My reading of Alien (1979). I believe the Alien to be the most singularly 'human' character in the film, and would be interested to hear others' thoughts.
The central antagonist of Alien is one of cinema’s most enigmatic characters. We are given no hints to its origins beyond brief glimpses of a derelict ship’s gargantuan pilot, chest pulverised from the inside, and a vast chamber of perfectly ordered eggs below. Its motivations are – at least in the film’s theatrical release – a total mystery.
The creature’s appearance proves no more revealing. An apparently blank carapace complements its rootlessness with menacing unreadability. Publicity stills, however, reveal the suggestion of a human skull shining through the alien’s black veil; its victim’s twisted reflections, a taunting portent of their deaths.
But the alien isn’t just a physical double. It embodies the deepest, most destructive desires of the Nostromo’s crew. Its sole motivations are food and, debatably, sex – we’ll get back to that. To paraphrase Ridley Scott’s other sci-fi opus, Blade Runner, the alien is ‘more human than human.’ It is a primitivistic Epicurean; an interstellar King Kong.
About the sex: a shot of the alien’s phallic tail sneaking between the legs of Lambert, a female crew member, is immediately followed by disturbing panting sounds over Ripley’s intercom. When Ripley later stumbles upon Lambert’s body, one of those legs hangs, blood-streaked and visibly naked, in the frame’s foreground. Ridley Scott himself has suggested that this scene depicts a sexual assault, asking ‘Was that some dreadful ending? Was that some terrible invasion of her body – a rape?’
Even those who do not subscribe to the theory that Lambert was raped would struggle to ignore the film’s discomfortingly sexual visual motifs, and its pervading theme of bodily invasion. Three vaginal tunnels, bio-organic doorways leading into the alien derelict; Kane’s own symbolic rape by the face hugger, and subsequent ‘birth’ as it erupts from his chest; the adult alien’s overtly phallic design, an eyeless head and snaking tongue; and Ripley’s near-nakedness at the film’s climax are some examples.
Scriptwriter Dan O’Bannon attests to using ‘every image [he could] think of to make the men in the audience cross their legs’. And H. R. Giger’s initial vagina-inspired design for the film’s eggs proved so ludicrously salacious that it was rejected, for fear of provoking Catholic countries into fire-and-brimstone indignation.
Ian Holm’s character, Ash, describes the alien as ‘Kane’s son’, subtly attributing all this murderousness, promiscuity and monstrosity to its human father. Given that Ash is later revealed to be an android who seems to view humankind with contempt and disgust, it would be easy to mistake this for sneering criticism. The truth could not be more different.
Ash envies humanity. Governed solely by laws of nature, human beings have no programming which we absolutely cannot break, no words which we absolutely cannot say. We are capable of murder, suicide, and even genocide. We are not subject to the domineering puppetry of Ash and his fellow synthetics’ creators.
And yet, a huge majority of humans choose to live in self-imposed prisons. For many, existence is defined by self-denial, restraint, duplicity and dishonesty. They are secretly so in love with the ideas of murder, suicide and genocide that they have to be threatened with punishment to stop them from trying them out. This is the source of Ash’s vitriol. The idea that humanity is wasted on human beings. That society and law are an abuse of human freedom.
Conversely, Ash refers to the alien as the ‘perfect organism…unclouded by conscience, remorse or delusions of morality’. The alien is the most truthful creature Ash has ever encountered; a physical manifestation of the id. To the cinema audiences of 1979, the alien was an unfathomable monster. But to Ash, it is a creature of ‘purity’ – a role model he eventually comes to emulate.
In an attempted copycat killing, Ash forces a rolled-up magazine down Ripley’s throat. This is the third notable confluence of mouths and phallic symbols in the film, echoing both the facehugger’s egg-transmitting proboscis and the adult alien’s tongue. But, notably, it is the only non-organic one. As a synthetic being, Ash cannot procreate. The magazine with which he attempts to kill Ripley is an act of defiance; a denial of impotence. He adopts the phallus as a symbol of humanity, and murder as its most unadulterated and truthful act. Not to be a human being, but to have humanity. To be pure.
