December 25, 2021 • 47 mins
In this classic episode, Anney finally achieves her dream of dissecting the feminism, criticism, art and horror of one of her favorite films - Ridley Scott's Alien. Samantha patiently supports her.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hey, this is Andy and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
I've never told you protection of I heart Radio, So
I wanted I've been wanting to bring back this classic
for a while. Um, it is a feminist movie Friday.
It is not Friday as this comes out. It is
(00:26):
in fact Saturday, but who knows when you're listening to it.
But it is the first thing we did, and it's
the one we did on Alien. We're so excited throughout
you could just feel it through the audio leaves. It
has also been featured in several other podcasts and all
the other lists to listen to because they were like,
oh my god, she does you specifically do an amazing
(00:50):
job and talking about the allegories behind it, the metaphors,
all of it, the symbolism, and they're like, yes, I
feel like this really just opened up the genre of
your Your Love and kind of like crossover to Movie
Crush anyway. So absolutely you have made yourself a legend
(01:11):
with this one. I did talk about it on Movie Crush. Um,
so you can go check that episode out as well.
If if this is you want more after this, we wouldn't.
But I wondering this that because you know, Samitha, you're
asking when we got We were so lucky to get
our Sminty team together digitally for an episode. Recently, we
(01:31):
were talking about holiday traditions. We have one that I
used to have when we were growing up was we
would go see a movie, usually on the twenty third,
but sometimes on Christmas Eve, and it was like a
big every year. We would talked about what movie We're
going to see and I loved it because I do
love movies, and a lot of like when you were saying,
(01:52):
you know, Harry Potter is kind of straling that line
of Christmas movies. A lot of times it would be
Christmas movies, it would be a Harry Potter movie. I
would win because they come out around that time. They
used to come out around that time. But there's kind
of a notorious instance where my older brother chose star
Trek Nemesis even though he knew I had a fear
of aliens, and I couldn't sleep at all that night,
(02:13):
not because I thought Sanna was coming, but because I
was scared. But I was just thinking about that and
about this movie and how badly it would have scared
me if I saw it. When I was younger, so
in the holiday spirit of a tradition I used to have.
Please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Annie and
(02:38):
Samantha and welcome to Stuffman Never told you production of
I Heart Radio's House to works. And today, finally, finally,
I have waited so long, we're talking about alien Alien
(03:01):
not Aliens. Yes, I already corrected, there have. I've van
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. The sequel
(03:22):
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 and discussion
(03:42):
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 aliens, and here we are
and here we are yes, because it is the fortieth
anniversary of Alien correct right, and it is back in
theaters for a few days beginning October, So this is
(04:07):
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 we started our research early because I refused
to do this episode until I watched it, because I
knew this was going to be a probably four hour
(04:29):
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 I'm like, what's happening? Okay? What? Okay?
(04:50):
What to? A lot of explanations, told a lot of
here it comes moments? Are that a few times? Um?
So I did we did already kind of do a
view research 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 you had the chance to be able
to get all of your excitement out so that when
(05:13):
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 just discussion and hey, you know I'm always down
with alcohol. Just to be sitting there and nodding, you'll
just let me get it out, Let me get it out,
like yes, here we go. Um. And yeah, this was
(05:34):
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
with a feminist lens, maybe skip it as well. But
(05:54):
I think it's fun yea. 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 an Independence Day until I think a couple of
(06:17):
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 I was scared and I left. Um, and I
(06:38):
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.
The vampires, give me ghosts, give me demons, get you
(07:00):
all of those all day, but technically aliens, I'm like, Okay,
cool whatever. Sure, yeah, so what cool? 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 I had at the top of
my list working my way up was Event Horizon and Aliens,
(07:21):
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'm like, wow this And I was fortunate enough
to get to walk through this really scary alien set
piece at the movie UM in London. That was pretty cool. Alright.
(07:46):
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, and Samantha's very
patient with me. To start with Aliens, Yes, a nineteen
seventeen and sci fi horror movie distributed by twentieth Century Fox,
directed by Ridley Scott, written by Dan O'Bannon and starring
(08:07):
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 a different type of
space story. It was pitched as Jaws in space. I
(08:30):
can see that. Ridley Scott described it as Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
but science fiction, and we should mention he gets sold credit.
