Believe It or Not, This Academic Study of Ripley Will Excite Fans

by Tony Fonseca

03/21/2005 

Gallardo, Ximena C. and C. Jason Smith. Alien Woman: The Making of Lt. Ellen Ripley. New York: Continuum, 2004. 241 p.

Decked out in a space aged version of a suit of shining armor, she is the perfect female warrior. Angered, she becomes the perfect mother, acting like a bear whose cub has just been threatened. Ultimately she proves she is capable of being larger than life, a martyr to a cause larger than herself or her companions. She can outsmart and outfight an alien twice her size, and has ice water in her veins when she comes face to face with a killing machine. And when necessary, she can take over a colony of criminally insane MEN, and make them bend to her authority.

Just about any science fiction and horror fan knows that we are speaking of Lieutenant Ellen Ripley, Sigourney Weaver's futuristic heroine of four Alien films. Seared into these fan's minds are images of Ripley's terror filled face as the alien "sniffs" her from just inches away, or images of Ripley donning the armor of a power loader from a cargo loading dock and yelling "get away from her, you bitch" to the alien queen, or images of Ripley's falling into the main furnace of a prison colony, arms outstretched in a mock crucifixion pose, or images of Ripley in her unisex underwear, readying herself for hibernation. Most of these fans, at least the hardcore ones, can probably even answer trivia questions about Ellen Ripley. But I am betting that none of them, with the exception of a couple of academics, ever realized that the character created by Weaver and various well-known directors not only could be, but should be the subject of serious study at the university level.

Gallardo and Smith's Alien Woman examines Ripley as a product of the ongoing construction of sex and gender in the four films. In their introductory material, the two point out that before Ripley, women in science fiction were primarily plot devices, typically undermined if they exercised any power whatsoever or showed themselves to be more than window dressing. The character created by Weaver and directors Ridley Scott, James Cameron, David Fincher, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, however, is "born of the long and uncomfortable association between science fiction and horror... [combining] the survivor of slasher with the heroic astronaut of science fiction." Like many women before her, her scenes include "the requisite running and sweating, but she substitutes the shrieking of her predecessors for some understandable swearing, and, in the end, she vanquishes her foe on her own." In fact, according to Gallardo and Smith, Ripley stands alone as the enduring, self-reliant female protagonist of science fiction film.

But the beauty of their study is the evolution of the character from her introduction in 1979, to her demise in 1992 and resurrection as a clone in 1997. The authors point out how each director, along with his team of writers, had to reconsider the idea of the strong female protagonist, in light of the social, political, and cultural imperatives of the times. As such, Alien Woman can be seen as highly focused lens, through which, by viewing the changing idea of "a woman's place" and "women's roles" in one particular case study, readers can extrapolate a larger picture of both women in society and in science fiction.  

Certainly, this would make Alien Woman a serious contribution to academia, for it is well-researched and conscientiously documented, but its strength is that it is highly accessible to the average fan, whether or not that individual has been to graduate school or even college. While the text is indeed thought-provoking, it does not suffer from what a colleague of mine calls "cranial-rectal inversion." In other words, it is not laden with jargon, nor is it pedantic. Rather, it is written with clarity, with a diverse audience in mind. It is one of those texts that both scholars and fans will want to more than just read; they will want to purchase a copy so that they can reference it over and over.

Moreover, fans will be astounded by the amount of useful but little known factual information which colors the making of the entire Alien Saga. For example, we are made privy to the little known secret that Ripley was originally written as a male role, and that President of 20th Century Fox, Alan Ladd, Jr., argued that changing the lead to a female would serve better to engage the audience. For me, it was Gallardo and Smith's enthusiasm and wry sense of humor, which informs almost every page of the book, that made me want to not only read every word, but go out and rent all four alien films again. With this book in hand, what fun it would be to watch all four movies back-to-back, marathon style. I cannot help but think that the text will have the same effect on many others.