Can a woman, successful or otherwise, ever be enough? At the Golden Globes Award ceremony, receiving the best actress award for her turn as the fading protagonist of Coralie Fargeat’s The Substance, actor Demi Moore revealed the self-doubt and the male gaze that has framed her life and choices. They fetched her success, but never an acknowledgement of her talent. In a career of nearly five decades, the Golden Globe was her first award. “In those moments when we don’t think we’re smart enough or pretty enough or skinny enough or successful enough or basically just not enough, I had a woman say to me, ‘Just know you will never be enough, but you can know the value of your worth if you just put down the measuring stick,’” the 62-year-old said.
Moore’s career — from her breakout role in Blame It on Rio (1984) to Ghost (1990) to Indecent Proposal (1993) to her photo shoots, pregnant and in the nude for Vanity Fair — has built up to this inflection point. But it could not have come at a more exciting time or with a more interesting project. The Substance is a hard look at Hollywood’s veneration of youth and the body dysmorphia that afflicts women such as Moore, made to believe that in show business that is the capital they have to live off. But it is only one of a series of layered stories that women, older and ageing, are telling about themselves. From Jodie Foster in True Detectives to Jean Smart in Hacks to Nicole Kidman in the erotic thriller Babygirl, new shows and films are making a case for better representation, not as accessories in a male-dominated industry but as “markers of wholeness”, wrinkles and sagging skin firmly in the spotlight.
Yet, power asymmetry still exists, some of the gains of MeToo have been undone and pay disparity continues to be a barrier. Women still have a long way to go but the journey might just be a little less intimidating. Hope is a powerful elixir, especially when one is not alone.
