Culture Gabfest - Demi Moore Gives Substance to The Substance
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3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 2 October 2024
⏱️ 56 minutes
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Summary
On this week’s show, the hosts are joined by a very special fourth panelist: Wesley Morris, a critic at The New York Times and the host of The Wonder of Stevie, a new podcast on Audible. First, the quartet explores The Substance, a lurid, monstrous body horror flick by writer-director Coralie Fargeat. Demi Moore stars as Elisabeth Sparkle, a fading Hollywood icon who is so repulsed by the idea of aging, that she purchase a black-market drug known as “the substance.” The film caused a commotion at Cannes this year, where audience members reportedly walked out in disgust and the remaining crowd gave it a 13-minute standing ovation. Then, the panel dives into The Wonder of Stevie with its host. The new six-part Audible series explores the career of Stevie Wonder and “uncovers the untold story of an extraordinary artistic journey that shaped the greatest creative era in popular music history.” On the show, Wesley is joined by guests including Barack and Michelle Obama, Questlove, Smokey Robinson, and more. Finally, the hosts discuss A.I. slop and the onslaught of online garbage and language model detritus. This conversation was inspired by Max Read’s piece for New York Magazine, “Drowning in Slop.”
In the exclusive Slate Plus segment, Wesley Morris sticks around for a classic Slate spoiler special, and joins the hosts in dissecting The Substance and the film’s controversial, bloody, and borderline nauseating third act.
Email us at culturefest@slate.com.
Endorsements:
Dana: Stevie Wonder and Gilbert Gil performing live in Brazil in 1995.
Julia: Today on Trail, Rusty Foster’s spin-off newsletter miniseries about hiking the Appalachian Trail with his son.
Stephen: British singer-songwriter Nilüfer Yanya’s album, My Method Actor.
Wesley: Vote for your favorite songs of the past 25 years, and add to WXPN radio’s definitive list of the “885 Greatest Songs of the 21st Century.”
Podcast production by Jared Downing. Production assistance by Kat Hong.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This ad-free podcast is part of your Slate Plus membership. |
| 0:14.5 | Hello, I'm Dana Stevens, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest. |
| 0:18.3 | Demi Moore, Give Substance to the Substance Edition. It's Wednesday, |
| 0:22.1 | October 2nd, 2024, and on this week's show, we will be discussing The Substance, |
| 0:26.6 | a feminist body horror thriller about oppressive beauty standards, female self-hatred, |
| 0:32.4 | the exploitative nature of the entertainment industry. What exactly is the substance about? |
| 0:36.7 | Maybe one of you can tell me. We'll also talk about a new podcast from Audible about the greatest multi-album stretch in the career of Stevie Wonder. And to do so, we will be joined by that show's host, Wesley Morris, who we are thrilled to be joined by today, not just for that segment, but for the entire show. Not as a fill-in host for one of us, but as a very special |
| 0:54.6 | fourth member of our panel. And finally, the four of us will dig into a long article by Max |
| 0:59.3 | Reid in New York Magazine last week about what the author calls AI Slop, the large language |
| 1:04.4 | model generated detritus that has begun to invade every corner of our digital lives. |
| 1:09.3 | I'm joined today live in the Slate Studio by Stephen |
| 1:12.2 | Metcalfe. Hey, Stephen. Hey, Dana. Great to see you again. Great to see you. And of course by |
| 1:17.3 | Wesley Morris. Hey, Wesley. Hello. I cannot believe I'm getting to be on a whole show with you guys. |
| 1:24.1 | Wesley, I can confidently say it's the dream for all of us. This can be a delight. We're also joined, of course, remotely from Los Angeles by our beloved Julia Turner, a fellow at the Annenberg School of Journalism. Hey, Julia. Hello, hello. So excited about this show. All right. The Substance is the second feature film from the French director, Coralie Farja. The movie was a sensation at this year's Khan. I remember reading about it during the festival. It's one of those movies. There's one every year that make some audiences members walk out and disgust and others give an 11-minute standing ovation. It was the longest ovation of the festival this year. The movie also won a best screenplay prize for Farja and a lot of praise for the performance of its star |
| 2:01.4 | Demi Moore, who plays Elizabeth Sparkle, a superstar TV aerobics instructor who is fired from her |
| 2:07.1 | job when she turns 50. Elizabeth is so chagrined by the concept of getting older that she accepts |
| 2:12.3 | the offer of a mysterious and notably wrinkle-free stranger to inject herself with a secret black market drug, |
| 2:18.4 | the substance of the title, that will enable her to transform into a younger, hotter woman |
| 2:22.4 | who is almost but not quite her younger self, played by Margaret Qualley. |
| 2:26.4 | The only rule is that every seven days, the two women, who are really just different versions |
| 2:30.3 | of the same woman, have to switch places again. As is, perhaps inevitable in a body horror film, each half of the dyad have to switch places again. As is perhaps inevitable in a body horror |
| 2:35.4 | film, each half of the dyad starts to resent the other to try a little bit of tricks to |
... |
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