Demi Moore‘s The Substance is making headlines not only for the star’s magnetic performance, but also because the film addresses aging and fleeting youth in a fresh, horrific way. Actress Amber Tamblyn, who starred in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants films and the Grudge franchise, penned an op-ed for the New York Times reflecting on how she felt pressured to undergo a procedure at age 12 that made her fit in with her peers. Titled “This Hollywood Horror Film Hit Close to Home,” the piece mentions Tamblyn’s ear-pinning surgery at the age of 12 after she booked her first TV role on General Hospital.
“Some kids at my school in Los Angeles would make fun of them, and I’d often stare at myself in the mirror wishing my ears would lay flat against my head,” she wrote. “Once I knew millions of people all over the world would be judging me on their television screens, not just on a playground, that knowledge changed everything for me.”
Tamblyn went on to share that the film’s depiction of women being disposable and forgotten when they’re older isn’t necessarily fiction.
“These are universal realities for any woman, no matter her background or profession,” Tamblyn continued in her op-ed. “The subtle messages of sexism are passed down to us as generational wisdom, almost from birth. As little girls, we are taught to value the worth of what our bodies can grow up to be, and then we spend a lifetime in debt trying to achieve it. There’s plastic surgery, yes, but there’s also the tenure of self-torment that teaches us that nothing we say, do, weigh, or want is ever right—it can only be made less wrong.”
The actress clarified that she wasn’t passing judgment on anyone who elects to undergo plastic surgery, but suggested that anyone who sees The Substance looks beyond its sci-fi horror themes and examines the deeper messages the film contains.
“I’m not saying that plastic surgery is bad or that everyone who elects to change their bodies regrets their decision—my 12-year-old self included,” Tamblyn added. “But Elisabeth Sparkle [Moore’s character] is a warning to all of us about what we might be willing to destroy in the name of desirability; about the monsters we might be willing to become in pursuit of perfection.”
She finished with a message of affirmation for herself and anyone who has wanted to feel “beautiful and desired.”
“I am quite content with the writer, actress, and artist I’ve become—encroaching crow’s feet, chin hairs and all. But I’m also not immune to wanting to feel beautiful and desired, and indulging in that need. I don’t apologize for what I’ve done, or for what I haven’t. My relationship to my body has changed, healed even, as I’ve become more protective, compassionate, and honest,” she concluded. “That sometimes, if we’re not careful, our commitment becomes the consequence. And there can be an untapped, collective power in not giving up on not giving in.”