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Aliens Paper

Gleymy Garcia

ENG 3690 

Aliens Film Post 

20th February 2017

                                  Can Women Live in Outer Space?                               

“Women have been taught that, for us, the Earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge” (Andrea Dworkin). However, women have ventured and while they did not fall off the edge, they are perceived negatively.

Science fiction as a work of literature “constantly interrogates the limits of identity and the nature of difference”(Seed, pg. 27).  It perceives this notion of women venturing off Earth throughout history, specifically their roles in stories to outer space. The difference in gender roles in outer space has undermined women as individuals within society, as shown in Ridley’s Scott films Aliens and Alien3 through the main character Ripley.

The term alien “are by definition always imagined through reference to familiar humans groups, animal species, or machines” (Seed, pg.28). In the sequel action/adventure movie Aliens, the epic fight against extraterrestrial life that destroyed a colony takes place between Aliens and the combat squad sent out to fight them. Throughout the movie Ripley is portrayed as more of a motherly figure and not the head protagonist, as she does not have any power to make decisions until the middle or end of the film. Lieutenant Gorman makes all the decisions and even when he dies the person in charge than becomes Captain Dwayne Hicks, illustrating Ripley may make tough and good decisions on her own but get no credit for it. The lack of acclamation the film portrays through Ripley as women character illustrates the denial of society to accept women as important figures within society.

 “Even though issues surrounding fatherhood and masculine subject were central concerns in many 1980s blockbusters, anxieties surrounding motherhood and feminine subject can also be witnessed in the genre at this time” (Cornea, 147). It seems as if writers, authors, screen players and even society as whole was scared to accept the fact that feminism existed. Ridley Scott the writer of the film, even he had “originally planned to have Ripley Killed, but the studio insisted that she should survive and the alien be killed” (Seed, pg.39).

Well I guess it’s a relieve to know some crewmembers had the decency to still care about women’s rights!

Although Scott soon came to understand that Ripley was an important figure in the film as he kept her alive throughout the whole Alien Trilogy, in Alien3 the audience once again was given the standard of women being unfit to be superior. 

“The film charts Ripley’s emotional course from despair to beyond despair to a brief moment of rebirth (in community) to a death that’s no less bitter for all if principled defiance” (Taubin, pg.96). Stuck in a prison where she is the only woman and surrounded by men completely, the film illustrates masculinity as a main element needed within society. While the “dialogue implies that the aliens are as indiscriminate as ever in their choice of hosts, on the screen it is a female human who suffers the involuntary caesarian birth”(Taubin, pg.95). Ripley is seen as the suffering character and with her tomboyish look in the film is seen as what is the “acceptable form and shape of a woman” (Cornae, pg.150). Not only that but the overall meaning behind the film is to send a message against women’s reproductive system and the advancement of AIDS.

So basically one portrays the woman as a hero in a time of history where woman are not accepted as a figure role, but at the same time one chooses to let this character be misrepresented, suffer and die? Many would believe that it makes no sense, which your right it doesn’t!

However, critiques feel it makes perfect sense given the fact that at the end of both films Ripley is seen as having a bit of power as a female figure. Not only that but Ripley “operates in a futuristically post-feminist environment “ and her depiction in the film is seen as a “set against time when not only had 1970s feminism challenge patriarchal structures, but feminist science fiction writing had dared to make inroads into the masculiniist preserve of the writing genre”(Cornae, pg.150).

Now if feminist writers are challenging and daring to write about the representation of woman against masculinity, there must be reasons for it don’t you think?

The relationship between both films and the trilogy by Ridley Scott is that it allows for “a notion of the feminine which does not depend for its definition on a concept of masculine” (Cornae, pg.150). The films want to articulate a masculine fear of gender dissolution, a dissolution

that is initially presented under the guise of a progressive futurism and then quickly undercut with the introduction of the alien (Cornae, pg.150).

Ripley is only seen as a mother figure and nothing more. Her character portrays the struggle of power women go through not only in the film, but also in reality historically and today. How can women strive in a society they are constantly being put down in? How can one even strive to make their presence known here on Earth if individuals do not give them a chance?

Without acknowledging the presence of women here on Earth, we will never make it outside of it. Science fiction about outer space may be fictional now but a reality later; Something women still may never be able to achieve.

 Word Count:1182

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                                                  Works Cited

Cornea, Christine. "Gender Blending and The Feminine Subject in Science Fiction Film. “Science Fiction Cinema : Between Fantasy and Reality. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Edinburgh UP, 2007. 145+. Academic Search Complete [EBSCO]. Web. 20 Feb. 2017.

Seed, David. "Chapter 2: Alien Encounters." Science Fiction: A Very Short Introduction. N.p.: Oxford UP, 2011. 27+. Print.

Taubin, Amy. "Women and Film. A Sight and Sound Reader." Ed. Pam Cook and Philip Dodd.Women Against the Grain 2.3 (1992): 93-100. Print

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Children of Men Response

The reading illuminates most of the themes I saw in the film in relation to what the characters represent throughout in correlation to times in history, the depiction of a torn society and a hopeful future. The torn society theme is illustrated when London is seen at the only place in the world that has stabilized chaos. In the reading, it speaks on the separation between the illegal immigrants and regular citizens through their placement in society being put in either cages or away at a refugee camp. The isolation of this population is as well seen throughout the film as there is a clear distinction between us (the citizens/prime ministers) versus them (illegal immigrants). Another theme the reading and film illuminated was through the main characters Luke and Kee, the use of black characters to depict the evolvement of history. At first Luke is seen as the only black guy part of the anti-war government group the Fishes taking extreme measures to protect his people (seen as a violent), later on however he rises up and becomes the leader that everybody in his group praises. Same with Kee being the main protagonist is seen progressive considering history states how white men and women were the ones to evolve and progress society, not blacks. Lastly, the theme of a hopeful future is seen throughout the reading and film as Kee’s baby is the biological answer to the survival of the human species. 

On the last paragraph of page 129, Brown makes a connection between Kee and her pregnant body with a Cow. Brown states that “ as she stands amongst the cows, her own body becomes that of an imperiled animal” (Brown, pg. 129). However, I do not agree with you. I would take this discussion in her comparison to an animal and reflect it to the triumphs that black women had to face throughout history. I think her body is not of that an imperiled animal but shows the beauty of mother nature. It shows a women's hardships and struggles, but also the upside beauty to her body. In Kee’s case her body is struggling as she deals with her pregnancy representing black women throughout history their struggles between being this exception of what society perceives them to be. Kee as well represents beauty carrying and eventually giving birth to a form of new life that is the answer for the future and hope for society.