Hollywood Wasn’t Ready for The Substance to Win

There is a scene in The Substance, Coralie Fargeat’s body horror starring Demi Moore, that has become a calling card for a specific kind of female sadness. It shows Moore’s Elisabeth Sparkle — a 50-year-old aerobics star who is being aged out of Hollywood — getting ready to go out on a date.

Despite feeling more invisible than ever, she slips on a red dress and a bold lip, pushing back on the notion that she’s fading away. Except, when it comes time to leave, she can’t stop picking apart her appearance in the mirror. She fidgets with her dress, piles on concealer and frustratingly fusses with her face-framing strands. As the minutes pass, her desperation intensifies until she gives up altogether. She smears her lipstick, wipes off her mascara and violently claws at her face and hair until she is dishevelled and depleted. From this point on, she retreats in embarrassment as the vengeful, binge-eating, hysterical “hag” while her younger, hotter self — Margaret Qualley’s Sue — thrives in the real world.

The disturbing scene charts Sparkle’s descent into hating herself and her aging body. In a film full of grotesque visuals, monstrous mutations and bloody, deteriorating flesh, this moment is the most haunting because it is the most real. And at the 2025 Oscars, when Demi Moore did not take home the Best Actress award, its relevance was once again glaring.

There’s a chillingly meta aspect to The Substance, a film about a black-market drug that allows Sparkle to split her time between her middle-aged figure and her synthetic 20-something self. It not only tackles ageism in Hollywood head-on, but it also reflects Demi Moore’s own experiences in the unforgiving industry. In 1991 when she posed nude while pregnant, her body was deemed “grotesque and obscene.” A few years later, she was villainized and nicknamed “Gimme Moore” after becoming the highest-paid actress at that time. And over the decades, the media has mercilessly mapped the now-62-year-old’s physical changes, with a viral response to her rumoured “botched” surgery in 2021.

Needless to say, Demi Moore brought a sense of layered truth to Elisabeth Sparkle in The Substance. And then, she was put up for Best Actress: her first-ever Oscar nomination. The prospect of her winning — and the Academy recognizing a film that hones in on Hollywood’s obsession with youth — felt monumental. Instead, the award went to 25-year-old Mikey Madison, the second youngest actress ever to win the prize. While Madison’s performance in Anora is well-deserving of praise, many found the Academy’s decision to choose the ingenue over the seasoned star a little too reminiscent of The Substance‘s plot. Especially because, despite the film receiving acclaim, age discrimination is still mainstream.

This awards season, while Moore took home a SAG Award and a Golden Globe, the ageism embedded in the industry continued to permeate pop culture. An anonymous Academy voter said Cynthia Erivo was “too old” for her role in Wicked. In spite of her ongoing renaissance, Pamela Anderson has been met with insulting comments about her make-up-free red carpet appearances. And perhaps most notably, in recent months, the beauty industry has entered the “undetectable era” — wherein increasing amounts of A-list celebs undergo exclusive treatments to look “ageless”.

Over the course of her press tour, Demi Moore has been championing the message of The Substance through fashion. She’s sported red as a nod to the film’s gore. She’s worn warped silhouettes to reference her character’s disfigurations. She’s leaned into extreme corsetry, reflecting the grisly stitches her body endures on-screen. She’s even spoken about her connection to the film, opening up to The Guardian about disordered eating and over-exercising to fit beauty standards. “What really struck me [about The Substance] was the harsh violence against oneself,” she said. “It’s not what’s being done to you, it’s what we do to ourselves.”

At the 2025 Oscars, her method dressing was more literal, with her embodying Elisabeth Sparkle in a glistening high-shine Armani Privé gown. Dressed to win, Demi Moore was ready for her moment. But as the plot unraveled, she lost to her younger, greener colleague.

Interestingly, in the Best Actor category, a similar front-runner dynamic was set: an older, seasoned star, Adrien Brody, versus a younger face, Timothée Chalamet. In that case, though, it was the older man who won. Perhaps the outcome makes The Substance‘s message all the more poignant.