Alien Woman: The Making of Lt. Ellen Ripley (Paperback)

by C. Jason Smith (Author), Ximena Gallardo C. (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"'...[a] look between the lines and behind the scenes to dissect Ripley and her place in movie history.' Minnesota Daily 'Doing a trans-textual analysis of the films, the authors place the films firmly within the cultural landscape that produced them....Gallardo and Smith do a good job analyzing the films, especially the alter ones, and setting them squarely and intelligently within their historical context.' Post Script '...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...written with clarity, with a diverse audience in mind' The Review of Horror Fiction" --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Description
Alien Woman examines the construction of sex and gender in the four Alien science-fiction films. The Alien saga stands alone in presenting an enduring, self-reliant female protaginist, Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver, who in the first film end up as the sole survivor of the beleaguered starship Nostromo. Subsequent writers and directors in the 1980s and 1990s, left to grapple with this strong female protagonist, re-envision Ripley to fit differing social, political, and cultural imperatives for women. Alien Woman focuses on how these writers and directors have re-written Ripley, and how each revision informs our understanding of women in science-fiction. By examining the creation and commodification of Ripley as female hero, the book provides a useful lens through which to view woman's place in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 241 pages
• Publisher: Continuum (March 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826415709
• ISBN-13: 978-0826415707
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,571,058 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A major contribution to both academia and fandom, June 9, 2004

By	Kimberly Wells (Shreveport, LA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Gallardo & Smith have written a work that *will be* one of *the* most important books ever for scholars AND fans of the Aliens series of films. This serious and thought-provoking, clearly-written work is immanently readable at the same time as it is insightful and rigorously scholarly. It will promote greater academic understanding of science-fiction and feminism (together and as discrete studies) and those who read it will want to own it, reference it, and read it for sheer pleasure again and again.

The study examines the entire story arc of four movies that made us gasp and wonder, and made us re-examine science fiction not only as more than just "bug eyed monsters against the good GUYS" but also as reflections of the historical era from which each film arose. This seriously well-researched and well documented work traces the history of the movie's compelling images, (for example, giving us "ah ha" moments about the inspiration for the films' artwork, facts that I know I never knew about the reason for the Aliens' form). It gives us intricate close-readings of each film, examining scene after scene with insight and depth, and helps us understand the metaphors of Corporate space and humanity in a post-human era.

One of my favorite parts is the close-reading of Ripley's suicidal leap in Aliens 3, and I had to gloat as Gallardo & Smith reveal the background meanings and imagery of her strongly compelling act of grasping the newborn alien bursting from her chest. I was delighted when I realized that my own feelings watching the film for the first time were right (I knew it!) and had that comfortable feeling you get when having a great conversation with people who share your passion for interesting works of cultural significance.

Never a "publish or perish," jargon-laden ivory-tower read, this work is compelling and fun, at the same time that it contributes important scholarship to a pivotal science fiction franchise and science fiction studies in general. If you are a fan of the series, but not an academic, you will still love this book, and learn something new and worthwhile about your favorite sci-fi. If you are an academic looking for rigorous critical interpretation, you will also find what you are looking for.

A must read for fans, scholars, and anyone interested in the "post-human" subject and Ripley's compelling character. Plus, a heck of a lot of fun and hard to put down.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very, Very Solid!, June 8, 2004

By A Customer

Thank heavens-close reading is not dead. Too many books on film sacrifice accuracy to a particular theoretical take, but these guys do not. And they write really clearly without all that unnecessary mumbo jumbo academics seem to like these days. I went right out and rented the movies and watched them all over again back to back and I have to say these writers really know the films inside and out and continually show us what actually happens on the screen (which is often contrary to what I remembered happening, but when I watched them again, these guys are always right, at least as far as I can tell). Best yet, the theory is not "on top" so to speak and seems really rooted in the films; they subtly shift the theoretical approach based upon what the films actually seem to be saying.

