October 11, 2019 • 44 mins
As we approach the 40th anniversary of the 1979 Ridley Scott film Alien, Anney finally achieves her dream of dissecting the feminism, criticism, art and horror of one of her favorites. Samantha patiently supports her.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff
Mama never told you production of I Hear Radio's House
to works. And today, finally, finally, I have waited so long,
(00:26):
we are talking about Alien Alien Aliens. Yes, I already
corrected there. I've been yelled at a few times actually
in the last week, not only by you, but the friend.
He continues like it's alien. Well, and I was saying,
I completely understand that mistake because I actually saw Aliens first,
because I didn't realize it wasn't a one two situations.
(00:49):
The sequel is Aliens with an S directed by James Cameron,
but that's not the one we're talking about today, although
we will mention it. Um, we're going to be talking
about the nineteen seventy nine release Scott film Aliens. So
if you somehow, some way haven't seen it and don't
want to be spoiled, then you may want to skip
this one. Trigger warning too for sexual assault and rape
(01:09):
and discussion of disturbing sexual imagery. Yes, um, and I
know longtime listeners of this show should be celebrating for
me because I said I think in the very first episode,
I just want to talk about alien and here we
are and here we are yes, because it is the
fortieth anniversary of Alien correct right, and it is back
(01:29):
in theaters for a few days beginning October. So this
is a chance to see it on the big screen
if you want. Um, and we of course went or
will be going depending on when you listen to right
um for research. This is some of the best research.
I will say. Yes, we started our research, Arlie. Yes,
because I refused to do this episode until I watched it,
(01:53):
because I knew this was going to be a probably
four hour episode with your excitement and your um what
is it? Zeal? Zeal, thank you to continue and to
talk about it, and I'm really excited with you. So
I'm like, okay, cool, let me watch this. And I
did watch it. I didn't have commentary, but there was
a lot of commentary from both sides of me because
(02:15):
I'm like, what's happening? Okay, what? Okay? What? To a
lot of explanations, to a lot of here it comes
moments are that a few times? Um? So I did
we did already kind of do a view, yes, um,
but it's not going to be It wasn't in theater.
So and I promise to keep quiet. I'm really glad
(02:36):
you had the chance to be able to get all
of your excitement out so that when we're in the
theater you wouldn't do that, right. I still want to
do one viewing and you don't have to go, but
I want to do one with a theme like cocktail
that's red, and just the whole thing is discussion and hey,
you know I'm always down with alcohol. Just be sitting
there and nodding, Just let me get it out, get
(02:59):
it out, like yes, we go. Um, And yeah, this
was something I was very excited to share with you
and with anyone who hasn't seen it or has only
seen it once or twice in passing. And you haven't
taken this critical feminist lens to it because you will
not be able to unsee all the stuff we're talking about.
So if you happen to not want to watch it
(03:19):
with feminist lens, maybe skip it as well. But I
think it's fun, and yeah, I have told the story
on the show before, I think. But um, thanks to
a truly epic and very mean and honestly successful prank
my older brother played on me, I was terrified of
aliens like the trope the thing the monster and movies
and so fairly fairly recently. I didn't see ET and
(03:41):
Independence Day until I think a couple of years ago. Um.
My friends made me watch ET after we wrote the
ET Ride at Universal, and I was like, wait, what
is what? What? Yeah, it's very different than the movie.
I've got to say, the Ride the only movie I've
ever walked out on because the fear was lost in space.
And yes, I know that's not a great movie, but
(04:03):
I was scared and I left. Um and I almost
walked out on signs. I would have walked out if
my friends hadn't been there and I was too embarrassed.
I will say, of all three of these movies, I've
only seen E T really Yeah, because you know, I
kind of told you already I'm not a big sci
fi fan, so the idea of aliens has never been,
uh something that I've been really really interested in seeing.
(04:24):
The vampires, give me ghosts, give me demons, you know,
all of those all day, but technically aliens, I'm like, okay, whatever, sure, Yeah.
So what UM and I did have on my list?
I had two movies that because I was trying to
get over this fear actively and the two movies they
had at the top of my list working my way
(04:45):
up was Event Horizon and Aliens, because again I didn't
realize that there was an alien before that, and I
cried during Aliens. I was so afraid, but I got
over it and you love it. Yeah. Now, I was
like wow with this, and I was fortunate enough to
get to walk through this really scary alien set piece
(05:08):
at the movie um in London. That was pretty cool. Alright,
So that is a lot of exposition. Let's get into
the episode here, because we do have a lot to say,
or I have a lot to say in Samantha's very
patient with me. To start with. Alien is Yes a
nineteen seventy nine sci fi horror movie distributed by twentieth
(05:29):
Century Fox, directed by Ridley Scott, written by Dan O'Bannon
and starring Sigourney Weaver. Amazing Sigourney Weaver. Yes, and I
watched Kevin in the Woods last night and I forgot
she's in it. That was one of the prime moments
of Candid Yes, Yes, Yes, um okay. So O'Bannon, the writer,
was looking to ride the success of Star Wars with
(05:51):
a different type of space story. It was pitched as
Jaws in Space. I can see that. Ridley Scott described
it as Texas Chainsaw massacre, but science fiction, and we
should mention he gets sold credit. Abandon does for the script,
but a handful of others made pretty big contributions with
which led to a lot of tension. Yeah, of course. Anyway,
(06:15):
the story involves the crew of the Nostromo, a commercial
spaceship kind of like a space tow truck, and their
encounter with the quote perfect organism alien. The main character,
though you probably wouldn't know it for the first act
of the film, is Sigourne Weavers Ellen Ripley, the capable
and cool headed senior officer. One of the posters came
(06:37):
with the iconic tagline in space, no one can hear
you scream. Okay, I guess that's right unless you're in
although in the movie you don't hear them scream. It
gets yeah you did somehow. There's a moment where I
think they were playing with it, but then you do
hear them screen, so I was like, well, it was
(06:58):
like it's very muted though, or music is blaring over it. Yeah. Yeah,
I think that was a choice. It was a choice,
but I don't know if it was like for a reason, yeah, exactly.
Um the poster also, by the way, that is just
an egg on the front. Okay. Both audiences and critics
praised the film, and it went on to win the
(07:19):
Oscar for Best Visual Effects, three Saturn Awards, and a
Hugo Award. Several film critics regarded as one of the
best films of all time. It gross about two hundred
million at the box office. In two thousand two. The
Library of Congress added it to their National Film Registry,
calling it culturally historically are esthetically significant. The American Film
Institute placed it at seventh place on their list of
(07:41):
best sci fi films. In two thousand eight, an Empire
put it into thirty third place when ranking best movies
of all time. Also, speaking rides, there used to be
I would love if a listener could write it and
confirm this, But I feel like there was a ride
called Alien Encounter, and I remember it being in Magic
Kingdom where Leelo and stitches now, but that can't be right, right,
that can't be right. It was in Magic Kingdom. What well,
(08:09):
super producer Andrew confirms it, and my mind is blown.
I just feel like it was really scary for Magic Kingdom.
It is very scary. Um. Yeah, it was for people
who don't know. You were in a chair and like
there was the alien was in the in a tube
in front of you, and then of course it gets
out and you feel it breathing on your neck and
then you get sprayed with blood as it kills somebody.
(08:32):
It was very intense. I can see why they may
be replaced it with Leelo and Stitch, where it's now
kind of a funny ride. Um. Anyway, my mom and
dad used to tell me about their experience seeing this
movie in the theaters for the first time, which I
find funny for several reasons. But they also went on
to get married on which is the day that it premiered,
which I'm sure is a coincidence. But they told me
(08:55):
people were running, puking, screaming, um, that they avoided looking
at the poster after seeing it because it scared them
so much. Yeah, my dad popcorns up in the air. Yeah.
I mean, if you think about it, not too many
things at the time. People haven't seen too many things
like that. Wasn't that in the same era as Halloween?
(09:16):
And it was Yeah, all that though it was close. Um,
but like in space people passed out during a New
Hope because the spaceship in the beginning just kept going on. So,
you know, interesting. And I am playing the video game
Alien Isolation right now, which is a game where the
alien can hear you as in the player, as in me,
(09:37):
whatever is happening in my real life environment, and it
uses that in the game. And I've died any many times.
It wasn't the recommendation to you about sit wearing headphones
so you can hear even louder, Yeah, because it's surround
sound and you can hear it in front of you.
So this film success went on to inspire a franchise
seven more films to date, if we include the Alien
Versus Predator films, which I also haven't seen those. Not really,
(10:02):
they're fun, not really. The books, comics, video games, and toys.
Pretty impressive for R rated film. Yeah, the toys thing. Yeah,
I can't think of too many other our movies. I
guess like serial Killers or you know, like Monsters. Oh yeah,
I think there wasn't actually like Halloween, Jason Toy, Freddy
Cougar Toy, which is really weird. Yeah, I'll think about
(10:23):
that later. Um, and yes, Alien has thieves of motherhood, abortion,
fear of sexual assault, post humanism and sex in general, machines,
corporations putting technology, weaponry, and scientific discovery about the welfare
of people. Some people have even interpreted the film as
a metaphor for women's refusal to bear children. So, yes,
there is an actual reason why we're talking about it.
