by Dr. Laura Wilhelm, LauraWil Intercultural
March is Women’s History Month, and 2024 was an uncommonly good year for women in film. Former fleshpots Pamela Anderson and Jamie Lee Curtis got to flaunt their considerable acting chops alongside Dave Bautista, a former world heavyweight wrestling champion, in Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl that ends with the original Miley Cyrus hit ”Beautiful That Way.”
All four women have been sweeping the 2025 film awards season. But the Oscar nods went to another rather similar film, Coralie Fargeat’s body horror satire The Substance starring Brat Pack beauty Demi Moore as an aging Hollywood aerobics star who resorts to extreme medical means in an effort to stay young. Her severed head ends up right on top of her Hollywood Walk of Fame star, where it is duly swept off into oblivion the next day.
The stunning 62-year-old Moore finally picked up her first major film award, a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy, after over 45 high-profile years in the entertainment and modeling industries that have rewarded her with a staggering net worth of over $250 million. Many viewers were moved by her heartfelt acceptance speech. ”The universe told me I wasn’t done!” she exclaimed.
These two melodramatic films defy description and need to be experienced visually rather than verbally. Their common themes, however, invite further reflection.
It seems significant that it took female directors with European roots to resurrect these three extraordinary talents in their later years. As American society sometimes forgets, experience and insight are what make an actress truly great, not merely physical beauty.
The symbol of the severed head in The Substance evokes both the mindless appreciation some filmgoers have for beautiful bodies as well as the bad choices beautiful women can make about their lives and careers. The harsh judgments of the world cause the dancers in both films to lose their minds rather than to conceive of themselves more holistically as the complex and creative beings they really are.
In any case, we can only wish all of these brave women future success. Beauty is in the mind as well as in the eye of the beholder.
Photos: MovieStillsDB
