Postings that mentioned books that portrayed men hatefully did not give any
specific examples, so I haven't wanted to reply: I'm used to hearing that
some of my favorite feminist authors (Adrienne Rich to Suzette Haden Elgin
"hate" men, and find that discussions aren't too productive--just had a
similar one in my grad seminar where a couple of the students thought
Elgin's _Native Tongue_ proved she was angry and hated men). (I don't know
if the posts here had feminist works in mind, so I may be making an unfair
assumption by connecting it with other discussions I've had).
But with that background in mind, a friend and I saw _Alien: Resurrection_
last Wednesday. Said friend (female) is a HUGE fan; she made me promise to
go to the movie with her (Boy does she owe me one because I'm such a
completist I had to watch the three previous ones). We both liked the movie
quite a lot, but as were were driving home I was musing on the movie (I do
not consider the series to be feminist, although I know many feminist
scholars find Ripley to be a feminist character at least). The men!
It's produced/directed/written by men (or mostly men--at least this one was,
and I'm fairly sure the earlier ones were). But how do the male characters
come across in the movies? Not very well! There are a few "good ones": in
this most recent one, the black crewmember and the crewmember in a
wheelchair come across as compassionate and willing to help others even
sacrificing themselves, as did the one surviving soldier and the one
surviving kidnap victim.
If that, there are more decent behaving men in this than in the earlier
ones--I remember the ONE good marine who survived with Ripley and Newt in
#2. MOST of the men, especially those in power, are presented negatively:
the Company (pretty faceless, but the one Board meeting was mostly men, I
seem to remember one or two women in suits), the Military (not much about
government on Earth--it's the Company and the Military). Men in power, the
white upper class men, are all presented in quite negative ways: deceitful,
immoral or amoral, wanting to exploit this new species regardless of any
safety concern or even of said species' rights. (The double X chromosome
guys in the third movie were interesting--most of the prisoners AND the
administrators, with the possible exception of the doctor and one
prisoner--were rapists, or idiots.)
Where does this fit in terms of being hateful toward men (i.e. presenting
them as violent, rapists, stupid, etc.) that some claim feminist works
regularly do? I'm not sure, if I was a male, that I'd appreciate this
portrayal. (The reason I don't see the movies as feminist is because I
don't see presenting One Exceptionally Brilliant or Outstanding Woman as a
feminist strategy, though it certainly is a nice change and can be very
useful for all of us to see.)
A lot of the men in the ALIEN movies aren't too bright. I became quite
frustrated with the plots of the first three movies because they were so
much the same: Ripley realizes there is a problem, she warns the guys, they
ignore her, aliens chomp everybody except Ripley, and there it ends except
the next one opens up with the fact that no, the aliens aren't dead yet.
This movie broke a bit with that plotline because of the cloning (which I
was prepared to bre snarky about, but it was handled consistently within the
movie even if you don't buy their premise). Having a female android, as
played by Winona Rider, added an interesting ambiance to the plot, as did
the overall results of the resurrection. I don't want to spoil the ending
for people who haven't seen it yet. I think I liked this the best of the
four movies.... although as usual I spent a fair amount of time with my eyes
squinched shut not seeing the yucky parts.
Robin
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