Have you ever dreamed of a better version of yourself? Younger, more beautiful, more perfect… Think of the moment a mother shows a baby its own reflection in the mirror. It sees itself with its mother, and at the moment the mother smiles, points to the mirror, and says, “Look, that’s you!”; in this confusing world it cannot make sense of, it now sees an “I” in its mother’s gaze. Along with the joy of being an “I,” there is also an anger accompanying that image because the child in that image is an other, a stranger. If the baby raises its right arm, the other child raises its left.
In this situation, what can this baby do in response to the mother’s gaze (or lack thereof), who smiles at the other child and says, “That’s you”? Can its “self” capture the love in its mother’s gaze if it becomes like the “other” child—if it becomes a stranger?
The Mirror Stage and The Birth of the Ideal Image
In the light of Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic theory, the horror film The Substance (written and directed by Coralie Fargeat) beautifully depicts the excesses one goes to in order to capture this gaze and the subject’s incremental approach to their own destruction. The film tells the story of Elizabeth Sparkle, a media star falling from the peak she once occupied, who creates a new “I” named Sue with a “substance” whose existence is kept secret, giving her the chance to create a better, younger, more beautiful second body and personality—aiming to remain in the gaze of the big Other.
As the film progresses, we see the erasure of Elizabeth as she, in the body of Sue, becomes the object of the gaze in her pursuit of desire. As she tries to challenge this erasure, the rivalry that emerges between her and her other self, Sue, brings them both closer to a terrifying end.
To understand the concept of the “ideal image,” which Jacques Lacan emphasized when discussing this mirror stage that I have tried to describe partially and simply, the “big Other” must be explained. If we think abstractly of the position of the primary caregiver—often the mother for a child—as the addressee to whom love is directed and from whom it is demanded, I can perhaps offer an incomplete definition for the big Other by calling it a symbolic plane that we can exemplify with society, language, and law (Lacan, 1977).
The ideal image is then a concept that describes how we try to exist as an “I” in the gaze of the big Other, showing the assumption that “if I become that way, I will be loved” (Lacan, 1977/2006).
The Substance: The Desire to Be the Other
Spoilers from this point on.
Due to Elizabeth’s aging, when they want to replace her television program with another that will boost ratings, a mysterious substance comes to her aid, and the new show she will host with her new body and identity replaces Elizabeth’s program. But does it matter, since it’s the same person after all? It seems to matter to Elizabeth.
Although the instructions for the substance state that the new body should not be used for more than one week continuously, the intoxicating effect of being in the gaze leads Elizabeth’s days to be spent merely waiting for the next week when she can become Sue again. As this progresses, the desire to be Sue overshadows everything else Elizabeth wants.
On one side are her oral drives and the foods she wants to binge on; on the other is Sue’s life in the public eye. On one side is a potential romantic partner who is curious about her; on the other is a gaze that she is “sure” to know what it loves. Just as Narcissus’s admiration for his reflection in the lake led to his drowning.
The traffic accident at the beginning of the film, which occurs when she is not focused on her driving while looking at her photo on a billboard and its tearing, also emphasizes the fatal danger in this myth (Hook, 2025, 7:13). Of course, when Sue succumbs to her hunger for consuming that gaze, she begins to use the drug in a way that will consume the “Elizabeth body.”
While Elizabeth keeps wondering whether the desired one is herself or Sue, Sue, though certain it is her, continues her days dependent on Elizabeth to continue her life. The division between Elizabeth and Sue begins to solidify so much that we start watching two different people as the film progresses.
As Sue can no longer bear the days lost from her own life and the moments she has to halt her pleasures, she begins to deny that these are necessities for her existence and starts stealing days from Elizabeth. Sue’s denial to accept loss causes Elizabeth’s body to gradually disappear.
The Mirror Stage in Modern Culture
Aside from the film, we often see the danger of trying to merge with an image on social media as well. There is almost a trend where excesses compete, with body image being just one of the most concrete examples.
Returning to the film, when Elizabeth talks to the mysterious person who provided her with the substance, she says she wants Sue to stop destroying her. The mysterious person reminds her that Sue and Elizabeth are one and says that if she wants the destruction to stop, Elizabeth should stop it, and that she can even end the substance use process if she wants—but Elizabeth cannot bring herself to do it. Ultimately, this is what leads to her end.
As the end approaches, damage begins to appear on Sue’s body: her teeth fall out, her ear comes off, her nail falls off; and all this on the very day she is to host the show where she will be most in the public eye.
At that moment, an idea crosses her mind. Have you ever dreamed of a better version of yourself? Younger, more beautiful, more perfect… But since the substance is designed to divide the subject only once, the new body emerges from Sue’s body in an amorphous state.
When she goes to the program’s set, at first, it’s as if no one notices that the body has three nostrils, that its arm is on its back, and many other features, just because it is wearing Sue’s dress. The entire crew applauds Sue together as if everything is fine. Just like how no one in the crowd dared to say the emperor was naked, everyone remains silent. Until she steps onto the stage, before the gaze that brought her into being.
As the audience reacts with screams like “Monster!” and “Kill the monster,” a never-ending bloodbath begins. After watching the endlessness of this scene and then seeing Elizabeth’s blood on the Hollywood star being casually wiped away by a sidewalk cleaner, I can’t help but think that even these excesses have become mundane now.
References
Hook, D. (2025, July 2). Psychoanalyzing Horror: The Substance [Video]. YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDYnI6IsoVE
Lacan, J. (1977). The four fundamental concepts of psycho-analysis (A. Sheridan, Trans.). W. W. Norton & Company. (Original work published 1973).
Lacan, J. (2006). The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience. In B. Fink (Trans.), Écrits: The first complete edition in English (pp. 75–81). W. W. Norton & Company. (Original work published 1977).