Persuade your reader that your chosen science fiction text either is or is not a feminist text.

This essay will look into the first two films in the Alien franchise, the first being ‘Alien’ (1979 dir. Ridley Scott) and the sequel ‘Aliens’ (1986, dir. James Cameron) and will examine as to why they are and are not regarded as what could be feminist texts. The essay will construct a for and against argument and will focus on the main protagonist Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and other female characters such as Newt, Lambert, Vasquez and the Xenomorph Alien itself.

The 1979 film ‘Alien’ is key in starting the argument for why the text is feminist, however it isn’t made clear until half way into the second act. Set on the Nostromo, a mining space vessel, the crew find themselves being picked off one by one by an Alien that has been let on board. Dallas, (Tom Skerritt) the captain, is positioned as the main protagonist in the film, much of the focus of the first part of the film being on him. However, his leadership is often seen as weak to the audience as he seems to be under control by the science officer Ash (Ian Holm). Many occasions see Dallas being called to the medical wing to check on Kane, the infected host, without being given details on his status – to which Dallas follows immediately. In contrast, we see the third officer in charge of the ship, Ripley, being a more dominant and resilient character against Ash, questioning his breach of rules of bringing the lifeform on board the ship, and even telling Dallas that he shouldn’t be following Ash’s own set of rules, when he is the Captain. ‘’At times, Ripley and Ash appear to be competing for Dallas’s attentions with Ash taking the side of science and playing up aspects of male bonding… and Ripley by her demands that Dallas recognise the legitimacy of her position as officer and equal.’’ (Graham, 2010) In the second act of the film Dallas is killed by the Alien, leaving Ripley in charge who finds out that the Alien must be brought back to the company as Ash was doing, and that the crew are expendable. After this realisation we see a radical change in Ripley, ‘’especially as she evolves from a Company woman, dedicated to equal rights and official protocol, to a radical liberationist who in the final scenes destroys the spaceship, Nostromo, ending the Company’s commercial and scientific ventures in direct overthrow of her earlier demonstrations of authority.’’ (Graham, 2010) This reflects the change in feminists during the 70’s where many women changed their attitudes to work and the establishment by protest and rebelling, labelling them as Radical Feminists, a sub group that were prominent at this time.

The film also takes class into account in conjunction with gender roles, and we see this with the characters of Parker and Brent who are the ships two mechanics who complain that everyone else on the ship earns more money than them, Ripley and Lambert, the only two women on board, being just two of them. ‘’At the time of the film’s release in 1979, women were earning annual wages that amounted to just sixty percent of the earnings of their male counterparts. The equalizing of women’s pay is just one of the ways that Alien concerns itself with sexual equality.’’ This promotes itself as being a feminist text, and fits in line with the Civil Rights Act at the time which allowed women to tackle discrimination based on sex – including the concern of pay and salary.

However, the film does show many connotations of anti-feminism, a key example being the scene where Ash attempts to kill Ripley. Throughout the film it is clear that Ash does not care for Ripley’s interference, and it is finalised when she finds out about the Company’s sinister intentions. This shows Ash in ways of being a sexist, with feminists at the time going against the establishment and male order. This is further displayed when Ash tries to kill her by choking her with a rolled up magazine. ‘’Within minutes of Ripley’s assumption of command, Ash confronts her in a scene that invokes an attempt at sexual domination by way of rape and murder. After beating Ripley nearly unconscious, Ash stuffs a rolled-up magazine into her mouth in a symbolic act of oral rape in an attempt to counteract the mixed-up sexuality that came with Kane’s impregnation, and to symbolically return Ripley to a pre-feminism gender role of sexual object.’’ Ripley is helpless during this scene until another male, Parker manages to stop Ash, exposing him as an android, leaving a hurt Ripley very vulnerable as she struggles for air. During this time Lambert, the other female on the ship is panicked by the outburst of Ash – the panicked attribute of her is seen a lot during the film, being the most fearful of the alien. She is in a vulnerable position throughout the film and does not show any feminist connotations, so placing her alongside Ripley who is now in the same position as Lambert as two males fight in front of them limits the feminist image of Ripley in this scene.

