Creatures & Computers

This week, I'm thinking about gender via Alien. Also, 80s aesthetics and French New Wave horror. Light spoilers below (less light with respect to Alien, but you've seen it right?).

From the Grave.

Three ideas from horror cinema's past.

◆ Alien, dir. Ridley Scott, 1979.

Rules that matter. We are living through a moment both of rule-breaking and patriarchal revanchism. This is visible every day on the American right, though, listening to a recent podcast episode, I was reminded of the gendered conversation around Graham Platner’s campaign in Maine (before it ended). Some of his supporters trumpeted his ever-growing collection of red flags as positives, not obstacles—he was “authentic” and contrasted positively (they said) with the feminine-coded rule-followers of the Democratic mainstream. The implicit, misogynistic model was clear: pitting effective, masculine rule-breakers against ineffective, feminine rule-followers (scolds from HR).     

I was just thinking about all this when I rewatched Alien. Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley—one of horror cinema’s classic avatars of charismatic toughness—presents an alternative model. Ripley’s the most effective, most resourceful person on the Nostromo, and she’s also a rule-follower.

When crewmate Kane has his head engulfed by a face hugger, he’s rushed back to the ship, but Ripley doesn’t want to let him right back on. She wants to follow quarantine protocol. Male-presenting android Ash overrules her, letting him enter, and she has it out with Ash and captain Dallas (who also wanted Kane on board).

The result, of course, is that every last crew member, except for Ripley, is killed by the xenomorph. Ripley’s smarts and resourcefulness are not in tension with rules—they include an understanding of when they really must be followed. There is, ultimately, no existence free from rules—whether social rules, work expectations, laws, or health and safety policies. Masculine-coded misbehavior is a weakness. Strength is knowing which structures matter and insisting on them when it counts.

What the hell? A unique pleasure in watching the first installment of a classic creature’s franchise is in revisiting the first-time approach to the familiar monster. We all recognize xenomorphs and their unique biology—egg, face-hugger, chest-burster, xenomorph—but of course this was not the case with Alien’s original audience. Alien’s tension derives, to a significant extent, from trying to piece together what the hell they actually have on board. It takes until the halfway mark to see the xenmorph burst from Kane’s chest, and then, of course, there’s still more to discover about the full-grown creature.  What’s compelling creature design throughout the franchise—an alien with a unique, dangerous, complex life cycle—is, here, the fabric of Alien’s mystery.