O'Bannon does for the script, but a handful of others
made pretty big contributions with which led to a lot
of tension. So yeah, of course. Anyway, the story involves
the crew of the Nostromo, a commercial spaceship kind of
(08:51):
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 Sigourney Weavers Ellen Ripley, the capable and cool headed
senior officer. One of the posters came with the iconic
tagline in space, no one can hear you scream. Okay,
(09:17):
I guess that's right unless you're in although in the
movie you don't hear them scream it. Yeah you did somehow.
There's a moment where I think they were playing with it,
but then you do hear them scream so I was like, well,
it was like it's very muted though, or music is
blaring over it. Yeah. Yeah, I think that was a choice.
It was. I don't know if it was like for
(09:40):
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 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
(10:00):
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
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 ride, there used to be
(10:24):
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,
super producer Andrew confirms it, and my mind is blown.
(10:46):
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 out and you fill it breathing on your neck
and then you get sprayed with blood as it kills somebody.
It was very intense. I can see why they may
(11:07):
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
(11:28):
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?
(11:48):
And it was, Yeah, 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,
(12:10):
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 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,
(12:34):
they're 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
(12:56):
that later. And yes, aliens, the 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.
(13:17):
It's not because I'm just a huge fan. It has
a lot of feminist issues and just kind of 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
(13:37):
like feminism, what is this whole idea of one woman
being independent, being a leader, all of these different And
of course I know you're gonna 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
(13:57):
movie Simil recently. I'm like, I think this is got
a lot going on with vaginas and stuff, And then
I'm glad 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
(14:18):
likes to augle in their undies. It's a hot mess
of Fordian fever dream with its crabby and post coital atmosphere.
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
(14:39):
Son of a Bitch, Feminism, Humanism, and science. An Alien
of the famous John Hurt birth scene in which a
quote razor tooth phallic monster gnaws its way through his
stomach into the light a kind of science fiction Faullston tatus.
Oh yeah, m hmmm. So the movie came out during
a tumultuous time in our society. So Rod versus Wade
(14:59):
had just recently passed, and gender and social politics, what
are changing rapidly with the help of the second White feminism.
Not only that, but people increasingly had environmental 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
(15:21):
search for most feminist hartor movies of all time, Alien
is almost guaranteed to make the list. And if you
just search this movie and feminism itself, yeah, you 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, seen as progressive for
(15:41):
its time, while nitpicked for not going far enough, or
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 with
male victims are an examination of the monstrous feminine. And yes,
before you write in all no men can be and
are the victims of rape as well, But this is
(16:03):
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, 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
(16:24):
I'm not going to go after the women in the audience.
I'm 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 throat the whole number.
So that's the creator himself. Uh yeah, And that scene
(16:46):
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 want to go into that,
but before it will make sense, let's talk about how
this creature works and embrace yourself perhaps terrifying the thing is.
(17:08):
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 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
(17:32):
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 the second one you
get a closer look at it, and it does look
very vaginal, and then there's a proboscis that looks very phallic.
(17:55):
So it's kind of been described as this combination hugger.
I was going to say, when they exam and face hugger,
it looked a lot like the Clinton of vagina, and
I was like, what, what's WHOA, Yeah, 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,
(18:17):
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 Kane, whose sons were born outside of God's laws
and were therefore quite monstrous. I did not pick up
on this until this last time we watched it. Once
(18:37):
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 the one I remembered. I was like dining diner,
and and then my friend was the one that said,
(18:57):
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
morph And I'm sure Now I'm not sure at all
because you, all of you listeners probably don't traffic in
(19:19):
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 for the life cycle of xeno
more because it is kind of confusing, right, but those
are essentially the life that's the life cycle is. I
would never question it because I'm like, a's an alien?