(10:44):
It's not because I'm just a huge fan. It has
a lot of feminist issues and just kind of right
anxieties around well, as you have already discovered because researching
there's so many articles and YouTube videos of these theories
of how this is portraying the patriarchy as well as
versus like feminism. What is this whole idea of one
(11:07):
woman being independent, being a leader, all of these different
And of course I know you were talking more about it,
but birthing and vaginas, but yes, yes, specifically burning gam
vaginas no joke. Yeah, I am definitely not the only
one who has put some thought into this by far.
And I'm actually really relieved because I was watching that
movie SIMI recently. I'm like, I think this is a
(11:28):
got a lot going on with vaginas and stuff. And
then I wasn't wrong. I wasn't way off base with
that one um from Tom shown over at Slate. Quote
Alien has issues. It has mommy issues and sex issues
as a thing for strong women who it also likes
to ugle in their undies. It's a hot mess of
Fordian fever dream with its crabby and post coital atmosphere.
(11:52):
It's rebirthing imagery. It's queasily gynecological production design. It's night
sweat of male anxiety, a particularly horrifying confusion of the
sexual gynecological with the gastro intestinal, wrote James Kavanaugh from
Son of a Bitch, Feminism, Humanism, and Science, and Alien,
of the famous John Hurt birth scene in which a
(12:13):
quote razor tooth phallic monster gnaws its way through his
stomach into the light. A kind of science fiction foulst
in tatus. Oh yeah, mm hmmm. So the movie came
out during a tumultuous time in our society. So rod
versus Wade had just recently passed, and gender and social
politics are changing rapidly with the help of the Second
Way feminism. Not only that, but people increasingly had environmental
(12:35):
concerns from pesticides, chemicals, in our foods and cancer is
caused by humans. Yeah, like human whatever we're up to. Um,
So yeah, let's let's talk about the feminism of this movie.
If you search for most feminist harmonies of all time,
Alien is almost guaranteed to make the list. And if
you just search this movie and feminism itself, yeah, you
(12:58):
will find pages and pages of thing pieces about it,
some lauding its accomplishments, some decrying its flaws. This movie
is frequently examined through a feminist lens, seeen as progressive
for its time, while nitpicked for not going far enough.
Are sometimes in the context of how little the rest
of the series has come in terms of feminism since
that first one, once described as quote, a rape movie
(13:21):
with male victims are an examination of the monstrous feminine.
And yes, before you write in, we all know men
can be and are the victims of rape as well,
but this is how people have described it. Dan O'Bannon,
the writer himself, claimed that to him, the movie examined
the male fear of penetration, in which case I suppose
we could add in homophobia in the general conversation here. Um,
(13:43):
here's a quote from him. One thing that people are
all disturbed about is sex. I said, that's how I'm
going to attack the audience. I'm going to attack them sexually,
and I'm not going to go after the women in
the audience are going to attack them men. I'm going
to put in every image I can think of to
make the men in the audience cross their legs, homosexual,
oral rape, birth. The thing lays its eggs down your
(14:04):
throat the whole number. So that's the creator himself. Uh yeah,
And that scene where it attacks like attaches to that
guy's face, what's the character ash, that's the Okay, Okay,
that's right Kane's face. That was really felt like and
very very disturbing in every sense. Right, And and I
(14:27):
want to go into that, but before it will make sense,
let's talk about how this creature works and embrace yourself
perhaps terrifying this thing is. So the queen lays eggs
and you actually don't see that until the second one,
but there's this big queen. She lays eggs. When the
eggs hatch, the resulting creatures are called face huggers, and
they find something living and in this case um humans
(14:51):
to latch onto. As the name applies. They usually latch
onto someone's face, wrapping their tail around the victim's throat
and inserting their proboscis down their throat and forcing them
to become the host for their baby. If you can
call it that organism, I guess it's a frightening, disturbing act,
very very close to oral rape. And I believe in
(15:13):
the second one, you get a closer look at it,
and it does look very vaginal, and then there's a
probuscus that looks very phallic. So it's kind of been
described as this combination hugger because I was going to say,
when they examine face hugger, it looked a lot like
the Clinton of vagina, and I was like, what, what's WHOA, Yeah,
(15:33):
that's very very obvious. It is quite obvious. The first
victim was deliberately chosen to be male, and yes, his
name was Kane ash Um, who you later find out
is an android, but he's the science officer on the ship.
He refers to the organism inside Kane as Kane's son,
a reference to the biblical Kine, whose sons were born
(15:56):
outside of God's laws and were therefore quite lunch risk
I did not pick up on this until this last
time we watched it. Once the organism is ready inside
the its host stomach, it burst out of the victim's
stomach and this is called a chest burster. This was
also famously parodied and Spaceballs, which you was the one
(16:17):
I remembered. I was like dining diner, and and then
my friend was the one that said, what's the scene
where the tap dance? Yes? Hello, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
all right. And then from there it grows very very rapidly,
like hours, into a full grown creature called a zeno
(16:40):
morph And I'm sure Now I'm not sure at all
because all of you listeners probably don't traffic in the
same nursery that I do. But I see a lot
of YouTube videos that's like explained the morphology of the
zeno more of our the life cycle of Xeno moreph
because it is kind of confusing, right, but those are
essentially the life that's the life cycle, is it? I
(17:03):
would never question it because I'm like, a's an alien?
What rational Like what kind of rationale do you put
to that? As an alien? How do we know something
that we don't know? I think it just confuses people
that the face hugger essentially dies. It puts your egg in,
it puts its egg in you. That was twenty tho
questions I did ask him, like, wait, why if that's
(17:26):
the egg, why isn't the egg the thing? And why
does it need to do one more extra step than
just doing that? Because what it means a gestation period
in it. It's sometimes enough other movies it like takes
the DNA of the host of I guess because I
was very confused, like, if it's already in the egg
then and it's been birthed out of that egg, which
hatches out of it's been birthed, So why is it
(17:46):
doing it again? What is happening? We did have that moment,
we did, and um. One more thing about them is
they bleed acid. And this was done on purpose because
the director and the writers were like, why would they
not just shoot them? Oh I know, they bleed acid
and we'll destroy your space shap Yeah they worked. Okay,
So that establishes the alien some of the things that
(18:09):
we're talking about. UM, but we do have a character
that's been pretty big in the genre since then. But
first we have a quick break for word from response
(18:34):
and we're back. Thank you sponsor. And another thing that
comes up when you're talking about feminism and alien is
of course Ripley, who. For listeners who have heard, I believe,
the first episode I ever did as full time host
was Final Girl. She is frequently pointed to as one
of the original Final Girls, which is someone usually virginal
(18:57):
who a woman who survives to the end of an
onslaught in horror movies. So when it comes to our
main protagonist, Ellen Ripley, many of you have probably heard
um Ridley Scott asked for both male and female actors
to read the part. It wasn't gender. They were like
bringing whoever, and they went with a then unknown Sigourney Weaver. Also,
(19:21):
by the way, Ridley Scott identifies as feminist cool yeah
um yeah. So she is someone who is strong and
capable while still maintaining her femininity, although not too much
of it. But I personally when I read that, I
was like, she, um, you will apparently she kind of
(19:44):
it's the cat that most people point at the fact
that she cares about the cat, saves the cat very
I guess a feminine trait. She has been described Ripley,
not the cat, as the divine mother and protector of
all life. The final shot in the movie, some people
(20:04):
see us very Virgin Mary, resembling Virgin Mary. She is
also for much of the beginning of the movie largely ignored. Again,
you might not know she is the main character for
a while. Um, she's ignored by her male co workers
and even the other female one. When she cites quarantine protocol,
the thing that could have saved them from the alien,
(20:26):
she's ignored, completely ignored. They're like, Nah, that's terrible. You're
a terrible person. We're bringing bringing Cane in with this
mysterious being attached to his face. Uh, horror in itself.
Let's bring it in. Everything's fine. Yeah, I think we're
very chill about it. They really were. I feel like
that's a lot of the sci fi and horror movies.
(20:48):
They're like, that's cool. Things that have to everything's just fine.
So attached to his face and okay, they're bleeding out
every orpus. Let's just let's just talk to them, called
comfort them. Yeah. Run uh. And this other female character,
her name is a Lambert, who is played by Veronica Kurtwright.
Kurtwright has publicly complained about the character of Lambert, who
(21:12):
if you don't know, she's sort of spends the last
part of the movie crying and upset. Yeah, she says
she was told that Lambert. The actress was told that
Lambert was supposed to represent the fears of the audience.