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Posted Feb 24, 2015, 5:43 PM UTC
Certainly humans can desire sex and violence, BUT my take on the alien is opposite of yours.
I feel that the alien in Alien & Aliens, the Terminator, and zombies (in the classic Romero zombie films) are lacking a type of psyche that humans can touch base with. In this regard, our fear of all 3 baddies is similar in origin.
If you watch the 1930s vampire films or the the Christopher Lee versions of the 60s & 70s you realized that the baddie is non-human, but has issues and desires similar to humans. It is possible to have a conversation with the Count and both humans and the Count have points that they can connect with conversationally. Or take Blofeld from James Bond. A good guy can have a conversation with Blofeld. They can find points where their interests and ideas intersect. A good guy can say something that will alter Blofeld's actions or plans. Both Blofeld and the good guys have a human psyche.
Now when it comes to Aliens, Terminators, and classic zombies, the human psyche element is missing. You can't negotiate with these types of monsters. There is no point of common interest. These things are more like forces of nature than sentient villains. In the history of cinema, MOST human and even most alien villains have a human (or human like) psyche and we can relate to their desire to harm, or dominate, or acquire wealth, or fame or whatnot. Not so with Aliens, Terminators, & zombies.
That force of nature issue is what makes Terminators, Aliens, and zombies so scary. You can't bribe them, join them, or talk them out of their goals. This is quite unlike most monsters and villains that, in theory, can be bribed, joined, or redirected (or at least influenced). Terminators, Aliens, and zombies have more in common with a hurricane than with serial killers, Klingons, Vampires, Frankenstein's monster. In a given film, it may be the case that a standard villains/monsters is stopped only when it is killed or arrested but, in theory, they could lose their desire for harm, or change goals in some way. Even in theory, Aliens, Terminators, and zombies will never lose their desire to harm and they will not change their goals in any way. Their goal of destroying the good guys is not a choice, but part of who they are. Instead of mind, they only have this essence of destruction.
I really enjoy both your and u/splandroid's posts. But let me offer another thought, ironically a "common interest," to use u/Miguelito-Loveless' term. I believe that, in a way, both of your interpretations of the Alien (and by proxy Terminator and Romero's Undead) are not so much opposites, but complements to each other. What I mean is that what makes these baddies so much scarier than earlier monster incarnations is that they lack a human psyche (or empathy, more on this later), AND that they pursue goals and have desires that we ALL as humans posses and fear. We fear these desires so much that modern Christianity has deemed them unforgivable (7 deadly sins). Some examples of these desires are the aggressive sexuality (lust) of the Xenomorph, the murderous tactics (wrath) of the Terminator, and the insatiable hunger (gluttony) of Romero's Undead.
These beings are indeed more human than human, BUT they cannot be reasoned with, because they lack HUMANITY (empathy). This is what separates them from other monsters (Count Dracula on one end of the spectrum, and Pinbacker in Sunshine on the other). We share desires with them; and, much like Ash, envy their uninhibited way of living. However, we, as humans know these acts are morally wrong, and in addition to being killed by these monsters, are forced to face our primal desires personified in the process. A existential crisis to complement our mortality.
These directors have found, in their own ways, a masterful marriage of human and inhuman, and this irony is what, I believe makes us so uncomfortable and makes these baddies work so well.
For the record, that 7-sins system of education isn't modern. They are pretty much in the Bible, and were more explicitly educated by 4th century monk Evagrius Ponticus.
The most modern Christian interpretation comes from the fact that you can now get a live video feed, air travel, any where in the world. The only Christianity that holds any sense of truth is a personal, inward, psyche one - like Gospel of Thomas. The viewpoint of Carl Jung.
Do people still cling to old interpretations of the religion that were not changed by this technological and travel revolution? Sure they do, but they are ignoring facts that science has been accumulating and continues to accumulate. That 1945 Egypt book discovery being a pesky one to ignore for a lot of supposedly educated Christians. Pre-Roman political teaching.
man, that word empathy gets tossed around so much in the past 10 years as some supreme thing. Do you know that there are genetic conditions that are known to cause lower empathy, some forms of Autism? You know that dogs have shown empathy when rescuing a friend?
