The ship has its own voice shown through text.
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“When a woman is presented as monstrous it is almost always in relation to her mothering and reproductive functions,” Creed writes. Creed calls this the monstrous-feminine rather than a female monster, for she views it as its own trope rather than a gender-swapped male monster. What’s different in Alien, though, is that the ship turns out to be a villain.
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The ship, formally named Nostromo, is informally referred to as “Mother.” This isn’t unusual on its own - nautical ships have been referred to with feminine pronouns for centuries - so the leap to spaceships makes sense.
#Barbara creed the monstrous feminine full#
The rest of the scenes alluding to birth occur on the spaceship, which is full of tunnels and cavernous spaces that can be read as vaginal. Barbara Creed, a horror expert, describes this as the first of many scenes in the film which emulates childbirth. The alien that attacks Kane, igniting the rest of the plot, emerged from an egg found in the womb-like structure on the unknown planet. Not only is Ripley a strong female lead, the power of the feminine itself is a force in the film. Ripley sets up the spaceship to self-destruct with the alien inside then evacuates the mothership in an escape pod with the crew’s beloved cat, Jones. Unlike most women in sci-fi, Ripley’s knowledge isn’t questioned - it’s respected by her crew and she is unafraid to show her chops. Ripley single-handedly defeats the alien using her knowledge of the spaceship and will to fight. Many cite Ripley as the first sci-fi action heroine ever and refer to Sigourney Weaver as the “Queen of Sci-Fi.” She’s the heroine of this story, something uncommon in a traditionally masculine genre. Ripley leads the fight against the alien and eventually becomes the sole survivor of the original crew. It lodges itself inside Kane and emerges from his chest, killing him and escaping into the ship.
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The creature proves to be deadly and well-adapted for survival in extreme conditions. If successful, they believe they can save Kane and study the organism. Kane is brought aboard so they can remove the alien creature from his face. Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) believes Kane should be left outside the ship for the crew’s safety, but the rest of the team protests. One crew member, Kane (John Hurt), is attacked by a creature who attaches itself to his face.
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To search for the source, they visit a nearby moon. The film follows seven crew members on a spaceship who are called to action when they get a mysterious message. Ripley’s character is empowering for women in a way that transcends both time and genre. Nearly a third of the crowd had not seen Alien before and nearly half were seeing it on the big screen for the first time.Įven 40 years after its initial release, Alien remains innovative and relevant because it presents Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) one of the first ever female heroines in sci-fi. An emcee asked the audience to raise their hands to indicate their relationship with the film. Before the lights went down, the theater was bursting with nostalgic conversations about people’s first time seeing the film. The sold-out screening buzzed with energy. In celebration of the film’s 40th anniversary, the Music Box Theatre hosted a special 35mm screening of Alien for the 2019 Chicago Critics Film Festival with Tom Skerritt, one of the stars of the film, in attendance. With only an $11 million budget, Alien became a box-office hit and spawned various prequels and sequels. In May of 1979, Ridley Scott’s sci-fi horror classic Alien was released. It’s got a great defense mechanism… you don’t dare kill it.