Summer of Damn

Aging, shadow work, Ozempic and The Substance

Everything in Hollywood withers eventually.

Like my resolve to not become obsessed with “The Substance”, Demi Moore’s latest film directed by Coralie Fargeat. It’s one of my favorite movies of 2024, yes, and the best theater experience you can have with an audience of 24 just before midnight on the last day of summer. Properly shlocky. Allan can confirm it has become my entire personality. Every single group chat I’m in has had a lengthy campaign speech from me about why it needs to be seen. Quick, fast, and in a hurry.

It was a necessary dopamine boost that has left me reeling because as I hurdle towards 45, I’m feeling the heat and outside of the occasional existential spiral where I spend a little too long staring in the mirror, on the Peloton, in a Sephora, at my aesthetician, in the review pages of a beauty product review forum, doom scrolling TikTok beauty influencers, I mean other than that here and there, I’m fine?

French horror, like Raw, Martyrs, Inside, and Possession, provides the necessary joy and release. These films strip away all pretense while visually ripping my entrails and with it confusion and grief. Like catharsis with a sledgehammer.

We went into the movie cold – uncharacteristically so. The dog days of summer can be such a bore. It takes restraint for two people, with devilish hands, to leave a little mystery as a treat. By the third act, we were hootin’ and hollerin’. Through my shambolic emotions were tears. I grab his knee, and he squeezes my hand whispering, "Babe...oh my god..." our voices cracking with muted hysterics.

Later, in the Galleria parking lot, I'm charged. Flailing and staggering in a crouching lurch towards the car, mimicking Demi's character who, at one point, mutated into a petrified rind of a person hurling herself around her cylindrical condo in the sky in distress. Our cackles echo off the concrete walls. A fleeting moment of joy before reality creeps back in. What happens when I can't contort like this anymore?

No, no, no, stay in this… you're having fun… 

Intrusive thoughts don't knock to see if you're home.

I'm getting ahead of myself. The movie. Demi is Elisabeth Sparkle, a former actress turned fitness instructor who doesn’t seem to have a care in the world until she accidentally overhears her boss Harvey (please clap) a gnarly Dennis Quaid chaotically eviscerates her specifically her age and ratings thus demanding her dismissal all while taking a leak. Our intro to Elisabeth is quite swift. A dreamy montage of her star on the Walk Of Fame’s creation, placement, and degradation shows she has pushed herself, but the back story isn't necessary, we got it. Up to that point, things are fine. She is fine and has the body to show for it. She’s the face of a toothpaste brand with various awards and a massive fitness portrait appointing her opulent condo overlooking the expanse.

Fine.

Then the fable unspools and here's where the disorientation swallows the void. What is this era? What lies beneath the treacly dystopian sheen of this "Los Angeles"? There is a dated flair through a fish-eye lens that amplifies her usefulness dissolving into feral isolation. Enter the serum: the Substance. It promises eternal youth, (don’t they all) but the catch is she must swap bodies weekly with her younger self—or else.

Again, Demi is in great shape. You might say "for 50." IRL she's 62 next month. We've witnessed her body morph on and off-screen for nearly 40 years. So, the shock and awe of Elisabeth’s mutation shouldn’t have surprised me as much as it did. She’s always possessed this agency and magnetism because she had to compete. In the film, she completely gives it away and reveals a vulnerability that tough Hollywood living can only provide. Conform or perish.

Until this moment just simply having the body was the main component of Elisabeth’s brand, and she was fine trading on that, so this being her own undoing is poetic justice. This fabulous, gorgeous woman has not been that shy about the million-dollar body she’s built to last, but why was it thrilling to see her go out in such a toxic blaze of glory? The body horror scenes are properly grotesque. Her aging form FUBAR, while her younger version thrives.

The film’s fixation on Qualley's hotness mirrors our obsession with youth and beauty. But, the older I get, the less I want to look like someone I used to know. I didn't find my younger body hot or see what the male gaze saw though fully aware of my shape and my curves and what it evoked. It's hard to re-manifest a destiny I didn't truly embrace as it was being written. The current goal is preservation. Aging is a gift blahblahblah. But Black women have fought for decades to be seen as beautiful in mainstream media, so our conversations with ourselves and others are different. The older I get I’m recognizing I’m not the mouse they’re targeting in this trap.

The truth is my ADHD would screw up The Substance directions, fully off-top. I got lost just watching them inject.

Certain things: we age. I’m doing it right now. When Allan laughs like he's doing at the moment as we cruise down Ventura from the theater, once baby-soft skin that couldn't grow a mustache now looks rugged when his eyes crinkle. Still handsome.  My raven curls need more product and less tugging. The white strands, once hidden by a right part a handful of years ago, now frame my face. But you don’t know that because I see my hairstylist every two weeks. Still feel more beautiful today than when I was a teen. The softness of our bellies resting upon sturdy waistlines can be snatched back if we care a tiny bit more about enjoying our home cooking less.

Notice I don’t talk about my skin. My melanin has never betrayed me.