What rational like what kind of rationale do you put
(19:44):
to that is 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. And that was twenty
thousand questions I did ask him, like, wait, why if
that's the egg, why isn't the egg thing? And what
does it need to do one more extra step than
just doing that? Because what it needs a gestation period
(20:05):
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 birth out of that egg, which
hatches out of it's been birthed, So why is it
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
(20:29):
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 ship. Yeah they worked. Okay,
so that establishes the alien some of the things that
we're talking about. UM, but we do have a character
that's been pretty big in the genre since then. But
(20:50):
first we have a quick break for word from response
and we're back. Thank you, sponsor. And another thing that
comes up when you're talking about feminism and alien is,
(21:13):
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
who a woman who survives to the end of an
onslaught in horror movies. So when it comes to our
(21:36):
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,
by the way, Ridley Scott identifies as feminist cool yeah
(21:58):
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
it's the cat that most people point at the fact
(22:19):
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
see as very virgin Mary, resembling Virgin Mary. She is
(22:42):
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,
she's ignored, completely ignored. They're like, Nah, that's terrible. You're
(23:04):
a terrible person. We're bringing bringing Cane in with this
mysterious being attached to his face. Uh, horror in himself.
Let's bring it in. Everything's fine. Yeah, I think we're
very chill about it. They really were. I feel like
there's a lot of the sci fi and horror movies.
They're like, that's cool. Things don't have to everything's just fine.
(23:25):
Attached to his face and be Okay, they're bleeding out
every orphice. Let's just let's just talk to them, call
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,
if you don't know, she's sort of spends the last
(23:47):
part of the movie crying and upset. Yeah, she said
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
conversion at birth from male to female, so far, there
(24:09):
are no signs of suppressed trauma from gender reassignment 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 for her panciless because
all you can see is the leg and then the
blood dripping down, which by the way, also represents many
(24:30):
a many times we talked about administruation and penetration and
all of 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 that you said, have a tentacle, yeah,
the tail, uh yeah, And apparently in the game, which
I haven't gotten to this part yet. Apparently you find
(24:50):
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 nipple 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
(25:12):
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 motherhood
(25:33):
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 Dawn,
(25:54):
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 babba yaga.
(26:17):
That sounds very similar in to 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
(26:39):
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 spoils, a woman's
body is really terrifying sometimes. Apparently, apparently myself often and
(27:00):
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 hard
(27:21):
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 and 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?
(27:42):
And that's a big complaint when it 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 we're connecting with
the monster than you are with the woman typically, So
(28:06):
that's part of my 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 torned about it. I will say when I've
had a long day fighting aliens. I also want to
sew does happen often? So many times? Annoying? Now I understand,
(28:30):
I'm glad you've rate it. 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
(28:51):
where men wouldn't freak out, I guess is the easier
way of saying that. From Alien Woman The Making of
Lieutenant Ripley by Jason Smith, Kim and Yardo 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 the male psyche of
(29:14):
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 becomes superfluous, assumed be outmoded form, and Ripley's confrontation
(29:37):
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. Tell you there's a lot to be said.
We need that right now. And then here's something that
you were curious about. Mother. It's basically the computer, the
(30:01):
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 crew who was not really
supposed to stop this planet, but wakes them up early
(30:22):
to investigate a signal coming from LV four to six,
which is where things go terribly wrong. They change it
to Father and aliens. I think there's always like a
computer sort of thing running it, and I've been interested
for a while, And like when we talk about Mother's
(30:43):
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 she you things like that. Um.
(31:03):
When the crew is 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. But she's a computer. But she's like Um,
I guess the people who programmed her are from the
(31:26):
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 you and yes, that's when Ripley
like starts throwing up at the computer main dream. Um.
This is an argument between Ripley and Mother. Also Mother's
(31:47):
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 dard character as some weird thing for the final
girl because most of these do have a final girl anyway.
(32:11):
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 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
(32:36):
science fiction horror film Alien presents a complex representation of
the monstrous feminine as archaic mother. Mother. Alien is primarily
a 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
(32:58):
archaic mother, to tear apart and reincorporate all life. It
is the notion of the thick und mother as abyss
that essential 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
(33:20):
Alien to appropriate the procreative function of the archaic mother
to represent a man giving birth, to deny the mother
as signifier 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
(33:40):
mother does not need the male as a father, only
as a host body. In the alien creature murderously gnaws
its 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, and by the image of the archaic mother
(34:02):
as a force that threatens to reincorporate what it once
gave birth to, are always there in the horror text.
All pervasive, 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.
(34:25):
And we have to talk about the art. Yeah. Swiss
artist hr Geiger's 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 and expressionist.
