A Man of Substance: A Different Man (Aaron Schimberg, 2024)

The typical onslaught of work announcements can be found beneath the body of this post, but before I begin, you should know that it contains detailed discussion of A Different Man, which is fairly twisty, as comedies go. It's been out for a while, but if you want to go in cold, you probably shouldn't read this.

Second: If you read only one work announcement, you should know that my third non-fiction book, DILF: Did I Leave Feminism, is now available for pre-order.

If the Oscars brought us any blessing (and who’s to say they didn’t? Other than Demi Moore, that is?) it was the quick and merciful end of Emilia Perez, an Oscar-Nominated Transgender Movie that seems — like all Oscar-Nominated Transgender Movies throughout history — to have been conceived entirely by and for cis people. I mean: There were at least two Oscar-nominated movies in 2024 that managed to be more transgender than Emilia Perez, Oscar-nominated Transgender Movie, and neither had any trans people in them. 

I speak, of course, of The Substance, and, even more importantly, of The Substance for Men, a.k.a. A Different Man. Normally, I’d find it unfortunate that two such similar movies came out in the same year. Yet it’s very important to the functioning of binary gender in the West that we repackage essentially the same product in both “male” and “female” versions (soap, razors, hair dye, movies about body dysphoria) and I’m glad to see that The Substance has been poured into a blue bottle and fragranced with something named “Nuclear Winter Blast” so that men can watch it.

Of course, the movies aren’t carbon copies of each other. Men have their own needs, their own fears, their own -ospheres and Rights Activists. Thus, if you ever wondered how The Substance — an overtly feminist movie about the pressure for aging women to remain “beautiful” according to the dictates of the male gaze, and the self-destructive extremes to which it drives some women — would be different if it centered on a man, A Different Man has your answer: It’s about incels now. You’re welcome. 

A Different Man centers on an aspiring actor named Edward, played by Sebastian Stan, who has a facial disfigurement. (His prosthesis is modeled on the actor Adam Pearson, who has neurofibromatosis.) He can’t get cast for anything but workplace training videos about how to be nice to someone with a facial disfigurement. He falls in love with a beautiful playwright, Ingrid, who lives next door, and who would — of course! — never fall for someone like him. Thus inundated with misery and the unfairness of life, he signs up for an experimental procedure that promises to cure him. 

The “cure” happens rapidly, and gorily — cue a bunch of nicely gooey, Substance-y scenes of Edward’s face falling off — and wouldn’t you know it? Sebastian Stan was under there the whole time! Edward decides to “kill off” his old self and resume life as the titular Different Man, who is named “Guy” because Edward/Guy is not the most nimble thinker under pressure. (I would mock him, but I don’t think anyone who transitioned into having this many middle names can afford it.) Soon, Guy leaves his deadname — and deadface, deadjob, and deadapartment — behind, and becomes a mediocre but handsome realtor who gets laid a lot. 

Then, one day, Guy discovers that Ingrid has written a play about her old neighbor Edward, who — twist! — she was secretly in love with all along. Guy cannot get cast in any of the non-disabled parts, because his acting style is “reading sentences aloud in a depressive monotone.” Yet he’s uncannily good at playing this “Edward” guy. The only problem is that he has to wear a mask, which is unconvincing, and also unethical, because it means that an actor with a real facial disfigurement won’t be cast for the part. 

Or will he? In the middle of rehearsals, an actor with neurofibromatosis — the actor Adam Pearson, in fact, whose face Sebastian Stan was wearing in prosthesis form; his character’s name is “Oswald” — shows up, and he is better at being Edward than Edward ever was, both on and off-stage. Oswald can actually act. Oswald is confident and charming. Oswald has a thriving social life. Oswald has been married, and is a father, and the now-single Oswald is in a very good position to steal the heart of the beautiful Ingrid, which he does, almost without meaning to, because everyone loves Oswald. 

It should be obvious, by this point, that A Different Man is a commentary on disability tropes in movies. We’re encouraged to notice that Sebastian Stan’s version of Edward was misery porn about how sad it is to be disabled, whereas the real person with the disability is just out there living his life. We’re given plenty of time to process how the prosthesis (which is “realistic,” as these things go) is infinitely less mobile and expressive than Pearson’s actual face, a fact you might only register when seeing them right next to each other, because we’re so used to seeing non-disabled people play disabled roles. 

There’s a whole piece to be written — or several of them — about how this movie engages Hollywood’s legacy with regard to disability and disabled actors, but the truth is, I don’t feel fully competent to provide it. What I will tell you is that we are also used to seeing cis people play trans roles; we are also used to seeing portrayals of trans people as either (a) pitiable freaks or (b) saintly inspirations for cis people; we are also still having a conversation about how rarely trans people get to tell our own stories, and how often those stories are told for us.