Buuuut OK, what would my genetic mimic look like? Spending too much time thinking about the DNA replications generating a tether for me like Elisabeth's "Sue" portrayed by Margaret Qualley, would be delusional. Imagining birthing a version of myself that pities and debases me more than I did back then when I was so hellbent on my destruction, so unbridled and uninhibited. Unable to get the movie out of my head, I called my mother the next day to instinctively apologize for whatever felt right to apologize for.

The truth is, I don’t miss my 19-year-old self; I mourn the fearlessness she had. As I grow older, the responsibilities multiply, yet I use the word regret with caution. I've never been one for total satisfaction. A lack of enthusiasm for most things drives my ambition. My worth is tied to my appearance because I work in a business that glorifies the look and trust me, I have a love-hate relationship with that.

“You’ve gotta get competitive.”- my Mother

She once said this to me when I was on an upswing with my weight. And by upswing I mean the scale was tipping and not in my favor. Like Reggie Jackson in "The Naked Gun" activated to assassinate Queen Elizabeth, I dropped the fork and got my ass into gear while spiraling. This gag is this kind of mindfuck can only be triggered so many times before you bring in more ammo and reinforcements.

Everyone knows I'm on Ozempic, or was until big pharma decided I'd had enough. Since late summer, I’ve been on Topamax and Phentermine, and taking it makes everything I eat and drink taste like a lightning bolt. Lost 5 pounds though. When I learned my new healthcare provider blocked my pre-auth, I emerged dizzy, sweating, and emotional from the Beverly Hills pharmacy after driving there in the punishing July heat. The clerk relaying that they wanted to "see if I really needed to be on this." thrashed in my head.

Yes, yes I do.

The idea of reversing all this hard work made me spiral. My health had never been better than the two years on Ozempic. I felt invincible. Like I found the secret to all that ails me in a weekly shot. The sacrifices felt small and beneficial, less booze, less fat and sugar, more belts. I spent a small fortune on clothing that kept getting smaller, slimming, and fitting. Short dresses, SHORTS. God, shorts. Yes, yes, the health benefits, sure - but my BODY. My fucking body.

Shedding the COVID weight, undergoing IVF, and re-emerging from lockdown fitter, happier, and more productive to prepare for a baby was the goal, and I was acing. Everyone was surprised to see that I hadn’t been ravaged by being inside. (If they only knew)

So Blue Cross was absolutely...what? Threatened by my rebounding confidence? Mad that my Coke bottle hip-to-waist ratio was making a triumphant comeback and now the big pharma hoes are mad? If anything you should PLEASE CLAP. IT WORKS.

The constant push and pull, the never-ending battle against time and gravity, and societal expectations combined with decisions out of my control made "The Substance" hit hard because it's not only a movie- it's a funhouse mirror reflection of the world we've built, the impossible standards we've set.

Developing a confident self-image requires work. Shadow work. Asking your inner self tough questions—more work than a therapist has the time to unpack. This unpacking means you waste a lot of "hot years" unlearning this narrative that your worth is tied to your waistline. The struggle is, my mind today has never felt more substantial and that doesn’t have anything to do with what I look like. As intelligent as I am, what they see, what YOU see has to have an impact on me to get ahead. It’s an unfortunate fact.

I know I’m charismatic and attractive, so the Ozempic helping to slim my body was the layup I needed to get back to the top of my game. It felt like my inside and outside were finally having the same conversation.

I’m not in the trap, I said this up there. However, it was whispered to me as a kid through magazine covers and late-night infomercials that I had to look a certain way when I always wanted to look MY way. At 44, I’m trying to re-bloom while the world expects us to wither. And Blue Cross joins the chorus asking me to retreat to the shadows. To fade? Not on your life. I’ve earned this version of me, for every pound lost, there was a relief, for every food noise shut down, the sound of music.

The true terror of "The Substance" wasn't the body horror or grotesque transformations, but the stark realization that maybe I will always be caught in this cycle—and I’m weirdly accepting of the sacrifices and cliche that my value is measured by looks before brains. I’m going to use what I got till there’s nothing left.

Driving home Ozempic-less and seriously fuming, I didn’t get what I wanted and I was throwing a fit—and you know what—nevermind. I've lived, loved, fought, and survived worse in this town that chews people up for breakfast lunch, and dinner daily for over two decades. I am comfortable with certain battles. The fact is I require things like this drug to feel better, because beyond what it’s done for my health - it’s renewed in me the promise of my self. I’m trying to keep up with the totality of me.

The only person to compete with is myself, and not the 19-year-old version, the version I was yesterday, or the version tomorrow. It’s not against time or the next girl or the other women at the table. It’s a battle for the right to exist in whatever form that takes. To care about whatever complex iteration I'm lucky to wake up as daily and do the literal best for my self.

Certain things: The appeal of nightclubs fades, the traffic never ends, the redwoods expand, the shores recede, your looks need maintenance. We age and evolve. We all become more complex, more interesting, more valued, and more valuable with time. Death, taxes, and all that…

Though daunting, and nerve-wracking, I see every little tool, serum, and shot as artillery for the tussle with aging. My beauty isn’t fading—it’s evolving. Every line, every curve, earned and celebrated—so the body horror for me is that I’m not ready to give up. and down for a little upkeep with assistance.

Cause baby, in a town that can’t wait to watch you implode, no matter what, stay ready for that close-up.