Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Alien
Choose a 5-minute scene in Alien and a 5-minute scene in Metropolis (remember Metropolis?). Cinematically compare and contrast the role of the female in each film, in terms of her strength and weakness. How does the filmmaker present this? Include at least one quote from a reputable article you find online and include the source at the end of your essay.
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A large part of the role of the woman in both Metropolis and Alien is that of a sexual object in submission to men. The 5 minute sequence I will be examining for Metropolis is when the robot Maria is created, and for Alien I will be examining the sequence where Ripley is in the escape shuttle and finds the alien. The creation of Maria as a robot is explicitly portraying her “lifeless object which [Rotwag] can then control and dominate”. The robot Maria exists to obey and be controlled by Rotwang. Before Maria’s likeness is put on the robot, the metal body of it is sitting waiting for orders from the man. And even though the metal frame doesn’t look human yet, it still has female features and communicates the connection between the female body and subservience to men. In addition, the real Maria is lying naked but trapped under metal bands and the robot is surrounded by circles of electricity, both displaying the woman as trapped. Ripley is portrayed as a sexual object in the scene in the escape shuttle through the gratuitous shot of her stripping to her underwear before finding the alien. The lingering of this shot is absolutely service to the male gaze of the audience. While Ripley as a female heroine was definitely important to the sci-fi genre as a whole the choice of the filmmaker to put a scene like this towards the end of the film essentially invalidates her character thus far as she reverts to the role of a sexual object under the male gaze. Both films exploit the female body under the control of men.
ReplyDeleteHowever, these scenes both also display the strength of the women. In Metropolis, the robot Maria is understood to be a powerful and even threatening presence as she looks right into the camera. In the context of the whole movie, the robot Maria is powerful in the fact that she incites worker rebellion. Towards the end of the chosen sequence in Alien, Ripley starts putting on the space suit, literally covering up her body and thus ending the aforementioned gratuitous male-gaze moment. With this she takes control of herself and later defeats the alien. In Metropolis, the robot Maria’s existence as a servant to a man gives her power, but in Alien Ripley’s reclamation of her own identity from the male gaze is the base of her power.
Andreas Huyssen: The Vamp and the Machine: Technology and Sexuality in Fritz Lang's Metropolis
The role of women in both Metropolis and Alien is that of a sexual object. In Metropolis this role is explored more, but Alien has some aspects of this theme towards the end. The scene I will be exploring for Alien is the scene in which Ripley is battling the alien in the escape pod and the scene in Metropolis in which the robot Maria is dancing. The major difference between the two scenes can be attributed to the placement of the female characters in respect to the male characters. In Alien, Ripley is the sole survivor and the one who eventually kills the alien, highlighting her strength. This strength is represented through the lighting in the scene, while she is fighting the alien the lighting is harsh, focusing on her terror rather than attempting to accentuate her looks. After she “kills” the alien, the lighting focuses on her relief rather than her face itself. By utilizing the lights to highlight her reactions, Scott puts her value as a team member above her sexuality while she is fighting for her life. Despite this portrayal, once she is able to relax, she is immediately sexualized as she is shown taking her clothes off and walking around the shuttle half naked. When the alien is spotted she immediately goes into a closet and puts a suit on. This can be interpreted as Ripley’s sexuality representing weakness. Metropolis on the other hand has explicit sexual connotations, with the robot Maria dancing seductively in front of a crowd of men. She is the center of attention, with the lighting highlighting her sexuality and beauty. This portrayal of Maria allows her to take control of her sexuality and use it to her benefit rather than hide her intentions. The robot Maria has one goal, to cause chaos, and she knows that she can overpower the male dominated society by using her sexuality to her advantage. In this way “women and machines are linked, equating male fears of powerful technologies with fears of female sexuality”. The robot Maria is given full control of her body, whereas the real Maria is often portrayed in more conservative clothes, indicative of her “innocent” nature. In conclusion, Alien portrays sexuality as a weakness and a hinderess to survival, whereas Metropolis portrays it as an advantage. Although Metropolis also portrays women’s sexuality as a beginning to the end, it addresses that it can be used as an advantage rather than a weakness.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.colorado.edu/gendersarchive1998-2013/2000/11/01/technology-and-construction-gender-fritz-langs-metropolis
The films “Alien”(1979) and “Metropolis”(1927) are both classics of the science fiction genre. They both also contain leading female characters, however their cinematic portrayal of these two characters is very different. In “Metropolis”, the prominent female character is Maria. In one particular scene in the film, Maria is ambushed and then chased through the underground catacombs by the scientist Rotwang, who seeks to capture her for his experiments. This scene is one of particular suspense and tension, as Maria races through the dark tunnels in her attempt to flee her pursuer. However, despite the darkness, Maria is almost constantly shot in a shift light, which highlights her innocence and purity. This theme is added to by the light clothes which she wears as well. In the end of the scene the helpless Maria is cornered by Rotwang and taken away.
