In a message dated 97-11-20 22:13:56 EST, Le Anne Fossmeyer wrote:
> I had a totally different take on the Ripley vs. Queen Alien battle.
>
> >> Ripley managed to avoid all of those traps, and while the movie
> >> does have Ripley fighting another female (thus reducing the
> >> end battle to a "cat fight") over a child (appealing to the idea of
> >> "maternal instincts" causing her ruthlessness), she's still a better
> >> feminist role model than most movie women at the time.
>
> I don't think the end battle was written or portrayed as a cat fight:
> each female feels she must destroy the other to ensure her and her
> species' continued existence. The story isn't about war as we have
> fought it for millennia: the fight to control land, fuel, wealth, and so
> on. The story is about the right to procreate at the expense of other
> life and the right to destroy other life to ensure the continued
> existence of one's own. I think for the story to work, to get to us the
> way it does, it has to touch our most primal, instinctual nature. The
> plot may be very human-centric in its view of procreation, but, hey, it
> was made for a human audience!
I think you've got a good point, but the "Get away from her, you bitch" line
really made it cat fight-y to me and also reinforced the maternal instincts
thing (see below).
> And since when did maternal instincts become not feminist?
Sorry, I didn't state myself well. Not that they aren't feminist, but that
like a lot of movies at the time, maternal instincts were the only reason
women had to be strong. My criticism is not for giving Ripley "maternal
instincts", since I thought it was a really interesting development of the
character, but of the movie industry at the time, which made it so the only
reason the movie could get made was to "excuse" Ripley's strength and
determination by labeling it "maternal instincts".
> I was also disappointed with the third movie, but only because I could
> see so much potential just sitting there, nestled in the dialogue,
> ignored in favor of MTV-like cinematography. The movie starts out with
> this great question: if one too many male chromosomes makes a guy too
> violent, predatory for peaceable society, then is he also incapable of
> sacrificing for and protecting the society that outcast him? Are we,
> both male and female, limited by our biology? It could have been cool,
> but it fell flat.
I too thought the "chromosome question" should have merited some more
exploration, and I also was upset with the cinematography (did I spell that
right?). I think a lot of my problems with the third movie (if I absolutely
*have* to be honest ;) stem from how much I really enjoyed "Aliens".
Killing Newt really ticked me off, and then having Ripley sleep with that
doctor (when there didn't look to be much chemistry between them to me) after
they killed Hicks ticked me off some more (okay, okay, I really like Michael
Biehn, too, I admit). But I agree, the movie could have been much better,
and it just wasn't.
On a brighter note, I just watched "The Making of Alien Resurrection" on
Sci-Fi Channel and it looks really really good. I have really high hopes for
this one, and from the looks of things, I'm not going to be disappointed. Yay
;)
Barbara Benesch
BJBenesch@aol.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:07:32 PDT