In the sequel Aliens, it is revealed that Lambert was
a trans woman. Um A screen briefly shown reads, despite
(21:34):
conversion at birth from male to female, so far, there
are no signs of suppressed trauma from gender reassignment and
of popular fan supported theories that Lambert died of via
violent rape. Yeah, that was really horrible because she the
last thing you see of her that we saw of
hers her panciless, because all you can see is the
leg and then the blood dripping down, which by the way,
(21:56):
also represents many a many times. We talked about administruation
and penetration all that, but it was really wows As
quiet as the death was, it seemed like it snaps
away real quick. You see it a little bit and
then that's it, essentially. I used to have the tentacle, yeah,
the tail. Uh. Yeah. And apparently in the game, which
I haven't gotten to this part yet, apparently you find
(22:18):
her body and it is covered in blood. Maybe I'll
report back on that um. Both women in the movie
had to wear tape over their nipples so as not
to offend of yours in other countries when they come
out of their like space hyper sleep thing. Many scholars
argue that the character Ripley did so much to toughen
(22:40):
up female heroines quickly and eventually led to characters like
Buffy Um. Sigourney Weaver reprised her role as Ripley and
Aliens Alien three and Alien Resurrection, and yeah, we're not
really talking about those to day, but but briefly, her
character arc takes her from sole survivor to mother their
(23:00):
motherhood is all the thing and Aliens to alien queen,
to a transformation into the other. She becomes a clone,
not quite human, not quite alien. In Resurrection, Clone Rimpley
describes herself as the monster's mother. When that movie ends,
it's to not quite human women that witnessed the New
(23:21):
Dawn that rod into the future with a Ripley that
has rejected humanity and the alien instead chosen herself. She
goes from mother protector to mother destroyer another time. Well,
I was gonna say, it's kind of how we talked
about all the monsters. Female monsters and we were talking
about the one being the protector, a bubble bubba yoga
(23:43):
babba yaga that sounds very similar into that same realm. Yeah,
it's it's really fascinating. And as we we talked about
in that episode, well, that episode doesn't come out, so
this is a preview. We're doing one of female monsters.
We do have, apparently in our society a lot of
anxiety around motherhood, and we've talked about that before and
you can see it a lot in this series. And
(24:06):
here's one I love this. One of the taglines for
the third film was this time, it's hiding in the
most terrifying place of all, which is a woman's body,
because it's in Sigourney Weaver spoiler spoiler spoilers, a woman's
body is really terrifying sometimes. Apparently, apparently myself and and
(24:28):
the many others did take issue with the underwear scene
at the end of Alien, Specifically, she sort of thinks
she's safe and she strips down to pretty much her
underwear and like a top. But I'm actually torn about
it because me, it makes sense you'd be stripping down,
but it's hard to see it any other way because
women are so objectified in film. It just this it's
(24:48):
hard not to be like really right. And I think
at that time an age because when we saw them
waking up at the very beginning scenes are in diapers
essentially right, and I guess he's getting ready to go
to bed, and to me that seems completely normal, but
maybe the anticipation of the you know, something's not completely ended.
So why are you acting? Why are you acting like
you're okay? Right? And that's a big complaint when it
(25:11):
comes to Final Girls. Is sure you have this strong
well not always, but you have a woman who survives
and seems to be capable, but usually you're witnessing it
kind of voyeuristically through the the killer or the monster,
so you're you're more connecting with the monster than you
are with the woman typically, So that's part of my
(25:35):
problem with it, I think, is that it suddenly has
that feel of like the alien is watching you and
you're undressing, which um again kind of makes sense, but
I do get a little I'm a little toorned about it.
I will say, when I've had a long day fighting aliens,
I also want to step down. Does happen often? So
many times? Annoying? Now I understand. I'm glad you've rade it.
(25:58):
This long is long, um, And there are critiques of
Ripley's um nurturing nature and her sexual appeal um that
make her and her feminism at large, and feminism at
large in this movie, I guess not so threatening to
the patriarchy. So they like took those steps, but they
did it in a way where men wouldn't freak out,
(26:20):
I guess is the easier way of saying that. From
Alien Woman The Making of Lieutenant Ripley by Jason Smith
Kimana Gallardo quote in the final scenes of Alien Ripley
meets not just an alien creature, but a dark, physical
and psychological mirror of herself, like a woman with a flamethrower.
That alien is a fallicized fetish object, a creation of
(26:40):
the male psyche of masculine fear and desire. Thus, the
film ultimately pits the body against her own shadow self.
But they go on to say, in a world where
men can be subjected to the monstrous feminine, becoming pregnant
and give birth to monsters, where women can become the
heroes and soul survivors, the male comes superfluous, assumed to
(27:02):
be outmoded form and Ripley's confrontation with and final destruction
of the alien. The object of desire of the military
industrial complex gives voice to the contemporary feminist goal of
saving humanity from the destructive impulses of patriarchy, telling you
there's a lot to be said, we need that right now.
(27:22):
And then here's something that you were curious about. Mother.
It's basically the computer, the ship's computer that's in charge
of everything, and it's they call it Mother, but it's
actually m U slash T slash you are six thousand
and UM. This ship is what wakes up to the
(27:44):
crew who was not really supposed to stop this planet,
but wakes them up early to investigate a signal coming
from LV four to six, which is where things go
terribly wrong. They change it to five or an aliens.
I think there's always like a computer sort of thing
(28:05):
running it. And I've been interested for a while. And
like when we talk about Mother's ship and why we
refer to ships as she, space is frequently seen as
the vast empty womb of a woman, like just giving
these gender specifiers too. I was tempted to call mother
(28:26):
she you know, things like that, Um when the crew
was first awakened by Mother. It is as if they
are children emerging from her room like the diapers. Like
you said, Um, Mother does not have your best interest
at art. She is a cold, artless bitch, except not technically.
(28:46):
But this is a computer but she's like, Um, I
guess the people who programmed her are from the movie.
I love this quote Mother. I've turned the cooling unit
back on Mother. The ship will automatically distruct and T
minus five minutes and yes, that's when Ripley like starts
(29:06):
throwing up at the computer main dream. Um. This is
an argument between Ripley and Mother. Also, Mother's co conspirator
Ash and Ash is the android character played by sir
Ian Home and I do I feel like in every
single alien movie are almost all of them, the android
(29:27):
character has some weird thing for the final girl, because
most of these do have a final girl anyway. He
tries to kill Ripley by shoving a rolled up porno
magazine into her mouth, which also feels very reminiscent of
oral rape. Um. I've read that that scene is like
(29:50):
he represents toxic masculinity. Um. I never noticed there was
all this porn in the background until I did this
research from the monstrous feminine film feminism psychoanalysis. The science
fiction horror film Alien presents a complex representation of the
monstrous feminine as archaic mother. Mother. Alien is primarily a
(30:12):
terrifying figure, not because she is castrated, but because she castrates.
Her all consuming, incorporating powers are concretized in the figure
of her Alien offspring, the creature, whose deadly mission is
represented as the same as that of the archaic mother,
to tear apart and reincorporate all life. It is the
notion of the thick und mother as abyss that is
(30:33):
central to Alien. It is the abyss, the cannibalizing black
hole from which all life comes, into which all life returns,
that is represented in the film as the source of
deepest terror. Significantly, there is an attempt in Alien to
appropriate the procreative function of the archaic mother to represent
a man giving birth, to deny the mother as signifier
(30:55):
of sexual difference. But here birth can exist only as
the other face of death. When one of the Alien
creatures orally rapes Kane, one of the male astronauts, it
implants its embryo in Kane's stomach, but the primeval mother
does not need the male as a father, only as
a host body. In the alien creature murderously gnaws its
(31:15):
way through Kane's belly. It's birth leads to the male
mother's death. The archaic mother is present in all horror
films as the blackness of extinction death. The desires and
fears invoked by the image of the archaic mother as
a force that threatens to reincorporate what it once gave
birth to, are always there in the horror text. All pervasive,
(31:36):
encompassing because of the constant presence of death. I mean,
there's a lot of birth and death. Yeah, yeah, and
space is a great background to devote that against. And
we have to talk about the art. Yeah. Swiss artist H. R.
(31:59):
Guy Years design in this film is a huge component
of this whole conversation. This guy was big on very
bio mechanical sexual imagery and well versed. An expressionist German
horror painting by Francis Bacon called three Studies for Figures
at the Base of Crucifixion served for a lot of
(32:21):
Geiger's inspiration when it came to the design of the alien,
or the xenomorph as it's called, and seriously check out
the painting and you will see it right away. The
resemblance it's there. Bacon's work was an interpretation of the
Greek myth around the goddesses of vengeance that chase life
and the living. The furies, who we will be talking
about in an upcoming episode, seems very appropriate for this
(32:43):
whole design. Geiger specifically wanted to take something that is
and long has been generally associated with pleasure sex and
turn it into something horrific. He had done something similar
in his collection of pieces called Necronomicon. Some of his
design were so overtly sexual that the studio turned them down,
(33:05):
which blows my mind because the ones that are in
there are pretty overtly sexual. Also, US Customs held Geiger
after seeing his artwork for Alien and being highly disturbed.
