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May 13, 2014 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin
14:41
An analysis of the women in Aliens
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Isn't it odd that one of the most popular films when I was a teenage boy was the film Aliens.
A story about a woman who essentially is trying to rescue a young girl.
On the face of it, it does seem strange that this film would be so popular with teenage boys.
I just wanted to go through it and just really see why, because it's one of those things that really stands against feminist arguments.
Oh, you are a misogynist.
You hate all women because they are women.
Which we all know is nonsense.
I mean, there probably are misogynists in the world, but there are so few of them, really.
You know, because Aliens exemplifies exactly what men can most respect in a woman.
And it's not because she's a woman.
I really believe that men judge each other by their actions and by their character.
And therefore, the women men tend to respect most are the women who display these good qualities.
I won't go into too much detail about the um I won't go into too much detail about the plot of the movie, as I'm going to assume that you've already seen it.
And if you haven't, literally stop this video and go and watch it.
It's it's so good.
It's such a good film.
So the movie begins with Ripley.
So I'm doing all this from memory.
But the movie begins with Ripley being awakened from, I think it was 57 years in hyperspace, hypersleep.
from 57 years in hypersleep and you know she explains what happened on is it the nostromo And, you know, the company, Waylon Yutuni Yutani, don't believe her because there's no proof for her claims.
But she's serious, and she makes damn good points.
She doesn't get histrionic.
She doesn't bring her emotions into it, even though she does get emotional.
When they're saying, well, you know, everything seems fine there.
And she's like, it's not fine.
All this.
All this bullshit paper.
I love the idea that they have paper on spaceships in the future.
You know, all this bullshit, then that will be all.
And all that.
And she's not getting histrionic.
She's fucking serious.
She knows the capacity of the threat.
And these people don't.
But, you know, she accepts that they don't and that she's unable to change their mind.
And so the contact with the colony on LV426 is lost.
And they come to her and say, so, it seems that your story might actually be true.
I can't remember the name of the slimy guy off the top of my head.
I should research it, but I'm not going to.
We'd like you to come along as an advisor.
Burke, that's it.
Burke.
Slimy twat.
Yeah, we'd like you to come along as an advisor.
And Ripley says, no, I'm not doing that.
But her conscience gets the better of her, and she goes.
And then we're introduced to the Marines.
And these, I want to say guys, but it's women as well, are fantastic.
Vasquez in particular.
When Vasquez is doing pull-ups on the bar, Hudson says to her, have you ever been mistaken for a man?
Vasquez doesn't burst into tears.
She doesn't start moping about how her feelings aren't being considered.
She shoots back with the best response possible in that situation.
No, have you.
Hudson takes it.
You know, that's a good response.
He laughs it off.
Everyone goes away.
You can really feel the camaraderie.
Her partner, her smart gun partner, whose name eludes me at the moment, just, you know, shakes her hand, fucking badass.
Everyone knows where they stand, and they get on with it.
There's a really, really good atmosphere of camaraderie and teamwork.
Hudson's a bit of a prick, but he's not a bad guy.
In fact, he's kinda likable.
And when they're all preparing to set down to LV426 and the dropship, Ripley's just standing around.
She feels like a bit of a third wheel.
She's used to working.
She's a productive person.
And so she goes up to Hicks and Capone and says, Look, is there anything I can do?
And they just shoot right back.
I don't know.
Is there anything you can do?
And she says, yeah, I can drive that loader.
And she gets in and starts doing it.
And she becomes a member of the team herself.
By taking part.
She doesn't say, well, I'm sorry, but you've got two women and ten men here, and so you need more women for your quota.
She sacks up and fucking does it, which is going to be a running theme throughout this whole movie.
This is how someone will end up respecting you.
You prove yourself.
Now, they go down to L V 426, and it's deserted.
They cautiously explore.
There's no one there.
Except for a single young girl who managed to somehow evade capture by the aliens.
Although at this point we don't know this.
This is where Ripley shows a much more human side, a much more feminine side.
As the Marines are exactly as you'd expect the Marines to be, Hicks tries to grab her and tries to manhandle her out, but she's too quick and gets away from him.
And they scare her.
But Ripley goes down, again, personally goes down into the unknown and confronts this girl and calms her by being nice.
You know, she gives her a hug.
This girl's terrified.
And so they take her back up and establish a base in one of the laboratories.
And she starts cleaning her up and acting motherly to her.
Now, we know that Ripley has lost a daughter.
But again, it didn't break her.
It was just something terribly sad that happened.
And she managed to not get over it, but as it's debatable whether any parent who loses a child ever really gets over it.
But she endures.
But you can tell that Ripley feels a bond with Newt.
She's the only girl left.
She's the only person left.
She's all alone.
She's lost her family.
In the same way that Ripley's lost hers.
Ripley feels an affection for her.
The Marines continue exploring the colony and find that the survivors seem to be in the power plant.
