Discipline vs Excess: Excavating Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance
The visual language of The Substance, directed by Coralie Fargeat, rejects subtlety entirely. Los Angeles is depicted as hyper-stylized, sparkling, and sterile, while the villainous Hollywood antagonists bear overtly symbolic names like Harvey. Bodily modification is underscored by pulsating techno music, amplifying the film's focus on control and transformation. The narrative revels in an aesthetic of graphic gore, overflowing with blood, guts, and flesh, as we watch Elisabeth Sparkle (played by Demi Moore) a fifty-year-old actress and former TV fitness icon, inject herself with the titular substance—an antidote to aging—that allows her to become Sue (played by Margaret Qualley), a younger version of herself. These two bodies that share the same consciousness are the subject of the film, which portrays their alternation every seven days with an over-the-top sensibility that magnifies the brutality of beauty standards. The visual language of the film is just as absurd and measured as the bodily standards it aims to critique. The film oscillates between a tension of discipline and excess, compositional symmetry and heightened, chaotic gore. Elisabeth and Sue’s arc within the film deepen its exploration of this complicated balance. While they struggle to “respect the balance” of seven days on and seven days off regarding the substance, Fargeat introduces another subtextual conflict of balance between bodily docility and freedom. The Substance critiques the societal mechanisms of bodily discipline and the commodification of the female body by contrasting the highly controlled, disciplined body of Sue with the chaotic, rebellious body of Elisabeth. Through the lens of discipline and excess, the film explores the impact of societal beauty standards and the destructive pursuit of perfection, raising questions about the balance between control and autonomy.
In order to explicate the mechanisms of power that Fargeat probes in The Substance, it is worth turning to Michel Foucault’s concept of the docile body in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. The docile body, as explained by Foucault, is submissive, easily shaped, and improved for productivity; it is submissive to discipline which increases the body’s utility while simultaneously ensuring subjection and obedience (Foucault 143). Foucault writes: “A body is docile that may be subjected, used, transformed and improved. The celebrated automata, on the other hand, were not only a way of illustrating an organism, they were also political puppets, small-scale models of power...” (Foucault 142). Automata, intricate machines designed to mimic life, symbolize the extreme control and precision that can be exerted over a body. These machines, while appearing lifelike, are ultimately tools of demonstration, models of how power can break down, reshape, and manipulate life itself. Disciplined bodies are "political puppets" that reflect the mechanisms of power acting upon them. They do not act of their own volition but instead function through a structure of control, serving the interests of the institutions or ideologies that discipline them (Foucault 143). This idea resonates in The Substance, where Sue’s body exists as a hyper-controlled, optimized version of Elisabeth. Sue's existence is not her own; she is an “improved” iteration that serves societal expectations of beauty and utility. Like Foucault’s automata, she operates as a model of power’s influence over the body, illustrating the extent to which discipline can reshape identity, reduce autonomy, and turn individuals into idealized but subjugated constructs.
The mechanism of power within the film, one that represents bodily discipline, self-optimization, and societal control that rules both Elisabeth and Sue, is televised aerobics. For Elisabeth Sparkle, aerobics is not just a career, it's the very thing that defines her worth, both professionally and personally. After she is fired from the show by the producer, Harvey, her identity begins to unravel, revealing the extent to which she has internalized the need for constant physical optimization and approval. Sue, on the other hand, quickly becomes a vessel of aerobic perfection, adhering to the show’s militaristic standard of bodily optimization. In a scene that reads almost like a music video toward the middle of the film, the camera lingers on her body in motion, utilizing close-up shots of isolated body parts. As Sue smiles and dances, her body is fragmented by the camera, chopped up into different bits: pelvis, arms, butt, all separate pieces that constitute the whole, like she is a doll or a figurine (Fargeat). After Sue states “Hi everybody, I’m Sue and it’s time to pump it up . . . ” the scene cuts back and forth between Sue, her backup dancers, and the camera, as Fargeat’s visuals depict the lenses mechanically and sterilely capturing Sue and broadcasting her image to the public (Fargeat). As a version of Endor’s “Pump It Up” underscores Sue’s gyrating and twerking, it becomes clear that her physicality is no longer an expression of freedom or individuality, but rather a machine-like performance driven by external expectations and the desires of Harvey and the network. Sue’s body is presented as both an object of desire and an instrument of control, stripped of agency and molded into a flawless, docile vessel that embodies society’s ideals of perfection. Through Foucault’s lens in “Docile Bodies,” it’s clear that Sue’s body becomes a site of power, not through overt coercion, but through a system of subtle, continuous practices that optimize and govern her movements, transforming her into an obedient, efficient vessel of bodily perfection.