I think Ridley Scott somebody on the movie had to
come and be like, no, he's working, It's all good.
The first version of the Egg, the egg that the
(33:27):
face Heecker comes out of, it had one slit for
the opening, and Ridley Scott allegedly l old race thought
because he thought it looked exactly like a vagina. Back
to the drawing board and the opening became the X
that were more familiar with today, and the fully grown
alien is very phallic and designed both its head and
(33:48):
the little dude that pops out of his mouth and yes,
pews acid, sort of like semen um. Some say it
combines both the phallic and the vaginal. Roger Ebert once wrote,
Alien uses a tricky device to keep the alien fresh.
Throughout the movie. It evolves the nature and appearance of
the creatures, so we never know quite what it looks
(34:09):
like or what it can do. The first time we
get a good look at the alien as it burst
from the chest of poor Cane. Is unmistakably falic in shape,
and the critic Tim Dirk's mentions it's open, dripping vaginal mouth.
M also forgot to mention about ash he spews all
the semen esque stuff because he drinks. It's not milk, right, No,
(34:30):
I originally thought it was milk because I was like,
what he actually I've read if you pay attention to
the whole movie, he never eats our drinks. He's just
kind of there, but he drinks the milk in that
one scene, or the white substance. I thought it was
milk because I like this is theies of course, are
drinking milk right like like out of nowhere. But and
then you start seeing him sweat and you're like, oh
(34:51):
something that that's not what that is? Um and trivia
shredded condoms were used for the aliens. Jaw tendons Um
also shouted condoms. Is it looks very much like the
thing that what's his name picks up right before he
gets murdered. It's like the shadded skin and alien um.
(35:12):
And then the slime, the alien slime is ky jelly,
lots and lots of k y jelly. Yeah, yeah, I
love that. Even even the props they used are pretty
sexually suggestive. And then the ship, the ship they discover
(35:32):
on l V four two six was pretty phallic in
shape and other parts of it resemble a giant womb.
When the explorers or you could say invaders enter the ship,
they are in suit that make them appear like their
sperm entering the vaginal opening in the ship. And yes, seriously, seriously,
uh you won't see it, I promise. Once inside, Kane
(35:54):
finds a womb slash tomb of alien eggs. Then came
the orm in this case witnesses and egg open the
face hugger latches onto his face, transformed him into a womb.
The creature cannot be removed until it has deposited its seed,
and that is very violent rape. Um. And then the
(36:15):
victim is forced to carry the organism to term and
birth it and even though it will kill the host
read even at the risk of the mother. Some also
see the scene of the alien person out of Kane's
chest as representative of the general male confusion and fear
around birth right comes out of the stomach, lots of
blood by very violent exactly how it happened. Um and
(36:38):
uh and every movie there is, I believe there's a
scene of like it's called the labyrinth, but it's supposed
to be like the fallopian tubes in the womb and
the labyrinth of a woman's body. Um. And most space
movies are seeing yeah, as male explorers entering the womb
of space. That has changed as we get more and
more female representation, But for a long time, Veronica Cartwright
(37:01):
said of the set, it was so erotic. It's big
vaginas and penises. The whole thing is like you're going
inside some sort of womb or whatever sort of viscerule.
So there you go. There it is, there we go. Um,
we do have some more for you, but first we
have one more quick break forward from our sponsor and
(37:33):
we're back. Thank you sponsoring. So I was going to
go into my theory, my personal theory, which I believe
forces the male viewer to think about the impacts of
sexual violence and being unable to abort the resulting child,
and anxieties about being forced to pay for childcare. Because again,
this is when Roe we Wade is passing, women are
getting more sexual agency, starting to enter the workforce. I
(37:56):
think it was a lot of anxiety around it. Um.
And I am again not the only one who thought that,
but I feel like we've touched on a lot of
the stuff that I that was in my personal theory. Um.
It's been in and hundreds and hundreds of essays and books.
It's been examined as a parable about motherhood, a feminist allegory,
(38:19):
and examination of abortion. So yeah. So, Joseph Campbell wrote
in his book Primitive Mythology about Alien there's a motif
occurring in the certain primitive mythologies as well as in
modern surrealist painting and neurotic dream, which is known to
folklore as the tooth vagina, the vagina that cast rates. Yeah. Yeah.
(38:42):
The screenwriter himself, Dan O'Bannon, said he wanted to make
male audience members confront the realities and horrors of sexual
assault and rape, the fear of force, pennetration, and pregnancy.
And yes, I've said it before, I say it again.
One of my personal theories is that most horror movies,
all to a lee, are about fears of something about women,
(39:04):
usually ad menistruation, or pregnancy, our sexuality in general. That's
just me. Film blogger Flick Philosopher founder Mary Anne Joe
Hansson told broadly, do men really require a science fiction
scenario to understand how horrific unwanted violation of the body is.
Maybe if our culture treated mail and mail rape like
the horror it is, men wouldn't need to turn to
(39:26):
science fiction movies to understand the problem. Even if some
men require such a prompt for their empathy, the Alien
franchise still isn't one that offers much in the way
of true access to women's relationships with rape, and I
do think it is it's interesting that for women Alien
is frightening, but we do have to deal with this
fear that much more real and regular way than men do.
(39:48):
So all of the thought pieces are not all of them,
but a lot of them are, like it makes men
face the truth of sexual violence, but it totally ignores
like women um or men that have dealt already with
sexual violence like this will this will really scare them
in Yes, they're only really petrified by women power, blood,
(40:12):
specifically administration and child our thing and then then being penetrated.
I guess to be fair, yes, that's petrifying in the
penetration part. Y'all not. I don't know about everything else
who knew that so much? We would have so much
to say, mostly me would have so much to say
(40:32):
about Alien. I've been ready. After you started writing, I
was like, oh, here we go, and I cut out
two pages two pages. Um. I would love for anyone
else who has strong thoughts about really any movie, but
any horror movie and Alien. UM. I would love to
hear from from all of you. I am. I'm loosely
(40:53):
toying with the idea of doing like a spoiled Saturday. Yeah.
I think i'd be a great idea where we do
more recent horror movies because they're has been a lot
of I think movements in horror movies lately when it
comes to feminism, are a lot of interesting things to
be said, right And definitely people are understanding a lot
of these kitchy things that have been happening, specifically towards
(41:13):
females and the female protagonists or even onto antagonists. I
guess um they're starting to kind of trying to flip
that on this head. I think it's really interesting. I
do too, And kind of going off of that, I
did want to say that I'm going to be on
Movie Crush, which is another podcast on our network hosted
by Chuck Bryant of stuff you should Know once for
(41:35):
the Slasher edition, where I will be talking about some
of those movies that turn things upside down because those
are some of my favorites that play with all of
the tropes. And then I will be on it again
in November and I have to pick my my movie,
but maybe I'll do Alien because I've already done all
of the research. Whyre you started there? Yep, yep, yep um.
(41:57):
And then we did want to shout out um a
listener who wrote in Um Kathy she wrote a few
episodes ago you asked listeners to give you names a
podcast with lady host. I happen to host one. My
husband and I are the host of a little known
podcast called patron Saints of Pop Culture. We discussed the
themes of recent movies and TV shows mostly, but we
(42:19):
will also occasionally discuss video games and music videos. Since
we were in the beginning of the spooky season, our
recent episodes have been on horror movies. We thought that
was a perfect one to shout out for this episode,
and then just one more because of the nursery that
is happening and all of it. Um, Black Girl Nerds
is also one that you should I'm sure people have
already started looking at, but like that would be one
(42:41):
more to catch in if you want to go deeper
into the nerd. Um. Oh, yes, I do, clearly, clearly. UM.
I really am so happy that we got to do this.
I hope that listeners enjoyed it at least as a
little bit as m since I did. Look, I just
watched it it and I know you're a fan, and
(43:02):
I enjoyed it. Um. And this actually was a part
of a while ago. We had this idea for something
called feminist movie Fridays and would be once a month
and we would look at all they were all horror
movies because that's just how I am. Well, I'm putting
Heathers in there, obviously, because you know, I've already discussed Yeah,
we've already discussed the fight that you need to watch this, um.
(43:24):
But to put in there as a maybe, I don't
know how well that's fair. That's always a scary thing.
I have so many movies that were my favorites when
I was a kid, and now I watched them and
I just I can't even do right, even like with
shows that that we're just recently, I was watching some
of the Dirty Rock and that really hasn't held up either, surprisingly,
(43:45):
and you would think because it wasn't that long ago,
and at that point in time, it was getting into
the trend of like being feminist and being a writer
a head writer and what that looks like. And it's
still kind of like, oh, things have moved pretty quickly,
right are um. But we would love to hear from listeners.