Oh, sorry, the processing station, the atmosphere processing station, because it's a terraforming colony.
And when they go down there, they find that it's been alienized.
The walls are covered in the chitinous, gooey, dripping alien wall coverings that they always produce.
The organic look of it.
The or the organic sort of creep of the aliens.
And the aliens attack.
And the Marines act as Marines.
None of them are there because of quotas.
They're professional soldiers.
And they fight the aliens off.
A few of them are captured.
And the rest escape.
terrified and surprised.
Their commander is a man with no experience and he loses it.
He freezes.
He doesn't know what to do.
And so Ripley barges him aside, takes control of the APC, and drives in there to save them.
This is fucking heroic.
And she bursts in and she rescues Hicks, Vasquez, and Hudson.
And the commander, Gorman, is knocked unconscious during the rescue.
Hicks assumes command as the next most superior soldier there, and they attempt to pull out.
He orders the dropship to come and recover them.
However, the pilots are killed by an alien that's stowed away on there.
And so everyone is now trapped inside this complex, with hordes of aliens on the loose.
It seems that Burke attempts to find a way to smuggle out some aliens inside Newt and Ripley by locking them in a room with facehuggers.
But Ripley fights these off, activates the fire alarm, so Hicks and Hudson can rescue her.
And Newt.
Because they're an aunt.
Not because they're weak and vulnerable and need assistance, but because they're in a situation that nobody could have resisted.
Their power is suddenly cut off, and we realise that the aliens are intelligent.
And they prepare their attack.
Luckily, we're with the colonial marines.
And they've set up sentry guns, and they've welded the doors, and they've created a very significant barricade to protect themselves.
A battle ensues, and everyone equips themselves well.
However, Hudson, Burke, Gorman, and Vasquez are killed, and Newt's captured.
Only Ripley and Hicks manage to reach Bishop in the second dropship.
But Ripley refuses to just leave Newt behind.
She personally equips herself, as Hicks is injured and can't accompany her.
She arms up, and then just marches straight into the middle of the nest, armed with a flamethrower and a pulse rifle.
She kills, you know, she kills aliens, and she burns all the eggs, and then discovers the alien queen.
Actually, I'm not sure, does she discover the queen first?
I can't remember off the top of my head.
But, um, and then discovers the alien queen.
And again, it's female.
But there is at no point where that occurred to me when I was watching this for the first time.
All I was seeing was a very brave person encountering a terrible alien threat.
Ripley manages to rescue Newt and escapes.
And the enraged alien queen charges after them.
They manage to get back to the dropship and escape just before the colony's blown up.
They arrive back on the Sulaco, but unfortunately the Alien Queen has managed to cling on to the dropship's landing gear and tears Bishop in half.
Ripley has got no way of fighting the Alien Queen except in the power loader, which she naturally just leaps into, straps herself down, and then proceeds to battle in a one-on-one fight with a giant alien monster.
Not only that, but she defeats the monster by shoving it into an airlock and then blasting it into space.
You can see why this is such a fucking amazing film.
At no point does Ripley's being female have an impact on the story, because Ripley is a very brave person.
She is entirely with merit in everything she does.
All of the women are.
None of them require special treatment, and almost all of them go above and beyond the call of duty.
They are professionals.
They are not feeble women.
It's this kind of can-do attitude that really, really makes the film amazing.
Again, none of the things that happen to Ripley or that Ripley does are because she's female.
She does them because they're necessary.
I mean, she's not a trained soldier, so when Hicks is showing her how to work it, you know, he's got the utmost respect for her, even though she's not trained.
And she goes in and she just takes charge and she does what she can.
You know, at no point does she let her emotions get the better of her.
And that's what bravery is.
And so when Ripley says, no, I'm going back in to find Newt, her gender simply isn't an issue.
You know, it's more, is she trained, is she capable?
And by this point, we know enough about Ripley to say, yes, by God, she fucking is capable, and she's going to do this.
And when Ripley is fighting the Alien Queen, it's not a battle between women.
It's a battle between two entities who both have a great stake in the fight.
The Alien Queen to avenge her eggs and Ripley to preserve her own life.
And the life of Newt, who she's gone out of her way to rescue, at such threat to herself.
This is why teenage boys like this film.
Or at least, this is why I liked this film as a teenage boy.
And this is why I liked Ripley so much as a character.
They don't need to identify with Ripley because she's a woman.
They don't need to identify with Vasquez because she's a woman.
They identify with these women because they are badasses.
They identify with Ripley because she's a civilian and she's doing very, very difficult and dangerous things despite her lack of training.
She's brave and she shows it.
I'm always very surprised that this isn't considered some sort of icon of feminist film.
I never, ever hear this film mentioned by feminists.
I can't understand why.
I love this film.
I think it's primarily because the film is about merit.
It's about strength of character and it's about bravery.
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