The first chapter on Alien is really nice coverage of all the stuff already written on it (and there has been a lot of it) but they also manage to weave it all together into a nice, historical, narrative of how one of the best sci-fi movies ever came to be and how different cultural theorists read the character of Ripley. Everyone seems to remember her tiny white panties, but who now remembers the furor over her "trash mouth"? Even more, who remembers that Ripley was the first female protagonist (ever?) to kill the monster on her own?

The second chapter kind of rags on Cameron a bit for the "Reagan-era" plot of the film, but these guys are right on with their reading of Ripley as remade into a "mom" and the hard-bodied Vasquez as a really new thing on the screen. This has always been my favorite of the films and it was really interesting for them to show me why I like it so much! (Lets just say is not as scary as Alien on a LOT of levels).

I never liked Alien3 but I think I understand it now. The film was not really intended for an audience like me. I don't like to see my heroes die, female or not, and the ending was really a downer. The context the authors give the film, however, makes a lot of sense: Ripley really does land in a "feminist hell" where she is raped, gets "pregnant," and, surrounded by right wing religious jerks, has to step up and take charge to save the human species again. The ending is really a big "F-you" to everyone (typical David Fincher-but this was the first time he did it).

And then there is Alien Resurrection. I hated this film when it came out. However, I just watched it again and almost died laughing. How could I have missed the fact that a film written by Joss (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) Whedon and Jean Pierre (Delicatessen and Amelie) Jeunot had to be funny? I just thought it was a grumpy, boring film, but I had really missed the boat on this one. From the very first shot-two guards chewing gum, guns aimed at each other's heads, fingers on the triggers-these writers took the blinders off my eyes and the whole film changed. I swear I must have seen a different movie altogether. I didn't even remember Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder being so good on screen together. (Personally, I think the sound track may be a problem with Alien Resurrection, but that's just my thinking). Ron Pearlman is even funny doing a rip-off of earlier characters on TV and in movies. If you remember the film Ice Pirates-and these guys certainly do-then you know what I mean.

Which brings me to another great thing about the book: they really make connections to a lot of other movies and some of them were BIG movies at one time that have sort of been forgotten. I now have a whole second list of films to watch again. Molly Ringwald was in Space Hunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone?

This was a really great book about women and men in science fiction film.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Writing about Alien? Begin here., June 12, 2004

By	Geoff Klock (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

Alien Woman is one of those books that works to find the proper context for an aesthetic product. Gallardo and Smith read the Alien films in the context of gender theory and feminism (and the way gender theory and feminism fit into the very different cultural moments of the films: 1979, 1986, 1992, 1998). For them, the films unevenly chart such themes as the primacy of the body, the breakdown of the rationalist-humanist white male subject, the fear of woman and the feminine, the identification of the monstrous and horrific with the feminine and with sexuality, and the emergence of philosophical post-humanism as an alternative to Renaissance humanism. Though they do not put it in these terms they essentially track the consequences of a Hegelian-style equation: the split "Man vs. Alien" is merely the reflection of a split within category "Man (human)" itself, "Man vs. Woman." In other words, the fight between Man and Alien is really the gender trouble within humanity itself.

The authors have an admirable sense of focus: outside of an introduction and an afterword, the book devotes one chapter to each film analysis: no novel or comic book spin-offs, no video games, no parodies, no fan-fiction. Gallardo and Smith know these films backwards, forwards and sideways. Heavy theory is relegated to the footnotes (making the whole thing easy to read), but their knowledge of Freud, Jung, Foucault, and Butler shows in the pages. And for several years Gallardo and Smith have chaired the science fiction section of one of the largest academic popular culture conferences in the world: Alien Woman is particularly strengthened by their almost encyclopedic knowledge of science fiction movies good and bad; the reader benefits from their sitting through these often awful films (Ice Pirates, anyone?), and connecting them to the Alien series. The book also hits every substantial piece of Alien criticism: future scholars will start reading about the films here, and then follow the bibliography.