ReplyDeleteCompare this then to the film “Alien.” The female lead of the film is Ripley, one of the crew members aboard the Nostromo, who is hunted by a terrifying Alien. In the final scene of the film, a terrified and exhausted Ripley launches herself off of the ship in an escape pod, being the only survivor of the crew. To her horror, she soon discovers the Alien is on board with her still. Unlike Maria’s character, Ripley decides to take action and using her ingenuity, she manages to blow the Alien out of the airlock. All throughout this scene, Ripley is lit with a mix of dark shadows and sharp lighting, which unlike Maria, signifies her hardened and capable nature. As film critic Roger Ebert describes her character, she is, “hard, competent [and] ruthless”. Unlike the character of Maria, who was helpless to save herself, Ripley’s character is shown to be highly capable of helping herself.
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-alien-1979
The scenes I am choosing are the scene in which Ripley defeats the alien from “Alien” and the dance scene in “Metropolis”. Both of these films, and specific scenes, contain thematic content relating to Mulvey’s essay about the male gaze and scopophilia. The scene in “Metropolis” directly relates to the claims made in Mulvey’s essay, whereas in “Alien”, these claims are entirely subverted. In thee “Metropolis” scene, the focus is on the dancing Maria. This dance is a fever dream of the main character and portrays men slobbering over this scantily clad woman. Robot Maria is strong in the sense that she can gain the attention and control of the asses, but is weak in the sense that she is purely an object. The male gaze is known to be an objectifying action, and this objectifying is personified by the subject not een being human. In “Alien” the last person surviving on the spaceship is Ripley. Much more competent than her male crewmates, she defeats the alien and lives another day, This greatly subverts the claims made in Mulvey’s essay as it presents the male characters as weaker than Ripley, even though Mulvey claims that the representation of women as a whole is a “distorted image of the passive and powerless female character.” (Mulvey). Both films comment heavily on the purpose and view of women in society, and although they portray different sides of the same coin, they both claim women to be in control.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.luxonline.org.uk/articles/visual_pleasure_and_narrative_cinema%28printversion%29.html
In Metropolis the female is always presented in the context of the male. Maria is not her own person; she is essentially just used by the male characters. For Freder, she is just something for him to look at and be in love with. It is fairly one-sided. One significant scene is the scene in which Freder is in the Eternal Gardens and sees Maria for the first time. Initially, he is centered in the frame. This represents how he is the center of attention, and the women in the scene are there just to entertain him. Additionally, the fact that he is centered in the frame with a woman in his arms suggests the the role of the woman as submissive because she is behind held by him. In the next shot Freder sees Maria and falls in love with her. After he sees Maria, the other woman is no longer centered, showing her loss of importance. Also, Freder is shown with longer shots and we can see his full body for the first time (aside from very long establishing shots in which his features could not be discerned). This new depiction of Freder indicates that he has been made more whole due to love. Essentially, to him, Maria is just a tool to make him more whole. Another instance of the female being presented only in context of the male is with Rotwang. He completely disregards and disrespects her autonomy by modeling his robot after her. In general, with the male characters, she is a savior and her sole purpose is helping them improve themselves. All she does is serve the men in the film; she never has opportunities for her own development. The treatment of Maria in Metropolis is done in a way to distance her from the men in the film, due to the “early twentieth century male fear of women and machines” (Ruppert). Maria is not even really a character; she is more of a symbol representing women in general--a symbol that is manipulated to heighten the male fear of femininity.
