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SMNTY Classics: Alien Edition! · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Andy and Samantha. I'm welcome to stuff
0:07
Speaker 1: I've never told you protection of I heart Radio, So
0:19
Speaker 1: I wanted I've been wanting to bring back this classic
0:21
Speaker 1: for a while. Um, it is a feminist movie Friday.
0:24
Speaker 1: It is not Friday as this comes out. It is
0:26
Speaker 1: in fact Saturday, but who knows when you're listening to it.
0:29
Speaker 1: But it is the first thing we did, and it's
0:31
Speaker 1: the one we did on Alien. We're so excited throughout
0:36
Speaker 1: you could just feel it through the audio leaves. It
0:41
Speaker 1: has also been featured in several other podcasts and all
0:44
Speaker 1: the other lists to listen to because they were like,
0:46
Speaker 1: oh my god, she does you specifically do an amazing
0:50
Speaker 1: job and talking about the allegories behind it, the metaphors,
0:56
Speaker 1: all of it, the symbolism, and they're like, yes, I
1:00
Speaker 1: feel like this really just opened up the genre of
1:03
Speaker 1: your Your Love and kind of like crossover to Movie
1:08
Speaker 1: Crush anyway. So absolutely you have made yourself a legend
1:11
Speaker 1: with this one. I did talk about it on Movie Crush. Um,
1:15
Speaker 1: so you can go check that episode out as well.
1:17
Speaker 1: If if this is you want more after this, we wouldn't.
1:21
Speaker 1: But I wondering this that because you know, Samitha, you're
1:24
Speaker 1: asking when we got We were so lucky to get
1:27
Speaker 1: our Sminty team together digitally for an episode. Recently, we
1:31
Speaker 1: were talking about holiday traditions. We have one that I
1:35
Speaker 1: used to have when we were growing up was we
1:38
Speaker 1: would go see a movie, usually on the twenty third,
1:42
Speaker 1: but sometimes on Christmas Eve, and it was like a
1:45
Speaker 1: big every year. We would talked about what movie We're
1:47
Speaker 1: going to see and I loved it because I do
1:49
Speaker 1: love movies, and a lot of like when you were saying,
1:52
Speaker 1: you know, Harry Potter is kind of straling that line
1:54
Speaker 1: of Christmas movies. A lot of times it would be
1:55
Speaker 1: Christmas movies, it would be a Harry Potter movie. I
1:57
Speaker 1: would win because they come out around that time. They
2:00
Speaker 1: used to come out around that time. But there's kind
2:02
Speaker 1: of a notorious instance where my older brother chose star
2:05
Speaker 1: Trek Nemesis even though he knew I had a fear
2:09
Speaker 1: of aliens, and I couldn't sleep at all that night,
2:13
Speaker 1: not because I thought Sanna was coming, but because I
2:15
Speaker 1: was scared. But I was just thinking about that and
2:20
Speaker 1: about this movie and how badly it would have scared
2:23
Speaker 1: me if I saw it. When I was younger, so
2:26
Speaker 1: in the holiday spirit of a tradition I used to have.
2:30
Speaker 1: Please enjoy this classic episode. Hey, this is Annie and
2:38
Speaker 1: Samantha and welcome to Stuffman Never told you production of
2:41
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio's House to works. And today, finally, finally,
2:56
Speaker 1: I have waited so long, we're talking about alien Alien
3:01
Speaker 1: not Aliens. Yes, I already corrected, there have. I've van
3:05
Speaker 1: yelled at a few times actually in the last week,
3:08
Speaker 1: not only by you, but the friend. He continues like,
3:11
Speaker 1: it's alien. Well, and I was saying, I completely understand
3:14
Speaker 1: that mistake because I actually saw Aliens first, because I
3:18
Speaker 1: didn't realize it wasn't a one two situations. The sequel
3:22
Speaker 1: is Aliens with an S directed by James Cameron, but
3:24
Speaker 1: that's not the one we're talking about today, although we
3:26
Speaker 1: will mention it. Um, we're going to be talking about
3:29
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventy nine release Scott film Aliens. So if
3:32
Speaker 1: you somehow, some way haven't seen it and don't want
3:36
Speaker 1: to be spoiled, then you may want to skip this one.
3:39
Speaker 1: Trigger warning too for sexual assault and rape and discussion
3:42
Speaker 1: of disturbing sexual imagery. Yes, um, and I know longtime
3:47
Speaker 1: listeners of this show should be celebrating for me because
3:50
Speaker 1: I said, I think in the very first episode, I
3:53
Speaker 1: just want to talk about aliens, and here we are
3:56
Speaker 1: and here we are yes, because it is the fortieth
3:59
Speaker 1: anniversary of Alien correct right, and it is back in
4:02
Speaker 1: theaters for a few days beginning October, So this is
4:07
Speaker 1: a chance to see it on the big screen if
4:09
Speaker 1: you want. Um, and we of course went or will
4:12
Speaker 1: be going depending on when you listen to right um.
4:15
Speaker 1: For research, this is some of the best research. I
4:18
Speaker 1: will say we started our research early because I refused
4:22
Speaker 1: to do this episode until I watched it, because I
4:26
Speaker 1: knew this was going to be a probably four hour
4:29
Speaker 1: episode with your excitement and your um what is it? Zeal? Zeal?
4:36
Speaker 1: Thank you to continue and to talk about it, and
4:39
Speaker 1: I'm really excited with you. So I'm like, okay, cool,
4:41
Speaker 1: let me watch this. And I did watch it. I
4:43
Speaker 1: didn't have commentary, but there was a lot of commentary
4:46
Speaker 1: from both sides of me because I'm like, what's happening? Okay? What? Okay?
4:50
Speaker 1: What to? A lot of explanations, told a lot of
4:53
Speaker 1: here it comes moments? Are that a few times? Um?
4:57
Speaker 1: So I did we did already kind of do a
5:00
Speaker 1: view research yes, um, but it's not going to be.
5:04
Speaker 1: It wasn't in theater, so and I promise to keep quiet.
5:08
Speaker 1: I'm really glad you had the chance to be able
5:10
Speaker 1: to get all of your excitement out so that when
5:13
Speaker 1: we're in the theater you wouldn't do that, right. I
5:16
Speaker 1: still want to do one viewing and you don't have
5:18
Speaker 1: to go, but I want to do one with a
5:19
Speaker 1: theme like cocktail that's red, and just the whole thing
5:24
Speaker 1: is just discussion and hey, you know I'm always down
5:27
Speaker 1: with alcohol. Just to be sitting there and nodding, you'll
5:29
Speaker 1: just let me get it out, Let me get it out,
5:32
Speaker 1: like yes, here we go. Um. And yeah, this was
5:34
Speaker 1: something I was very excited to share with you and
5:36
Speaker 1: with anyone who hasn't seen it or has only seen
5:40
Speaker 1: it once or twice in passing. And you haven't taken
5:43
Speaker 1: this critical feminist lens to it because you will not
5:47
Speaker 1: be able to unsee all the stuff we're talking about.