(34:45):
German horror painting by Francis Bacon called three studies for
figures at the base of Crucifixion, served for a lot
of Geiger's inspiration when it came to the design of
the Alien, or the xeno morph 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
(35:05):
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 whole design. Geiger specifically want to take
something that is and long has been generally associated with
pleasure sex and turn it into something horrific. He had
(35:27):
done something similar in his collection of pieces called Necronomicon.
Some of his designs were so overtly sexual that the
studio turned them down, which blows my mind because the
ones that are in there are pretty outvertly sexual. Also,
US Customs held Geiger after seeing his artwork for Alien
(35:48):
and being highly disturbed. I think Ridley Scott somebody on
the movie had to come and be like, no, he's work,
It's all good. The first version of the Egg, the
egg that the Facehecker it comes out of, it had
one slit for the opening, and Rudley Scott allegedly l
old Race thought because he thought it looked exactly like
(36:09):
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 phallican designed, both its
head and 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.
(36:32):
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 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
(36:55):
mention about ash he spews all the semen esque stuff
he drinks. It's not milk, right, I O recinently thought
it was milk. 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,
(37:16):
this is the Es of course are drinking milk right
like like out of nowhere. But and then you start
seeing him sweat and you're like, oh, it's something that
that's not what that is? Um and trivia Shredded condoms
were used for the aliens. Jaw tendons Um also shredded condoms.
(37:36):
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 alienum. And then the slime, the
alien slime is k y jelly, lots and lots of
k y jelly. Yeah, yeah, I love that. Even even
the props they used, it's sexually suggestive. And then the ship,
(38:03):
the ship they discover 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
(38:23):
un see it, I promise Once inside, Kane finds a
womb slash tomb of alien eggs. Then came the sperm.
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,
(38:44):
and that is very violent rape um and then the
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 represent native of the general male confusion and
fear around her right comes out of the stomach, lots
(39:05):
of blood, very violent, exactly how it happened, um and uh.
In 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 seen yeah, as male explorers entering the womb of space.
(39:27):
That has changed as we get more and more female representation.
But for a long time, Veronica Cartwright 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
(39:47):
some more for you, but first we have one more
quick break for word from our sponsor and we're back.
Thank you sponsoring. So I was going to go into
(40:10):
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 child care. Because again,
this is when Roe we Wade is passing, women are
getting more sexual agency, starting to enter the workforce. I
think it was a lot of anxiety around it. Um.
(40:33):
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,
and examination of abortion. So yeah. So, Joseph Campbell wrote
(40:58):
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.
The screenwriter himself, Dan O'Bannon, said he wanted to make
male audience members confront the realities and horrors of sexual
(41:21):
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
ultimately are about fears of something about women, usually administruation
or pregnancy, our sexuality in general. That's just me. Film
(41:43):
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 male and male rape like the horror is,
men wouldn't need to turn to science fiction movies too
under stand at the problem. Even if some men require
such a prompt for their empathy, the Alien franchise still
(42:05):
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 and
much more real and regular way than men do. 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
(42:28):
like women 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, specifically administruation
and child our thing and then then being penetrated. I
(42:50):
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 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.
(43:13):
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 toying with the idea of doing
like a Spoiled Saturday. Yeah, I think it'd be a
great idea where we do more recent horror movies because
there has been a lot of I think movements in
(43:36):
horror movies lately when it comes to feminism. Oh yeah,
there 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 females and
the female protagonists or even unto 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
(43:58):
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 the Slash 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
(44:21):
I have to pick my my movie, but maybe I'll
do Alien because I've already done all of the research
already started there. Yep, yep, yep, um, and then we
did want to shout out um a listener who wrote
in Um Kathy, she wrote a few episodes ago you
asked the listeners to give you names a podcast with
(44:41):
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 will also
occasionally discuss video games and music videos. Since we are
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
(45:03):
just two 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 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.
(45:26):
I hope the listeners enjoyed it at least as a
little bit as m since I did. Look. I just
watched it, and I know you're a fan and I
enjoyed it. Um. And this is 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
(45:47):
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.
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
(46:07):
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,
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 feminists 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,
(46:32):
right right, um. But we would love to hear from
listeners if you have recommendations for our next feminist movie Friday,
Throw them into the Ring. You can email us at
Stuff Media, mom Stuff at i heeart 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 superproducer Andrew Howard Andrew, and thanks
(46:54):
to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You his
prediction of I Heart Radio's house Stefforks. For more podcast
from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
(47:21):
H
Hey, this is Andy and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
I've never told you protection of I heart Radio, So
I wanted I've been wanting to bring back this classic
for a while. Um, it is a feminist movie Friday.