ReplyDeleteIn Alien the female has more autonomy, and is presented as her own person. An example of this is the vent scene, in which Ripley takes a leadership role and has power over her male counterparts. However, there are still many shortcomings with the role of women in the film. Even though Ripley is present as a strong female character there is also Lambert who is a weak female character. Her femininity is her weakness. For example, when the alien bursts out of Kane’s chest, Lambert starts screaming and crying hysterically. She can’t do anything. After the incident Ripley is able to take charge in the group and try to solve the problem. Her power comes from being less emotional, a trait typically associated with masculinity, especially in the 20th century. So, while Alien takes some steps forward by giving its female main character more autonomy, there are still many issues because her power is rooted in masculinity rather than femininity.
Source: https://www.colorado.edu/gendersarchive1998-2013/2000/11/01/technology-and-construction-gender-fritz-langs-metropolis
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ReplyDeleteAlien and Metropolis are both films that have central characters that are females. But, in the two seperate films women are portrayed differently, the two scenes that I believe show this split best in the end scene of Alien and the dancing scene in Metropolis. The dancing scene focuses on the robotic woman as she uses a dance to almost hypnotize the men that are watching her dance, the dance is shown to be almost evil although it is very eccentric and beautiful dance, “raised fears and threatened male authority and control”, so in a way she is Fritz Lang’s fear of women and castration anxiety and I’d consider that be a very strong strength of hers. This is in stark comparison to Alien, to where in the last scene get an amazing scene where Ripley beats the alien that killed her whole crew we get to see true strength and intelligence. The weaknesses of the girls are both very different, the weakness of the robot woman from Metropolis is much less of a story telling weakness and more of a weakness forced on to us by the director, which is her lack of humanity which I personally believe which was stated before, was Lang’s castration anxiety. Ripley’s weakness is much more of a story telling weakness which I believe her nervousness that is seen many times throughout.
https://books.google.com/books?id=oyOO_HNw0KQC&pg=PA204&lpg#v=onepage&q&f=false
Alien and Metropolis, though they have many noticeable differences, are both science fiction films with a female lead. In Alien, the female lead - and protagonist of the film - is Warrant Officer Ripley, while the secondary protagonist in Metropolis is Maria, a caretaker of the children of the upper class. Throughout the film, though both women have drastically different personalities, they are both required to take a maternal role to handle those around them.
ReplyDeleteThis is more evident in Metropolis, as Maria is literally a caretaker from the moment she is introduced. Her role in being a caretaker for others, however, is present in the final scene of the film, where she helps unite the upper and lower class, beginning with a worker confronting Joh Fredersen. There is a cut to Maria, Joh, and Freder, with the men taking a more casual stance and Maria hunched in on herself, timid and small in frame. As Joh and the worker struggle to address each other, the shot cuts from a close up of the worker to a medium long shot of Joh and the worker across from each other. Maria walks to the middle of frame - further back in frame than either of them, and then walks over to Freder to talk to him (which is shown with a close-up of Freder with, again, Maria walking in but slightly further back in frame). She asks Freder to help the two reconcile, and Freder obliges, helping the two men shake hands and uniting the classes. Maria is the only prominent woman in this scene, meaning that she essentially represents women in the society, while the men can represent more specific groups (such as classes). Throughout the scene, she identifies the problems and takes action to prompt others to fix them, while never allowed to become too involved herself, and certainly not presented as more powerful (or more important) than anyone else in frame at any point. She can only share the frame with others, reflecting the filmmaker’s perception of feminine weakness, and is content to do so. Contrastingly, in Alien, Ripley has a “forced assumption of a maternal role” (Freeland), repeatedly having to take care of the crew of the ship (and repeatedly being ignored). The crew fails to listen to her, meaning that all but Ripley fail to survive - but Ripley is still required to take care of the ship’s cat, and thus still a caretaker. RIpley’s role is best seen in contrast to the Alien, who, in a sense, is also a maternal figure in the film, as her goal is to hatch more eggs. When Ripley undresses in the last scenes of the film, at one point because she thinks she is safe, another because she knows she is, it is in direct contrast to the features of the Alien that the audience just witnessed, with Ripley “signif[ying] the ‘acceptable’ form and shape of woman” (Freeland) - not overbearing and grotesque. Unlike Maria, however, Ripley is not soft and demure, and it is potentially this lack of softness that leads to her being ignored by the other members of the crew, making their deaths her failure.