5:50
Speaker 1: So if you happen to not want to watch it
5:52
Speaker 1: with a feminist lens, maybe skip it as well. But
5:54
Speaker 1: I think it's fun yea. And yeah, I have told
5:58
Speaker 1: the story on the show before, I think, But um,
6:00
Speaker 1: thanks to a truly epic and very mean and honestly
6:04
Speaker 1: successful prank my older brother played on me. I was
6:07
Speaker 1: terrified of aliens like the Trope, the Thing, the Monster
6:11
Speaker 1: and movies and so fairly fairly recently. I didn't see
6:13
Speaker 1: ET an Independence Day until I think a couple of
6:17
Speaker 1: years ago. Um, my friends made me watch ET after
6:21
Speaker 1: we wrote the ET Ride at Universal, and I was like, wait,
6:24
Speaker 1: what is what? What? Yeah, it's very different than the movie.
6:28
Speaker 1: I've got to say the Ride the only movie I've
6:31
Speaker 1: ever walked out on because the fear was lost in
6:33
Speaker 1: space and yes, I know that's not a great movie,
6:35
Speaker 1: but I was scared and I left. Um, and I
6:38
Speaker 1: almost walked out on signs. I would have walked out
6:41
Speaker 1: if my friends hadn't been there, and I was too embarrassed.
6:44
Speaker 1: I will say, of all three of these movies, I've
6:45
Speaker 1: only seen E T Really Yeah, because you know, I
6:48
Speaker 1: kind of told you already I'm not a big sci
6:50
Speaker 1: fi fan, so the idea of aliens has never been,
6:54
Speaker 1: uh something that I've been really really interested in seeing.
6:57
Speaker 1: The vampires, give me ghosts, give me demons, get you
7:00
Speaker 1: all of those all day, but technically aliens, I'm like, Okay,
7:02
Speaker 1: cool whatever. Sure, yeah, so what cool? Um? And I
7:07
Speaker 1: did have on my list. I had two movies that
7:11
Speaker 1: because I was trying to get over this fear actively.
7:14
Speaker 1: And the two movies I had at the top of
7:16
Speaker 1: my list working my way up was Event Horizon and Aliens,
7:21
Speaker 1: because again I didn't realize that there was an alien
7:24
Speaker 1: before that, and I cried during Aliens. I was so afraid.
7:28
Speaker 1: But I got over it and you love it. Yeah,
7:31
Speaker 1: Now I'm like, wow this And I was fortunate enough
7:36
Speaker 1: to get to walk through this really scary alien set
7:40
Speaker 1: piece at the movie UM in London. That was pretty cool. Alright.
7:46
Speaker 1: So that is a lot of exposition. Let's get into
7:50
Speaker 1: the episode here, because we do have a lot to say,
7:52
Speaker 1: or I have a lot to say, and Samantha's very
7:55
Speaker 1: patient with me. To start with Aliens, Yes, a nineteen
7:59
Speaker 1: seventeen and sci fi horror movie distributed by twentieth Century Fox,
8:03
Speaker 1: directed by Ridley Scott, written by Dan O'Bannon and starring
8:07
Speaker 1: Sigourney Weaver. Amazing Sigourney Weaver. Yes, and I watched Kevin
8:11
Speaker 1: in the Woods last night and I forgot she's in it.
8:13
Speaker 1: That was one of the prime moments of Candid yes, yes, yes,
8:19
Speaker 1: um okay. So O'Bannon, the writer, was looking to ride
8:22
Speaker 1: the success of Star Wars with a different type of
8:25
Speaker 1: space story. It was pitched as Jaws in space. I
8:30
Speaker 1: can see that. Ridley Scott described it as Texas Chainsaw Massacre,
8:35
Speaker 1: but science fiction, and we should mention he gets sold credit.
8:39
Speaker 1: O'Bannon does for the script, but a handful of others
8:41
Speaker 1: made pretty big contributions with which led to a lot
8:44
Speaker 1: of tension. So yeah, of course. Anyway, the story involves
8:48
Speaker 1: the crew of the Nostromo, a commercial spaceship kind of
8:51
Speaker 1: like a space tow truck, and their encounter with the
8:54
Speaker 1: quote perfect organism alien. The main character, though you probably
9:00
Speaker 1: wouldn't know it for the first act of the film,
9:02
Speaker 1: is Sigourney Weavers Ellen Ripley, the capable and cool headed
9:06
Speaker 1: senior officer. One of the posters came with the iconic
9:10
Speaker 1: tagline in space, no one can hear you scream. Okay,
9:17
Speaker 1: I guess that's right unless you're in although in the
9:21
Speaker 1: movie you don't hear them scream it. Yeah you did somehow.
9:25
Speaker 1: There's a moment where I think they were playing with it,
9:27
Speaker 1: but then you do hear them scream so I was like, well,
9:30
Speaker 1: it was like it's very muted though, or music is
9:33
Speaker 1: blaring over it. Yeah. Yeah, I think that was a choice.
9:37
Speaker 1: It was. I don't know if it was like for
9:40
Speaker 1: a reason, yeah, exactly. Um the poster also, by the way,
9:44
Speaker 1: that is just an egg on the front. Okay. Both
9:48
Speaker 1: audiences and critics praised the film, and it went on
9:51
Speaker 1: to win the Oscar for Best Visual Effects, three Saturn Awards,
9:54
Speaker 1: and a Hugo Award. Several film critics regarded as one
9:57
Speaker 1: of the best films of all time. It gross about
10:00
Speaker 1: two hundred million at the box office. In two thousand two,
10:04
Speaker 1: The Library of Congress added it to their National Film Registry,
10:07
Speaker 1: calling it culturally historically are esthetically significant. The American Film
10:11
Speaker 1: Institute placed it at seventh place on their list of
10:14
Speaker 1: best sci fi films. In two thousand eight, An Empire
10:16
Speaker 1: put it into thirty third place when ranking best movies
10:20
Speaker 1: of all time. Also, speaking ride, there used to be
10:24
Speaker 1: I would love if a listener could write it and
10:25
Speaker 1: confirm this, But I feel like there was a ride
10:27
Speaker 1: called Alien Encounter, and I remember it being in Magic
10:30
Speaker 1: Kingdom where Leelo and Stitches. Now, but that can't be right, right,
10:33
Speaker 1: that can't be right. It was in Magic Kingdom. What well,
10:42
Speaker 1: super producer Andrew confirms it, and my mind is blown.
10:46
Speaker 1: I just feel like it was really scary for Magic Kingdom.
10:51
Speaker 1: It is very scary. Um. Yeah, it was for people
10:53
Speaker 1: who don't know. You were in a chair and like
10:55
Speaker 1: there was the alien was in the in a tube
10:57
Speaker 1: in front of you, and then of course it gets
10:59
Speaker 1: out out and you fill it breathing on your neck
11:01
Speaker 1: and then you get sprayed with blood as it kills somebody.
11:04
Speaker 1: It was very intense. I can see why they may
11:07
Speaker 1: be replaced it with Leelo and Stitch, where it's now
11:09
Speaker 1: kind of a funny ride. Um. Anyway, my mom and
11:13
Speaker 1: dad used to tell me about their experience seeing this
11:15
Speaker 1: movie in the theaters for the first time, which I
11:18
Speaker 1: find funny for several reasons. But they also went on
11:21
Speaker 1: to get married on which is the day that it premiered,
11:24
Speaker 1: which I'm sure is a coincidence. But they told me
11:28
Speaker 1: people were running, puking, screaming, um, that they avoided looking
11:31
Speaker 1: at the poster after seeing it because it scared them
11:34
Speaker 1: so much. Yeah, my dad popcorns up in the air. Yeah.