You talk about Mythology (Christianity) - the world sure as hell isn't empathy. Which is rather short-lived, chemical, kind of thing doctors can induce with medicines.
A dog doesn't need the higher brain functions to have empathy. Dogs don't write poetry and make films. Dogs don't build complex houses and abstract technology. their form of consciousness is far below what humans have.
Dogs don't have Mythology ;) The Cave of Altamira art isn't created by any animal but one animal. And the world empathy doesn't exist in Mythology. The human invention is Compassion, and it comes from education - fiction and non-fiction and it is created by learning. It isn't just a chemical animal thing.
Navajo pollen path, Hindu Upanishads, Buddhism, Shinto, etc, etc- all are educated by parents and community to child (even using special education buildings and art) - like learning spoken language of Spanish, German, Japanese. Empathy is not educated.
Ok.
Your post is putting me in mind of [Pinbacker] (/spoiler) and the Sun in Danny Boyle's Sunshine. The whole way through the film, there's this wonderful villain - the silent, brainless source of all life on earth. [But then, that's somewhat devalued by the presence of a human being who shouts at people and has an icky face.] (/spoiler)
I certainly see where you're coming from with the whole 'force of nature' thing. I'm looking at my own words with doubtful eyes. I suppose the fact that two such diametrically opposed opinions can spring from the same film is testament to its quality.
EDIT: just saw Max's post below and he says everything much better than I do
Hell I'll come in right down the middle of your perspectives and say that's why the alien and the terminator seem so scary. We see undoubtedly human characteristics in them, one primarily behavioral and the other physical, yet there's no way to take advantage of that like we can with other humans. The only options when faced with such foes are brute force fight or flight responses which are short-circuited by the illusion of similarity.
By the way, I'd argue that the alien's decision not to kill the cat and its choice to hide aboard the shuttle display some of that human likeness as well.
well, you can hack a terminator with technology and creativity. It is a tool created by humans. human vs. human war often involves technology exploits (Trojan Horse).
True, and you could presumably outsmart the alien. I think what I was trying to convey was a dead to rights scenario. If the alien or terminator get within a certain proximity of the target, it's game over. There's no talking your way out of it, whereas you could maybe say something that would stop a fellow human.
I think this 'antithesis' still supports u/splandroid's claim via metaphor, the aspect of human psyche that overcomes reason driving the life of the species. The social critique is this theory expanded. The Alien represents patriarchy. The journey of Ripley across all "3 films" is Ripley's growing independence from male societal norms, a journey as a road map of sorts. The fourth film can be considered a continuance if you subscribe to its existence. (slam) This holds true to the themes of Prometheus. I suppose it's fair to say that this sort of analysis exists solely because there is a female protagonist. How would the film be perceived if the Ripley or Shaw characters were male?
I'm sorry but you can't show an alternative point of view that has any clout when your response is written using arguments from completely different films. OP wrote about Alien as a film and you wrote how you feel about the characters as a franchise.
Alien clearly stands alone (or possibly with Prometheus) in its storytelling, world building and representations. Nothing even happens in Aliens to explain or further the story and it should not be referenced in response to this post.
I'm not sure why you think they are similar to terminator or zombies, Which are scary for other reasons... Maybe you could compare the alien to critters or something.
I would argue the human psyche element is not missing. An alien can be tricked, it can be satisfied, it protects its self preservation above all else. It revels in the hunt. It may not be curious but it enjoys sport. It is clever and self aware. It does not deny its instinct. Imagine what destruction it is capable of. Imagine what destruction we are capable of. Maybe we deserve this.
The suspense in the film leaves you rooting for the alien. Please let this scene be over already! We know the humans die, and it's not fun to be toyed with. Some seem to desire self destruction. You almost want Ridley to give up, just to get it over with. After all, we are just as bad....