YENİDEN HAYAL EDİLEN MONSTRÖZ KADIN: THE SUBSTANCE

Abstract

Bu makale, Coralie Fargeat’ın The Substance (2024) filmini bedensel korku türünde bir feminist müdahale olarak incelemekte ve bu çığır açıcı film üzerine yapılan akademik çalışmaların sınırlılığını ele almaktadır. Güzellik, yaşlanma ve kadın bedenlerinin metalaştırılmasına ilişkin ataerkil normları eleştirerek The Substance, fallosantrik yapılar ve ataerkil sistemlere meydan okuyan kışkırtıcı bir anlatı sunmaktadır. Demi Moore’un dönüştürücü performansıyla güçlenen film, grotesk imgeler ve bedensel parçalanmanın etkileyici tasvirleri aracılığıyla eril bakışı altüst etmekte ve abjekt üzerinden işleyerek monströzlüğü bir direnç ve güçlenme alanı olarak yeniden yapılandırmaktadır. Julia Kristeva’nın abjekt kavramı, Barbara Creed’in monströz kadın kavramı ve Laura Mulvey’nin eril bakış teorisinden yola çıkan bu çalışma, The Substance’ı feminist korku sinemasına önemli ancak yeterince incelenmemiş bir katkı olarak öne çıkarmaktadır. Filmin anlatı ve görsel stratejilerinin analizi yoluyla bu makale, The Substance’ı Feminist Yeni Dalga Sineması bağlamında konumlandırmakta ve marjinalleştirilmiş sesleri güçlendirerek toplumsal normları sorgulama kapasitesini vurgulamaktadır.

Keywords

• Eril bakış.
• Grotesk
• Bedensel korku
• Abjekt
• Monströz kadın

THE MONSTROUS FEMININE RE-IMAGINED: THE SUBSTANCE

Abstract

This article examines Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance (2024) as a feminist intervention within the body horror genre, addressing the scarcity of academic scholarship on this groundbreaking film. By critiquing patriarchal norms surrounding beauty, aging, and the commodification of women’s bodies, The Substance offers a provocative narrative that challenges phallocentric structures and patriarchal systems. Anchored by Demi Moore’s transformative performance, the film subverts the male gaze through grotesque imagery and visceral depictions of bodily disintegration, operating by the abject, reconfiguring monstrosity as a site of resistance and empowerment. Drawing on Julia Kristeva`s concept of the abject, Barbara Creed’s notion of the monstrous-feminine, and Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze, this study foregrounds The Substance as a significant yet underexplored contribution to feminist horror cinema. Through an analysis of the film’s narrative and visual strategies, this article situates The Substance within the broader landscape of feminist New Wave Cinema, highlighting its capacity to interrogate societal norms by amplifying marginalized voices.

Keywords

• Feminist body horror
• The monstrous-feminine
• Abject
• Grotesque
• Male Gaze

References

1. Bakhtin, M. (1984). Rabelais and His World. Indiana University Press.
2. Berger, J. (1972). Ways of Seeing. Penguin Books.
3. Brophy, P. (1983). “Horrality: The Textuality of the Contemporary Horror Film”. Art & Text. 3., reprented in Screen.1(2), 2-13, 1985., reprinted in The Horror Reader. 2000. Routledge.
4. Buerger, S.(2017). “The Beak that Grips: Maternal Indifference, Ambivalence and the Abject in The Babadook”. Studies in Australian Cinema. 11 (1), 33-44. DOI:10.1080/17503175.2017.1308903.
5. Choi,J. (2004). “Powers of (Body) Horror: Titane and the Queer Posthuman Abject”. Screen Bodies. 9 (1). https://doi.org/10.3167/screen.2024.090105.
6. Clayton, W. (2015). Style and Form in the Hollywood Slasher Film. Palgrave Macmillan.
7. Clover, C. J. (1992). Men, Women, and Chain Saws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Princeton University Press.
8. Creed, B. (1993).The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis. Routledge.

