SINGAPORE: On Sunday (Mar 2), The Substance star Demi Moore lost the Best Actress Oscar, an award she had been widely projected as the favourite to win throughout Hollywood’s awards season.
The film, which won one Oscar (out of its five nominations), follows Elisabeth Sparkle, a TV star fired from her long-running aerobics show on her 50th birthday. Desperate, Elisabeth injects herself with a mysterious substance that creates a younger, flawless version of her – “Sue”, who takes over Elisabeth’s TV spot.
At first, Elisabeth and Sue establish a bizarre partnership, alternating lives every seven days as dictated by the rules of “the substance”. But Sue soon starts demanding more and more control, draining Elisabeth of her remaining vitality.
The film shines a powerful spotlight on the pressures women face in a society that venerates youth and beauty: Men become “wiser” or more sophisticated with age, while women must do all they can to defy it.
But was 62-year-old Moore’s loss to Mikey Madison, the 25-year-old star of Best Picture winner Anora, a case of life imitating art?
INTENSE FEAR OF AGEING
The concept of “shelf life” for women has always been loaded.
Take the cultural discourse around actor Leonardo DiCaprio’s relationships which, observers have pointed out, usually end when his partners turn 26. This has given rise to no end of viral memes, including a trend where women over 25 jokingly write “Too old for Leo” on their birthday cakes or in social media captions marking their birthdays.
This is particularly evident in showbiz. Before this week, the average age for Best Actress winners had been 37.2 years old compared to 44.6 for Best Actor winners – a gap of 7.4 years. Before this week, just 30 women aged 40 or over had ever won the leading actress award, compared with 63 men named leading actor.
