Is ‘Alien’ still a feminist film?
Long before actresses like Zoe Saldana carried the mantle for fearless space ladies (see: “Avatar,” Star Trek reboots, Marvel’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” franchise), there was Carrie Fisher. And Nichelle Nichols. And right around that time, too, there was Sigourney Weaver in Ridley Scott’s 1979 film “Alien.” Weaver’s portrayal of protagonist Ellen Ripley is credited with kickstarting her career and fueling the machine of women-led films.
But looking back on Weaver’s groundbreaking performance, I wonder whether the girl power implications of “Alien” have aged well. Assessing “Alien” as a feminist work, I found, takes understanding the gaps between the past and the present.
Whereas ‘70s babies talk about sneaking off to the movies and ‘80s babies talk about covert VHS-viewings, my millennial introduction to “Alien” was on a little-big screen. A projector. I watched it for film class. And as always, I watched with lenses of both film lover and feminist.
During the screening, the former lens was looking for why this film was being shown. If we’re watching this for class, there has to be a reason the professor picked it. Slugging a library latte, I whisper this mantra every Tuesday night in a darkened room off the quad. The latter lens was running diagnostics on Bechdel tests, character complexity and overall representation. The deeper I dive into film studies, the more I realize these two lenses are disparate.
I watched “Alien” meets its technical marks. The alien — often called the “eighth passenger” in foreign circles — is adequately terrifying. Harsh shadows, harsh lights and sparse music set the tone. The pacing reinforces the characterization as a horror flick in space. Meanwhile, shero Ripley struggles to grasp her shining moment and not just because there’s a face-sucking, chest-bursting alien onboard the ship. No, I’m talking about inane patriarchal obstacles.
Yes, we see Ripley rise to the occasion and it’s beautiful. But the journey there is trash. Male crewmates Ash, Dallas and Kane consistently talk down to Ripley and Joan Lambert, the other woman on board. And before we see Ripley shine, we watch Lambert spiral out of control.
I left the film screening feeling restless. Admiration for the film’s accessible plot and early-2000s-heavy-metal kind of beauty was overshadowed by frustration.
Anne Lancashire, a professor emeritus of the University of Toronto, points to a few reasons why “Alien” should be considered a feminist work. Almost accidently, “Alien” puts a woman front-and-center by riding on horror movie conventions such as the “final girl” trope.
“The last girl standing: that’s the typical female lead in a horror film. The one who survives at the very end,” Lancashire says. “Everyone else is mowed down all around her. And ‘Alien’ is a horror film in space, so it certainly makes sense to have a woman there.”
The film also plays with gender through less obvious means.
“The interesting thing about ‘Alien,’ of course, is the horror associated with female biology. The egg-laying, the sexual reproduction,” says Lancashire.
Dena Taylor, a U of T associate professor researching science fiction and fantasy, notes something similar with H.R. Giger’s creature design.
“The alien itself is one in the same time, very phallic — it’s like a Freudian nightmare — but also kind of like a gooey vagina, with the mouth and everything. So it’s got this repulsive, almost androgyny,” Taylor says.
“And even though it’s such an elongated, large figure, the way it moves is very feminine, very soft. Very slow-moving. Except for, obviously, when it attacks.”
Past the first film, James Cameron signing on as a director cemented the franchise’s woman-centric agenda for Lancashire.
“They think of him being very much a masculine, macho kind of director , (but) he’s always had strong women in his movies,” Lancashire says. “From ‘The Terminator’ to ‘Aliens’ on to ‘Titanic,’ Cameron is able to deal very effectively with strong female figures in the lead.”
But there’s still the problem of Lambert being an absolute sniveling wreck before getting offed by the alien. What good is your feminism when a woman’s success at the expense of another woman?
Even Veronica Cartwright, who plays Lambert in the film, was a tad disgusted with the role. She had originally read for Ripley. After learning she had been recast and reading through Lambert’s part, she was struck by how pathetic it was.
“It was so bizarre and so I had to re-read the script from the point of view of Lambert, and I thought she was a bit of a whiny bitch,” Cartwright told entertainment news site WENN in 2011. She went on to say that Lambert did end up being “the voice of the audience.”
And again, in the documentary, “The Beast Within: The Making of Alien,” Cartwright is quoted as saying “they” convinced her Lambert was the audience’s fears. A reflection of what viewers were feeling.
Taylor recalls her disdain for Cartwright’s character, from the very first viewing.
“I remember feeling of contemptuous of Lambert! It didn’t really have the effect that Ridley Scott was after, to embody my fears,” Taylor says.
“‘Man up, woman! Grow a pair!’” she summarizes, laughing. “But again, maybe that does fit in with what Scott wanted. By giving us her, as that character falls apart, we could feel superior. We could feel like Ripley.”
After mulling it over, I decided that “Alien” is feminst in the same way the Seneca Falls convention or Elizabeth Cady Stanton was: it just scratches the surface. But like Simone de Beauvoir’s “The Second Sex” and housewife requests to work a day job, first strides hold value. We have to start somewhere.
Reading the little treasure nooks of “Alien” nerdiness you find on Blogger or talking to people like Taylor — “Just, for me: if Sigourney Weaver had done nothing else in her lifetime, she would always be one of my heroes.” — gave me a different perspective. Whether “Alien” fits modern intersectional ideals or not, no one can chip away at the importance of what Weaver did. What Ripley did.
But in order to make (fourth and fifth) waves, there’s got to be motion. We’ve gotten sneak peaks with Rey and Jin Erso and Gamora, but there’s more work to be done. We shouldn’t knock what a film like “Alien” represents, but build on it.