11:40
Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about it, not too many
11:42
Speaker 1: things at the time. People haven't seen too many things
11:45
Speaker 1: like that. Wasn't that in the same era as Halloween?
11:48
Speaker 1: And it was, Yeah, it was close. Um, but like
11:53
Speaker 1: in space people passed out during a New Hope because
11:56
Speaker 1: the spaceship in the beginning just kept going on. So,
11:59
Speaker 1: you know, interesting. And I am playing the video game
12:03
Speaker 1: Alien Isolation right now, which is a game where the
12:05
Speaker 1: alien can hear you as in the player, as in me,
12:10
Speaker 1: whatever is happening in my real life environment, and it
12:13
Speaker 1: uses that in the game. And I've died any many times.
12:16
Speaker 1: It wasn't the recommendation to you about sit wearing headphones
12:18
Speaker 1: so you can hear even louder, Yeah, because it's it's
12:20
Speaker 1: surround sound and you can hear it in front of you.
12:24
Speaker 1: So this film success went on to inspire a franchise.
12:27
Speaker 1: Seven more films to date, if we include the Alien
12:29
Speaker 1: Versus Predator films, which I also haven't seen those, not really,
12:34
Speaker 1: they're not really the books, comics, video games, and toys.
12:38
Speaker 1: Pretty impressive for R rated film. Yeah, the toys thing. Yeah,
12:42
Speaker 1: I can't think of too many other our movies. I
12:44
Speaker 1: guess like serial Killers or you know, like Monsters. Oh, yeah,
12:47
Speaker 1: I think there wasn't actually like Halloween Jason Toy Freddy
12:50
Speaker 1: Cougar Toy, which is really weird. Yeah, I'll think about
12:56
Speaker 1: that later. And yes, aliens, the of motherhood, abortion, fear
13:01
Speaker 1: of sexual assault, post humanism and sex in general, machines,
13:05
Speaker 1: corporations putting technology, weaponry, and scientific discovery about the welfare
13:09
Speaker 1: of people. Some people have even interpreted the film as
13:12
Speaker 1: a metaphor for women's refusal to bear children. So, yes,
13:15
Speaker 1: there is an actual reason why we're talking about it.
13:17
Speaker 1: It's not because I'm just a huge fan. It has
13:20
Speaker 1: a lot of feminist issues and just kind of anxieties
13:25
Speaker 1: around well, as you have already discovered because researching there's
13:28
Speaker 1: so many articles and YouTube videos of these theories of
13:33
Speaker 1: how this is portraying the patriarchy as well as versus
13:37
Speaker 1: like feminism, what is this whole idea of one woman
13:40
Speaker 1: being independent, being a leader, all of these different And
13:42
Speaker 1: of course I know you're gonna talking more about it,
13:44
Speaker 1: but birthing and vaginas, but yes, yes, specifically burning gam
13:48
Speaker 1: vaginas no joke. Yeah, I am definitely not the only
13:52
Speaker 1: one who has put some thought into this by far.
13:54
Speaker 1: And I'm actually really relieved because I was watching that
13:57
Speaker 1: movie Simil recently. I'm like, I think this is got
14:01
Speaker 1: a lot going on with vaginas and stuff, And then
14:04
Speaker 1: I'm glad I wasn't wrong. I wasn't way off base
14:07
Speaker 1: with that one um from Tom shown over at Slate.
14:11
Speaker 1: Quote Alien has issues. It has mommy issues and sex
14:15
Speaker 1: issues as a thing for strong women who it also
14:18
Speaker 1: likes to augle in their undies. It's a hot mess
14:20
Speaker 1: of Fordian fever dream with its crabby and post coital atmosphere.
14:25
Speaker 1: It's rebirthing imagery. It's queasily gynecological production design. It's night
14:30
Speaker 1: sweat of male anxiety, a particularly horrifying confusion of the
14:34
Speaker 1: sexual gynecological with the gastro intestinal, wrote James Kavanaugh from
14:39
Speaker 1: Son of a Bitch, Feminism, Humanism, and science. An Alien
14:42
Speaker 1: of the famous John Hurt birth scene in which a
14:45
Speaker 1: quote razor tooth phallic monster gnaws its way through his
14:49
Speaker 1: stomach into the light a kind of science fiction Faullston tatus.
14:53
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, m hmmm. So the movie came out during
14:57
Speaker 1: a tumultuous time in our society. So Rod versus Wade
14:59
Speaker 1: had just recently passed, and gender and social politics, what
15:02
Speaker 1: are changing rapidly with the help of the second White feminism.
15:06
Speaker 1: Not only that, but people increasingly had environmental concerns from pesticides,
15:09
Speaker 1: chemicals in our foods, and cancer is caused by humans. Yeah,
15:13
Speaker 1: like human whatever we're up to. Um. So, yeah, let's
15:17
Speaker 1: let's talk about the feminism of this movie. If you
15:21
Speaker 1: search for most feminist hartor movies of all time, Alien
15:25
Speaker 1: is almost guaranteed to make the list. And if you
15:28
Speaker 1: just search this movie and feminism itself, yeah, you will
15:31
Speaker 1: find pages and pages of thing pieces about it, some
15:34
Speaker 1: lauding its accomplishments, some decrying its flaws. This movie is
15:38
Speaker 1: frequently examined through a feminist lens, seen as progressive for
15:41
Speaker 1: its time, while nitpicked for not going far enough, or
15:44
Speaker 1: sometimes in the context of how little the rest of
15:47
Speaker 1: the series has come in terms of feminism since that
15:50
Speaker 1: first one. Once described as quote, a rape movie with
15:54
Speaker 1: male victims are an examination of the monstrous feminine. And yes,
15:58
Speaker 1: before you write in all no men can be and
16:01
Speaker 1: are the victims of rape as well, But this is
16:03
Speaker 1: how people have described it. Dan O'Bannon, the writer himself,
16:07
Speaker 1: claimed that to him, the movie examined the male fear
16:10
Speaker 1: of penetration, in which case I suppose we could add
16:13
Speaker 1: in homophobia in the general conversation here. Um, here's a
16:16
Speaker 1: quote from him. One thing that people are all disturbed
16:19
Speaker 1: about is sex. I said, that's how I'm going to
16:22
Speaker 1: attack the audience. I'm going to attack them sexually, and
16:24
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go after the women in the audience.
16:26
Speaker 1: I'm going to attack them men. I'm going to put
16:29
Speaker 1: in every image I can think of to make the
16:31
Speaker 1: men in the audience cross their legs, homosexual, oral rape, birth.
16:35
Speaker 1: The thing lays its eggs down your throat the whole number.
16:40
Speaker 1: So that's the creator himself. Uh yeah, And that scene
16:46
Speaker 1: where it attacks like attaches to that guy's face, what's
16:48
Speaker 1: the character ash, that's the Okay, Okay, that's right Kane's face.