It is not Friday as this comes out. It is
(00:26):
in fact Saturday, but who knows when you're listening to it.
But it is the first thing we did, and it's
the one we did on Alien. We're so excited throughout
you could just feel it through the audio leaves. It
has also been featured in several other podcasts and all
the other lists to listen to because they were like,
oh my god, she does you specifically do an amazing
(00:50):
job and talking about the allegories behind it, the metaphors,
all of it, the symbolism, and they're like, yes, I
feel like this really just opened up the genre of
your Your Love and kind of like crossover to Movie
Crush anyway. So absolutely you have made yourself a legend
(01:11):
with this one. I did talk about it on Movie Crush. Um,
so you can go check that episode out as well.
If if this is you want more after this, we wouldn't.
But I wondering this that because you know, Samitha, you're
asking when we got We were so lucky to get
our Sminty team together digitally for an episode. Recently, we
(01:31):
were talking about holiday traditions. We have one that I
used to have when we were growing up was we
would go see a movie, usually on the twenty third,
but sometimes on Christmas Eve, and it was like a
big every year. We would talked about what movie We're
going to see and I loved it because I do
love movies, and a lot of like when you were saying,
(01:52):
you know, Harry Potter is kind of straling that line
of Christmas movies. A lot of times it would be
Christmas movies, it would be a Harry Potter movie. I
would win because they come out around that time. They
used to come out around that time. But there's kind
of a notorious instance where my older brother chose star
Trek Nemesis even though he knew I had a fear
of aliens, and I couldn't sleep at all that night,
(02:13):
not because I thought Sanna was coming, but because I
was scared. But I was just thinking about that and
about this movie and how badly it would have scared
me if I saw it. When I was younger, so
in the holiday spirit of a tradition I used to have.
Please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Annie and
(02:38):
Samantha and welcome to Stuffman Never told you production of
I Heart Radio's House to works. And today, finally, finally,
I have waited so long, we're talking about alien Alien
(03:01):
not Aliens. Yes, I already corrected, there have. I've van
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. The sequel
(03:22):
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 and discussion
(03:42):
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 aliens, and here we are
and here we are yes, because it is the fortieth
anniversary of Alien correct right, and it is back in
theaters for a few days beginning October, So this is
(04:07):
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 we started our research early because I refused
to do this episode until I watched it, because I
knew this was going to be a probably four hour
(04:29):
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 I'm like, what's happening? Okay? What? Okay?
(04:50):
What to? A lot of explanations, told a lot of
here it comes moments? Are that a few times? Um?
So I did we did already kind of do a
view research 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 you had the chance to be able
to get all of your excitement out so that when
(05:13):
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 just discussion and hey, you know I'm always down
with alcohol. Just to be sitting there and nodding, you'll
just let me get it out, Let me get it out,
like yes, here we go. Um. And yeah, this was
(05:34):
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
with a feminist lens, maybe skip it as well. But
(05:54):
I think it's fun yea. 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 an Independence Day until I think a couple of
(06:17):
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 I was scared and I left. Um, and I
(06:38):
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.
The vampires, give me ghosts, give me demons, get you
(07:00):
all of those all day, but technically aliens, I'm like, Okay,
cool whatever. Sure, yeah, so what cool? 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 I had at the top of
my list working my way up was Event Horizon and Aliens,
(07:21):
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'm like, wow this And I was fortunate enough
to get to walk through this really scary alien set
piece at the movie UM in London. That was pretty cool. Alright.
(07:46):
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, and Samantha's very
patient with me. To start with Aliens, Yes, a nineteen
seventeen and sci fi horror movie distributed by twentieth Century Fox,
directed by Ridley Scott, written by Dan O'Bannon and starring
(08:07):
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 a different type of
space story. It was pitched as Jaws in space. I
(08:30):
can see that. Ridley Scott described it as Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
but science fiction, and we should mention he gets sold credit.
