Izvorni znanstveni članak
https://doi.org/10.29162/ANAFORA.v13i1.3
Alteration until Annihilation: Biopolitical Aspects of Beautification in The Substance
Ljubica Matek
orcid.org/0000-0003-2373-2418
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta Josipa Jurja Strossmayera u Osijeku, Osijek, Hrvatska
Sažetak
The film The Substance (2024), directed by Coralie Fargeat, adapts R. L. Stevenson’s novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) by making it a woman’s story. Fargeat’s film is both body horror and feminist satire, showing how the male gaze, mediated through screens, determines contemporary society’s oppressive focus on women’s bodies and aging, prompted by a distinct biopolitical agenda. In particular, show business and media encourage women to base their self-esteem and sense of purpose on their youthful looks rather than on moral development, close relationships, and education. By combining Foucault’s notion of the docile body with the theory of affect, and by relying on the notion of biopower as segregating bodies according to their economic value, the article provides a close reading of the film to show that permanent youth and attractiveness are represented as imperatives for women, even at the cost of extreme self-violence for the purpose of beautification and youthification. This creates a controlling culture that normalizes and promotes all forms of self-inflicted violence, and even death, if they are in the service of beauty. The woman observes her body as a mass, a shell to be modified by unsafe chemicals and unnecessary surgical procedures, which ultimately results in the moral obliteration of personhood and extreme physical damage.
Ključne riječi
beauty, biopolitics, body horror, docile body, self-harm, The Substance
Hrčak ID:
348112
URI
Datum izdavanja:
19.6.2026.
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