If you have recommendations for our next feminist movie Friday,
(44:08):
throw them into the ring. You can email us at
Stuff Media Mom Stuff at I Heart Media dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast
or on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks
as always to our super producer Andrew Howard Andrew, and
thanks to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You
his production of I Heart Radio's House Step Works for
More podcast from my Heart Radio is the iHeart Radio app,
(44:29):
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to stuff
Mama never told you production of I Hear Radio's House
to works. And today, finally, finally, I have waited so long,
(00:26):
we are talking about Alien Alien Aliens. Yes, I already
corrected there. I've been yelled at a few times actually
in the last week, not only by you, but the friend.
He continues like it's alien. Well, and I was saying,
I completely understand that mistake because I actually saw Aliens first,
because I didn't realize it wasn't a one two situations.
(00:49):
The sequel is Aliens with an S directed by James Cameron,
but that's not the one we're talking about today, although
we will mention it. Um, we're going to be talking
about the nineteen seventy nine release Scott film Aliens. So
if you somehow, some way haven't seen it and don't
want to be spoiled, then you may want to skip
this one. Trigger warning too for sexual assault and rape
(01:09):
and discussion of disturbing sexual imagery. Yes, um, and I
know longtime listeners of this show should be celebrating for
me because I said I think in the very first episode,
I just want to talk about alien and here we
are and here we are yes, because it is the
fortieth anniversary of Alien correct right, and it is back
(01:29):
in theaters for a few days beginning October. So this
is a chance to see it on the big screen
if you want. Um, and we of course went or
will be going depending on when you listen to right
um for research. This is some of the best research.
I will say. Yes, we started our research, Arlie. Yes,
because I refused to do this episode until I watched it,
(01:53):
because I knew this was going to be a probably
four hour episode with your excitement and your um what
is it? Zeal? Zeal, thank you to continue and to
talk about it, and I'm really excited with you. So
I'm like, okay, cool, let me watch this. And I
did watch it. I didn't have commentary, but there was
a lot of commentary from both sides of me because
(02:15):
I'm like, what's happening? Okay, what? Okay? What? To a
lot of explanations, to a lot of here it comes
moments are that a few times? Um? So I did
we did already kind of do a view, yes, um,
but it's not going to be It wasn't in theater.
So and I promise to keep quiet. I'm really glad
(02:36):
you had the chance to be able to get all
of your excitement out so that when we're in the
theater you wouldn't do that, right. I still want to
do one viewing and you don't have to go, but
I want to do one with a theme like cocktail
that's red, and just the whole thing is discussion and hey,
you know I'm always down with alcohol. Just be sitting
there and nodding, Just let me get it out, get
(02:59):
it out, like yes, we go. Um, And yeah, this
was something I was very excited to share with you
and with anyone who hasn't seen it or has only
seen it once or twice in passing. And you haven't
taken this critical feminist lens to it because you will
not be able to unsee all the stuff we're talking about.
So if you happen to not want to watch it
(03:19):
with feminist lens, maybe skip it as well. But I
think it's fun, and yeah, I have told the story
on the show before, I think. But um, thanks to
a truly epic and very mean and honestly successful prank
my older brother played on me, I was terrified of
aliens like the trope the thing the monster and movies
and so fairly fairly recently. I didn't see ET and
(03:41):
Independence Day until I think a couple of years ago. Um.
My friends made me watch ET after we wrote the
ET Ride at Universal, and I was like, wait, what
is what? What? Yeah, it's very different than the movie.
I've got to say, the Ride the only movie I've
ever walked out on because the fear was lost in space.
And yes, I know that's not a great movie, but
(04:03):
I was scared and I left. Um and I almost
walked out on signs. I would have walked out if
my friends hadn't been there and I was too embarrassed.
I will say, of all three of these movies, I've
only seen E T really Yeah, because you know, I
kind of told you already I'm not a big sci
fi fan, so the idea of aliens has never been,
uh something that I've been really really interested in seeing.
(04:24):
The vampires, give me ghosts, give me demons, you know,
all of those all day, but technically aliens, I'm like, okay, whatever, sure, Yeah.
So what UM and I did have on my list?
I had two movies that because I was trying to
get over this fear actively and the two movies they
had at the top of my list working my way
(04:45):
up was Event Horizon and Aliens, because again I didn't
realize that there was an alien before that, and I
cried during Aliens. I was so afraid, but I got
over it and you love it. Yeah. Now, I was
like wow with this, and I was fortunate enough to
get to walk through this really scary alien set piece
(05:08):
at the movie um in London. That was pretty cool. Alright,
So that is a lot of exposition. Let's get into
the episode here, because we do have a lot to say,
or I have a lot to say in Samantha's very
patient with me. To start with. Alien is Yes a
nineteen seventy nine sci fi horror movie distributed by twentieth
(05:29):
Century Fox, directed by Ridley Scott, written by Dan O'Bannon
and starring Sigourney Weaver. Amazing Sigourney Weaver. Yes, and I
watched Kevin in the Woods last night and I forgot
she's in it. That was one of the prime moments
of Candid Yes, Yes, Yes, um okay. So O'Bannon, the writer,
was looking to ride the success of Star Wars with
(05:51):
a different type of space story. It was pitched as
Jaws in Space. I can see that. Ridley Scott described
it as Texas Chainsaw massacre, but science fiction, and we
should mention he gets sold credit. Abandon does for the script,
but a handful of others made pretty big contributions with
which led to a lot of tension. Yeah, of course. Anyway,
(06:15):
the story involves the crew of the Nostromo, a commercial
spaceship kind of like a space tow truck, and their
encounter with the quote perfect organism alien. The main character,
though you probably wouldn't know it for the first act
of the film, is Sigourne Weavers Ellen Ripley, the capable
and cool headed senior officer. One of the posters came
(06:37):
with the iconic tagline in space, no one can hear
you scream. Okay, I guess that's right unless you're in
although in the movie you don't hear them scream. It
gets yeah you did somehow. There's a moment where I
think they were playing with it, but then you do
hear them screen, so I was like, well, it was
(06:58):
like it's very muted though, or music is blaring over it. Yeah. Yeah,
I think that was a choice. It was a choice,
but I don't know if it was like for a reason, yeah, exactly.
Um the poster also, by the way, that is just
an egg on the front. Okay. Both audiences and critics
praised the film, and it went on to win the
(07:19):
Oscar for Best Visual Effects, three Saturn Awards, and a
Hugo Award. Several film critics regarded as one of the
best films of all time. It gross about two hundred
million at the box office. In two thousand two. The
Library of Congress added it to their National Film Registry,
calling it culturally historically are esthetically significant. The American Film
Institute placed it at seventh place on their list of
(07:41):
best sci fi films. In two thousand eight, an Empire
put it into thirty third place when ranking best movies
of all time. Also, speaking rides, there used to be
I would love if a listener could write it and
confirm this, But I feel like there was a ride
called Alien Encounter, and I remember it being in Magic
Kingdom where Leelo and stitches now, but that can't be right, right,
that can't be right. It was in Magic Kingdom. What well,
(08:09):
super producer Andrew confirms it, and my mind is blown.
I just feel like it was really scary for Magic Kingdom.
It is very scary. Um. Yeah, it was for people
who don't know. You were in a chair and like
there was the alien was in the in a tube
in front of you, and then of course it gets
out and you feel it breathing on your neck and
then you get sprayed with blood as it kills somebody.
(08:32):
It was very intense. I can see why they may
be replaced it with Leelo and Stitch, where it's now
kind of a funny ride. Um. Anyway, my mom and
dad used to tell me about their experience seeing this
movie in the theaters for the first time, which I
find funny for several reasons. But they also went on
to get married on which is the day that it premiered,
which I'm sure is a coincidence. But they told me
(08:55):
people were running, puking, screaming, um, that they avoided looking
at the poster after seeing it because it scared them
so much. Yeah, my dad popcorns up in the air. Yeah.
I mean, if you think about it, not too many
things at the time. People haven't seen too many things
like that. Wasn't that in the same era as Halloween?
(09:16):
And it was Yeah, all that though it was close. Um,
but like in space people passed out during a New
Hope because the spaceship in the beginning just kept going on. So,
you know, interesting. And I am playing the video game
Alien Isolation right now, which is a game where the
alien can hear you as in the player, as in me,
(09:37):
whatever is happening in my real life environment, and it
uses that in the game. And I've died any many times.
It wasn't the recommendation to you about sit wearing headphones
so you can hear even louder, Yeah, because it's surround
sound and you can hear it in front of you.
So this film success went on to inspire a franchise
seven more films to date, if we include the Alien
Versus Predator films, which I also haven't seen those. Not really,
(10:02):
they're fun, not really. The books, comics, video games, and toys.
Pretty impressive for R rated film. Yeah, the toys thing. Yeah,
I can't think of too many other our movies. I
guess like serial Killers or you know, like Monsters. Oh yeah,
I think there wasn't actually like Halloween, Jason Toy, Freddy
Cougar Toy, which is really weird. Yeah, I'll think about
(10:23):
that later. Um, and yes, Alien has thieves of motherhood, abortion,
fear of sexual assault, post humanism and sex in general, machines,
corporations putting technology, weaponry, and scientific discovery about the welfare
of people. Some people have even interpreted the film as
a metaphor for women's refusal to bear children. So, yes,
there is an actual reason why we're talking about it.
