Alien & The Arc of Female Defiance in the Workplace

Possible spoilers ahead.

I rewatched Alien (1979) a few weeks ago. I can’t tell you when’s the last time I saw it, but I can definitely say I've never seen it quite as profoundly as I have now.

Along with being at the top of its class in the Sci Fi and Horror genre, it also provides great commentary on discrimination against women in the workplace.

Keep in mind that a male director and screenwriter were at the film’s helm (Ridley Scott and Dan O’Bannon), creating this story at a time when it would have been just as easy to make an exploitative film with a protagonist tailormade for a desperate young actress.

But instead, they made a film that is every bit as pulse-pounding, as it is thought-provoking with subtle yet pervasive feminist themes.

Enter Ripley

If we were to sum up her interaction with the crew throughout the film, we could say that the more difficult and life-threatening the situation, the more ‘wrong’ Ripley becomes to her peers and superiors alike.

From the moment she sees the facehugger attached to Kane’s face, her very sound recommendation to quarantine the trio outside of the ship is met with disregard. While Ash, who’s the very definition of a cold and robotic cis male scientist, so much so that he is an actual robot (android), levies an irrational pseudoscientific approach that undermines her every step of the way — Purely out of ego.