The imagery in the film is a strong argument as to why the text is not feminist. The Alien itself, created by H.R. Giger is a perfect example. The Alien egg’s cross opening is symbolic of a vagina for example, and even the ship where the Alien is uncovered looks as if it is a pair of legs, to which Dallas, Kane and Lambert enter. ‘’Giger’s psychosexual fantasies at one point into quasi-vaginal openings through which the crew must climb to reach the derelict ship. The alien itself is not only phallic-jawed, with a toothless, with a toothed phallus projecting from within its mouth, but to use its tail as a phallic weapon. This latter particularly in the scene with Lambert where it wraps itself around her leg and climbs slowly up between her thighs.’’ (Graham, 2010) This of course links to the ideas of rape, a theme that is shown throughout much of the film. During this period rape was an escalating matter, with pornographic films becoming an ever popular genre for males that promoted sex in a negative way showing males as dominant primarily – a reason as to why rape at this time was prominent. Using a vulnerable character such as Lambert in this way enhances this idea further, the alien being the dominant and fearful thing that can’t be stopped. This idea is however challenged by the idea of the face hugger alien infecting or in this case ‘raping’ Kane in the first act. While the idea of penetration and seeding offspring in the defenceless host would be a female rape idea, the fact that Scott has used Kane, a male as the raped figure could connote the rise of power for women during this time. ‘’As Rebecca Bell-Metereau describes, "This scene couldn’t be a more direct symbolic pictoralization of Freud’s textbook phobia: the vagina with teeth clutches and eats alive the intrusive phallus, rendering it impotent, castrated."’’ This plays with the idea that women were becoming more independent and resilient with feminist movements at this time, and male fears over them. ‘’Alien is a rape movie with male victims," explains David McIntee, author of the Alien study Beautiful Monsters. "And it also shows the consequences of that rape: the pregnancy and birth. It is a film that plays, very deliberately, with male fears of female reproduction."’’ While Scott has never explicitly revealed the sex of the alien, it is fitting to see it as a female, whom kills the male crew and then leaves Lambert to be killed second to last – leaving it pitted against Ripley, the final survivor. This again relates to Radical Feminist ideas of men, with many feminists at this time even believing they are above men in some cases.

James Cameron’s ‘Aliens’ of 1986 returns Ripley as the central figure, but challenges the feminist role given to her in the first film by putting her against the colonial marine Vasquez, a masculine female solider with a shaved head. In the introduction scene of the marines, one asks Vasquez, ‘Hey Vasquez, you ever been mistaken for a man?’ to which she replies, ‘No, have you?’ The rest of the marines laugh at this as if they are the audience, a joke which also shows her dominance over the rest of her male team and their weakness below her strength. ‘’But the joke is double-edged, it only makes sense (that is, it is only funny) because of the assumption (shared by James Cameron the screenwriter and his audience) that masculinity is naturally defined by muscular physique and muscular prowess.’’ (Green, 1998) Ripley is challenged by Vasquez’s role, who takes her roll from the first film of being the strong independent woman who leads the marines to an extent into the alien hive, as Ripley watches from a monitor.

 However, it is not until Ripley takes control of the vehicle they are in from the inexperienced Gorman to save the marines from an alien attack. It is at this point that Gorman is cast out as their leader and Corporal Hicks, the leader of the marines, begins to follow Ripley’s advice to destroy the planet they’re on and terminate the aliens once and for all. This falls in line nicely with many women during the 80’s having a larger presence in the workplace in terms of position, with many female leaders such as Margaret Thatcher being inspiration for these sorts of characters. It is important however to consider the new role Ripley is given in this film, as well as being the leader of the group, she is made to be a mother figure to the little girl the crew find: Newt. ‘’From the moment of discovery on Ripley is clearly defined secondarily as the best solider on the screen, but primarily as Newt’s mother, the only member of the group who can communicate with a young girl… It is as both mother and ‘’wife’’ (to the wounded and helpless marine, Hicks) that she, unlike Vasquez, survives.’’ We can see from the idea that Ripley is shown as a family woman in this film, going to all stops to protect Newt and Hicks from the alien threat, which could connote the ideas of women still being family people and refreshing the housewife idea of taking care of their husband and children – but with many women having better jobs and taking on even more responsibilities, in this case, these responsibilities being the alien threat. We even see a large role for the alien against Ripley as a mother figure, with the alien ‘Queen’ fighting Ripley to protect her children at the end of the film, as Ripley does when she goes to rescue Newt. ‘’"The thing about Ripley is that she is not especially sympathetic to the human beings in her world," says Thomson. "In the second film you do get the feeling that she and the beast have a kind of understanding. There is a scene at the end where Ripley threatens to kill off its offspring and the beast backs off. That shows a certain level of kinship. They are both mothers, after all. There's a strange twist at the end of Aliens, in that Weaver almost becomes the villain. The queen just wants to do what's best for her offspring. Ripley is like the evil stepmother who wants to kill the children." This helps to establish the Alien franchise as an ever growing feminist set of films – Cameron placing the alien as a female establishes the idea that female roles are more prominent and important, whether that be protagonist or antagonist.

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