16:54
Speaker 1: That was really felt like and very very disturbing in
16:57
Speaker 1: every sense. Right, and and I want to go into that,
17:01
Speaker 1: but before it will make sense, let's talk about how
17:03
Speaker 1: this creature works and embrace yourself perhaps terrifying the thing is.
17:08
Speaker 1: So the queen lays eggs and you actually don't see
17:11
Speaker 1: that until the second one, but there's this big queen.
17:13
Speaker 1: She lays eggs. When the eggs hatch. The resulting creatures
17:17
Speaker 1: are called face huggers, and they find something living and
17:20
Speaker 1: in this case um humans to latch onto. As the
17:25
Speaker 1: name applies, They usually latch onto someone's face, wrapping their
17:28
Speaker 1: tail around the victim's throat and inserting their proboscis down
17:32
Speaker 1: their throat and forcing them to become the host for
17:35
Speaker 1: their baby. If you can call it that organism, I
17:39
Speaker 1: guess it's a frightening, disturbing act, very very close to
17:44
Speaker 1: oral rape. And I believe in the second one you
17:47
Speaker 1: get a closer look at it, and it does look
17:50
Speaker 1: very vaginal, and then there's a proboscis that looks very phallic.
17:55
Speaker 1: So it's kind of been described as this combination hugger.
17:58
Speaker 1: I was going to say, when they exam and face hugger,
18:01
Speaker 1: it looked a lot like the Clinton of vagina, and
18:03
Speaker 1: I was like, what, what's WHOA, Yeah, that's very very obvious.
18:08
Speaker 1: It is quite obvious. The first victim was deliberately chosen
18:13
Speaker 1: to be male, and yes, his name was Kane ash Um,
18:17
Speaker 1: who you later find out is an android, but he's
18:19
Speaker 1: the science officer on the ship. He refers to the
18:22
Speaker 1: organism inside Kane as Kane's son, a reference to the
18:26
Speaker 1: biblical Kane, whose sons were born outside of God's laws
18:30
Speaker 1: and were therefore quite monstrous. I did not pick up
18:33
Speaker 1: on this until this last time we watched it. Once
18:37
Speaker 1: the organism is ready inside the its host stomach, it
18:41
Speaker 1: burst out of the victim's stomach and this is called
18:44
Speaker 1: a chest burster. This was also famously parodied and Spaceballs,
18:49
Speaker 1: which you the one I remembered. I was like dining diner,
18:54
Speaker 1: and and then my friend was the one that said,
18:57
Speaker 1: what's the scene where the tap dance? Yes, hello, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
19:04
Speaker 1: all right, And then from there it grows very very rapidly,
19:08
Speaker 1: like hours, into a full grown creature called a zeno
19:13
Speaker 1: morph And I'm sure Now I'm not sure at all
19:16
Speaker 1: because you, all of you listeners probably don't traffic in
19:19
Speaker 1: the same nursery that I do. But I see a
19:21
Speaker 1: lot of YouTube videos that's like explained the morphology of
19:27
Speaker 1: the zeno more of for the life cycle of xeno
19:29
Speaker 1: more because it is kind of confusing, right, but those
19:33
Speaker 1: are essentially the life that's the life cycle is. I
19:36
Speaker 1: would never question it because I'm like, a's an alien?
19:39
Speaker 1: What rational like what kind of rationale do you put
19:44
Speaker 1: to that is an alien? How do we know something
19:46
Speaker 1: that we don't know? I think it just confuses people
19:49
Speaker 1: that the face hugger essentially dies, it puts your egg in,
19:53
Speaker 1: It puts its egg in you. And that was twenty
19:55
Speaker 1: thousand questions I did ask him, like, wait, why if
19:58
Speaker 1: that's the egg, why isn't the egg thing? And what
20:00
Speaker 1: does it need to do one more extra step than
20:02
Speaker 1: just doing that? Because what it needs a gestation period
20:05
Speaker 1: in it. It's sometimes enough other movies it like takes
20:09
Speaker 1: the DNA of the host of I guess because I
20:12
Speaker 1: was very confused, like if it's already in the egg
20:14
Speaker 1: then and it's been birth out of that egg, which
20:16
Speaker 1: hatches out of it's been birthed, So why is it
20:19
Speaker 1: doing it again? What is happening? We did have that moment,
20:23
Speaker 1: we did, and um. One more thing about them is
20:25
Speaker 1: they bleed acid. And this was done on purpose because
20:29
Speaker 1: the director and the writers were like, why would they
20:31
Speaker 1: not just shoot them? Oh, I know, they bleed acid
20:34
Speaker 1: and we'll destroy your space ship. Yeah they worked. Okay,
20:38
Speaker 1: so that establishes the alien some of the things that
20:42
Speaker 1: we're talking about. UM, but we do have a character
20:46
Speaker 1: that's been pretty big in the genre since then. But
20:50
Speaker 1: first we have a quick break for word from response
21:06
Speaker 1: and we're back. Thank you, sponsor. And another thing that
21:10
Speaker 1: comes up when you're talking about feminism and alien is,
21:13
Speaker 1: of course Ripley, who. For listeners who have heard, I believe,
21:18
Speaker 1: the first episode I ever did as full time host
21:21
Speaker 1: was Final Girl. She is frequently pointed to as one
21:24
Speaker 1: of the original Final Girls, which is someone usually virginal
21:30
Speaker 1: who a woman who survives to the end of an
21:33
Speaker 1: onslaught in horror movies. So when it comes to our
21:36
Speaker 1: main protagonist, Ellen Ripley, many of you have probably heard,
21:40
Speaker 1: um Ridley Scott asked for both male and female actors
21:44
Speaker 1: to read the part. It wasn't gender. They were like
21:47
Speaker 1: bringing whoever, and they went with a then unknown Sigourney Weaver. Also,
21:54
Speaker 1: by the way, Ridley Scott identifies as feminist cool yeah
21:58
Speaker 1: um yeah. So she is someone who is strong and
22:01
Speaker 1: capable while still maintaining her femininity, although not too much
22:07
Speaker 1: of it. But I personally when I read that, I
22:11
Speaker 1: was like, she, um, you will apparently she kind of
22:16
Speaker 1: it's the cat that most people point at the fact
22:19
Speaker 1: that she cares about the cat, saves the cat very
22:25
Speaker 1: I guess a feminine trait. She has been described Ripley
22:29
Speaker 1: not the Cat, as the divine mother and protector of
22:33
Speaker 1: all life. The final shot in the movie some people
22:37
Speaker 1: see as very virgin Mary, resembling Virgin Mary. She is
22:42
Speaker 1: also for much of the beginning of the movie largely ignored. Again,
22:45
Speaker 1: you might not know she is the main character for
22:47
Speaker 1: a while. Um she's ignored by her male co workers
22:50
Speaker 1: and even the other female one. When she cites quarantine protocol,
22:56
Speaker 1: the thing that could have saved them from the alien,
22:59
Speaker 1: she's ignored, completely ignored. They're like, Nah, that's terrible. You're
23:04
Speaker 1: a terrible person. We're bringing bringing Cane in with this
23:07
Speaker 1: mysterious being attached to his face. Uh, horror in himself.
