PuddleMonkey

So tell me more about this crazy theory of yours, PuddleMonkey, you say? Very well, then.

Though the seven human characters in Alien are not terribly well developed, the point at which Lambert and Dallas return to the Nostromo with Kane and alien in tow proves to be a critical scene insofar as our understanding of one of the central themes of the film. Before allowing Lambert, Dallas and Kane back onto the ship, Ripley demands to know more about the alien attached to Kane’s face, and though Lambert is clearly shaken and Dallas is angry, Ripley refuses to open the outer ship doors. Clearly, Ripley does not want to jeopardize the sanctity of the ship—a sterile and safe environment. In fact, Alien is the first sci-fi/horror film to explore the very concept—an alien unknown from the “outside” penetrating and jeopardizing the purity of the safe, familiar “inside.”

Prior to Alien, much American sci-fi/horror cinema focused on the human exploration of the unknown and the damage that results from our self-aggrandizing belief that we have some god-given right to conquer and convert everything, whether it be land, people or, in the case of science fiction, space. And several critics have, in fact, suggested that at the heart of Alien is a morality tale about the human exploration and rape of space, that final frontier—much like the exploration and exploitation of the American West, told again and again throughout the history of American literature. The idea that Alien is a study of American ethics is not so surprising, but what ethics in particular may surprise you.

I often wonder what course of action Ripley might have taken if science officer Ash hadn’t allowed Kane back onto the ship, and I suspect she likely would have consulted mother—both the literal and figurative “body” of the ship—to ask for guidance. But before she’s able to establish any facts about the alien, Ash disregards her directive and opens the outer ship doors. Soon after, Dallas and Ash drag Kane to the infirmary and attempt to remove the “facehugger” while the remaining crew members watch from the hallway. And soon they discover that the alien creature cannot be removed without either killing Kane or irreparably damaging the ship. A scan of Kane’s body reveals that the facehugger has inserted a tube-like appendage down Kane’s throat and into his stomach and is depositing fluids. A day or so later, the facehugger disappears and Kane wakes to report that he dreamt of being smothered.

When Ash examines the dead facehugger, he reveals a creature that bears a very interesting resemblance to female genitalia despite the fact that its function literally is to rape its victim and plant its seed. As soon as it’s finished, it dies in what may be considered a strange parody of reproduction, as if to suggest that the only good vagina (female) is a dead vagina (female). The fact that it rapes makes it a rather interesting and unusual monster, one that, simply by it’s very nature, is familiar, feminine yet completely horrifying.

Soon after Kane wakes, he begins convulsing uncontrollably, and what we viewers quickly learn is that Kane has served as host to a parasitic creature that bursts from his chest, killing its host in yet another parody, this time a birth parody that is bloody, painful, terrifying and ultimately results in the death of the host. While the six remaining crew members watch in horror, the small alien to which Kane gives birth screams and runs off into the bowels of the ship. From the time Kane is impregnated until his death, [u]Alien[/u] introduces us to one of the most interest types of villians in cinematic history: the feminine monster.