The Substance utilization of aerobics also calls into question the contextual and historical meaning of televised aerobics in connection to women’s bodies. In “The Body Electronic: Aerobic Exercise on Video: Women's Search for Empowerment and Self-Transformation,”, Elizabeth Kagan and Margaret Morse write: “An aerobics participant tries to remake herself into a youthful, powerful, and attractive woman; in control and yet submissive to the direction of others; a woman on the move who unthreateningly remains in the same place; enough of a subject and object to hold onto a precarious position in the world” (Kagan & Morse 176). Aerobics, in this context, becomes not just a method of exercise but a metaphor for how societal expectations drill and discipline the body into submission. Sue and Elisabeth, two versions of the same person, both attempt to hold onto and maintain their youth, power, and beauty through exercise and their public performance of aerobics. Yet, the network only describes Sue as perfection, as the casting directors remark that, in terms of her body: “looks like everything is sure in the right place this time.” (Fargeat). On the other hand, Elisabeth lacks what Harvey sees as a key element of the aerobics equation: youth. Harvey believes she no longer possesses the fresh, new look audiences crave, explaining, “People always ask for something new, it’s inevitable.” (Fargeat). Although Elisabeth has dedicated many years and arguably her entire life to aerobics, she is ultimately discarded by Harvey and the other powers that be in the network. This mirrors Foucault’s explanation of the modalities of control on the docile body, as he writes “it implies an uninterrupted, constant coercion, supervising the processes of the activity rather than its result...” (Foucault 143). Elisabeth’s “result” after years of aerobics is an inevitable aged person, rendering her obsolete and of little value. Her docility is worthless, and she is dismissed with her items in a box and hardly a thank you for her work as a dutiful soldier for the network.
As the film progresses, Fargeat further positions Sue as an exaggerated manifestation of Foucault’s disciplined soldier, whose perfection contrasts with Elisabeth’s perceived failure to maintain control over her own body. While Sue represents the zenith of docility—submissive, productive, and entirely subjected to the systems that shape her—Elisabeth’s rejection of these norms renders her both grotesque and defiant in Sue’s eyes. Sue’s disdain for Elisabeth stems not only from her aging and corporeal imperfections but also from her lack of discipline and refusal to conform to the societal expectations of bodily docility. Furthermore, Sue’s disgust is directly prompted by the excess of food scattered around their apartment. While Sue is regimented and successful, Elisabeth’s chaotic consumption highlights the power dynamics at play: Sue’s body exists as a symbol of submission to societal standards, while Elisabeth’s body, undisciplined, older, and increasingly excessive, becomes a site of rebellion against these structures. This dichotomy pushes Sue to call the number on the back of the substance, articulating that “she wastes seven days stuffing her face in front of the TV!” (Fargeat). This moment highlights Sue’s disdain for Elisabeth’s rejection of docility and discipline while simultaneously marking a rebellious turning point for Elisabeth. A character who has long acted with restraint and adhered to the rules finds her docility unrewarded. Consequently, Elisabeth’s turn to gluttonous food consumption becomes a symbolic act of defiance against external bodily control. If one part of herself, Sue, can remain submissive and disciplined, the other can unabashedly embrace ravenous indulgence.