(10:44):
It's not because I'm just a huge fan. It has
a lot of feminist issues and just kind of right
anxieties around well, as you have already discovered because researching
there's so many articles and YouTube videos of these theories
of how this is portraying the patriarchy as well as
versus like feminism. What is this whole idea of one
(11:07):
woman being independent, being a leader, all of these different
And of course I know you were talking more about it,
but birthing and vaginas, but yes, yes, specifically burning gam
vaginas no joke. Yeah, I am definitely not the only
one who has put some thought into this by far.
And I'm actually really relieved because I was watching that
movie SIMI recently. I'm like, I think this is a
(11:28):
got a lot going on with vaginas and stuff. And
then I wasn't wrong. I wasn't way off base with
that one um from Tom shown over at Slate. Quote
Alien has issues. It has mommy issues and sex issues
as a thing for strong women who it also likes
to ugle in their undies. It's a hot mess of
Fordian fever dream with its crabby and post coital atmosphere.
(11:52):
It's rebirthing imagery. It's queasily gynecological production design. It's night
sweat of male anxiety, a particularly horrifying confusion of the
sexual gynecological with the gastro intestinal, wrote James Kavanaugh from
Son of a Bitch, Feminism, Humanism, and Science, and Alien,
of the famous John Hurt birth scene in which a
(12:13):
quote razor tooth phallic monster gnaws its way through his
stomach into the light. A kind of science fiction foulst
in tatus. Oh yeah, mm hmmm. So the movie came
out during a tumultuous time in our society. So rod
versus Wade had just recently passed, and gender and social
politics are changing rapidly with the help of the Second
Way feminism. Not only that, but people increasingly had environmental
(12:35):
concerns from pesticides, chemicals, in our foods and cancer is
caused by humans. Yeah, like human whatever we're up to. Um,
So yeah, let's let's talk about the feminism of this movie.
If you search for most feminist harmonies of all time,
Alien is almost guaranteed to make the list. And if
you just search this movie and feminism itself, yeah, you
(12:58):
will find pages and pages of thing pieces about it,
some lauding its accomplishments, some decrying its flaws. This movie
is frequently examined through a feminist lens, seeen as progressive
for its time, while nitpicked for not going far enough.
Are sometimes in the context of how little the rest
of the series has come in terms of feminism since
that first one, once described as quote, a rape movie
(13:21):
with male victims are an examination of the monstrous feminine.
And yes, before you write in, we all know men
can be and are the victims of rape as well,
but this is how people have described it. Dan O'Bannon,
the writer himself, claimed that to him, the movie examined
the male fear of penetration, in which case I suppose
we could add in homophobia in the general conversation here. Um,
(13:43):
here's a quote from him. One thing that people are
all disturbed about is sex. I said, that's how I'm
going to attack the audience. I'm going to attack them sexually,
and I'm not going to go after the women in
the audience are going to attack them men. I'm going
to put in every image I can think of to
make the men in the audience cross their legs, homosexual,
oral rape, birth. The thing lays its eggs down your
(14:04):
throat the whole number. So that's the creator himself. Uh yeah,
And that scene where it attacks like attaches to that
guy's face, what's the character ash, that's the Okay, Okay,
that's right Kane's face. That was really felt like and
very very disturbing in every sense. Right, And and I
(14:27):
want to go into that, but before it will make sense,
let's talk about how this creature works and embrace yourself
perhaps terrifying this thing is. So the queen lays eggs
and you actually don't see that until the second one,
but there's this big queen. She lays eggs. When the
eggs hatch, the resulting creatures are called face huggers, and
they find something living and in this case um humans
(14:51):
to latch onto. As the name applies. They usually latch
onto someone's face, wrapping their tail around the victim's throat
and inserting their proboscis down their throat and forcing them
to become the host for their baby. If you can
call it that organism, I guess it's a frightening, disturbing act,
very very close to oral rape. And I believe in
(15:13):
the second one, you get a closer look at it,
and it does look very vaginal, and then there's a
probuscus that looks very phallic. So it's kind of been
described as this combination hugger because I was going to say,
when they examine face hugger, it looked a lot like
the Clinton of vagina, and I was like, what, what's WHOA, Yeah,
(15:33):
that's very very obvious. It is quite obvious. The first
victim was deliberately chosen to be male, and yes, his
name was Kane ash Um, who you later find out
is an android, but he's the science officer on the ship.
He refers to the organism inside Kane as Kane's son,
a reference to the biblical Kine, whose sons were born
(15:56):
outside of God's laws and were therefore quite lunch risk
I did not pick up on this until this last
time we watched it. Once the organism is ready inside
the its host stomach, it burst out of the victim's
stomach and this is called a chest burster. This was
also famously parodied and Spaceballs, which you was the one
(16:17):
I remembered. I was like dining diner, and and then
my friend was the one that said, what's the scene
where the tap dance? Yes? Hello, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
all right. And then from there it grows very very rapidly,
like hours, into a full grown creature called a zeno
(16:40):
morph And I'm sure Now I'm not sure at all
because all of you listeners probably don't traffic in the
same nursery that I do. But I see a lot
of YouTube videos that's like explained the morphology of the
zeno more of our the life cycle of Xeno moreph
because it is kind of confusing, right, but those are
essentially the life that's the life cycle, is it? I
(17:03):
would never question it because I'm like, a's an alien?
What rational Like what kind of rationale do you put
to that? As an alien? How do we know something
that we don't know? I think it just confuses people
that the face hugger essentially dies. It puts your egg in,
it puts its egg in you. That was twenty tho
questions I did ask him, like, wait, why if that's
(17:26):
the egg, why isn't the egg the thing? And why
does it need to do one more extra step than
just doing that? Because what it means a gestation period
in it. It's sometimes enough other movies it like takes
the DNA of the host of I guess because I
was very confused, like, if it's already in the egg
then and it's been birthed out of that egg, which
hatches out of it's been birthed, So why is it
(17:46):
doing it again? What is happening? We did have that moment,
we did, and um. One more thing about them is
they bleed acid. And this was done on purpose because
the director and the writers were like, why would they
not just shoot them? Oh I know, they bleed acid
and we'll destroy your space shap Yeah they worked. Okay,
So that establishes the alien some of the things that
(18:09):
we're talking about. UM, but we do have a character
that's been pretty big in the genre since then. But
first we have a quick break for word from response
(18:34):
and we're back. Thank you sponsor. And another thing that
comes up when you're talking about feminism and alien is
of course Ripley, who. For listeners who have heard, I believe,
the first episode I ever did as full time host
was Final Girl. She is frequently pointed to as one
of the original Final Girls, which is someone usually virginal
(18:57):
who a woman who survives to the end of an
onslaught in horror movies. So when it comes to our
main protagonist, Ellen Ripley, many of you have probably heard
um Ridley Scott asked for both male and female actors
to read the part. It wasn't gender. They were like
bringing whoever, and they went with a then unknown Sigourney Weaver. Also,
(19:21):
by the way, Ridley Scott identifies as feminist cool yeah
um yeah. So she is someone who is strong and
capable while still maintaining her femininity, although not too much
of it. But I personally when I read that, I
was like, she, um, you will apparently she kind of
(19:44):
it's the cat that most people point at the fact
that she cares about the cat, saves the cat very
I guess a feminine trait. She has been described Ripley,
not the cat, as the divine mother and protector of
all life. The final shot in the movie, some people
(20:04):
see us very Virgin Mary, resembling Virgin Mary. She is
also for much of the beginning of the movie largely ignored. Again,
you might not know she is the main character for
a while. Um, she's ignored by her male co workers
and even the other female one. When she cites quarantine protocol,
the thing that could have saved them from the alien,
(20:26):
she's ignored, completely ignored. They're like, Nah, that's terrible. You're
a terrible person. We're bringing bringing Cane in with this
mysterious being attached to his face. Uh, horror in itself.
Let's bring it in. Everything's fine. Yeah, I think we're
very chill about it. They really were. I feel like
that's a lot of the sci fi and horror movies.
(20:48):
They're like, that's cool. Things that have to everything's just fine.
So attached to his face and okay, they're bleeding out
every orpus. Let's just let's just talk to them, called
comfort them. Yeah. Run uh. And this other female character,
her name is a Lambert, who is played by Veronica Kurtwright.
Kurtwright has publicly complained about the character of Lambert, who
(21:12):
if you don't know, she's sort of spends the last
part of the movie crying and upset. Yeah, she says
she was told that Lambert. The actress was told that
Lambert was supposed to represent the fears of the audience.
