Search

Body Alienation and Gender Performativity: A Feminist Critique in the Film The Substance

Author(s)

Ruoxi Liu

Affiliation(s)

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau, Taipa, Macau SAR, China *Corresponding Author

Abstract

Released in 2024, the film The Substance employs body horror as a narrative vehicle to vividly depict the physical predicament and gender anxiety of contemporary women under the dual oppression of patriarchal culture and consumerism through the story of Elizabeth, the female protagonist who derives the young body "Sue" with the help of "the perfect substance" and ultimately moves towards destruction. As the winner of the Best Screenplay Award at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, the film adopts a controversial expression of "using the gaze to counter the gaze" and exposes the dual exploitation of women's bodies by the "male gaze" and capital through extreme visual impact. Centering on the symbiosis, confrontation, and disintegration of the "mother body" and the "other body," the film interprets the core proposition of Judith Butler's "gender performativity" theory-gender is not an inherent essence but a performative effect formed through repeated behavioral practices and discursive construction. This paper adopts a research method combining close textual reading and sociological criticism. Combining Butler's gender theory, Foucault's thought on power discipline, and feminist body politics theory, it interprets the feminist connotations in the film from three dimensions: the symbolic metaphor of body alienation, the predicament and resistance of gender performativity, and women's self-alienation under consumerism, revealing the struggles and breakthroughs of contemporary women in the face of gender norms, physical control, and capital exploitation.

Keywords

Feminism; Gender Performativity; Body Politics; Consumerism; Power Discipline1

References

[1] Butler, J. (2011). Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" (J. Li, Trans.). Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore. [2] de Beauvoir, S. (2015). The Second Sex (K. Zheng, Trans.). Shanghai Translation Publishing House. [3] Foucault, M. (2007). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (B. Liu, & Y. Yang, Trans.). SDX Joint Publishing Company. [4] Du, F. (1997). Introduction to The Rise of Women: The Feminist Movement in Contemporary America. Zhejiang Academic Journal, (2), 88-90. [5] Butler, J. (2009). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (S. Song, Trans.). Shanghai Sanlian Bookstore. [6] Lü, D., & Yan, G. (2025). Ethical Turn, Linguistic Style, and Capability Approach-Centered on Martha Nussbaum's Feminist Critique of Judith Butler. Journal of North University of China (Social Sciences Edition), 41(4), 151-157. [7] Chen, B. (2002). Foucault's View of Power. Journal of Xiamen University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), (4), 84-90. [8] Liu, N. (2001). Social Gender-The Central Concept in Western Feminist Theory. Foreign Social Sciences, (06), 52-57.