Thus, food within The Substance emerges as a counterpoint to bodily docility as Fargeat depicts food as a symbol of corporeal rebellion. As Sue disrupts the balance of seven days on and seven days off, Elisabeth ages rapidly, her body deteriorating under the weight of Sue’s inconsideration. In response, Elisabeth’s solo food fight, a wild, gluttonous explosion of sustenance, becomes a visceral rejection of the discipline and restraint that have long governed her life. As Elisabeth cooks ferociously, spraying food on herself and throwing eggs at the wall, food seems less like a tool of nourishment or social ritual but rather, a visceral expression of defiance. We hear the sound of the food as Elisabeth cooks it, and witness the mess of her cooking in a completely unappetizing manner (Fargeat). She leaves food scattered around the apartment and eats as much as she desires. Elisabeth’s unrestrained cooking is intercut with a television appearance of Sue, juxtaposing Elisabeth’s freely performed act of desire, one that rejects the mechanisms of power Foucault argues forces the body into submission, with Sue’s regimented and controlled behavior. Fargeat’s depiction of Elisabeth’s gluttonous rebellion in connection with cooking resonates with Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson’s analysis of the tension between gastronomy and gluttony. In her article “Gastronomy or Gluttony?” Ferguson highlights the dichotomy between the refined, aestheticized consumption of gastronomy and the unrestrained, chaotic appetite of gluttony. Elisabeth’s solo food fight disrupts the traditional domestic imagery associated with food, rejecting the refinement and control of gastronomy in favor of a raw, corporeal indulgence that aligns with gluttony’s loss of control. This act mirrors Ferguson’s discussion of gluttony as “terrible in itself and because of the loss of control it entails and encourages.” (Ferguson 104). At this moment, Elisabeth’s excessive consumption becomes a radical assertion of autonomy, a refusal to conform to the expectations of discipline that have defined her life, highlighting the liberating yet destructive potential of the gluttonous consumption of food. A loss of control, for Elisabeth, feels representative of freedom.
Furthermore, Elisabeth’s relationship with food contrasts sharply with the earlier scene of Harvey’s grotesque consumption of food, drawing attention to the societal double standards around appetite and control. In the scene where Harvey fires Elisabeth, he is rapidly eating shrimp. The camera’s extreme close-up draws attention to the disgusting manner in which he consumes; Harvey gets food stuck between his teeth, smushes the shrimp in between his fingers, and talks with his mouth open, all while the loud sound of his crunching and chewing are sharply pronounced (Fargeat). While Harvey’s indulgent manner of eating feels normalized within his position of power—he’s just a “sleazy producer”—Elisabeth’s act of gluttony becomes an assertion of agency against a system that has rendered her body obsolete. This dynamic reflects
Ferguson’s observation that the “suspicion of consumption and its consequences” often carries a moral weight, particularly when linked to women (Ferguson 104). In The Substance, Fargeat subverts Elisabeth’s gluttony by portraying it without shame and as a radical rejection of bodily discipline and societal expectations. Her excessive consumption is both warranted and celebrated, standing in stark opposition to the restrictive expectations placed on her body through the earlier moments of the film. Fargeat emphasizes this rebellion by depicting Elisabeth cooking from the cookbook gifted to her by Harvey: a patronizing token meant to relegate her to domestic obscurity. However, rather than retreat into invisibility or adopt cooking as a passive hobby, Elisabeth weaponizes the act, embracing monstrous excess as a direct rejection of patriarchal domination, cooking blood sausage and chicken and throwing her leftovers at the wall. Her indulgence is no longer an act of submission but a grotesque reclamation of power, defying the societal norms that once dictated her worth through discipline and restraint.
This aesthetic of graphic excess, especially as it intensifies in the film’s final act, serves as both a crucial aesthetic choice and a key thematic element. Fargeat allows for the two bodies to meet, prompting a hard-to-watch bloodbath in which Sue disturbingly murders Elisabeth (Fargeat). After Elisabeth’s death, Sue’s body quickly begins to deteriorate, graphically falling apart: fingernails and teeth come loose as Sue cannot sustain herself without more of the necessary “stabilizer fluid.” The result is heightened gore, visceral body horror that can only be described as excessive. This aligns with Kristin Thompson’s definition of cinematic excess in her essay “The Concept of Cinematic Excess,” where she describes excess as elements in a film that surpass narrative cohesion, drawing attention to their materiality and disrupting the flow of the story. These moments, not strictly tied to narrative necessity, overwhelm the viewer’s senses, challenging traditional expectations of cinematic unity and purpose. In The Substance, the film’s frequent eruptions of graphic gore and visceral imagery—blood splattering, food smearing, flesh tearing, and body parts distorting—reflect an embrace of excess that deliberately pulls the audience away from a clean, cohesive narrative and into a world of sensory and visual chaos.