In the sequel Aliens, it is revealed that Lambert was
a trans woman. Um A screen briefly shown reads, despite
(21:34):
conversion at birth from male to female, so far, there
are no signs of suppressed trauma from gender reassignment and
of popular fan supported theories that Lambert died of via
violent rape. Yeah, that was really horrible because she the
last thing you see of her that we saw of
hers her panciless, because all you can see is the
leg and then the blood dripping down, which by the way,
(21:56):
also represents many a many times. We talked about administruation
and penetration all that, but it was really wows As
quiet as the death was, it seemed like it snaps
away real quick. You see it a little bit and
then that's it, essentially. I used to have the tentacle, yeah,
the tail. Uh. Yeah. And apparently in the game, which
I haven't gotten to this part yet, apparently you find
(22:18):
her body and it is covered in blood. Maybe I'll
report back on that um. Both women in the movie
had to wear tape over their nipples so as not
to offend of yours in other countries when they come
out of their like space hyper sleep thing. Many scholars
argue that the character Ripley did so much to toughen
(22:40):
up female heroines quickly and eventually led to characters like
Buffy Um. Sigourney Weaver reprised her role as Ripley and
Aliens Alien three and Alien Resurrection, and yeah, we're not
really talking about those to day, but but briefly, her
character arc takes her from sole survivor to mother their
(23:00):
motherhood is all the thing and Aliens to alien queen,
to a transformation into the other. She becomes a clone,
not quite human, not quite alien. In Resurrection, Clone Rimpley
describes herself as the monster's mother. When that movie ends,
it's to not quite human women that witnessed the New
(23:21):
Dawn that rod into the future with a Ripley that
has rejected humanity and the alien instead chosen herself. She
goes from mother protector to mother destroyer another time. Well,
I was gonna say, it's kind of how we talked
about all the monsters. Female monsters and we were talking
about the one being the protector, a bubble bubba yoga
(23:43):
babba yaga that sounds very similar into that same realm. Yeah,
it's it's really fascinating. And as we we talked about
in that episode, well, that episode doesn't come out, so
this is a preview. We're doing one of female monsters.
We do have, apparently in our society a lot of
anxiety around motherhood, and we've talked about that before and
you can see it a lot in this series. And
(24:06):
here's one I love this. One of the taglines for
the third film was this time, it's hiding in the
most terrifying place of all, which is a woman's body,
because it's in Sigourney Weaver spoiler spoiler spoilers, a woman's
body is really terrifying sometimes. Apparently, apparently myself and and
(24:28):
the many others did take issue with the underwear scene
at the end of Alien, Specifically, she sort of thinks
she's safe and she strips down to pretty much her
underwear and like a top. But I'm actually torn about
it because me, it makes sense you'd be stripping down,
but it's hard to see it any other way because
women are so objectified in film. It just this it's
(24:48):
hard not to be like really right. And I think
at that time an age because when we saw them
waking up at the very beginning scenes are in diapers
essentially right, and I guess he's getting ready to go
to bed, and to me that seems completely normal, but
maybe the anticipation of the you know, something's not completely ended.
So why are you acting? Why are you acting like
you're okay? Right? And that's a big complaint when it
(25:11):
comes to Final Girls. Is sure you have this strong
well not always, but you have a woman who survives
and seems to be capable, but usually you're witnessing it
kind of voyeuristically through the the killer or the monster,
so you're you're more connecting with the monster than you
are with the woman typically, So that's part of my
(25:35):
problem with it, I think, is that it suddenly has
that feel of like the alien is watching you and
you're undressing, which um again kind of makes sense, but
I do get a little I'm a little toorned about it.
I will say, when I've had a long day fighting aliens,
I also want to step down. Does happen often? So
many times? Annoying? Now I understand. I'm glad you've rade it.
(25:58):
This long is long, um, And there are critiques of
Ripley's um nurturing nature and her sexual appeal um that
make her and her feminism at large, and feminism at
large in this movie, I guess not so threatening to
the patriarchy. So they like took those steps, but they
did it in a way where men wouldn't freak out,
(26:20):
I guess is the easier way of saying that. From
Alien Woman The Making of Lieutenant Ripley by Jason Smith
Kimana Gallardo quote in the final scenes of Alien Ripley
meets not just an alien creature, but a dark, physical
and psychological mirror of herself, like a woman with a flamethrower.
That alien is a fallicized fetish object, a creation of
(26:40):
the male psyche of masculine fear and desire. Thus, the
film ultimately pits the body against her own shadow self.
But they go on to say, in a world where
men can be subjected to the monstrous feminine, becoming pregnant
and give birth to monsters, where women can become the
heroes and soul survivors, the male comes superfluous, assumed to
(27:02):
be outmoded form and Ripley's confrontation with and final destruction
of the alien. The object of desire of the military
industrial complex gives voice to the contemporary feminist goal of
saving humanity from the destructive impulses of patriarchy, telling you
there's a lot to be said, we need that right now.
(27:22):
And then here's something that you were curious about. Mother.
It's basically the computer, the ship's computer that's in charge
of everything, and it's they call it Mother, but it's
actually m U slash T slash you are six thousand
and UM. This ship is what wakes up to the
(27:44):
crew who was not really supposed to stop this planet,
but wakes them up early to investigate a signal coming
from LV four to six, which is where things go
terribly wrong. They change it to five or an aliens.
I think there's always like a computer sort of thing
(28:05):
running it. And I've been interested for a while. And
like when we talk about Mother's ship and why we
refer to ships as she, space is frequently seen as
the vast empty womb of a woman, like just giving
these gender specifiers too. I was tempted to call mother
(28:26):
she you know, things like that, Um when the crew
was first awakened by Mother. It is as if they
are children emerging from her room like the diapers. Like
you said, Um, Mother does not have your best interest
at art. She is a cold, artless bitch, except not technically.
(28:46):
But this is a computer but she's like, Um, I
guess the people who programmed her are from the movie.
I love this quote Mother. I've turned the cooling unit
back on Mother. The ship will automatically distruct and T
minus five minutes and yes, that's when Ripley like starts
(29:06):
throwing up at the computer main dream. Um. This is
an argument between Ripley and Mother. Also, Mother's co conspirator
Ash and Ash is the android character played by sir
Ian Home and I do I feel like in every
single alien movie are almost all of them, the android
(29:27):
character has some weird thing for the final girl, because
most of these do have a final girl anyway. He
tries to kill Ripley by shoving a rolled up porno
magazine into her mouth, which also feels very reminiscent of
oral rape. Um. I've read that that scene is like
(29:50):
he represents toxic masculinity. Um. I never noticed there was
all this porn in the background until I did this
research from the monstrous feminine film feminism psychoanalysis. The science
fiction horror film Alien presents a complex representation of the
monstrous feminine as archaic mother. Mother. Alien is primarily a
(30:12):
terrifying figure, not because she is castrated, but because she castrates.
Her all consuming, incorporating powers are concretized in the figure
of her Alien offspring, the creature, whose deadly mission is
represented as the same as that of the archaic mother,
to tear apart and reincorporate all life. It is the
notion of the thick und mother as abyss that is
(30:33):
central to Alien. It is the abyss, the cannibalizing black
hole from which all life comes, into which all life returns,
that is represented in the film as the source of
deepest terror. Significantly, there is an attempt in Alien to
appropriate the procreative function of the archaic mother to represent
a man giving birth, to deny the mother as signifier
(30:55):
of sexual difference. But here birth can exist only as
the other face of death. When one of the Alien
creatures orally rapes Kane, one of the male astronauts, it
implants its embryo in Kane's stomach, but the primeval mother
does not need the male as a father, only as
a host body. In the alien creature murderously gnaws its
(31:15):
way through Kane's belly. It's birth leads to the male
mother's death. The archaic mother is present in all horror
films as the blackness of extinction death. The desires and
fears invoked by the image of the archaic mother as
a force that threatens to reincorporate what it once gave
birth to, are always there in the horror text. All pervasive,
(31:36):
encompassing because of the constant presence of death. I mean,
there's a lot of birth and death. Yeah, yeah, and
space is a great background to devote that against. And
we have to talk about the art. Yeah. Swiss artist H. R.
(31:59):
Guy Years design in this film is a huge component
of this whole conversation. This guy was big on very
bio mechanical sexual imagery and well versed. An expressionist German
horror painting by Francis Bacon called three Studies for Figures
at the Base of Crucifixion served for a lot of
(32:21):
Geiger's inspiration when it came to the design of the alien,
or the xenomorph as it's called, and seriously check out
the painting and you will see it right away. The
resemblance it's there. Bacon's work was an interpretation of the
Greek myth around the goddesses of vengeance that chase life
and the living. The furies, who we will be talking
about in an upcoming episode, seems very appropriate for this
(32:43):
whole design. Geiger specifically wanted to take something that is
and long has been generally associated with pleasure sex and
turn it into something horrific. He had done something similar
in his collection of pieces called Necronomicon. Some of his
design were so overtly sexual that the studio turned them down,
(33:05):
which blows my mind because the ones that are in
there are pretty overtly sexual. Also, US Customs held Geiger
after seeing his artwork for Alien and being highly disturbed.
I think Ridley Scott somebody on the movie had to
come and be like, no, he's working, It's all good.
