[Ash] Yes I can.

I've never seen anything like it.

[Rafa] Hi, I'm Rafa, and before I say anything else, I feel the need to confess that I originally

intended to make this essay about Alien 3, and I tried, guys, I really did. But I ultimately

realized it simply isn't possible to talk properly about Alien 3 without first taking

the time to talk properly about the two films that came before it, and I couldn't do all

of that in an essay that would stay under my (admittedly arbitrary) time limit of 20

minutes. So, instead of one essay, you're gonna get three -- and maybe, if I can

summon the courage, I'll do Resurrection and Prometheus, too. Maybe.

So, Alien: the film that started it all. On the surface, it's a bit perplexing why this

movie became such an enduring phenomenon, both in terms of pop culture and academia.

No film history program worth its salt would leave Alien off its curriculum, but why? Movies

about aliens or mutated monsters that slowly kill off a group of isolated humans one by

one were just as commonplace then as they are now. If anything, they oversaturated the

science fiction genre at the height of its cinematic popularity in the 1950s.

So what made this film different from the hundreds of other creature features that came

before it? Well, there are relatively superficial factors, such as the seriousness with which

the production was approached... [Dallas] What do you got? [Kane] See what you make of this.

[Rafa] ...the attention to believability and atmosphere...

[Lambert] What is it?

[Rafa] ...the performances of the cast... [Ash] I can't lie to you about your chances, but...

...you have my sympathies.

[Rafa] ...and the sheer mesmerizing beauty of the film, but the real key to Alien's

groundbreaking magnificence lies in the Alien itself, and what it represents.

[Kane] It seems to have life. Organic life.

H.R. Giger's design for the monster was unlike anything anyone had ever seen, founded

on principles of sexual horror intended to assault the viewer at a visceral, subconscious

level, while also constructing a politically radical critique of our society. Of course,

the xenomorph was not the first monster to function on a symbolic level. There was The

Thing, for instance, which channeled American fears of a communist infiltration, and of

course Godzilla, which I examined in an earlier essay, but none had ever tackled sexual violence

the way Alien did.

While there had been other monsters that featured sexuality as part of their horror, or at least

as part of their appeal, the xenomorph's sexual

threat is far more literal. It's an organism that is utterly dependent on violent acts

of oral rape in order to reproduce. The facehugger, which can seemingly lie dormant indefinitely

until a host arrives, forcibly inserts itself down the throat of its victims to impregnate them.

The smothering, the finger-like limbs that grip the face, the tail tightening around

the throat…this image bears an uncanny resemblance to something out of a hardcore facial abuse

porno, which…you know what, I'll just let you Google that on your own.

Getting face-raped by an alien creature is horrific enough on its own, but it's made

much worse by the indiscriminate nature of the assault. The Alien doesn't distinguish

between the genders of its victims, a point subtly emphasized by the disturbing lack of

eyes at every stage of its life cycle. In other words, it has the capacity to turn anyone

regardless of gender into an unwilling mother for its demonic offspring. [Ash] Kane's son.

[Rafa] What happens to Kane -- a violent rape resulting in an unwanted pregnancy and death from childbirth --

is a trifecta of historically feminine fears that are perversely inflicted on a man.

We bear witness to the total desecration of the male

body and the gender binary it represents.

Watch how the adult Alien attacks Brett...

...and Parker.

[Parker] Get out of the room!

[Rafa] These attacks are phallic. The erect,

toothed tongue strikes Brett and Parker in a place that has been established as a sexualized

area: the face, where Alien impregnation occurs. And I really shouldn't have to explain what

happens to poor Lambert.

If we take a closer look at the facehugger, we can see that its phallic appendage also

doubles as an umbilical cord, infantilizing Kane at the same time it feminizes his body.

[Dallas] What's it got down his throat? [Ash] I would suggest it's feeding him oxygen.

[Dallas] Paralyzes him, puts him in a coma...

...then keeps him alive. Now what the hell is that?

