Repressed Femininity

While taking a closer look at the two films, Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985, Britain) and Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979, US), one can notice certain similarities in the worlds that are created by the directors of these films. One is the patriarchal societies within each film is set. The society in the movie Brazil is run by a patriarchal, bureaucratic Military called the Ministry. Alien focuses on a crew that works for “the company”. How big this company is does not matter as much as how loyal the crew is to this company. The second similarity has to do with the female leads and how they survive in these male driven social orders. It is this second similarity on which I will focus on mainly. I would like to explore how these women function in the male society by repressing their femininity.

Let’s begin by exploring the Social structures of each film. In Brazil the world is run by agencies. These agencies are filled with mostly male employees; the only females you see are secretaries, wives, and nuns. The exception to this is the female lead named Jill, who is an independent truck driver. We’ll return to Jill in a bit. The agencies are split up into different levels and there is a social hierarchy to the whole thing. IT is run like the military in such that you don’t question authority. These are all signs of a male dominated world where logic and cold hard facts justify actions taken. The emotional responses of the people working in this system all are self centered. One example in Brazil is when the lead Sam Lowry is about to be tortured by, what used to be, his good friend. Sam pleads “I’m scared.” to which his friend replies “How do you think I feel?” So weather these people are androids or not…which they’re not, they blindly obey the man in charge for fear that they could be labeled as terrorists.

In Alien the crew is lead on the ship by Dallas, who reports to “mother”, the ships main computer. “Mother” is a creation of “The Company” which sounds like it is a major company maybe affiliated with the government or private military. Dallas defers whole heartedly to the company no matter what. “Standard procedure is to do what the company wants you to do.” Dallas tells Ripley when she questions his actions. Ripley is the Second female lead I would like to discuss.

Now that we have an idea of the Social implications going on in these films let’s explore the roles of the female leads. Let’s start out with Jill from Brazil. Initially we see her as part of a dream. She is floating in the sky as the male lead flies around her on wings. Here I believe her presence suggests a “moral purity” Which Judith Newton contributes to a nineteenth century “ideology about middle-class woman, which maintained that women, as outsiders to the world of early capitalist competition, retained a moral purity which might redeem it”. (Newton, p. 83)His future dream shows Jill being blocked from him by raging monoliths and trapped in a cage. This happens after Sam finds out about a mistake that was made by the ministry that resulted in a death. He begins searching for this woman. Jill could represent Sam’s own moral purity being put into question knowing what has gone wrong. His search for this woman to find her and protect her may just be a means for him to reclaim his own purity.

The real life Jill is a more rugged looking woman. She wears male clothing and drives a truck. She is uncomfortable with playing the role of a female in that society and seems to be a bit of a loner. Although her job may seem more masculine in essence it gives her more freedom and allows her access to the open road and nature to appease her more feminine side. Her view of the ministry and distrust in it makes her an outsider to it. When she tries to help her neighbor by trying to get the woman’s husband back she gets herself into trouble. Her need to help and protect her friends has made her a threat to the ministry and this has gotten her labeled as a terrorist. Sam is an insider that is beginning to awaken to the real world. His naivety to how the world works keeps getting him and Jill into more trouble. They represent two sides of the spectrum, Jill is reluctant to Sam but he thrust himself upon her by hopping into her cab. She repeatedly tells Sam to exit her vehicle but he insists to the point where he threatens her with a gun, well not so much a gun as his two fingers, but he uses his authority as an employee of the ministry to force his way into her world.

Even though this is not a horror movie, it seems employ one aspect that relates to females in horror films. There is a transition in Jill from the time when Sam brings her back to his mothers flat where he thinks she will be safe. They begin to make out but he leaves. While Sam is gone Jill begins to admire all the Egyptian fineries and things of his mothers like a wig and her clothes which are more on the seductive side. Sam proceeds to break into the ministry and erase Jill from the computer by telling it she was dead. While Sam is gone she changes into the fantasy girl that he dreamed of and even gets to make love to her. This is where the horror movie aspect comes into play. By accepting her role as Sam’s fantasy girl and trusting him to keep them safe she has doomed them both. The ministry finds them and is now after Sam but when they begin to take him away she fights back and is killed.

Alien’s Female heroin, Ripley, on the surface looks very much like Jill. They both appear in more masculine clothing. Although in Ripley’s world of deep space mining there is not the sense of commercialism and glamour that fills the streets of Brazil. There is commercialism in the sense that we understand that they are in space to make money, this made clear by the two mechanics who always want a bigger bonus. So we know that profit is part of this world. The Crew of the Nostromo is lead by Dallas but Ripley is second in command. Ripley tries to assert her authority on the mission by ordering Ash, the medical personnel, not to let the infected crewman onto the ship. Ash disregards her order. Initially we may think that the disobeying of her order may have something to do with her authority as a Woman on the ship. But later this a disregarded when we find out that Ash is an android placed by “The Company” and is following the orders of the computer. This company they work for has deemed the crews lives as expendable. So not only does Ripley have to fight off the Masculine Company and its non-human androids, but she must contend with the “Archaic mother, phallic woman and castrated body” (Creed, p. 135) represented by the Alien species that is brought on board the ship. Although Ripley is a company woman she distrusts Ash. Her feelings turn out to be right when Ash tries to force a magazine down her throat. This can be seen as a phallic image of rape. After Dallas the crew leader dies Ripley takes over as leader. After they find out that Ash is a robot and that “Mother” finds their lives expendable they decide to blow up the station with alien in it.

Now I find it important to point out that Ripley has now love interest in this film. She does not show any emotional attachment to the crew. In fact the only feminizing aspects to her character would be her maternal instinct to find the cat (which either dooms the other crew mates or keeps her alive), her reluctance to let the alien on board to protect the ship and crew, and at the end of the movie when she strips down to her underwear. Even the striping down can be seen as either “Creed’s notion of Ripley as the reassuring face of womanhood” or “Clover’s idea that Ripley actually represents an adolescent male” (Cornea, P.150) I think both these readings are accurate. Ripley like the Alien has an androgynous quality that makes them superior. They can call on the gender traits that best suit them in order to survive. In this film Ripley’s ability to salvage her independence and to stay pure to her androgyny, keeps her alive. I argue this because later in the Alien Series when it is alluded to that Ripley has sex, is when she actually dies. In summation, the leading female role of both movies tries to hide or mask their feminine qualities in order to either fit in or avoid fitting into the male driven social order of their realities.

Works Cited

Cornea, C. (2007). Science Fiction Cinema: Between Fantasy and Reality. Rutgers University Press.

Creed, B. Alien and the Monstrous-Feminine. (Course reader)

Newton, J. Feminism and Anxiety in Alien. (Course Reader)