9. Creed, B. (2022). Return of the Monstrous-Feminine: Feminist New Wave Cinema.Routledge.
10. Cruz, R. A. L. (2012). “Mutation and Metamorphoses: Body Horror is Biological Horror”. Journal of Popular Film and Television. 40 (4), 160-168.
11. DOI: 10.1080/01956051.2012.654521
12. De Semlyen, P. (2024). Review of The Substance. (May 20, 2024). Time Out.
13. Dolan, J. (2018). Contemporary Cinema and ‘Old Age’: Gender and the Silvering of Stardom. Palgrave Macmillan.
14. Dolan, J. (2013). “Smoothing the Wrinkles: Hollywood, ‘Successful Aging,’ and the New Visibility of Older Female Stars”. In The Routledge Companion to Media and Gender. (pp. 342-351). Routledge.
15. Egers, W. (2002).David Cronenberg's Body-Horror Films and Diverse Embodied Spectators. McGill University.
16. Ehrlich, D. (2024). Review of The Substance. (May 19, 2024). IndieWire.
17. Haraway, D. (1985). “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century”. In Simians, Cyborgs, and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, 1991, (pp. 149-182). Routledge.
18. Hicks, C. (2017). “If the Exosuit Fits: Becoming the Alien Queen in Alien and Aliens”. Journal of the Motherhood Initiative for Research and Community Involvement. 7(2), 25-34.
19. Ide, W. (2024). Review of The Substance. (September 22, 2024). The Guardian.
20. Khan, B. (2024). “Subverting the Male Gaze: Titane (2021) and the Abject”. In A. Sharma & S. Swati (Eds.), Gender Voices: Narratives of New Dimensions (A Multidisciplinary Approach). (pp. 20-32). Kunal Books.
21. Kristeva, J. (1982). Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. (Transl. by Leon S. Roudiez). Columbia University Press.
22. Lacan, J. (1991). The Seminar of Jacques Lacan: Book II: The Ego in Freud's Theory and in the Technique of Psychoanalysis 1954–1955. (Ed. by Jacques-Alain Miller; Transl. by Sylvana Tomaselli). W. W. Norton & Company.
23. Li, S. (2025). Review of The Substance. (January 8, 2025). The Atlantic.
24. Lichtenberg-Ettinger, B. (1995). The Matrixial Gaze. Feminist Arts and Histories Network, Dept. Of Fine Art, University of Leeds.
25. Loreck, J. (2016). “Science, Sensation and the Female Monster: Trouble Every Day”. In: Violent Women in Contemporary Cinema. (pp. 36-53). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137525086_3.
26. McCarty, J. (1984). Splatter Movies: Breaking the Last Taboo of the Screen. St. Martin`s Press.
27. Mulvey, L. (1975). “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”. Screen. 16 (3), 6-18.
28. Muniz, S. Z.(2024). From Girlhood to Cannibalism - Feminine Abjection and the Monstrous Coming of Age. Thesis. Purchase College State University, New York.
29. Peitzman, L. (2024). Review of The Substance. (December 26, 2024). Vulture.
30. Pisters, P. (2019). “Carrie’s Sisters: New Blood in Contemporary Female Horror Cinema”. In N. Chare, J. Hoorn & A. Yue. (Eds.). Re-reading the Monstrous-Feminine: Art, Film, Feminism and Psychoanalysis. (pp. 95-195). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429469367.
31. Reyes, X. A. (2016). Horror Film and Affect: Towards a Corporeal Model of Viewership. Routledge.
32. Reyes, X. A. (2024). Contemporary Body Horror. Cambridge University Press.
33. Reyes, X. A., Shapiro, S., &Storey, M. (2022). “Body horror”. In S. Shapiro & M. Storey. (Eds.). The Cambridge Companion to American Horror. (pp. 107-119). Cambridge University Press.
34. Riches, S. (Ed.) (2012). The Philosophy of David Cronenberg. The University Press of Kentucky.
35. Sharpe, R.&Sexon, S. (2018). “Mother’s Milk and Menstrual Blood in Puncture: The Monstrous Feminine in Contemporary Horror Films and Late Medieval Imagery”. Studies in the Maternal. 10(1), 10. https://doi.org/10.16995/sim.256
36. Soloway, J. (2016). Joey Soloway on The Female Gaze/ MASTER CLASS/ TIFF 2016.
37. Wilkinson, A. (2024). Review of The Substance. (September 19, 2024). The New York Times.
38. Williams, L. (1991). “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess”. Film Quarterly. 44 (4), 2-13. doi:10.2307/1212758.
39. Wolf, N. (1990). The Beauty Myth. Vintage.
40. Aronofsky, D. (director).(2010). Black Swan. [Film]. United States: Fox Searchlight Pictures.
41. Carpenter, J. (director). (1982).The Thing. [Film]. United States: Universal Pictures.
42. Coppola. G. (director). (2024).The Last Showgirl. [Film]. United States: Roadside Attractions.
43. Cronenberg, D. (director). (1986). The Fly. [Film].United States: 20th Century Fox.
44. De Palma, B. (director). (1976).Carrie. [Film].United States: United Artists.
45. Denis, C. (director). (2021).Trouble Every Day. [Film]. France, Germany, Japan: RézoFilms (France), Kinetique (Japan).
46. Ducournau, J.(director). (2016). Raw. [Film]. France, Belgium: Wild Bunch(France), O`Brother Distribution (Belgium).
47. Ducournau, J.(director). (2021).Titane. [Film]. France, Belgium: Diaphana Distribution (France), O`Brother Distribution (Belgium).
48. Fargeat, C. (director). (2024).The Substance. [Film]. France, United Kingdom, United States: Blacksmith.
49. Glass, R. (director). (2019).Saint Maud. [Film]. United Kingdom: StudioCanal.
50. Kusama, K. (director). (2009). Jennifer`s Body. [Film]. United States: 20th Century Fox.
51. Kent, J. (director). (2014).The Babadook. [Film]. Australia: Umbrella Entertainment.
52. Larraín, P. (director). (2024). Maria. [Film]. Italy, Germany, United States: 01 Distribution (Italy), StudioCanal (United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany and Poland), Netflix (United States).
53. Reijn, H. (director). (2024). Babygirl. [Film]. United States: A24.
54. Scott, R. (director). (1979).Alien. [Film].United Kingdom, United States: 20th Century Fox.
55. Żuławski, A. (director). (1981).Possession. [Film]. France, West Germany: Gaumont.