[Rafa] This corruption of maternity is echoed in the figurative mothers of the derelict spacecraft

and the Nostromo. The derelict is an eerily feminine object, the shape of its hull suggesting

a pair of legs spread open, and the entrances between them are unmistakably vaginal. The

bio-mechanical appearance of this ship suggests the possibility that it might have once been

alive, at least partially, but if so, it is most certainly dead now, defiled by the eggs

it carried in its womb-like cargo hold. Similarly, the Nostromo, whose central computer is referred

to as “mother,” is inevitably destroyed because of the infestation of the xenomorph.

These mothers have been so degraded by their masters -- by the Company's special

order and whoever thought it was a good idea to carry these many eggs around -- that

they in effect become dangerous themselves. Incapable of nurturing, their bodies become

traps instead of sanctuaries.

Viewed this way, Ripley's compulsion to save the cat is understandable: a maternal,

protective act in defiance of the Alien's all-consuming patriarchal power.

In essence, the Alien personifies the worst excesses of male lust, and here we begin to

see a grander social critique take shape.

[Lambert] You pound down the stuff like there's no tomorrow.

[Parker] Listen I'd rather be eating something else, but... right now I'm thinking of food.

[Rafa] If hyper-masculine sexuality is the main threat

of this film, so much so that it destroys men as well as women, the film can be read

as a feminist allegory for the oppressiveness of patriarchal society. The Alien represents

male sexual dominance being exerted on the people, who are then pushed into performing

traditional gender roles that ultimately destroy them. The gung-ho machoness of Kane...

[Kane] We've come this far, we must go on. We have to go on.

[Rafa] Parker... [Parker] I'm for killing that goddamned thing right now. [Ripley] Okay.

[Rafa] ...and Dallas... [Lambert] Who gets to go in the vent? [Ripley] I do.

[Dallas] No. [Rafa] ...ends poorly for them, just as Lambert's hysterical passivity leads to her demise.

[Lambert] What? And end up like the others?

[Rafa] Even Ash, an asexual robot, feels the overwhelming need to make a male performance.

His admiration and envy of the Alien's physical perfection inspires him to attack Ripley by shoving a

porn magazine into her mouth, mimicking the Alien's sexual violence, and he does it

on something that almost looks like an altar of pornographic images. This, of course, also

leads to his destruction.

The one exception in all this, obviously, is Ripley. Unlike Lambert, she bears little

resemblance to the archetypal female and is largely defined by characteristics that were

traditionally masculine. As the only character who clearly defies culturally imposed gender

roles, perhaps it shouldn't have been all that surprising that she alone survives.

[Ripley] Why don't you just fuck off? [Parker] What?

[Rafa] But the Alien's threat is a bit more nuanced than simply being a walking penis monster.

Remember that the facehugger is hermaphroditic, possessing both male and female traits, and

can also impose female traits on male victims. And as an adult, the xenomorph appears to

have an insatiable bisexual hunger.

It seems that at least part of the Alien's horrific otherness

stems from its opposition to heterosexual and cisgendered norms; perhaps that is why

the asexual Ash is also threatening.

If packaging male aggression and non-normative sexuality in the same monster seems out of

line with contemporary feminism, you have to remember that the film was made during

the era of second-wave feminism, which viewed transgender identities as threatening to femininity.

And of course, everyone behind the camera was a straight, cisgendered man. Bisexuality

has also historically been treated by both progressives and conservatives alike as being

dishonest, a demographic populated by straight people fooling around and homosexuals unwilling

to fully admit who they are. [Carol] You were a lesbian?

[Piper] At the time.

[Cal] You still a lesbian? [Piper] No, I'm not still a lesbian.

[Liz] Yeah there's no such thing as bisexual. That's just something they invented in the 90s

to sell hair products. Deal breaker!

[Rafa] But before we take the idea that the film is a complete leftist manifesto and run with

it, it's worth noting that Ash's role in the film is taken from a conservative science

fiction tradition, not a progressive one. In classic American science fiction cinema,

which reached its zenith in the 50s during the height of Cold War anxieties, the distinctions

between right-leaning and left-leaning films are most evident in their depictions of scientists.

In progressive films, concerned with nuclear proliferation, war-mongering, and McCarthy-ist

witch hunts, the scientists were portrayed as the voice of reason in a trigger-happy,

paranoid world. [Barnhardt] Would you be willing to meet with a group of scientists I'm calling together?

