Gender

• • In the original script, none of the crew members were gendered- any gender could have been cast for Ripley and other key parts.
  • The dialogue also didn't change when characters were cast.
  • A note at the start of the script reads " the crew is unisex, and all parts are interchangeable."
• • Ripley is one of the most celebrated female heroines in cinema history.
  • She is represented as rational, capable, and strong.
  • She's the only crew member to survive and to beat the Alien.
  • In this way she is similiar to the 'Final Girl' seen in films such as Scream.
• • But Ripley is continually ignored throughout the film.
  • For example, when she tells Ash not to allow Kane to come back onto the ship after he's attacked, as he needs to quarantine, but she's disobeyed.
  • This could be symbolic of how women aren't taken seriously in society or work, particularly in the scientific field, and also patriarchal domination.
  • But this statement is later defeated after she becomes the Final Girl.
• • Yvonne Tasker, a film scholar, says that Ripley raises 'interesting questions of symbolic transgression.' (transgression= an act that goes against a rule). What she means is, Ripley is a symbol of powerful and non-stereotypical femininity who went against gender norms.
• • However in the last scene, there's a moment where Ripley is just in her vest and underwear. Tasker points this out and says that it relates to the 'limits and possibilities of the cinematic representation of the action heroine' , some of the limits include how female heroines often are sexualised while transgressing gender norms.