23:13
Speaker 1: Let's bring it in. Everything's fine. Yeah, I think we're
23:16
Speaker 1: very chill about it. They really were. I feel like
23:18
Speaker 1: there's a lot of the sci fi and horror movies.
23:21
Speaker 1: They're like, that's cool. Things don't have to everything's just fine.
23:25
Speaker 1: Attached to his face and be Okay, they're bleeding out
23:28
Speaker 1: every orphice. Let's just let's just talk to them, call
23:31
Speaker 1: comfort them. Yeah. Run. Uh. And this other female character,
23:37
Speaker 1: her name is a Lambert, who is played by Veronica Kurtwright.
23:40
Speaker 1: Kurtwright has publicly complained about the character of Lambert, who,
23:44
Speaker 1: if you don't know, she's sort of spends the last
23:47
Speaker 1: part of the movie crying and upset. Yeah, she said
23:53
Speaker 1: she was told that Lambert. The actress was told that
23:56
Speaker 1: Lambert was supposed to represent the fears of the audience.
24:00
Speaker 1: In the sequel Aliens, it is revealed that Lambert was
24:03
Speaker 1: a trans woman. Um A screen briefly shown reads, despite
24:07
Speaker 1: conversion at birth from male to female, so far, there
24:09
Speaker 1: are no signs of suppressed trauma from gender reassignment of
24:13
Speaker 1: popular fan supported theories that Lambert died of via violent rape. Yeah,
24:18
Speaker 1: that was really horrible because she the last thing you
24:20
Speaker 1: see of her that we saw for her panciless because
24:24
Speaker 1: all you can see is the leg and then the
24:26
Speaker 1: blood dripping down, which by the way, also represents many
24:30
Speaker 1: a many times we talked about administruation and penetration and
24:32
Speaker 1: all of that, but it was really wows As quiet
24:37
Speaker 1: as the death was, it seemed like it snaps away
24:39
Speaker 1: real quick. You see it a little bit and then
24:41
Speaker 1: that's it. Essentially that you said, have a tentacle, yeah,
24:44
Speaker 1: the tail, uh yeah, And apparently in the game, which
24:48
Speaker 1: I haven't gotten to this part yet. Apparently you find
24:50
Speaker 1: her body and it is covered in blood. Maybe I'll
24:55
Speaker 1: report back on that. Um. Both women in the movie
24:58
Speaker 1: had to wear tape over their nipple so as not
25:00
Speaker 1: to offend of yours in other countries when they come
25:02
Speaker 1: out of their like space hyper sleep thing. Many scholars
25:07
Speaker 1: argue that the character Ripley did so much to toughen
25:12
Speaker 1: up female heroines quickly and eventually led to characters like
25:16
Speaker 1: Buffy Um. Sigourney Weaver reprised her role as Ripley and
25:20
Speaker 1: Aliens Alien three and Alien Resurrection, and yeah, we're not
25:26
Speaker 1: really talking about those to day, but but briefly, her
25:28
Speaker 1: character arc takes her from sole survivor to mother motherhood
25:33
Speaker 1: is all the Thing, and Aliens to Alien queen to
25:38
Speaker 1: a transformation into the other. She becomes a clone, not
25:42
Speaker 1: quite human, not quite alien. In Resurrection, Clone Rimpley describes
25:47
Speaker 1: herself as the monster's mother. When that movie ends, it's
25:51
Speaker 1: to not quite human women that witnessed the New Dawn,
25:54
Speaker 1: that rod into the future with a Ripley that has
25:56
Speaker 1: rejected humanity and the alien instead chosen herself. She goes
26:02
Speaker 1: from mother protector to Mother Destroyer another time. Well, I
26:07
Speaker 1: was gonna say, it's kind of how we talked about
26:09
Speaker 1: all the monsters, female monsters, and we were talking about
26:12
Speaker 1: the one being the protector a bubble bubba yoga babba yaga.
26:17
Speaker 1: That sounds very similar in to that same realm. Yeah,
26:20
Speaker 1: it's it's really fascinating. And as we we talked about
26:23
Speaker 1: in that episode, well, that episode doesn't come out, so
26:26
Speaker 1: this is a preview we're doing one of female monsters.
26:29
Speaker 1: We do have, apparently in our society a lot of
26:32
Speaker 1: anxiety around motherhood, and we've talked about that before and
26:34
Speaker 1: you can see it a lot in this series. And
26:39
Speaker 1: here's one I love this. One of the taglines for
26:41
Speaker 1: the third film was this time it's hiding in the
26:45
Speaker 1: most terrifying place of all, which is a woman's body,
26:49
Speaker 1: because it's in Sigourney Weaver spoiler spoiler spoils, a woman's
26:53
Speaker 1: body is really terrifying sometimes. Apparently, apparently myself often and
27:00
Speaker 1: many others did take issue with the underwear scene at
27:03
Speaker 1: the end of Alien. Specifically, she sort of thinks she's
27:06
Speaker 1: safe and she strips down to pretty much her underwear
27:10
Speaker 1: and like a top. But I'm actually torn about it
27:12
Speaker 1: because me, it makes sense you'd be stripping down, but
27:16
Speaker 1: it's hard to see it any other way because women
27:18
Speaker 1: are so objectified in film. It just this, it's hard
27:21
Speaker 1: not to be like really right. And I think at
27:24
Speaker 1: that time an age because when we saw them waking
27:27
Speaker 1: up at the very beginning scenes and in diapers, essentially right,
27:30
Speaker 1: and I guess he's getting ready to go to bed,
27:32
Speaker 1: and to me that seems completely normal, but maybe the
27:35
Speaker 1: anticipation of the you know, something's not completely ended, So
27:39
Speaker 1: why are you acting? Why are you acting like you're okay? Right?
27:42
Speaker 1: And that's a big complaint when it comes to Final Girls,
27:45
Speaker 1: is sure you have this strong well not always, but
27:49
Speaker 1: you have a woman who survives and seems to be capable,
27:53
Speaker 1: but usually you're witnessing it kind of voyeuristically through the
27:57
Speaker 1: the killer or the monster, so you're we're connecting with
28:00
Speaker 1: the monster than you are with the woman typically, So
28:06
Speaker 1: that's part of my problem with it, I think, is
28:08
Speaker 1: that it suddenly has that feel of like the alien
28:11
Speaker 1: is watching you and you're undressing, which um, again kind
28:15
Speaker 1: of makes sense, but I do get a little I'm
28:18
Speaker 1: a little torned about it. I will say when I've
28:20
Speaker 1: had a long day fighting aliens. I also want to
28:23
Speaker 1: sew does happen often? So many times? Annoying? Now I understand,
28:30
Speaker 1: I'm glad you've rate it. This long is long, um.