Perhaps you could explain your mission to them, and they in turn can present it to their various peoples.

[Klaatu] That's why I came to see you.

[Barnhardt] It is not enough to have men of science. We scientists are too often ignored or misunderstood.

We must get leaders from every field. The finest minds in the world.

[Rafa] In conservative science fiction, concerned with the infiltration and sabotage of the American

way of life by outside communist forces, scientists were often portrayed as allegorical communist

sympathizers, sometimes to the point of caricature.

[Carrington] They think you mean to harm us all. But I want to know you, to help you, believe that!

You're wiser than anything on Earth. Use that intelligence, look at me and know what I'm

trying to tell you, I'm not your enemy, I'm a scientist! I'm a scientist who's trying to --

[Rafa] They were so enamored of and blinded by scientific

progress that they looked upon these monsters as either potential benefits to society or

more worthy than humanity. [Carrington] On the planet from which our visitor came, vegetable life underwent an

evolution similar to that of our own animal life. Which would account for the superiority of its brain.

Its development was not handicapped by emotional or sexual factors.

[Rafa] Ash's ties to that tradition are pretty clear. [Ash] A perfect organism.

Its structural perfection is matched only by its hostility.

[Lambert] You admire it.

[Ash] I admire its purity.

A survivor.

Unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.

[Rafa] Conservative sci-fi also had a tendency to portray the government as out of touch, meddling,

or incompetent. [Jim] Let me tell you what happened, kid. You and whoever else was in on this thought you'd

put one over on the police. So you break in here when the Doc is not around, you mess the place up a little --

[Dave] Now wait a minute, Jim! The kids couldn't have done this! You saw for yourself, the window was locked

from the inside, and so was the door.

[Jim] They rigged it with a piece of string, it's part of their plan to make us look silly.

[Jane] I think you're doing that pretty well by yourself, Sergeant.

[Rafa] Forcing the heroes to ignore its authority in order to do what is right.

[Steve] Alright. We tried to do it the right way. Now we're gonna wake this town up ourselves.

[Teen] Yeah yeah, but how? [Teen] Yeah, how? [Steve] Any way we can think of. [Rafa] But Alien

modifies this trope in a few significant ways: for one, the role of the government

has been replaced with that of the Company, and secondly the Company actively betrays

our protagonists by rendering their lives expendable in the pursuit of material gain. This

theme of betrayal and abandonment by an institution of authority was quite common in the 70s,

as pervasive disillusionment with the Vietnam War defined the cultural zeitgeist.

[Joseph] What are you doing?

What's the secret worth murdering everybody at the ALHS house? [Atwood] There's no secret.

[Rafa] It was a time when both conservatives and liberals could at least agree that the war went horribly

wrong. They disagreed on the how and the why, but they both placed the blame on America's leadership.

[Rambo] It wasn't my war! You asked me, I didn't ask you! And I did what I had to do to win, but somebody wouldn't

let us win! And I come back to the world, and I see all those maggots at the airport, protesting me, spitting!

Calling me babykiller and all kinds of vile crap!

[Rafa] The conservative complaint that the military was never allowed to properly

annihilate the enemy and the liberal conviction that the war effort had been unethical from

the beginning are both echoed here in one scene. [Ash] Bring back life form. Priority one.

All other priorities rescinded.

[Parker] It's the damn company. What about our lives you son of a bitch?

[Ash] I repeat: all other priorities are rescinded.

[Rafa] So, is Alien more of a left-leaning film taking aim at the patriarchy and, to a lesser extent,

capitalism, or is it more of a right-leaning film tapping into repulsion towards sexual

deviance and feelings of post-Vietnam helplessness? Well, the honest answer is probably a bit

of both. Alien is a happy merger of a variety of strong and wildly different creative voices

that each contributed a significant piece of the puzzle, and the end result has a peculiar

accidental anarchism to it. Nothing in the film is fully validated, no particular answer

offered. None of the skepticism toward corporatism, science, or authority of any kind ever leads

to a vision of a functional alternative. The clear economic inequalities between the members

of the crew is never given a cause nor a solution, and the same could be said of the Alien's

sexual threat -- after all, there's still a whole ship full of eggs out there,