The first version of the Egg, the egg that the
(33:27):
face Heecker comes out of, it had one slit for
the opening, and Ridley Scott allegedly l old race thought
because he thought it looked exactly like a vagina. Back
to the drawing board and the opening became the X
that were more familiar with today, and the fully grown
alien is very phallic and designed both its head and
(33:48):
the little dude that pops out of his mouth and yes,
pews acid, sort of like semen um. Some say it
combines both the phallic and the vaginal. Roger Ebert once wrote,
Alien uses a tricky device to keep the alien fresh.
Throughout the movie. It evolves the nature and appearance of
the creatures, so we never know quite what it looks
(34:09):
like or what it can do. The first time we
get a good look at the alien as it burst
from the chest of poor Cane. Is unmistakably falic in shape,
and the critic Tim Dirk's mentions it's open, dripping vaginal mouth.
M also forgot to mention about ash he spews all
the semen esque stuff because he drinks. It's not milk, right, No,
(34:30):
I originally thought it was milk because I was like,
what he actually I've read if you pay attention to
the whole movie, he never eats our drinks. He's just
kind of there, but he drinks the milk in that
one scene, or the white substance. I thought it was
milk because I like this is theies of course, are
drinking milk right like like out of nowhere. But and
then you start seeing him sweat and you're like, oh
(34:51):
something that that's not what that is? Um and trivia
shredded condoms were used for the aliens. Jaw tendons Um
also shouted condoms. Is it looks very much like the
thing that what's his name picks up right before he
gets murdered. It's like the shadded skin and alien um.
(35:12):
And then the slime, the alien slime is ky jelly,
lots and lots of k y jelly. Yeah, yeah, I
love that. Even even the props they used are pretty
sexually suggestive. And then the ship, the ship they discover
(35:32):
on l V four two six was pretty phallic in
shape and other parts of it resemble a giant womb.
When the explorers or you could say invaders enter the ship,
they are in suit that make them appear like their
sperm entering the vaginal opening in the ship. And yes, seriously, seriously,
uh you won't see it, I promise. Once inside, Kane
(35:54):
finds a womb slash tomb of alien eggs. Then came
the orm in this case witnesses and egg open the
face hugger latches onto his face, transformed him into a womb.
The creature cannot be removed until it has deposited its seed,
and that is very violent rape. Um. And then the
(36:15):
victim is forced to carry the organism to term and
birth it and even though it will kill the host
read even at the risk of the mother. Some also
see the scene of the alien person out of Kane's
chest as representative of the general male confusion and fear
around birth right comes out of the stomach, lots of
blood by very violent exactly how it happened. Um and
(36:38):
uh and every movie there is, I believe there's a
scene of like it's called the labyrinth, but it's supposed
to be like the fallopian tubes in the womb and
the labyrinth of a woman's body. Um. And most space
movies are seeing yeah, as male explorers entering the womb
of space. That has changed as we get more and
more female representation, But for a long time, Veronica Cartwright
(37:01):
said of the set, it was so erotic. It's big
vaginas and penises. The whole thing is like you're going
inside some sort of womb or whatever sort of viscerule.
So there you go. There it is, there we go. Um,
we do have some more for you, but first we
have one more quick break forward from our sponsor and
(37:33):
we're back. Thank you sponsoring. So I was going to
go into my theory, my personal theory, which I believe
forces the male viewer to think about the impacts of
sexual violence and being unable to abort the resulting child,
and anxieties about being forced to pay for childcare. Because again,
this is when Roe we Wade is passing, women are
getting more sexual agency, starting to enter the workforce. I
(37:56):
think it was a lot of anxiety around it. Um.
And I am again not the only one who thought that,
but I feel like we've touched on a lot of
the stuff that I that was in my personal theory. Um.
It's been in and hundreds and hundreds of essays and books.
It's been examined as a parable about motherhood, a feminist allegory,
(38:19):
and examination of abortion. So yeah. So, Joseph Campbell wrote
in his book Primitive Mythology about Alien there's a motif
occurring in the certain primitive mythologies as well as in
modern surrealist painting and neurotic dream, which is known to
folklore as the tooth vagina, the vagina that cast rates. Yeah. Yeah.
(38:42):
The screenwriter himself, Dan O'Bannon, said he wanted to make
male audience members confront the realities and horrors of sexual
assault and rape, the fear of force, pennetration, and pregnancy.
And yes, I've said it before, I say it again.
One of my personal theories is that most horror movies,
all to a lee, are about fears of something about women,
(39:04):
usually ad menistruation, or pregnancy, our sexuality in general. That's
just me. Film blogger Flick Philosopher founder Mary Anne Joe
Hansson told broadly, do men really require a science fiction
scenario to understand how horrific unwanted violation of the body is.
Maybe if our culture treated mail and mail rape like
the horror it is, men wouldn't need to turn to
(39:26):
science fiction movies to understand the problem. Even if some
men require such a prompt for their empathy, the Alien
franchise still isn't one that offers much in the way
of true access to women's relationships with rape, and I
do think it is it's interesting that for women Alien
is frightening, but we do have to deal with this
fear that much more real and regular way than men do.
(39:48):
So all of the thought pieces are not all of them,
but a lot of them are, like it makes men
face the truth of sexual violence, but it totally ignores
like women um or men that have dealt already with
sexual violence like this will this will really scare them
in Yes, they're only really petrified by women power, blood,
(40:12):
specifically administration and child our thing and then then being penetrated.
I guess to be fair, yes, that's petrifying in the
penetration part. Y'all not. I don't know about everything else
who knew that so much? We would have so much
to say, mostly me would have so much to say
(40:32):
about Alien. I've been ready. After you started writing, I
was like, oh, here we go, and I cut out
two pages two pages. Um. I would love for anyone
else who has strong thoughts about really any movie, but
any horror movie and Alien. UM. I would love to
hear from from all of you. I am. I'm loosely
(40:53):
toying with the idea of doing like a spoiled Saturday. Yeah.
I think i'd be a great idea where we do
more recent horror movies because they're has been a lot
of I think movements in horror movies lately when it
comes to feminism, are a lot of interesting things to
be said, right And definitely people are understanding a lot
of these kitchy things that have been happening, specifically towards
(41:13):
females and the female protagonists or even onto antagonists. I
guess um they're starting to kind of trying to flip
that on this head. I think it's really interesting. I
do too, And kind of going off of that, I
did want to say that I'm going to be on
Movie Crush, which is another podcast on our network hosted
by Chuck Bryant of stuff you should Know once for
(41:35):
the Slasher edition, where I will be talking about some
of those movies that turn things upside down because those
are some of my favorites that play with all of
the tropes. And then I will be on it again
in November and I have to pick my my movie,
but maybe I'll do Alien because I've already done all
of the research. Whyre you started there? Yep, yep, yep um.
(41:57):
And then we did want to shout out um a
listener who wrote in Um Kathy she wrote a few
episodes ago you asked listeners to give you names a
podcast with lady host. I happen to host one. My
husband and I are the host of a little known
podcast called patron Saints of Pop Culture. We discussed the
themes of recent movies and TV shows mostly, but we
(42:19):
will also occasionally discuss video games and music videos. Since
we were in the beginning of the spooky season, our
recent episodes have been on horror movies. We thought that
was a perfect one to shout out for this episode,
and then just one more because of the nursery that
is happening and all of it. Um, Black Girl Nerds
is also one that you should I'm sure people have
already started looking at, but like that would be one
(42:41):
more to catch in if you want to go deeper
into the nerd. Um. Oh, yes, I do, clearly, clearly. UM.
I really am so happy that we got to do this.
I hope that listeners enjoyed it at least as a
little bit as m since I did. Look, I just
watched it it and I know you're a fan, and
(43:02):
I enjoyed it. Um. And this actually was a part
of a while ago. We had this idea for something
called feminist movie Fridays and would be once a month
and we would look at all they were all horror
movies because that's just how I am. Well, I'm putting
Heathers in there, obviously, because you know, I've already discussed Yeah,
we've already discussed the fight that you need to watch this, um.
(43:24):
But to put in there as a maybe, I don't
know how well that's fair. That's always a scary thing.
I have so many movies that were my favorites when
I was a kid, and now I watched them and
I just I can't even do right, even like with
shows that that we're just recently, I was watching some
of the Dirty Rock and that really hasn't held up either, surprisingly,
(43:45):
and you would think because it wasn't that long ago,
and at that point in time, it was getting into
the trend of like being feminist and being a writer
a head writer and what that looks like. And it's
still kind of like, oh, things have moved pretty quickly,
right are um. But we would love to hear from listeners.
If you have recommendations for our next feminist movie Friday,
(44:08):
throw them into the ring. You can email us at
Stuff Media Mom Stuff at I Heart Media dot com.
You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast
or on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks
as always to our super producer Andrew Howard Andrew, and
thanks to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You
his production of I Heart Radio's House Step Works for
More podcast from my Heart Radio is the iHeart Radio app,
(44:29):
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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