Sigourney Weaver

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...