O'Bannon does for the script, but a handful of others
made pretty big contributions with which led to a lot
of tension. So yeah, of course. Anyway, the story involves
the crew of the Nostromo, a commercial spaceship kind of
(08:51):
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 Sigourney Weavers Ellen Ripley, the capable and cool headed
senior officer. One of the posters came with the iconic
tagline in space, no one can hear you scream. Okay,
(09:17):
I guess that's right unless you're in although in the
movie you don't hear them scream it. Yeah you did somehow.
There's a moment where I think they were playing with it,
but then you do hear them scream so I was like, well,
it was like it's very muted though, or music is
blaring over it. Yeah. Yeah, I think that was a choice.
It was. I don't know if it was like for
(09:40):
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 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
(10:00):
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
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 ride, there used to be
(10:24):
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,
super producer Andrew confirms it, and my mind is blown.
(10:46):
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 out and you fill it breathing on your neck
and then you get sprayed with blood as it kills somebody.
It was very intense. I can see why they may
(11:07):
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
(11:28):
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?
(11:48):
And it was, Yeah, 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,
(12:10):
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 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,
(12:34):
they're 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
(12:56):
that later. And yes, aliens, the 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.
(13:17):
It's not because I'm just a huge fan. It has
a lot of feminist issues and just kind of 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
(13:37):
like feminism, what is this whole idea of one woman
being independent, being a leader, all of these different And
of course I know you're gonna 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
(13:57):
movie Simil recently. I'm like, I think this is got
a lot going on with vaginas and stuff, And then
I'm glad 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
(14:18):
likes to augle in their undies. It's a hot mess
of Fordian fever dream with its crabby and post coital atmosphere.
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
(14:39):
Son of a Bitch, Feminism, Humanism, and science. An Alien
of the famous John Hurt birth scene in which a
quote razor tooth phallic monster gnaws its way through his
stomach into the light a kind of science fiction Faullston tatus.
Oh yeah, m hmmm. So the movie came out during
a tumultuous time in our society. So Rod versus Wade
(14:59):
had just recently passed, and gender and social politics, what
are changing rapidly with the help of the second White feminism.
Not only that, but people increasingly had environmental 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
(15:21):
search for most feminist hartor movies of all time, Alien
is almost guaranteed to make the list. And if you
just search this movie and feminism itself, yeah, you 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, seen as progressive for
(15:41):
its time, while nitpicked for not going far enough, or
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 with
male victims are an examination of the monstrous feminine. And yes,
before you write in all no men can be and
are the victims of rape as well, But this is
(16:03):
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, 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
(16:24):
I'm not going to go after the women in the audience.
I'm 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 throat the whole number.
So that's the creator himself. Uh yeah, And that scene
(16:46):
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 want to go into that,
but before it will make sense, let's talk about how
this creature works and embrace yourself perhaps terrifying the thing is.
(17:08):
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 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
(17:32):
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 the second one you
get a closer look at it, and it does look
very vaginal, and then there's a proboscis that looks very phallic.
(17:55):
So it's kind of been described as this combination hugger.
I was going to say, when they exam and face hugger,
it looked a lot like the Clinton of vagina, and
I was like, what, what's WHOA, Yeah, 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,
(18:17):
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 Kane, whose sons were born outside of God's laws
and were therefore quite monstrous. I did not pick up
on this until this last time we watched it. Once
(18:37):
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 the one I remembered. I was like dining diner,
and and then my friend was the one that said,
(18:57):
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
morph And I'm sure Now I'm not sure at all
because you, all of you listeners probably don't traffic in
(19:19):
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 for the life cycle of xeno
more because it is kind of confusing, right, but those
are essentially the life that's the life cycle is. I
would never question it because I'm like, a's an alien?
What rational like what kind of rationale do you put
(19:44):
to that is 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. And that was twenty
thousand questions I did ask him, like, wait, why if
that's the egg, why isn't the egg thing? And what
does it need to do one more extra step than
just doing that? Because what it needs a gestation period
(20:05):
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 birth out of that egg, which
hatches out of it's been birthed, So why is it
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
(20:29):
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 ship. Yeah they worked. Okay,
so that establishes the alien some of the things that
we're talking about. UM, but we do have a character
that's been pretty big in the genre since then. But
(20:50):
first we have a quick break for word from response
and we're back. Thank you, sponsor. And another thing that
comes up when you're talking about feminism and alien is,
(21:13):
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
who a woman who survives to the end of an
onslaught in horror movies. So when it comes to our
(21:36):
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,
by the way, Ridley Scott identifies as feminist cool yeah
(21:58):
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
it's the cat that most people point at the fact
(22:19):
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
see as very virgin Mary, resembling Virgin Mary. She is
(22:42):
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,
she's ignored, completely ignored. They're like, Nah, that's terrible. You're
(23:04):
a terrible person. We're bringing bringing Cane in with this
mysterious being attached to his face. Uh, horror in himself.
