Feminist Movie Edition: Alien

Look at that stare... It has the intensity of 1,000 suns.

Spoiler Alert, I guess?

I can remember sitting in my friend's dark basement watching what he claimed to be the scariest movie of all time: Alien. Scariest movie of all time? Not so much. Awesome Feminist-Role-Model-Movie? I think so. Sigourney Weaver stars as Ripley in this Sci-fi horror film. A feat that was kind of a big deal when it was realized in 1979. Even now, it's hard to find a woman lead in science fiction movies.

Ripley spends the movie fighting killer aliens, rescuing herself, and attempting to help her crew members. If there's a movie that definitely breaks the whole damsel in distress trope, it's this movie because that woman is way more intense than anyone I've ever met.

Some argue however, that it was unnecessary to play on the character's sex appeal at the end of the movie by having her remove her clothing. Arguably, the movie would have been fine without it, but I would argue that if Ripley was a male character, no one would have cared that he was in his underwear.

I know this is a dated movie to be writing a blog about, but if you're bored over the winter break, maybe check out some feminist friendly movies. You might be surprised!