Aliens

Monstrous Feminism and the Avenging Amazon By Paula Graham

On the whole, feminists and lesbians tend to treat the figure of the Amazon as a positive trope for lesbianism and/or feminism. On the one hand, she has the 'masculine' characteristics of strength, physicality and activity and, on the other, she is female-oriented. Her combination of male and female characteristics apparently undermines the exclusivity of gender categories. Her 'chastity' combined with her 'phallic' physicality has obvious lesbian implications. She is perceived by many lesbians and feminists as both 'positive' and 'subversive'...

Directed and written by Olatunde Osunsanmi
Featuring Milla Jovovich, Elias Koteas, Corey Johnson

Alien abductions seem to have slipped off the cultural agenda in recent years. Gone are the glory days of the 1990s, when The X-Files inspired everyone and their grandmother to believe that they were beamed into the belly of a spaceship on a nightly basis in order to be violated in the name of alien research (the "fourth kind" of alien encounter). A 2000 poll suggested an eye-popping 52% of Americans actually wanted contact with an ET, although interest - and belief - in alien life forms has since waned. However, as we turn the final corner towards 2012, it seems we can expect the little grey rocketmen to make a re-appearance, at least at our multiplexes, if not actually brandishing their anal probes at the end of our beds. Once again, it seems horror audiences may want to scream at something other than a sociopath in a mask. There's no bad man like a spaceman, right?

By Dean T. Moody

Ever since the days of silent pictures, science fiction and horror films have been standard genres of filmed entertainment. Watching a monster, human or not, man-made or otherwise, stomping through the countryside threatening lives, property and social stability has been a regular pleasure to the movie-going public for decades. Often, said monsters are seen carrying helpless, screaming women in their arms or tentacles, only to be later dispatched and the woman rescued by a strong, handsome hero. Women's roles in such films have usually been thus: the weak, ineffectual, and hysterical victim. How female characters in films like these are supposed to respond to the male characters, to other women, and to the monstrous threat at hand can be highly illustrative of the overriding composition of values, mores and expectations of roles and behaviors in a society...