28:34
Speaker 1: And there are critiques of Ripley's um nurturing nature and
28:39
Speaker 1: her sexual appeal um that make her and her feminism
28:43
Speaker 1: at large, and feminism at large in this movie, I
28:45
Speaker 1: guess not so threatening to the patriarchy. So they like
28:49
Speaker 1: took those steps, but they did it in a way
28:51
Speaker 1: where men wouldn't freak out, I guess is the easier
28:54
Speaker 1: way of saying that. From Alien Woman The Making of
28:57
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Ripley by Jason Smith, Kim and Yardo quote in
29:01
Speaker 1: the final scenes of Alien Ripley meets not just an
29:04
Speaker 1: alien creature, but a dark, physical and psychological mirror of herself,
29:08
Speaker 1: like a woman with a flamethrower. That alien is a
29:11
Speaker 1: fallicized fetish object, a creation of the male psyche of
29:14
Speaker 1: masculine fear and desire. Thus, the film ultimately pits the
29:18
Speaker 1: body against her own shadow self. But they go on
29:23
Speaker 1: to say, in a world where men can be subjected
29:26
Speaker 1: to the monstrous feminine, becoming pregnant and give birth to monsters,
29:29
Speaker 1: where women can become the heroes and soul survivors, the
29:32
Speaker 1: male becomes superfluous, assumed be outmoded form, and Ripley's confrontation
29:37
Speaker 1: with and final destruction of the alien, the object of
29:40
Speaker 1: desire of the military industrial complex, gives voice to the
29:44
Speaker 1: contemporary feminist goal of saving humanity from the destructive impulses
29:48
Speaker 1: of patriarchy. Tell you there's a lot to be said.
29:53
Speaker 1: We need that right now. And then here's something that
29:56
Speaker 1: you were curious about. Mother. It's basically the computer, the
30:01
Speaker 1: ship's computer that's in charge of everything, and it's they
30:04
Speaker 1: call it Mother, but it's actually m U slash T
30:10
Speaker 1: slash you are six thousand and um. This ship is
30:16
Speaker 1: what wakes up to the crew who was not really
30:18
Speaker 1: supposed to stop this planet, but wakes them up early
30:22
Speaker 1: to investigate a signal coming from LV four to six,
30:26
Speaker 1: which is where things go terribly wrong. They change it
30:32
Speaker 1: to Father and aliens. I think there's always like a
30:35
Speaker 1: computer sort of thing running it, and I've been interested
30:41
Speaker 1: for a while, And like when we talk about Mother's
30:43
Speaker 1: ship and why we refer to ships as she. Space
30:46
Speaker 1: is frequently seen as the vast, empty womb of a
30:50
Speaker 1: woman like just giving these gender specifiers too. I was
30:57
Speaker 1: tempted to call Mother she you things like that. Um.
31:03
Speaker 1: When the crew is first awakened by Mother, it is
31:06
Speaker 1: as if they are children emerging from her room like
31:08
Speaker 1: the diapers. Like you said, Um, Mother does not have
31:13
Speaker 1: your best interest at art. She is a cold, artless bitch,
31:18
Speaker 1: except not technically. But she's a computer. But she's like Um,
31:23
Speaker 1: I guess the people who programmed her are from the
31:26
Speaker 1: movie I love this quote Mother. I've turned the cooling
31:29
Speaker 1: unit back on Mother. The ship will automatically distruct and
31:33
Speaker 1: T minus five minutes you and yes, that's when Ripley
31:39
Speaker 1: like starts throwing up at the computer main dream. Um.
31:42
Speaker 1: This is an argument between Ripley and Mother. Also Mother's
31:47
Speaker 1: co conspirator Ash and Ash is the android character played
31:52
Speaker 1: by sir Ian Home and I do I feel like
31:55
Speaker 1: in every single alien movie are almost all of them
31:59
Speaker 1: the dard character as some weird thing for the final
32:06
Speaker 1: girl because most of these do have a final girl anyway.
32:11
Speaker 1: He tries to kill Ripley by shoving a rolled up
32:13
Speaker 1: porno magazine into her mouth, which also feels very reminiscent
32:19
Speaker 1: of oral rape. Um. I've read that that scene is
32:22
Speaker 1: like he represents toxic masculinity. UM. I never noticed there
32:27
Speaker 1: was all this porn in the background until I did
32:30
Speaker 1: this research from the monstrous feminine film feminism psychoanalysis. The
32:36
Speaker 1: science fiction horror film Alien presents a complex representation of
32:40
Speaker 1: the monstrous feminine as archaic mother. Mother. Alien is primarily
32:44
Speaker 1: a terrifying figure, not because she is castrated, but because
32:47
Speaker 1: she castrates. Her all consuming, incorporating powers are concretized in
32:53
Speaker 1: the figure of her Alien offspring, the creature whose deadly
32:56
Speaker 1: mission is represented as the same as that of the
32:58
Speaker 1: archaic mother, to tear apart and reincorporate all life. It
33:03
Speaker 1: is the notion of the thick und mother as abyss
33:05
Speaker 1: that essential to Alien. It is the abyss, the cannibalizing
33:09
Speaker 1: black hole from which all life comes, into which all
33:12
Speaker 1: life returns, that is represented in the film as the
33:15
Speaker 1: source of deepest terror. Significantly, there is an attempt in
33:20
Speaker 1: Alien to appropriate the procreative function of the archaic mother
33:24
Speaker 1: to represent a man giving birth, to deny the mother
33:27
Speaker 1: as signifier of sexual difference. But here birth can exist
33:30
Speaker 1: only as the other face of death. When one of
33:33
Speaker 1: the Alien creatures orally rapes Kane, one of the male astronauts.
33:37
Speaker 1: It implants its embryo in Kane's stomach, but the primeval
33:40
Speaker 1: mother does not need the male as a father, only
33:43
Speaker 1: as a host body. In the alien creature murderously gnaws
33:48
Speaker 1: its way through Kane's belly. It's birth leads to the
33:50
Speaker 1: male mother's death. The archaic mother is present in all
33:54
Speaker 1: horror films as the blackness of extinction. Death. The desires
33:59
Speaker 1: and fears, and by the image of the archaic mother
34:02
Speaker 1: as a force that threatens to reincorporate what it once
34:04
Speaker 1: gave birth to, are always there in the horror text.
34:07
Speaker 1: All pervasive, encompassing because of the constant presence of death.
34:13
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of birth and death. Yeah. Yeah,
34:19
Speaker 1: and space is a great background to devote that against.
34:25
Speaker 1: And we have to talk about the art. Yeah. Swiss
34:31
Speaker 1: artist hr Geiger's design in this film is a huge
34:34
Speaker 1: component of this whole conversation. This guy was big on
34:40
Speaker 1: very bio mechanical sexual imagery and well versed and expressionist.
34:45
Speaker 1: German horror painting by Francis Bacon called three studies for
34:50
Speaker 1: figures at the base of Crucifixion, served for a lot
34:53
Speaker 1: of Geiger's inspiration when it came to the design of
34:56
Speaker 1: the Alien, or the xeno morph as it's called. And
34:58
Speaker 1: seriously check out the painting and you will see it
35:00
Speaker 1: right away. The resemblance it's there. Bacon's work was an
35:05
Speaker 1: interpretation of the Greek myth around the goddesses of vengeance
35:08
Speaker 1: that chase life and the living. The furies, who we
35:11
Speaker 1: will be talking about in an upcoming episode, seems very
35:15
Speaker 1: appropriate for this whole design. Geiger specifically want to take
35:20
Speaker 1: something that is and long has been generally associated with
35:23
Speaker 1: pleasure sex and turn it into something horrific. He had
35:27
Speaker 1: done something similar in his collection of pieces called Necronomicon.
