Voices: Demi Moore said Hollywood made her feel worthless – and she’s not alone
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The actress has gone viral after delivering the most powerful speech at this year’s Golden Globes, writes Olivia Petter. Her words served as a stark reminder of the pressures women face everywhere. Women aren’t allowed to age. It’s a message that has been with us since birth: stay young, stay hot. And do it quietly, please. However you go about it doesn’t matter, so long as you find a way. If you don’t, your social and economic currency will dwindle.
Nobody knows this better than a film actress, specifically Demi Moore, whose Golden Globe acceptance speech serves as a stark reminder of the damaging nature of contemporary beauty standards and how women are treated in Hollywood. In case you missed it: the 62-year-old won Best Actress at Sunday night’s ceremony for her turn in The Substance, the critically acclaimed body horror film in which a renowned aerobics star is fired on her 50th birthday, leading her to take a mysterious substance that promises to transform her into an enhanced (read: younger) self. That self soon appears in the form of Margaret Qualley and let’s just say things get grotesque from there.
As Qualley’s character, Sue, becomes more buoyant and successful, stepping in to revamp the aerobics show, Moore’s character, Elizabeth Sparkle, ages more visibly and violently until she’s more monstrous than she is human. The message of the film is that a woman’s value is transient. The older she gets, the more irrelevant and inconvenient she becomes: a problem nobody wants to see or solve. It’s a sentiment we see being reinforced everywhere, from advertising to social media. And it’s one all of us can relate to, regardless of whether we’re actresses or accountants. This of course includes Moore herself.
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