The director of Substance wanted the perfect ‘propaganda’ font to sell you the Faustian bargain

The substanceThe Substance looks familiar. You might not see it in a package with injections that are supposed to make you a better person, but you almost certainly see something like it in stores — a Supreme ad, on a box of water, maybe even the now defunct Soylent food bars.

And yet Substance’s look is immediately bolder, a little more in your face. The spaces within the letters feel a little confining and small, a wink that this won’t be the liberating process it promises. The central alignment makes it look more like a tombstone than a friendly advertisement; this isn’t a reminder, it’s an order.

And that’s exactly what writer/director Coralie Fargeat was hoping for: something that feels like it’s speaking to you from a familiar place that extends just a little beyond our own humanity.

“It’s something that’s very dehumanizing in itself, because you never really get to talk to anyone,” Fargeat tells Polygon. “It’s all through a box, a voice, a screen — a place that’s super clinical and where you just become a number, really.”

The goal, as with all advertising, was to make it feel ‘monumental’.

“(It) would be super simple, but like a command; it’s something that’s almost like you have to do it, with this very simple ‘activate,’ ‘stabilize,’ ‘switch’ — which was almost like a propaganda font. There’s something that you see, and it’s like you can’t escape it,” Fargeat says.

To make that point, she wanted the packaging to be clear and simple. Her goal was to have a sense of playfulness throughout, complete with the unboxing experience. The audience should be able to imagine themselves in the place of The substance‘s women, who understand the rules, who sew up your other self, who press the piston of the yellow bottles.

Since this is a horror film, it wouldn’t be much of a spoiler to say that Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) and her doppelganger Sue (Margaret Qualley) don’t heed the subtle warnings of the Substance branding, and things go awry. And while the Substance abuse can certainly be seen as a skill problemFargeat’s “Faustian Pact” was a specific story about the failure of this one woman to not only listen to instructions, but to actually understand them.

(Editorial note: OK now we are going to discuss spoilers of The substance (and go into more detail.)

The Substance directive—disembodied and diabolical as it may be—reiterates over and over that Elisabeth and Sue are not separate characters: “Remember that you are one.” With that simple instruction, The substance brings to light the difference between a doppelganger film and a simple body horror. As Elisabeth and Sue both lament the other’s lack of respect, they fall victim to what everyone who has ever had a doppelganger has felt: the nagging pain that the other might surrender, win, alive better than you.

Again, advertising is generally built to play on this fear, even if it doesn’t tell you that your clone is the one who actually deserves that couch. But the catharsis of The substance arises from the tragedy of both Elisabeth and Sue (which makes them not one person) who both trust the promise on the box more than they trust each other.

“You can’t escape yourself,” Fargeat says. “I think it really comes from the internalized things and desires that we have to make for ourselves (and) it creates this thing that comes to her as if the world around her has heard her inner voice.

“And it’s this internalized voice — which of course is created by the outside world, but it becomes so powerful within ourselves. This inner voice becomes so powerful in terrorizing us, in locking us in this prison where you feel like if you don’t try to change this or that, or look like this or that, then you’re not good enough.”

In this way, Fargeat sees the Substance as a replacement for a million little products, diets, procedures and solutions that have been sold to us in our lives. But for The substanceThere is only one person who should be happy to see what she has, and that is Elizabeth. Her thirst—for fame, for adoration, for flawless beauty—is the only thing that stands in the way of her happiness. It is no surprise that she eats too much of the Substance, and it is no surprise that she is ultimately the architect of her own destruction. After all, that is the message we get every day.

The substance is now playing in theaters.