35:31
Speaker 1: Some of his designs were so overtly sexual that the
35:35
Speaker 1: studio turned them down, which blows my mind because the
35:40
Speaker 1: ones that are in there are pretty outvertly sexual. Also,
35:44
Speaker 1: US Customs held Geiger after seeing his artwork for Alien
35:48
Speaker 1: and being highly disturbed. I think Ridley Scott somebody on
35:51
Speaker 1: the movie had to come and be like, no, he's work,
35:54
Speaker 1: It's all good. The first version of the Egg, the
35:59
Speaker 1: egg that the Facehecker it comes out of, it had
36:02
Speaker 1: one slit for the opening, and Rudley Scott allegedly l
36:06
Speaker 1: old Race thought because he thought it looked exactly like
36:09
Speaker 1: a vagina. Back to the drawing board, and the opening
36:12
Speaker 1: became the X that were more familiar with today. And
36:17
Speaker 1: the fully grown alien is very phallican designed, both its
36:20
Speaker 1: head and the little dude that pops out of his
36:23
Speaker 1: mouth and yes, pews acid, sort of like semen um.
36:29
Speaker 1: Some say it combines both the phallic and the vaginal.
36:32
Speaker 1: Roger Ebert once wrote, Alien uses a tricky device to
36:35
Speaker 1: keep the alien fresh. Throughout the movie. It evolves the
36:38
Speaker 1: nature and appearance of the creatures, so we never know
36:41
Speaker 1: quite what it looks like or what it can do.
36:43
Speaker 1: The first time we get a good look at the
36:44
Speaker 1: alien as it burst from the chest of poor Cane
36:47
Speaker 1: is unmistakably falic in shape, and the critic Tim Dirk's
36:50
Speaker 1: mentions it's open, dripping vaginal mouth. M also forgot to
36:55
Speaker 1: mention about ash he spews all the semen esque stuff
37:00
Speaker 1: he drinks. It's not milk, right, I O recinently thought
37:03
Speaker 1: it was milk. I was like what he actually, I've
37:06
Speaker 1: read if you pay attention to the whole movie, he
37:07
Speaker 1: never eats our drinks. He's just kind of there. But
37:11
Speaker 1: he drinks the milk in that one scene or the
37:13
Speaker 1: white substance. I thought it was milk because I like,
37:16
Speaker 1: this is the Es of course are drinking milk right
37:19
Speaker 1: like like out of nowhere. But and then you start
37:22
Speaker 1: seeing him sweat and you're like, oh, it's something that
37:25
Speaker 1: that's not what that is? Um and trivia Shredded condoms
37:30
Speaker 1: were used for the aliens. Jaw tendons Um also shredded condoms.
37:36
Speaker 1: Is it looks very much like the thing that what's
37:39
Speaker 1: his name picks up right before he gets murdered. It's
37:41
Speaker 1: like the shadded skin alienum. And then the slime, the
37:46
Speaker 1: alien slime is k y jelly, lots and lots of
37:48
Speaker 1: k y jelly. Yeah, yeah, I love that. Even even
37:55
Speaker 1: the props they used, it's sexually suggestive. And then the ship,
38:03
Speaker 1: the ship they discover on l V four two six
38:06
Speaker 1: was pretty phallic in shape and other parts of it
38:09
Speaker 1: resemble a giant womb. When the explorers or you could
38:12
Speaker 1: say invaders enter the ship, they are in suit that
38:15
Speaker 1: make them appear like their sperm entering the vaginal opening
38:20
Speaker 1: in the ship. And yes, seriously, seriously, uh you won't
38:23
Speaker 1: un see it, I promise Once inside, Kane finds a
38:27
Speaker 1: womb slash tomb of alien eggs. Then came the sperm.
38:33
Speaker 1: In this case, witnesses and egg open the face hugger
38:37
Speaker 1: latches onto his face, transformed him into a womb. The
38:41
Speaker 1: creature cannot be removed until it has deposited its seed,
38:44
Speaker 1: and that is very violent rape um and then the
38:47
Speaker 1: victim is forced to carry the organism to term and
38:49
Speaker 1: birth it and even though it will kill the host
38:53
Speaker 1: read even at the risk of the mother. Some also
38:57
Speaker 1: see the scene of the alien person out of Kane's
38:59
Speaker 1: chest as represent native of the general male confusion and
39:02
Speaker 1: fear around her right comes out of the stomach, lots
39:05
Speaker 1: of blood, very violent, exactly how it happened, um and uh.
39:11
Speaker 1: In every movie there is, I believe there's a scene
39:14
Speaker 1: of like it's called the labyrinth, but it's supposed to
39:17
Speaker 1: be like the fallopian tubes in the womb and the
39:19
Speaker 1: labyrinth of a woman's body. Um and most space movies
39:24
Speaker 1: are seen yeah, as male explorers entering the womb of space.
39:27
Speaker 1: That has changed as we get more and more female representation.
39:30
Speaker 1: But for a long time, Veronica Cartwright said of the set,
39:34
Speaker 1: it was so erotic. It's big vaginas and penises. The
39:38
Speaker 1: whole thing is like you're going inside some sort of
39:40
Speaker 1: womb or whatever sort of viscerule. So there you go.
39:44
Speaker 1: There it is, there we go. Um, we do have
39:47
Speaker 1: some more for you, but first we have one more
39:50
Speaker 1: quick break for word from our sponsor and we're back.
40:06
Speaker 1: Thank you sponsoring. So I was going to go into
40:10
Speaker 1: my theory, my personal theory, which I believe forces the
40:14
Speaker 1: male viewer to think about the impacts of sexual violence
40:16
Speaker 1: and being unable to abort the resulting child, and anxieties
40:19
Speaker 1: about being forced to pay for child care. Because again,
40:22
Speaker 1: this is when Roe we Wade is passing, women are
40:25
Speaker 1: getting more sexual agency, starting to enter the workforce. I
40:29
Speaker 1: think it was a lot of anxiety around it. Um.
40:33
Speaker 1: And I am again not the only one who thought that,
40:36
Speaker 1: but I feel like we've touched on a lot of
40:38
Speaker 1: the stuff that I that was in my personal theory. Um,
40:44
Speaker 1: it's been in and hundreds and hundreds of essays and books.
40:48
Speaker 1: It's been examined as a parable about motherhood, a feminist allegory,
40:52
Speaker 1: and examination of abortion. So yeah. So, Joseph Campbell wrote
40:58
Speaker 1: in his book Primitive Mythology about alien there's a motif
41:02
Speaker 1: occurring in the certain primitive mythologies as well as in
41:05
Speaker 1: modern surrealist painting and neurotic dream, which is known to
41:08
Speaker 1: folklore as the tooth vagina, the vagina that cast rates. Yeah. Yeah.
41:14
Speaker 1: The screenwriter himself, Dan O'Bannon, said he wanted to make
41:18
Speaker 1: male audience members confront the realities and horrors of sexual
41:21
Speaker 1: assault and rape, the fear of force, pennetration, and pregnancy.
41:25
Speaker 1: And yes, I've said it before, I say it again.
