Persuasion Through Horror

Coralie Fargeat’s shocking body horror, The Substance, takes the audience through a persuasive journey that sparks change in their attitudes to the unrealistic beauty standards and gendered norms that have been fed to people both through the media and society. Through the deeply relatable and harrowing social comparison of Demi Moore’s character, Elisabeth Sparkle, the rich and thematic layers of symbolic action thread throughout the film, and the incessant commitment we see Elisabeth hold onto as her life transforms into something unrecognizable, we as viewers walk away changed with her. 

Social Comparison Theory

First proposed in 1954 by Leon Festinger, Social Comparison Theory states that people have a human desire to assess their own capabilities and determine their social worth based on how they compare against others who are like them (Psychology Notes HQ, 2017). Gass and Seiter (2022) expand on this idea, explaining that people want to be viewed positively and to be better than “the average”, so if they learn that they are just like everyone else, they often respond with extreme or polarizing attitudes. The Substance displays this aspect of the theory hauntingly beautifully through the unraveling of actress Elisabeth Sparkle, whose fame has faded, and she resorts to desperate measures to feel like she’s above average again. 

In one scene, she receives a flash-drive with an ad for “The Substance”, a pure persuasive message that directly asks her “Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself? Younger. More beautiful. More perfect?” The camera lingers on Elisabeth’s longing face as she does exactly what the message persuades her to do, envisions a better version of herself. This moment speaks to Elisabeth, but the audience as well, as we empathize with the deep, aching insecurities the ad is stirring. Later, Elisabeth sees a newspaper ad asking, “Who will be the next Elisabeth Sparkle?” “Seeking youthful, vivacious, high-energy women. 18-30 only.” This ad is a devastating reminder that she is no longer what the media wants. The wording highlights society’s hyperfocus and value on young women, reinforcing Elisabeth and the audience’s frustration on the media's superficiality. 

Later, towards the end of the film, Elisabeth has partly transformed into a rapidly aged, deformed version of herself. In one of the most emotionally intense sequences, she watches her younger self, Sue, as she interviews on TV with a late-night host. Sue and the host speak as though Elisabeth’s life and career is no longer of value, and as this conversation goes on, the film cuts between Sue’s beautiful image and the grotesque close-ups of Elisabeth angrily mashing food together as she cooks, a symbolic act of self-disgust. This scene is a classic example of an upward comparison, where Elisabeth is measuring herself against her idealized version, but she loses herself in the comparison. Through this moment, the film persuades the audience to feel disgusted, maybe at Elisabeth in a smaller sense, but in a greater sense, at the cruel societal standards that brought her here. 

Symbolic Action 

Symbolic action refers to the use of actions, symbols, and other nonverbal gestures as an instrument of persuasion (Gass & Seiter, 2022). According to Gass and Seiter (2022), “most of the intriguing aspects of persuasion can be found in nonverbal behavior, which lies on the periphery of symbolic action” (p. 38). In The Substance, director Coralie Fargeat uses this concept masterfully through scenes that both relate to and horrify her audience. The film begins with Elisabeth’s star being built on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It’s bright, new, and loved by fans that surround it, photograph it, and swoon Elisabeth in admiration. Over time, the star fades, cracks, and is eventually walked over and forgotten. Without language, this scene powerfully represents how time and age can devalue your worth in society’s eyes, and it persuades the audience to feel for Elisabeth before they even meet her character. Another powerful example of symbolic action is the first time Sue performed for her TV show, Pump it Up. The scene focuses on bright lights, repetitive music, and explicit close-ups of Sue’s body and her seductive expressions. I believe this scene is meant to highlight the media’s pervasive shallow focus on appearances, that there is no real “substance” or meaning behind this show, or many media productions. They are built to spark envy, comparison, and to influence people to make upward comparisons of themselves. 

