Women in Sci-Fi films... any opinions please! :)

[_hermione]

Hi,
I'm a Media Studies student and I'm currently doing a project on the representation of women in sci-fi films particularly with reference to Aliens, Star Wars Ep 1-3 and Terminator 2. Any opinions on the subject you have, any feelings towards how women are portrayed in these films and the impact on audiences etc. would be much appreciated!
Thanks!



Laurax

 

[dreamwalker]

Riplies charater in alien()s was pretty much ground breaking and kind of lead the way for charaters like her in other films so far as in I generally ignore the gender of the main charater unless its integeral to the story.

And thats the difference between Alien and the other films you mentioned, because it could have been a male role instead of a female where as the fact they where female in the other films was predetirmined by the plot and story.

 

[dwndrgn]

For the most part, they are all extremely focussed and strong willed. They are all also very 'motherlike' in a sense that a lioness is motherlike. The only exception I can think of is Velazquez (I think that was her name) in Aliens. She was basically a kick butts now and take names later kind of girl. Also much more centrally focussed on survival for herself but not survival of all over her own self which is much more motherlike. In modern filmmaking you rarely see the 'wilting flower' that cannot help herself. If you compare a film like Legend where the female character needs the male characters in order to survive to something like Aliens where the female character is going to survive and protect all the other characters as she can - you can see the big difference.

You can see the effort that modern filmmaking makes in attempting to show how women are less likely to lie down and let the man take care of things (the mother-ness is ingrained). Take a silly example; in Jurrassic Park the book, the female character is not the computer wizard but the boy is. In the film they switched that. Why they switched it was probably politics and demographics but it sure can't hurt the female psyche to see it. I can see how younger filmgoers could take more from this than the filmmakers originally expected but I also see that as a good thing.

 

[stencyl]

The Alien Series of films does some real interesting things with gender, and there are some particular images/scenes that speak to this issue. As the others have posted already, not only do those films offer a new take on the "hero" of film via Riply, they also study Motherhood, especially the second film.

I think that the first film does a great job of reimagining the action hero through Sigourney Weaver's char. One scene that does this very well is the final scene with the andriod, Ash (Ian Holm). The fight scene takes place in a room postered with centerfolds of naked women (the sort of obejectified/commodified roles of the gender), and at one point during the struggle between the two, Ash tries to kill her but forcing a rolled magazine down her throat....a rather gruesome phallic image.

The second film develops the concept of motherhood pretty overtly. It's played out in the relationship between Newt and Riply and culminates in the final showdown between the Hivemother Alien in her birthing chamber, Riply holding Newt back with one arm and holding a flamethrower to the eggs of the alien.

Both of those films also do some interesting things with the sets, which once infested with aliens, become these sort of tunnels of living tissue that give you the feeling that you are inside of a body.