41:28
Speaker 1: One of my personal theories is that most horror movies
41:32
Speaker 1: ultimately are about fears of something about women, usually administruation
41:38
Speaker 1: or pregnancy, our sexuality in general. That's just me. Film
41:43
Speaker 1: blogger Flick philosopher founder Mary Anne Joe Hansson told broadly,
41:48
Speaker 1: do men really require a science fiction scenario to understand
41:51
Speaker 1: how horrific unwanted violation of the body is. Maybe if
41:54
Speaker 1: our culture treated male and male rape like the horror is,
41:57
Speaker 1: men wouldn't need to turn to science fiction movies too
41:59
Speaker 1: under stand at the problem. Even if some men require
42:02
Speaker 1: such a prompt for their empathy, the Alien franchise still
42:05
Speaker 1: isn't one that offers much in the way of true
42:07
Speaker 1: access to women's relationships with rape, and I do think
42:12
Speaker 1: it is it's interesting that for women Alien is frightening,
42:16
Speaker 1: but we do have to deal with this fear and
42:19
Speaker 1: much more real and regular way than men do. So
42:21
Speaker 1: all of the thought pieces are not all of them,
42:23
Speaker 1: but a lot of them are like it makes men
42:25
Speaker 1: face the truth of sexual violence, but it totally ignores
42:28
Speaker 1: like women or men that have dealt already with sexual
42:33
Speaker 1: violence like this will this will really scare them in Yes,
42:40
Speaker 1: they're only really petrified by women power, blood, specifically administruation
42:47
Speaker 1: and child our thing and then then being penetrated. I
42:50
Speaker 1: guess to be fair, yes, that's petrifying in the penetration part.
42:56
Speaker 1: Y'all not. I don't know about everything else who knew
43:00
Speaker 1: that so much? We would have so much to say,
43:03
Speaker 1: mostly me would have so much to say about Alien.
43:06
Speaker 1: I've been ready. After you started writing, I was like, oh,
43:09
Speaker 1: here we go, and I cut out two pages two pages. Um.
43:13
Speaker 1: I would love for anyone else who has strong thoughts
43:17
Speaker 1: about really any movie, but any horror movie and Alien. UM.
43:22
Speaker 1: I would love to hear from from all of you.
43:24
Speaker 1: I am. I'm loosely toying with the idea of doing
43:27
Speaker 1: like a Spoiled Saturday. Yeah, I think it'd be a
43:29
Speaker 1: great idea where we do more recent horror movies because
43:32
Speaker 1: there has been a lot of I think movements in
43:36
Speaker 1: horror movies lately when it comes to feminism. Oh yeah,
43:39
Speaker 1: there are a lot of interesting things to be said,
43:40
Speaker 1: right and definitely people are understanding a lot of these
43:43
Speaker 1: kitchy things that have been happening, specifically towards females and
43:46
Speaker 1: the female protagonists or even unto antagonists. I guess um
43:50
Speaker 1: they're starting to kind of trying to flip that on
43:52
Speaker 1: this head. I think it's really interesting. I do too,
43:55
Speaker 1: And kind of going off of that, I did want
43:58
Speaker 1: to say that I'm going to be on Movie Crush,
44:01
Speaker 1: which is another podcast on our network hosted by Chuck
44:04
Speaker 1: Bryant of Stuff you Should Know once for the Slash edition,
44:09
Speaker 1: where I will be talking about some of those movies
44:11
Speaker 1: that turn things upside down because those are some of
44:14
Speaker 1: my favorites that play with all of the tropes. And
44:17
Speaker 1: then I will be on it again in November and
44:21
Speaker 1: I have to pick my my movie, but maybe I'll
44:23
Speaker 1: do Alien because I've already done all of the research
44:26
Speaker 1: already started there. Yep, yep, yep, um, and then we
44:31
Speaker 1: did want to shout out um a listener who wrote
44:35
Speaker 1: in Um Kathy, she wrote a few episodes ago you
44:39
Speaker 1: asked the listeners to give you names a podcast with
44:41
Speaker 1: lady host, I happen to host one. My husband and
44:44
Speaker 1: I are the host of a little known podcast called
44:46
Speaker 1: patron Saints of Pop Culture. We discussed the themes of
44:49
Speaker 1: recent movies and TV shows mostly, but we will also
44:52
Speaker 1: occasionally discuss video games and music videos. Since we are
44:55
Speaker 1: in the beginning of the spooky season, our recent episodes
44:58
Speaker 1: have been on horror movies. We thought that was a
45:00
Speaker 1: perfect one to shout out for this episode, and then
45:03
Speaker 1: just two one more because of the nursery that is
45:07
Speaker 1: happening and all of it. Um. Black Girl Nerds is
45:09
Speaker 1: also one that you should I'm sure people have already
45:12
Speaker 1: started looking at, but like that would be one more
45:14
Speaker 1: to catch in if you want to go deeper into
45:16
Speaker 1: the nerd. Um. Oh, yes, I do, clearly, clearly. UM.
45:23
Speaker 1: I really am so happy that we got to do this.
45:26
Speaker 1: I hope the listeners enjoyed it at least as a
45:28
Speaker 1: little bit as m since I did. Look. I just
45:32
Speaker 1: watched it, and I know you're a fan and I
45:34
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. Um. And this is actually was a part
45:39
Speaker 1: of a while ago. We had this idea for something
45:43
Speaker 1: called Feminist Movie Fridays and would be once a month
45:45
Speaker 1: and we would look at all they were all horror
45:47
Speaker 1: movies because that's just how I am. Well, I'm putting
45:50
Speaker 1: Heathers in there, obviously, because you know I've already discussed Yeah,
45:53
Speaker 1: we've already discussed the fight that you need to watch this, um.
45:56
Speaker 1: But to put in there as a maybe, I don't
46:01
Speaker 1: know how well that's fair. That's always a scary thing.
46:06
Speaker 1: I have so many movies that were my favorites when
46:07
Speaker 1: I was a kid, and now I watched them and
46:09
Speaker 1: I just I can't even do right even like with
46:12
Speaker 1: shows that that we're just recently, I was watching some
46:15
Speaker 1: of the Dirty Rock and that really hasn't held up either. Surprisingly,
46:18
Speaker 1: and you would think because it wasn't that long ago,
46:20
Speaker 1: and at that point in time, it was getting into
46:23
Speaker 1: the trend of like being feminists and being a writer,
46:25
Speaker 1: a head writer and what that looks like, and it's
46:27
Speaker 1: still kind of like, oh, things have moved pretty quickly,
46:32
Speaker 1: right right, um. But we would love to hear from
46:36
Speaker 1: listeners if you have recommendations for our next feminist movie Friday,
46:41
Speaker 1: Throw them into the Ring. You can email us at
46:43
Speaker 1: Stuff Media, mom Stuff at i heeart media dot com.
46:46
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast
46:48
Speaker 1: or on Instagram at Stuff I've Never Told You. Thanks
46:50
Speaker 1: as always to our superproducer Andrew Howard Andrew, and thanks
46:54
Speaker 1: to you for listening Stuff I've Never Told You his
46:57
Speaker 1: prediction of I Heart Radio's house Stefforks. For more podcast
47:00
Speaker 1: from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
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Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
47:21
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