Opinion In ‘The Substance’, ‘Severance’ and ‘Mickey 17’, alarm bells for humans in the tech age

I did not expect to find striking, multiple commonalities when going into them. All pointed to a sense of alienation among their characters, with the solution being splintering oneself into something more digestible to the world. Sounds extreme? Yes, but arguably, it’s a foreseeable solution in our confusing, often absurd modern-day lives.

The Substance focuses on a TV actress who has just turned 50 and will do anything to regain her youth. This includes injecting a mysterious liquid into her body, resulting in a younger, more “beautiful” self emerging from it. The price to be paid is that her 50-year-old body will be as good as dead for the one week her younger self takes over, and then she must lie down for a week while the original body takes the wheel. Each can only stay “alive” for a week, as the other rests.

In Severance, a grieving history professor finds it impossible to function, much less continue his job, when his wife dies in a car accident. He decides to undergo a procedure that implants a chip in his brain. As soon as he enters the office elevator at his new job and goes up the floors, another self takes over — one devoid of personal memories. When the work day ends, he goes down the elevator and returns to his other self; memories and grief intact. Each version only knows of its respective world and nothing beyond it.

Mickey 17 revolves around Mickey, a man who signs up for an outer space experiment to literally escape a difficult financial situation. As a subset of humans fly away on a spaceship in search of new life, they need an “expendable” who can go for dangerous spacewalks, or be the canary in the coal mine to see if they should step onto a seemingly liveable planet. It’s fine if he dies in the process because an MRI-like machine can simply print out new versions of Mickey, with the sum of his memories updated.

One common thread here is the question of the self. Is the self just our memories and experiences? Then why does the actress in The Substance feel jealous and resentful of her younger version, even though they have the same mind across two bodies? Why does Mickey feel strange when he meets a more confident version of himself? And if memories do not matter, then is the lead in Severance two different people despite being in the same body?

The mind-body conundrum has long interested philosophers. But in the 21st century, there is a case to be made about more intense, bone-deep feelings of disjointedness between the two because of what the world is and how solitarily we often experience it.

There is the constant drone of what the world expects of individuals, in terms of standards of beauty and success that are increasingly difficult to meet while maintaining sanity. Advertising envelops us on our devices and relentlessly assaults the senses, offering shinier products, and lifestyles, hinting at a better life that is always just out of reach.

This anxiety prompts the events of The Substance, which shows the sad revelation that meeting those standards can bring at least some unadulterated joy, no matter how fleeting. Seeking that hit also motivates people to become more cut-throat as they go through life.

Then there are the unforeseen tragedies in life, such as grief or other personal setbacks. In a “rise-and-grind” culture, however, there is little time to process important life events, with an “I cried in the office washroom and then got down to work” attitude being normalised instead. And so, the lead of Severance “splits” into a put-together work self that earns money as a productive member of society while his outer self descends into alcoholism and depression.

Finally, for those who have little escape and can only survive, everything they offer has the potential to be sold and ultimately seen as less-than-human. Thanks to advanced technology, humans can dispose of Mickey as they want, making existence seem like a never-ending punishment for him.

These stories also reflect a common fear, that advancements in technology will not be utilised to make the world more empathetic or humane but to aid some of humankind’s worst tendencies — commercialisation, materialism, and exploitation. Natural, human phenomena such as ageing, death, and despair are to be treated as problems that need fixing. What the corporate/technological overlords don’t foresee in these stories is that human nature will, at some point, resist such assertions.

Severance has been renewed for at least another season but the other two stories score equally on happy or sad endings. Mickey 17 shows that love and generosity can save the day even in the bleakest hours, while The Substance can be read as a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of joining the rat race.

Another common thread is loneliness. All three stories’ protagonists go through long periods without genuine human connection. However, during the brief spells when they meaningfully interact with someone (be it an old classmate, a sibling, or a crush), some of the misery subsides for a while. You can almost feel the giddy warmth of a new romance through the screen. Companionship and community, therefore, can perhaps transcend de-ageing fluids, memory-altering chips and even repeated deaths.

Good science-fiction stories have always reflected the social anxieties of their times. The fact that some new and largely well-received works have pointed to similar concerns matters in an era of microtrends and content curated for the individual. Some of the most creative minds in the world of films and TV have sifted through multiple overlapping, ongoing phenomena to say yes, it’s frighteningly messy, but there is a way out if we look to each other. It’s not a new message, but one we certainly need reminders for.

rishika.singh@expressindia.com