Join WhatsApp Channel
Join Telegram Channel“I felt like I wasn't twenty anymore, or thirty, but I wasn't yet what they imagined a mother to be.”
In the second part of this female James Bond, Charlie's Angels: Angels Unleashedreleased in 2003, the three sublime spies Cameron Diaz, Lucy Liu and Drew Barrymore must face Madison Lee, a former Angel played by Demi Moore. Iconic scene from this film: the actress of Ghost coming out of the water, surfboard under her arm, in a bikini like Ursula Andress in James Bond 007 vs. Dr. Nodisplaying like her partners a dream body. At forty, she is a sex symbol. But visibly, not for everyone.
In an interview for the magazine Interview directed with Michelle Yeoh, the actress returned twenty years later to this scene and to what extent it weighed on her relationship with Hollywood:
“When I did Charlie's Angels, There was a lot of debate around this bikini scene, and it was all very strong, there was a lot of talk about my appearance. That's when I understood that there was no place for me. I felt like I didn't belong anymore. I felt like I wasn't twenty anymore, or thirty, but that I wasn't yet what they imagined a mother to be.”
She added that she felt flat and even considered ending her career. Following these revelations, Michelle Yeoh reacted and expressed her regret and anger at an industry that discriminates against women because of their ages, classifying them into two categories: young and mothers who are too old to be sexy: “Why can't a 45, 50 or 60 year old woman be just as sexy?”
This phenomenon, called “ageism” in English – or discrimination due to age – is a fight that has always been waged by actresses who are no longer offered roles when they reach a certain age – 40, the cursed age. In her speech at the Oscars ceremony in 2023, Michelle Yeoh, on stage with a statuette in her hand for Everything Everywhere All At Oncehad not failed to recall it:
“Never let anyone tell you that your best years are behind you.”
Michelle Yeoh wins best actress Oscar: “History is in the making”
As a revenge, two decades after being sidelined for her bikini figure, Demi Moore dissects this feeling in The Substance by Carolie Fargeat, winner of the Cannes Screenplay Award. She plays an actress and TV presenter, overwhelmed by her age and who decides to take “the substance” to become a new, improved version of herself – younger and more beautiful – played by Margaret Qualley.
Through body horror, gore and extreme, the film tackles the violence that women suffer and inflict on themselves in the hope of matching an ideal – a better version of themselves according to criteria imposed by men. We question our weight, our chest, our wrinkles. We go on diets, and The Substance deciphers the internal and external violence generated by this situation.
Feminism, horror and violence, the return of female body-horror at Cannes with The Substance
For Demi Moore, the script was “a unique way to explore issues related to age, social conditioning, everything related to the pressure put on by the feminine ideal seen by men, and what, as women, we have adhered to.”
The Substance comes out in theaters on November 6.