So — like The Substance — even though A Different Man is primarily devoted to societal issues that are not transness, it winds up being accidentally trans a whole lot of the time. Or, at least, I am capable of drawing several tortured metaphors for transmasculinity from it. That, I do feel competent to address – though perhaps I shouldn't! – so let’s dive in. 

Guy’s abrupt transformation from social outcast to Actual Normal Man is, unmistakably, a kind of transition. In one scene, where Guy is unexpectedly surrounded by fellow Normal Men at a bar, he decides his best chance at fitting in is to scream loudly at random intervals. This works. It is also the most realistic scene of social transition I have ever beheld.

However, almost as soon as Guy has transitioned, he finds himself trying to transition back — in a limited, performative sort of way — in order to star in a play about Edward. Because no-one knows what he used to look like, he seems to be appropriating a form of suffering he can’t understand. Because he’s gotten rid of Edward’s problems, he no longer has the authority to tell Edward’s story — even though that story was his, and even though taking the cure was the only way to get a platform to tell it in the first place. 

This strikes me as intensely transgender. Specifically, it calls to mind a particular transmasculine problem: The way many of us frustrate, baffle, or even offend other trans people by trying to explain ourselves in terms of the way life was Before. 

Trans women are, in my limited experience, more likely to distance themselves from their pre-transition lives and personae. They were never those people; they were forced to pretend to be those people, and some of them managed to lie to themselves, but transition was a way to remove the mask, and the mask stays off. When trans guys talk about being different from cis men because of their childhoods or pre-transition experiences, that sounds like an indirect attack on trans women’s reality — a retread of the TERF line that trans women can never “really” be women because of “male socialization.” 

There are also plenty of trans guys who just see themselves as guys, full stop. The implication that there’s something special or different or complicated about their guy-ness because they’re trans is offensive to them. Some were perceived as masculine — or, at least, androgynous — long before transition, and so they were never really given the treatment that “women” receive. They can’t claim to have experienced life “as a woman;” they experienced life as gender non-conforming, as inappropriately masculine, and the punishment and discrimination they experienced was distinct from what women receive. 

I have no trouble believing those stories. They’re just not mine. I also think the reason for the community divide, when it comes to talking about the past, is pretty simple: All trans people, regardless of gender, are tarred by a perceived association with “male privilege” that they do not possess. Trans men are accused of transitioning in order to obtain a “male privilege” they don’t actually experience in the same way cis men do. (If we don’t pass, we may not experience it at all, and instead only experience the heightened danger and discrimination of being gender-non-conforming.) Trans women are told their womanhood is tainted by the “male privilege” they supposedly once possessed, even though they, too, recall these things being more complicated, and even though there’s nothing particularly “privileged” about having to hide your identity for fear of death or rape. 

Trans women say they’ve never had unqualified male privilege; trans men say they’ve never had unqualified male privilege; both are telling the truth, because it is unlikely that any trans person will ever achieve unqualified gender “privilege” of the sort accorded to cis men in our society. Yet in order to explain this, trans men have to point to the before, and how the world failed to perceive them, and trans women have to point to the now, and the truth it reveals. We look to be saying opposite things, when we are, in fact, saying the same thing from different angles. 

Which is all to say: I think Guy’s frustration at not being recognized as Edward makes sense. He had every right to change his face, if that’s what he wanted. He didn’t want to deal with discrimination, with loneliness, with other people’s pity, with other people’s fear, and he shouldn’t have to — but who he is, as a person, is informed by the fact that he’s spent every day of his life dealing with those things. He looks like someone who has never been disabled. He does not think, or experience the world, as someone unfamiliar with disability. Guy wants to pass without passing, to be seen and unseen, simultaneously — to move through the world without difficulty, while also being respected for the difficulties he’s faced. He wants to be Guy, but put the mask back on to explain what being Edward felt like. He’s had two faces, two names, but he’s only ever had one life. 

That desire might be impossible or self-defeating — Guy certainly doesn’t succeed, and is thoroughly (self) defeated — but it’s not an unreasonable thing to want. Yet Trans Men are Men, and being a Man in Western patriarchy causes certain problems, no matter what you look like. In the end, Guy’s fate has less to do with disability, or the special snowflakedom of transmasculinity, and (isn’t it always the way?) more to do with just being a dude. 

The big reveal of A Different Man is that Edward/Guy is not miserable because he has a disfigurement. He’s miserable because he’s a miserable person. He didn’t fail to get the girl because she’s a shallow Stacy who will only date Chads — he failed because he didn’t ask her out. He didn’t (just) fail as an actor because he’s disabled — he (also) failed because he’s not very good. And so on. 

This is very different from The Substance, where it was the world imposing cruel and impossible beauty standards on the heroine. Yes, her downfall was hastened by her own self-hatred and eagerness to conform to those standards, but she was primarily responding to an external force. It would be hard to do The Substance with a male actor, but it would be impossible to do A Different Man with a female actor, because there would never be any doubt that this woman’s life was hard because she wasn’t pretty. Women really do have to conform to beauty standards, or else; women are (still) rated first and foremost as bodies, as visual spectacles, and not as people. 

