Thoughts on The Substance, the future after it, beauty standards and Us

- Soumil

When The Substance received critical acclaim, it hammered home a point which was already there laid before the eyes of the audience to pick up and understand. Actresses are held as the beauty standards of the whole society and their skin colour, how they dress and look and feel dictated how everyone should dress, look and feel. Through this, capitalism did best what it does: it gulped down a lot of styles and standards from a lot of cultures and vomited out something for everyone. But that too flooded the saturated markets soon enough and the very next stage came in division of products. One kind for particular age groups, one kind for particular periods, one kind for particular places—and well of course, also the “independence” to customize and mix and match from all of them since capitalism changed the consumers into producers as well. So it’s a snake eating its own tail. Audiences can even write their own film reviews and publish it through various apps or just sit and have a talk about the film with their friends and post it in social media.

The genre of body horror seems to come back due to the popularity of The Substance but unfortunately all of it will ultimately feed the capitalist schemes. The Substance was produced by Mubii which is said to be the hub of arthouse films and that directly breaks the definition of “commercial” films. All films are commercial—from the so-called massy ones to the intellectual ones—all of them need a box office return so that they can continue. Art for the sake of art is a noble notion but that’s just that. Every single short film being released in YouTube or (if done well and with a touch of luck) submitted to various film festivals across the globe has the shining eyes of the crew and cast dreaming to continue that and become a part of the industry. Rumours circulating DC Studios mentions that there will be a live-action movie on Clayface: a Batman villain who was actually a star before he turned into a grotesque shape-shifting monster. Look how quickly the market jumps up on the hype-train. The intentions behind The Substance might be well enough since modern audiences need to be spoon-fed such messages which they themselves can’t figure out yet the hype and success of that film will quickly be taken up as a structure to get easy returns. It’s not about box-office blockbusters anymore, it’s about how fast can the producers get their money back.

As for the critique of beauty standards which are being pointed out to the audience since the release of Barbie: nothing will ever change. We’re being bombarded with images at every second of our life and such images are loaded with the power to change our perspective on arguably everything. Skincare and beauty products will continue to flood the market and you will have to use all kinds of products to be beautiful or even just for basic hygiene. The problem with such material beauty is the simple fact that we’re nothing but flesh and bones and we’re doomed to decay. It’s true that beauty is used as a weapon, especially by women since men still dominate the society and they won’t listen until you make them…but women have been protesting for years without anyone listening. Acid victims are still present in our society and it’s not their face that looks hideous, it’s the intent that made them look like that which is hideous and monstrous. But that’s easily concealed.

Beauty is temporary like a lot of things and capitalism’s colonisation of the definition of such terms shouldn’t blind us from the fact that Dutch merchants in 17th century had oil paintings of flower vases in their house which signified both lavish beauty as well as mortality. The world has symbolised the rose as the ultimate symbol of love and there’s even a god damn day to remind you of that. In such a day, you’ll even see a policeman getting roses for his wife (or lover) and god forbid someone takes a video of that, then you’ll see it with the background music of a popular song from the soundtrack of Dabangg (Darta jahan hum se hum toh usse darte/ Yeh sab jaane mori raniyan haye /Maska lagauna chodo ji chodo/Samajhti hai tori dhaniyan haye). But well a sunflower might be a far better way of professing love. In Japanese culture, sunflower means friendship, gratitude. The flower petals fall off and the seed head gives out the seeds from which the plant grows again: symbolizing the cycle of life and in a way, something around the lines of coming back again and again.

Sunflower reminds one of Van Gogh and he’s used as a typical mad, depressed artist but the real readers know that he actually wanted to live and he saw life more beautifully than most of his so- called “followers”. Edits are flowing through the internet and people randomly post scenes from the popular film Loving Vincent as if everyone is going through the same shit. While the film

was born out of love and passion for the artist and the inspiration to live life to its fullest as done by him, the use of that film is obviously perverted and completely against everything he ever stood for. Same goes for Miyazaki, whose films were used as nothing but an A.I. filter and that too producing gross, grotesque pictures like one of the pictures posted by the famous Insian

batsman Rinku Singh where his helmet almost seems to melt with his head. This just destroys everything the artist stood for and turns the art into a commercial product to be consumed. Now everyone has forgotten about that filter and moved on but the damage is done.

Yet still, art will remain art. Pain will remain pain.

Even now, I will visit the melas and look at the artists paint before me for hours. I will pick up my brush and paint one sad evening and paint whatever I want. I will post whatever I want and I will be in every photo possible without caring about how I look because time is fleeting, the flesh will have wrinkles and soon everything will be over. I would like to spend my time thinking about myself and the people around me exactly like I want to think of and not think about how people will perceive me.