By mistake, my initial reaction to the movie The Substance was one of having written the thing off because of its "pointless" treading into the grotesque. As stated in an earlier "first feelings" post, I woke up the next morning consumed by a memory.
My adopted mother was the person who introduced me to the idea of makeup, Mary Kay, as it were. Is Mary Kay still around? *blech* *Bing Bing* Yes, it is still around. I was never interested in makeup in practice, although, I do have this other specific memory of some fellow classmates while in fifth grade all showing off the makeup in their makeup bags, and I asked my adopted mother if I could get a makeup bag, and she, obviously, obliged, but then I never had any makeup to put in it.
As a grown-ass adult, I obviously do not support the beauty industry (that's a lie, i buy fancy perfume).
Anyway, my adopted mother had a Mary Kay lady, and it seemed like it was sort of expected that her Mary Kay lady would become my Mary Kay lady (which is weird, right?), and so, every once in a while (with the launch of new products), my adopted mother and I would go visit her Mary Kay lady, and I'd try out some new makeup. I was never interested in any of this, cause makeup always felt/feels absolutely terrible to me (&don't even get me started about my eyelids; that's a whole other problem of racist proportion), and so my adopted mom settled on buying me a three-step skincare routine. Cleanser. Toner. Lotion. This was the 90's.
By the time high school rolled around, I was wearing eyeliner, eye shadow, blush and the occasional lip gloss, but I hated lip gloss (too sticky). I was also doing my whole three-step skin care routine every morning and every night. It was an anti-aging skin care routine, just fyi. And every so often, we'd do a mud mask together and "treat ourselves" to a round of "satin hands."
&Then, the The Substance moment wherein Demi Moore cannot leave the house
to visit old-normie Frank (is it Frank?), Fred happened to me.
I had to have been seventeen or eighteen. I cannot remember the exact details, cause it's a memory, and the details I remember could be applied to either my adopted brother's high school graduation party or a fellow classmate's high school graduation party when I graduated. Nevertheless, the setting is a high school graduation party, and I was either attending as a friend or as a sister.
For this party I had decided to finally try out one of the eye-shadow "kits" that my adopted mother had gifted to me at some point in time after realizing that I was never going to pick any makeup so she resorted to buying it for me. Honestly, I just hate the way it feels on my face. Always have. It had three different colors that were to be utilized upon specific portions of the brow bone and the eyelid to create a specific "look," etc. I went for it and went off to the party.
While at the party, the older sister of a fellow classmate/friend skipped on by at some point during the party, "Hey, Tiff!" "Hi, [name redacted]!" "I love your eye shadow. It looks so good." "Oh, I just tried it today." "I love it!" And then she was gone.
I was horrified.
For some reason it had never occurred to me that everyone else would see my makeup, and the thought that she could see that I was wearing makeup almost made me sick. When staring at myself in the mirror later that night or whenever, I was struck with terror that, if I started to wear makeup, then people would know when I wasn't wearing makeup, which would mean that everyone would know that I'm a fake.
I couldn't live with myself.
I basically stopped cold-turkey, school pics, prom, stage makeup, excepted.
&Then I only packed one stick of eyeliner and a small pad of blush when we moved to Seoul.
&Then, by 2015, I had no makeup in my possession at all [i posted a post re my current "beauty routine" not too long ago].
&Then, The Substance hit me.
At first, I thought it was a stretch, the grotesque portrayed in the movie
but then I realized that to think of what women actually go through for "beauty gains"
IS GROTESQUE
It's SO GROTESQUE
in fact
that one could argue that the movie isn't even a stretch
People DIE undergoing surgery for their own vain gains
We've all seen a Real Housewife
THE GROTESQUE IS ALIVE AND WELL
&Then the metaphor serves as a sort of allegory for addiction.
Addiction as a sort of obsession with the self.
&So, I realized that Coralie Fargeat is one Bad Bitch.
&I am grateful that she decided to use the resources at her disposal to make a film and tell this story.
&Then the visceral HATE that the younger, better self has for the actual self.
It's painful to accept.
It's wondrous to behold.
Cause how? It makes me wonder how the fuck we got to this place.
&Sure, some opinions blame all of this on men.
But the women who partake are equally culpable;
they partake.
At some point, we're all given a choice, and all of us choose.
&So
Who's really not-accepting whom?