As a middle-aged woman who doesn’t look or feel her age, I am still very aware of how growing older excludes you from the club of progressive youth. It is difficult to find one’s place in the millennial world, with activities such as job searches and dating catering more to the young and hip who fit the target market, while fashion choices leave me wondering if I am too old to shop in some stores or still too young (and broke) to shop in others. It is a conundrum of how you are perceived and accepted in society and what you perceive your real self to be.
This culture of smooth skin, slim bodies,
fresh ideas and technology running rampant under the banner of healthy living
for a new age is nothing new; it is a cycle of life that leaves those of us who
are near or at the age where we don’t fit in struggling to find a footing. In Jennifer Phang’s feature film Advantageous, we get a first-hand
account of what the consequences of aging and a woman’s place in the not-so
distant future would be like if we had the choice and the means to renew
ourselves.
In 2041, women are losing their jobs,
rebels regularly bomb shining towers of capitalism, and fertility issues grow
as our DNA deteriorates. Gwen Koh (Jaqueline
Kim) is an executive at the Centre for Advanced Health and Living, an elitist
self-improvement conglomerate. She is
spearheading a new, less invasive cosmetic procedure in which an aging, ailing
person can transfer their “selves” or consciousness into a new younger body of
their choice. Gwen is also the face of
the centre, however, she herself is showing signs of aging and is let go
because of this. At the same time, her
daughter Jules (Samantha Kim), an intelligent and ironically older than her
years ‘tween, is competing to get into a prestigious school with a large
tuition, and Gwen’s job situation couldn’t have come at a worse time. She is desperate to get Jules into school,
where her chances of having a better life would be almost guaranteed. Strapped for money, Gwen explores many
avenues from a fruitless job search to considering selling her eggs and asking
unwilling family members for help.In the end, Gwen decides to make herself a walking experiment for her old job. She spins herself as the ideal spokesperson, knowing the transformation would provide her with the funds she needs for Jules and the means to get her job back. With a heavy heart, she, with the help of her wary daughter, chooses a younger body to inhabit. What ensues is a heartbreaking vision of a future society perpetuating an impossible vision of youth and vitality, alienation of women and an aging population, and the desperation of a mother who wants to ensure a better future for her child.
As an overall film, Advantageous was beautifully done on a low budget, with believable
CGI, emotional portrayals without histrionics, and a thought-provoking plot. Phang, a long-time fan of science-fiction,
expanded a short film of the same name she created for PBS Futurestates in 2012. Co-written with Jaqueline Kim who played Gwen
in both films, it is a representation of Phang’s exploration of women, the
world’s obsession with youth, wealth, beauty, technology and their impact on a
future society.
I was elated to see a
film with a mostly women of colour cast. As a viewer who is sadly still looking for a realistic representation of
minorities in film, especially one about the future where visible minorities
will probably be the majority, it was nice not to obsessively search the
background for someone that looked like me, or someone who looked like any
visible minority. It felt like an actual
“slice of life” film with an Asian-American protagonist who lived a normal
life, not one rife with Asian gangs or some sinister criminal element. She was also a single mother who just wanted
the best for her child, and a hugely flawed individual which made empathy for
her easy.
What I’d like to focus on is Phang and
Kim’s vision of a bleak but feasible future for women. In a world where we fawn over youth and beauty,
a façade of perfection that we all know is impossible to maintain but fall for
anyway. It sits center stage to the monetization of women and their
bodies. We have been conditioned to want
all of the wisdom but look like a 20 year old lingerie model and keep all of
our life experience but none of the aches, pains and more serious ailments of
aging. It is a literal representation of
the wistful do-over, promising those who can afford to change their bodies with
a better standing in life, or maintain their place in the upper echelon. We are presented with a thoughtful series of
moral consequences that most of us may not consider, like Gwen’s new host body,
where she came from, and just how much of Gwen’s personality she would
retain.
Who or what does this nefarious market
represent, and who is it trying to appease? How far away are we from a future where older women become disposable
and disenfranchised, or where it is okay to pick a socially acceptable race to
get ahead? Millennials and Baby Boomers
are at odds right now as changes in the workplace and economy morph and divide
generations, and since women of a certain age and race are often excluded from
popular culture in this era, it is not difficult to see the truth in the film’s
plot. Advances in technology will soon
allow people to change their eye color, and we can already zap wrinkles and
pigmentation into submission, so is it only a matter of time until changing
skin tone follows suit? These are all
questions that may already have answers, but hopefully those answers will be changed
by pressure from visible minority women, old and young alike, who realize their
economic power.
Propaganda spouting hope for the future is
overshadowed by a subtle but harsh reality in Advantageous. Class, age,
race and gender all come into play as women vie for a foothold to keep their
heads above the proverbial water. Like
other dystopian sci-fi films before her such as Logan’s Run, Children of Men
and Code 46, Phang has successfully
created a thoughtful film about where we draw the line with society’s
youth-centric end game that trades in experience for the superficial. As men become more distinguished as they age
and women often become forgettable, I
wonder how long we can maintain the façade of younger is better before we admit
that women at all stages of life are beautiful, valuable and viable, and that
aging should be honored and not shunned?
About The Author
Carolyn is a film programmer for the Blood in the Snow
Film Festival and a contributing author to the first edition of the Women in
Horror Annual, The Encyclopedia of Japanese Horror Films (Rowman
& Littlefield), and The Encyclopedia of Racism in American Films
(Rowman & Littlefield). She is a
Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic and has also written pieces on diversity and
women in sci-fi for Graveyard Shift Sisters, film
reviews for Cinema Axis, and
Rue Morgue Magazine, online and in print, and articles in Grim Magazine. Her
focus is on independent and Canadian horror, women in horror, and the
representation of people of color within the genre. She has a new site, View From The Dark, where
she deep dives into race and representation of people of color in genre film. You can follow her on Twitter (@vfdpixie)