The Substance and Disney Princesses

Spoiler area offers thoughts and a place for discussion about the action points we need to take in our official review. A warning: This article contains plot details from The substance.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?

This question is asked again and again by The substanceCoralie Fargeat's orgiastic tale of blood, bile, and body dysmorphia. Lustful men pose this question openly as they hold auditions to replace their network's aging star with a younger and more beautiful one. The film's two leading ladies, Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, pose this question to themselves as they poke and prod at the flesh reflected back at them – both through the mirror and at the bones of their younger/older counterparts. Throughout it all, the camera asks its audience similar questions. How far would you go to turn back time and become a better version of yourself? Is that the wish you'd ask your fairy godmother?

The fairytale sound is intentional. The substance premiered in Cannes four months ago and much ink has already been spilled on the film's references to Kubrick, Hitchcock, Cronenberg, Lynch, Oscar Wilde and even Death suits her well. All of those fingerprints are there, but there's another body of work that Fargeat draws on to create her twisted fable: Disney princesses, the original movie stars for so many little girls.

In The substancefading actress Elisabeth Sparkle (Moore) injects herself with a radiant green goo that clots her insides to birth a younger, healthier version of herself named Sue (Qualley) from a vagina in her former back. The scene is every bit as gross as it sounds. If a Disney executive ever proposed it, he'd probably be thrown in the holding cell they supposedly have at the theme parks and forced to watch Golden Age princess movies Clockwork Orange-Style.

And yet the DNA of the Disney OGs encodes The substance, like Elisabeth's pulse through Sue. Snow White shows itself in The substance's many mirror scenes. Elizabeth pricks herself with a poison needle and falls into a dreamless sleep, just like Sleeping Beauty. Sue inspects her naked body, particularly her butt and thighs, with the same level of wonder one would expect from a newly lured Ariel. Tinkerbell, who needed attention to survive, would also have fit well in this grotesque (or just plain debunked) version of Los Angeles: After all the lengths these women go to to receive the admiration they believe they deserve, death would be a mercy.

The Mouse House is also characterized by the aesthetics of The substanceif you place it between the claustrophobic orange hallway and 2001-like parcel center. Whichever woman is awake and in control gets to wear a sweater woven in exactly the same shade of gold that Belle Beauty and the Beastand at the beginning of the film, Elisabeth receives red roses to tell her that her time at the station is up. In both human and monster form – no, animal Form – Sue wears a puffy blue Cinderella dress for her New Year's Eve show and must hurry to return home to steady herself, otherwise turn into a pumpkin and loses all her organs through the chasm in her back. Cinematographer Benjamin Kracun's fisheye shots make Elisabeth/Sue's fancy penthouse look more like Rapunzel's cramped tower than anything resembling a real home. Sue is both helpless daughter and jealous stepmother as she uses what's left of Elisabeth's beauty to Botox her icky spinal fluid. Elisabeth is both Cinderella and jealous stepsister as she scratches and tears her face before she can ever meet her prince. Both are trapped in a cold palace with an unpredictable beast. Neither can ever let their locks fall.

The substance invites viewers to take a lackluster look at what happens when the “happily ever after” doesn't last so long. The princesses have exactly what Elizabeth and Sue most long for: eternal youth, eternal beauty, eternal meaning. Rapunzel's hair will never turn gray. Sleeping Beauty's eyes will not droop. Cinderella will always be able to dance in her shoes. But what would they do if they were forced to grow up and become the women their creators painted as monsters? Wouldn't they prick their finger on a spindle just to stop the clock?

Everyone wants to believe they'd say no to that creepy doctor's assistant and his DNA-altering concoction, just like everyone wants to believe he's Snow White and not the Evil Queen. But by definition, the queen was once a princess herself. Instead of celebrating a woman for sitting on the throne, Disney has conditioned us to see female power as a reflection of all that's been lost, and an inherently envious force that projects that loss onto others. Disney's kings, like Triton and Mufasa, look down on everything the light touches; Disney's queens sit in the darkness, looking only at themselves. Even as an animal, the handsome prince finds love and comes back more beautiful than before, while the same cursed forces compress Elizabeth and Sue into a horrific monster that no kiss could ever revive. Each woman fights tooth and nail for her fairytale ending, but none realizes which side of the story she's on. For the princess to ride off into the sunset, the villain must always die.