Let's bring it in. Everything's fine. Yeah, I think we're
very chill about it. They really were. I feel like
there's a lot of the sci fi and horror movies.
They're like, that's cool. Things don't have to everything's just fine.
(23:25):
Attached to his face and be Okay, they're bleeding out
every orphice. Let's just let's just talk to them, call
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,
if you don't know, she's sort of spends the last
(23:47):
part of the movie crying and upset. Yeah, she said
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
conversion at birth from male to female, so far, there
(24:09):
are no signs of suppressed trauma from gender reassignment 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 for her panciless because
all you can see is the leg and then the
blood dripping down, which by the way, also represents many
(24:30):
a many times we talked about administruation and penetration and
all of 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 that you said, have a tentacle, yeah,
the tail, uh yeah, And apparently in the game, which
I haven't gotten to this part yet. Apparently you find
(24:50):
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 nipple 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
(25:12):
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 motherhood
(25:33):
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 Dawn,
(25:54):
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 babba yaga.
(26:17):
That sounds very similar in to 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
(26:39):
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 spoils, a woman's
body is really terrifying sometimes. Apparently, apparently myself often and
(27:00):
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 hard
(27:21):
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 and 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?
(27:42):
And that's a big complaint when it 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 we're connecting with
the monster than you are with the woman typically, So
(28:06):
that's part of my 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 torned about it. I will say when I've
had a long day fighting aliens. I also want to
sew does happen often? So many times? Annoying? Now I understand,
(28:30):
I'm glad you've rate it. 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
(28:51):
where men wouldn't freak out, I guess is the easier
way of saying that. From Alien Woman The Making of
Lieutenant Ripley by Jason Smith, Kim and Yardo 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 the male psyche of
(29:14):
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 becomes superfluous, assumed be outmoded form, and Ripley's confrontation
(29:37):
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. Tell you there's a lot to be said.
We need that right now. And then here's something that
you were curious about. Mother. It's basically the computer, the
(30:01):
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 crew who was not really
supposed to stop this planet, but wakes them up early
(30:22):
to investigate a signal coming from LV four to six,
which is where things go terribly wrong. They change it
to Father and aliens. I think there's always like a
computer sort of thing running it, and I've been interested
for a while, And like when we talk about Mother's
(30:43):
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 she you things like that. Um.
(31:03):
When the crew is 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. But she's a computer. But she's like Um,
I guess the people who programmed her are from the
(31:26):
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 you and yes, that's when Ripley
like starts throwing up at the computer main dream. Um.
This is an argument between Ripley and Mother. Also Mother's
(31:47):
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 dard character as some weird thing for the final
girl because most of these do have a final girl anyway.
(32:11):
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 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
(32:36):
science fiction horror film Alien presents a complex representation of
the monstrous feminine as archaic mother. Mother. Alien is primarily
a 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
(32:58):
archaic mother, to tear apart and reincorporate all life. It
is the notion of the thick und mother as abyss
that essential 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
(33:20):
Alien to appropriate the procreative function of the archaic mother
to represent a man giving birth, to deny the mother
as signifier 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
(33:40):
mother does not need the male as a father, only
as a host body. In the alien creature murderously gnaws
its 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, and by the image of the archaic mother
(34:02):
as a force that threatens to reincorporate what it once
gave birth to, are always there in the horror text.
All pervasive, 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.
(34:25):
And we have to talk about the art. Yeah. Swiss
artist hr Geiger's 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 and expressionist.
(34:45):
German horror painting by Francis Bacon called three studies for
figures at the base of Crucifixion, served for a lot
of Geiger's inspiration when it came to the design of
the Alien, or the xeno morph 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
(35:05):
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 whole design. Geiger specifically want to take
something that is and long has been generally associated with
pleasure sex and turn it into something horrific. He had
(35:27):
done something similar in his collection of pieces called Necronomicon.
