Comments on: Alien: Sex in deep space

By: Prometheus…Are You Seeing This? « bkhemphill

Prometheus…Are You Seeing This? « bkhemphill — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 21:11:22 +0000

[…] and sex. Don’t believe this is actually a thing? I direct you to these discussions here and here. As shocking and disgusting as some of the imagery can be at times, the underlying meanings truly […]

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 05:07:14 +0000

“Nostromo” is Italian for “boatswain,” and is the central character of Jospeh Conrad’s eponymous novel. Look it up in any on-line dictionary.

I don’t know where this “home” stuff comes from.

By: Mick

Mick — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 17:37:21 +0000

I know what you mean when it comes to the need for a prequel. I’m still hesitant myself about it regardless of Sir Ridley Scott being involved in it. Hopefully, I’m proved wrong in the end & it turns out good. I’ll always be a fan of all the films. The original being my first love. I always felt the original film was about the fear of sex & people’s reactions toward sex. You mention the scene where Ash tries to kill Ripley w/ a rolled up magazine. After that scene where Parker yells at Lambert to get Ash’s body off him? Notice how Parker wraps his legs around Ash as if they were partaking in some male on male faux porn? & after that where they rewire Ash & his head is just saturated w/ white, milky fluid?? A classic scene w/ serious homo-erotic undertones. Lol

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 12:51:39 +0000

The alien actually kills Parker in the same way as Brett, with a bite to the forehead. It doesn’t go for his chest.

By: Bryn

Bryn — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 21:56:22 +0000

Martin, how apt you should make a comment, since it was your uni Film Analysis essay that I thought of when I decided to write this article. I didn’t know that Nostromo means home. I like your thoughts, which I presume you discussed in your original essay … Cheers old buddy!

By: martyn roberts

martyn roberts — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:13:04 +0000

Hi Bryn

Further to your take on the symbolic aspects of the Alien design, there is a take on the story that goes like this. ‘Nostromo’ in fact means home. ‘Mother’ is the computer keeping her brood safe while Ash, the ships android is ‘Father’. Mother and Father conspire to bring the creature on board and in doing so expose the ‘virginal’ children to a sexual awakening that is transformative and ultimately destructive. The Alien itself represents the powerful sexual acts that the otherwise perfect ‘Mother’ and ‘Father’ cannot express. Very freudian and has roots in the theories found in feminist thought about the monstrous feminine, whereby the monster is often a parable about male fears of the female organ – medussa, cyclops etc. Just a thought…

By: Oscar

Oscar — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:50:22 +0000

Shame that none of the sequels really built on the sexual horror of the first (aside from a glimpse of the labia resembling ventral orifice of the captured face-hugger in Aliens). The sexual subtext doesn’t just paint Alien’s horror with more masterful strokes, it raises questions of sex, violence and conquest as being essential to the propagation of life, alien or otherwise. The titular alien is the superior life-form because it combines sex and violence/conquest in its reproductive cycle. Humans, with their individuality and consequent need to civilize, have separated sex from violence/conquest (rape being one of the earliest societal taboos). Humans might be “better” in the context of their own moral qualifications, but throughout the series its never in doubt what would happen if an alien were brought back to Earth.

But without the sexual subtext, Alien would still be an excellent sci fi/horror flick. The chest-busting scene remains one of the most horrific moments in cinema. I heard Ridley Scott didn’t tell any of the actors (aside from John Hurt of course) what was going to happen, to make their reactions more natural.