Perhaps the most meaningful scene that resonated with viewers is when Elisabeth, slipping into self-doubt, contacts an old friend, Fred, who recently called her “the most beautiful woman in the world”, and they set up a date. Elisabeth puts on a dress and makeup and is just about to leave when she is confronted with a giant billboard of Sue laying seductively outside her apartment. She turns, retreats to the bathroom, adjusts her appearance in the mirror, and tries again, only to let her insecurity win a second time. She repeats this cycle until she is so overwhelmed with insecurity and frustration that she tears at her hair, face, and clothes. Elisabeth stares at herself in the mirror in disappointment and shame. Without dialogue, the entire audience has just shared a deep moment of pain with Elisabeth. So many of us have faced this same intrapersonal battle, trying to feel beautiful in a world with standards we can never reach, and so as consequence, have persuaded ourselves into isolation.

To connect many of these moments together, Fargeat uses the color red. It’s painted everywhere throughout the film- in the walls of the men’s bathroom where Elisabeth hears her manager discuss replacing her, on her billboard that gets torn down moments before Elisabeth’s car accident, in the dress that she wears the night she attempts to meet Fred, and in the blood that covers Sue, Elisabeth, and the apartment in their final scene. Red symbolizes many intense expressions including desire, danger, shame, and ultimately destruction. Seeing this volatile color throughout the film subtly persuaded the audience nonverbally to associate women, aging, beauty standards, and violence into one messy piece, interwoven by society and the media’s hand. 

Commitment Grows Legs 

Gass and Seiter (2022) explain that commitment goes “hand in hand” with persuasion; they say that sometimes, after people have invested too much time, money, or have made public declarations of commitment, then they may intrapersonally persuade themselves to keep going on the path they’ve set forward, even if they’re losing more than they’re gaining. It's a psychological trap, when “commitment grows legs” as our book defines it, and Elisabeth falls victim to this in a literal sense when she wakes up and she realizes that a large portion of her body has deformed as a consequence of her other self-stealing more time. She calls the number that provided “the substance” and complains. They question her, “Do you want to stop the experience?” and she asks “Will everything go back to the way it was before?” They respond “No, it cannot be undone, but you can stop now.” Elisabeth looks down at her deformed leg, realizing what she has already lost, then denies stopping. She thinks she’s already lost too much.

Later, after Sue has stolen months of her time, Elisabeth wakes up with a completely deformed, unrecognizable body. She’s horrified and immediately calls, demanding they end the experience, and receives a termination kit. However, when she’s just about to inject the serum into Sue’s unconscious body, she hears voices in her head remind her that she will be “all on her own” and thinks of all the love that Sue will get if she continues to live. She becomes consumed with doubt, changes her mind, and tells Sue, “I need you because… I hate myself.” This self-persuasion shows up to keep going despite the obvious, horrifying evidence saying otherwise because Elisabeth sees herself as too far gone, and believes Sue is the only value piece of herself that she has left. It’s a haunting example of how over-commitment, self-loathing, and intrapersonal persuasion can all collide together to keep someone trapped on a nightmarish path of self-destructive choices that they fall too deeply into to see clearly. 

Conclusion

            After analyzing The Substance, I feel like I’m walking away with a greater understanding of how the media plays persuasion as its instrument. We often identify persuasion in our ads, shopping, and online interactions, but it's interesting to step back and evaluate something we engage with just for entertainment. Films often speak to us in ways that go past surface level and touch our hearts. I believe The Substance did this in a haunting and beautiful way, through symbolic and relatable persuasion, it played a melody that we all heard. I’m grateful that this course gave me the tools to examine it more critically, and I think I will move forward and carry this with me as I watch films in the future. 

Works Cited

Gass, R. H., & Seiter, J. S. (2022). Persuasion: Social influence and Compliance Gaining. Routledge. 

Psychology Notes HQ. (2017, June 11). Leon Festinger’s Social Comparison Theory. The Psychology Notes Headquarters. https://www.psychologynoteshq.com/leonfestinger-socialcomparisontheory/