Men have more leeway. It’s not infinite leeway — Adam Pearson is not in line to be the next James Bond — but even though our appearance matters, it is possible to carve a path in the world, or to be a public person, without being beautiful. 

Yet the world and/or the Internet is cluttered with guys who insist that appearance is all that matters — appearance, or money, or some other thing they haven’t got — and that they’re miserable because the world just won’t give guys like them a break. All of those guys are convinced that society has to change, in some fundamental way, to make their lives easier, and none of them are willing to work on their social skills or their hygiene or their raging misogyny first. It’s easier to talk about “redistributing sex” and making the government assign you a girlfriend than it is to work on yourself a little. It’s easier to take the Substance and tear your own face off than it is to talk to a girl. 

I mean: I think every marginalized person has probably fallen into the trap of assuming all their problems are due to stigma or prejudice. If I wasn’t a trans guy — but there are trans guys who are more widely respected than I am. If I were neurotypical — but there are neurodivergent people who are far better at making friends or navigating conflict. If I hadn’t had to start my career looking like a woman — but so did Judith Butler, and they’re doing great now. If I had rich parents, like most of the kids in this industry — Shakespeare came from nothing. You could change everything about my life, and I would still be the person who has to live it. So long as I insist on assigning blame elsewhere, I will repeat the same mistakes. 

Yet men who subscribe to traditional, hegemonic masculinity are particularly prone to have an external locus of control — that is, to assume that all their problems stem from outside themselves, and can only be fixed by changing their external circumstances. They’re told that introspection is weak, and that real men take charge and solve their problems, so if they’re not happy, there must be something wrong with the world — someone they can blame or some external obstacle they can remove. The idea that there might be something wrong in their outlook, in their approach, in them, doesn’t occur: They see that they’re not getting what (or who) they asked for; they don’t wonder whether asking for it (or her) was unreasonable. They see that they’re not in control, not on top, not dominating; they don’t wonder whether they've earned that kind of dominance, or whether dominance is a worthy goal. We get a million thinkpieces and posts about why young men are suffering — because women out-earn them sometimes, because dating apps are hard, because beauty standards for men are impossible these days — that neglect to mention that women have been experiencing all those problems and more for centuries, and were expected to cope with them. If a woman has a problem, it’s her problem, and if a man has a problem, someone has to pay. 

Another way to put this is that, due to all the misogyny in the world, and the corresponding pressure on women to be likable and agreeable, women are more likely to blame themselves or tear themselves down. That’s not better, or healthier, for which see: The Substance. But the fate that befalls Guy seems like a very male fate, because he never once looks for an internal obstacle. He tells himself the problem is that he’s not good-looking, and he never asks whether he might want to be nice. Thus, Guy has the exact same problems at the end of the movie that Edward had at the beginning, because in both iterations, his problem is that he just kind of sucks.

Sometimes the problem is that you suck. The world is run by men who need to hear that: It’s not the Woke Mind Virus, and it’s not immigrants taking your job, and it’s not DEI; it’s not male loneliness, and it’s not pronouns, and it’s not your ex-wife or your trans daughter who won’t talk to you any more. You don’t need a better car or a better job or a better apartment. You don’t need a bigger paycheck or bigger muscles or a bigger dick. A genie could pop out of a lamp right now and grant you all those wishes, they could remove every single problem you have, and you would still be an asshole, and assholes are generally unhappy people. Systemic discrimination is real. Shallowness and status-seeking and cruelty are real. Bad luck is real. But sometimes the problem is that you suck, and if that’s you, if that’s your problem, you’re the first and possibly only thing that needs to change. 

Rest assured that, by fixing yourself, you are fixing a bigger problem. If all the world’s assholes were to work on themselves simultaneously, we really would be living in a better world. 

A Different Man is currently streaming on Max. Now, for the work announcements:

I'm going to be in this year's DC Pride! I've got a story about perhaps DC's most iconic character, or at least its most famous ice-based villain who stomps around Gotham in a specially designed freeze suit: Blue Snowman. I also worked with Josh Trujillo and MAW supergenius A.L. Kaplan to launch a new transmasculine character, Ethan Rivera. Who is Ethan? What does he want? What is his typical lunch order? All these questions (well, some of them) will be answered in June 2025.

Speaking of comics: Be Not Afraid, my new limited horror series with artist Lisandro Estherren and BOOM! Studios, is getting a preview in this month's Hello Darkness. The issue is out on stands March 26.

As some of you know, I appear (briefly) in Sam Feder's new documentary Heightened Scrutiny, about the disastrous media coverage of trans issues and how it's playing out in the courts. After premiering at Sundance, it's now booked a ton of new festival dates, which you can find on the project's website.

Also, I don't know if you heard about this, but DILF is available for pre-order.