This is the first time
I had ever seen a film from the Alien series and surprisingly I loved it. I had
no idea that the main character was female. I had always thought that it was
like Rambo in space, big macho guys shooting down aliens to protect people.. or
something like that. However, Aliens wasn't like that at all. The main
character, Ellen Ripley, is a badass lady! The first badass lady in a huge
action/sci-fi film to be exact. This is much more normal to see in films of the
90's and today but in the 1980's, I'm sure it was a bit shocking. TIME magazine
was clearly very perplexed by this, as they put Sigourney Weaver on the front
cover with full make-up and her hair done, next to a picture of the
"She-Monster."
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| Sigourney Weaver on the cover of TIME magazine |
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| Sigourney Weaver in Aliens |
Jeffrey Brown brings up the fact that many critics were also put off and confused by this new kind of female action heroine. He states that several of them felt that lead female characters in action films were actually male impersonators or "really only 'boys' in 'girls' clothing". This bothers me for many reasons. Firstly this reinstates the sexist notion of the stereotypical women in films who are always passive and actually do not help the story line of a film at all. They are the ones needing to be saved. All the female characters in Aliens challenge this idea including the background characters, such as Pvt. Vasquez, who in the end decides to commit suicide rather than being captured by the aliens. She takes matters into her own hands rather than waiting for anyone (especially a guy) to save her. She is also very masculine in her appearance and how she acts but when asked the question "have you ever been mistaken for a man?" she rebuffs it with "no, have you?"
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| Jenette Goldstein as Pvt. Vasquez |
Another female
character in Aliens, the main villain of the film, is the Xenomorph Queen. I
feel like the film was clearly showing that she was a female alien. Which is
interesting because this was another uncommon appearance in the 80s, women as villains. There is an extremely tense
scene between the heroine and the female villain in the film and the viewer is
made to think that they have some sort of motherly bond or connection but in
actuality Ripley disregards the connection and lights the Queen's eggs on fire.
This to me was showing Ripley as an even stronger hero, that she is the ultimate
mother figure who protects her adopted daughter, Newt more than anything else.
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| Ripley and Newt |
This scene also leads
to the final showdown between Ripley and the Queen. The Queen comes back for
vengeance and Ripley comes back fighting in a robotic machine body. Again,
showing that the Queen is female, Ripley says "get away from her, you
bitch!" Which is an awesome moment. There is also a moment in Harry Potter and
the Deathly Hallows, when Molly Weasley says "not my daughter, you
bitch!" that completely echoes this scene. I feel like J.K. Rowling was influenced by Ripley's motherly
strength in Aliens while writing it. In fact it's another female hero vs. female
villain type scene which is interesting.
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| Aliens |
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| Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 |
All in all, I thought Aliens was awesome. It portrayed women as strong individuals and the aliens were actually frightening. I'll definitely be watching the other films in the franchise very soon.