Furthermore, the film's climax, the scene where Elisabeth and Sue’s merged bodies explode and shower blood and guts onto a live audience, serves as the ultimate act of cinematic excess, fully embodying Thompson’s concept of counterunity. Instead of tying up loose ends or delivering a conventional moral conclusion, the scene overwhelms the audience with its sheer physicality. The excessive amounts of blood and guts that spray from Elisabeth and Sue’s merged body, now referred to as Monstro Elisasue, are both shocking and campy, disturbing and humorous. As Thompson suggests, "...excess is precisely those elements which escape unifying impulses” (Thompson 141). The amount of time spent portraying this moment of explosive release encourages the audience to linger on the visual and material elements of the film, disrupting their perception of narrative progression and instead focusing on visceral, embodied excess. Furthermore, Fargeat’s aesthetic of excess is still rooted within the film’s narrative inquiry into the commodification of the female body—it is an important detail that Elisasue’s death is captured in its full glory by cameras. As she stands onstage, releasing her insides and an unbelievable mass of blood, the portrayal of this moment mirrors Linda Williams’s ideas on the “money shot”, the moment of ejaculation in pornography. Regarding the money shot, Williams writes: “While undeniably spectacular, the money shot is also hopelessly specular...this climax is now rendered in glorious Eastmancolor, sometimes even on a wide screen with optical or slowmotion effects, and accompanied by all the moans, groans, and cries, synchronized or post-synched, appropriate to such activity” (Williams 94). The violent eruption of blood and guts from Monstro Elisasue is presented with exaggerated visual effects, slow motion, close-ups, and a dramatic sensory overload, all designed to heighten the spectacle for the audience. Like a money shot, the focus is not on the emotional or psychological complexity of the characters involved but on the physical spectacle that dominates the narrative, reinforcing themes of control, excess, and the objectification of the body for the viewer's consumption. Monstro Elisasue is not a monster: she is a demonstration of monstrosity for all to see and consume (monstro, in Latin, means to show). Thus, Fargeat is less interested in Elisabeth and Sue’s psychological or physical experience of this moment but rather focuses on the spectacle of excess and its consumption by an audience.
The film’s portrayal of the body as both a tool of conformity and a vessel of defiance highlights The Substance’s exploration into the complexities of cultural control over the female body. Fargeat’s critique transcends the specific context of beauty standards, suggesting that the pressure to conform extends beyond aesthetics into deeper realms of autonomy and identity. By embracing cinematic excess, Fargeat invites viewers to reflect on how the body is manipulated, disciplined, and ultimately liberated, forcing its audience to confront the oppressive nature of bodily expectations and the liberatory potential of reclaiming the body from the forces that seek to dominate it. Interestingly, this sentiment is present from the first moment of the film: we watch as a needle is injected into an egg, duplicating it (Fargeat). The egg is both docile and adaptable to us, the viewers, who are familiar with the possibility of cooking it, and molding the egg to our desired form of consumption. It is also the site of excess, as the egg parthenogenetically multiplies and becomes an expanded and doubled version of itself. Although the two egg yolks can rest side by side, balancing the composition of the screen, difficulty arises, The Substance argues, when these same circumstances are applied to a human. Finding the balance between docility and freedom, discipline and excess is what’s ruthlessly challenging, and
ultimately leads to Elisabeth’s downfall. Fargeat asks, then, for us to consider balance, perhaps not as a liberatory goal, but as an unfair standard that we, along with the characters in the film, are forced to juggle.
Works Cited
Fargeat, Coralie, director. The Substance. 2024.
Ferguson, Priscilla Parkhurst. “Gastronomy or Gluttony?” Gastronomica, vol. 12, no. 2, 2012, pp. 103–04.
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Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan, Vintage Books, 1995.
Kagan, Elizabeth, and Margaret Morse. “The Body Electronic: Aerobic Exercise on Video: Women’s Search for Empowerment and Self-Transformation.” TDR (1988-), vol. 32, no. 4, 1988, pp. 164–80.
Thompson, Kristin. “The Concept of Cinematic Excess.” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, edited by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, 7th ed., Oxford University Press, 2009, pp. 140-146.
Williams, Linda. Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the “Frenzy of the Visible.” University of California Press, 1999.