Some of his designs were so overtly sexual that the
studio turned them down, which blows my mind because the
ones that are in there are pretty outvertly sexual. Also,
US Customs held Geiger after seeing his artwork for Alien
(35:48):
and being highly disturbed. I think Ridley Scott somebody on
the movie had to come and be like, no, he's work,
It's all good. The first version of the Egg, the
egg that the Facehecker it comes out of, it had
one slit for the opening, and Rudley Scott allegedly l
old Race thought because he thought it looked exactly like
(36:09):
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 phallican designed, both its
head and 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.
(36:32):
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 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
(36:55):
mention about ash he spews all the semen esque stuff
he drinks. It's not milk, right, I O recinently thought
it was milk. 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,
(37:16):
this is the Es of course are drinking milk right
like like out of nowhere. But and then you start
seeing him sweat and you're like, oh, it's something that
that's not what that is? Um and trivia Shredded condoms
were used for the aliens. Jaw tendons Um also shredded condoms.
(37:36):
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 alienum. And then the slime, the
alien slime is k y jelly, lots and lots of
k y jelly. Yeah, yeah, I love that. Even even
the props they used, it's sexually suggestive. And then the ship,
(38:03):
the ship they discover 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
(38:23):
un see it, I promise Once inside, Kane finds a
womb slash tomb of alien eggs. Then came the sperm.
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,
(38:44):
and that is very violent rape um and then the
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 represent native of the general male confusion and
fear around her right comes out of the stomach, lots
(39:05):
of blood, very violent, exactly how it happened, um and uh.
In 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 seen yeah, as male explorers entering the womb of space.
(39:27):
That has changed as we get more and more female representation.
But for a long time, Veronica Cartwright 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
(39:47):
some more for you, but first we have one more
quick break for word from our sponsor and we're back.
Thank you sponsoring. So I was going to go into
(40:10):
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 child care. Because again,
this is when Roe we Wade is passing, women are
getting more sexual agency, starting to enter the workforce. I
think it was a lot of anxiety around it. Um.
(40:33):
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,
and examination of abortion. So yeah. So, Joseph Campbell wrote
(40:58):
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.
The screenwriter himself, Dan O'Bannon, said he wanted to make
male audience members confront the realities and horrors of sexual
(41:21):
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
ultimately are about fears of something about women, usually administruation
or pregnancy, our sexuality in general. That's just me. Film
(41:43):
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 male and male rape like the horror is,
men wouldn't need to turn to science fiction movies too
under stand at the problem. Even if some men require
such a prompt for their empathy, the Alien franchise still
(42:05):
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 and
much more real and regular way than men do. 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
(42:28):
like women 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, specifically administruation
and child our thing and then then being penetrated. I
(42:50):
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 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.
(43:13):
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 toying with the idea of doing
like a Spoiled Saturday. Yeah, I think it'd be a
great idea where we do more recent horror movies because
there has been a lot of I think movements in
(43:36):
horror movies lately when it comes to feminism. Oh yeah,
there 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 females and
the female protagonists or even unto 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
(43:58):
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 the Slash 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
(44:21):
I have to pick my my movie, but maybe I'll
do Alien because I've already done all of the research
already started there. Yep, yep, yep, um, and then we
did want to shout out um a listener who wrote
in Um Kathy, she wrote a few episodes ago you
asked the listeners to give you names a podcast with
(44:41):
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 will also
occasionally discuss video games and music videos. Since we are
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
(45:03):
just two 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 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.
(45:26):
I hope the listeners enjoyed it at least as a
little bit as m since I did. Look. I just
watched it, and I know you're a fan and I
enjoyed it. Um. And this is 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
(45:47):
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.
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
(46:07):
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,
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 feminists 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,
(46:32):
right right, um. But we would love to hear from
listeners if you have recommendations for our next feminist movie Friday,
Throw them into the Ring. You can email us at
Stuff Media, mom Stuff at i heeart 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 superproducer Andrew Howard Andrew, and thanks
(46:54):
to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You his
prediction of I Heart Radio's house Stefforks. For more podcast
from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
(47:21):
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