre antidote: reunification of the self.

The Substance (2024) follows the life of Elisabeth Sparkle, a former movie star who hosts a workout show. After she is fired from her show because she is deemed too old for show business, she is told to “either renew or disappear.” An opportunity to “renew” appears after Elisabeth is given a pamphlet advertising “The Substance,” a process that the advertising material promises will make a “better version of yourself.”

Hesitantly, and rather gorily, she indulges, creating a younger, more “ideal” version of herself. Think Picture of Dorian Gray mixed with the chestburster scene of Alien. Unlike Dorian Gray, she has two bodies (Elisabeth the original body and Sue the “ideal”) that she must consciously switch between every seven days. 

Not content to switch bodies weekly, Sue starts to “take over” causing Elisabeth’s body to decay. Despite warnings from a voice (presumably the creator of The Substance) to “be one,” the bodies rebel against each other, leading to the destruction of both. 

Despite being a bit heavy-handed with gratuitous body horror, this film effectively critiques neoliberalism’s obsession with the self, and I think there are plenty of lessons we can learn from it. 

I want to draw on Byung-Chul Han here, whose 2010 book The Burnout Society analyzes the intricacies of the neoliberal self. Han argues that society has moved from a Foucauldian disciplinary world based on “us vs. them” to an achievement society characterized by “overproduction, overachievement, and overcommunication.” 

Han argues that we have internalized capitalist ideals; instead of being forced to conform to society through disciplinary, negative regimes, we do it ourselves through a positive reformation of the self by the self. We live in societies of control; we are “entrepreneurs of [our]selves,” constantly doing and improving rather than being. This is very useful for capital, as it’s far harder to compel a subject to do something than having them do it themselves. Positive reinforcement works far better than negative reinforcement, after all. 

The neoliberal subject constantly networks, joins special interest groups so they have just one more thing they can add to their resume, and is diligently improving themself through a combination of daily gym visits, weekly therapy sessions, and monthly check-ins with their nutritionist. The ideal neoliberal subject probably has a spreadsheet somewhere, doing cost-benefit analyses of friendships. 

For example, one of my friends, a professor, told me a story about a student who came to his office hours. When my friend asked what the student needed, the student said “Oh, my parents told me I should network with my professors, so that’s what I’m here to do.” 

The Substance offers a substantial critique of the emptiness of the achievement culture that Han diagnoses in The Burnout Society. Elisabeth splits herself in two with the explicit goal of achieving self-commodification through “self-improvement.” Elisabeth’s split shows her constant desire to improve on herself rather than to simply “be,” and it ultimately destroys her. 

She runs straight back to the network that dumped her for being too old and takes over her old show (with a sexy twist). Elisabeth (now Sue) returns to her glory days, once again achieving the ultimate male gaze. One is reminded of Gregor in The Metamorphosis, who after being transformed into a vermin, immediately thinks of how to work in his current condition. Neither Elisabeth nor Gregor question the system itself; they are merely an unquestioning part of it.

And work she does. Sue becomes a superstar overnight, appearing on late-night TV to promote her perfect body (and the product of her show). Her interview with the late-night host is superficial and empty, portraying a Taylor Swift-like white innocence, allowing the audience freedom to project anything they want onto her. 

Meanwhile, her personal life is just as devoid of substance. Throughout the two-and-a-half-hour film, it becomes clear that she has no meaningful connections in her life. The one-night stands and partners offer nothing of meaning to her. If she had any friendships at all, maybe they would be able to steer her in the right direction, but she has nothing but herself. This isolation is also a feature of the neoliberal self: after all, who cares about meaningful connections if they don’t have some sort of financial benefit? 

The Substance offers a reductive, misguided solution to neoliberalism: oneness of the self. Throughout the film, we continually see the message “you are one” from the all-knowing narrator.

But what does “you are one” even mean? Does it mean that we should succumb to our internalized desires to consume, produce, and achieve? 

It’s a false solution, because In the end, we’re all fragmented—pieces of us here and there, contradictions; we’re all over the damn place.

The solution is not a “let’s tape all these pieces together with duct tape” solution like the leg lamp in A Christmas Story. 

Oneness isn’t the solution. 

It’s about being together in the present moment with others, radically accepting the fragmentation and disunity, and trying to “be” instead of always achieving.