http://uffilmanalysis.pbworks.com/f/Freeland742-763.pdf
Though Alien and Metropolis are both classics of the sci-fi film genre, their depiction of women could not be more different. The difference in time in which they were released (1927 and 1979) is a true testimony to the altering viewpoints of women throughout time. In Metropolis, one of the most memorable scenes as a viewer is the one is which Maria is shown in a dream sequence dancing to the amusement of overly excited men, cinematically the epitome of the male gaze. Fritz Land uses this scene as a warning as ”False Maria (and female sexuality as a whole) will bring destruction to the mighty city of Metropolis and its men.” Maria is wearing next to nothing and dancing provocatively, purely for the pleasure of the men. Besides this scene, Maria is shown as objects that needs to be saved for the completion of Rotwang. There is no respect to her individuality, and little depth in her character as she was created more so as an object of fear rather than an actual character. The robot made to emulate Maria does have more control, but still is in itself an object, made of coldness and metal lacking any emotion at its core. Metropolis presents a completely one-sided viewpoint of women and their desires/personas, used just as a play-things to propel the plot and rise of the men more effectively.
ReplyDeleteThis is the complete opposite of Ellen Ripley’s character in Alien. She is strong and capable, more so than all of her male colleagues on the ship that die before her. She manages to defeat the horrid alien using her intelligence to conquer what others could not. Her femininity is not brought up as much or used against her like the character of Lambert in which this her fatal weakness. One scene that does exploit Ripley is when she thinks she is safe from the alien and undresses before bed, before learning she is not in fact safe. This scene recalls Mulvey’s depiction of voyeurism and the male gaze: watching a traditionally attractive, very fit woman get undressed down to her underwear as if the audience intimately knows her, in a film that otherwise pays no attention to such qualities. This scene shows that being feminine and strong are not mutually exclusive, which is far more rare than it should be, but it still has its flaws.
https://stjohns.digication.com/analee_campbell/The_Threat_of_Female_Sexuality_in_Metropolis
Both Alien and Metropolis give valuable insight into the roles of women within the respective time periods in which each film was made. Although both films are legendary within their genre, the depictions of women are completely different. Metropolis for instance features very few female characters, and those who do exist within the film are limited by their placement within a predominantly male driven society. The main culprit of outdated viewpoints on women is seen in the robot cyborg version of Maria. While the real Maria is initially established as a jesus figure of sorts, a woman who rallies the working class to rise up against their oppressors, the cyborg maria becomes a destructive force which further divides the classes. The original Maria becomes a source of fear for the upper class men, who see her as a threat to their dominance. This leads to the creation of the cybernetic replacement, who is utilized as a sexual tool which will preserve the dominance of the men in power over the commoners. However, to understand the cyborg’s placement in society, one has to understand her creator’s intentions. Rotwang was a man jaded by a woman named Hel, who left him to be with the city’s master, Jon Frederson. Hel then died while giving birth to Frederson’s son, Freder. Rotwang began creation of the robot as a way to reestablish his dominance over Hel, to control the woman who he never could before. The replicant is referred to as “the most perfect tool mankind ever possessed”, showing that she is truly just an object that is to be acquired or owned. The men of the film view her as a purely sexual commodity, something to be fawned over. This is shown within the belly-dancing scene of the film, in which the replicant Maria is shown seducing a group of the workers by dancing provocatively. The men are shown to be completely enamored by it, stuck gazing at her female form, entranced and willing to follow her every movement. This presentation of women within the film is very destructive however, as it presents them as something to be feared due to their sexual power over men. Furthermore, it drives the viewpoint that women are only valuable to please the sexual desires of men, with any further role being dangerous to the stability of a society.
ReplyDeleteRipley is much different than the female characters within Metropolis, as she is strong and commands respect from her other shipmates. In fact, she is even the last to survive the alien onslaught, showing her superior abilities and intellect in the face of danger. Ripley’s portrayal in Alien is very important, as she serves as one of the first occurrences of the “Final Girl”, a trope which chooses to empower women while also not stripping them of their feminine qualities. This shows a stark contrast to Metropolis, as the women within that film are presented as shallow sexual objects, devoid of any true character or values. Ripley is very different, as she is driven and capable, the epitome of a badass female lead role. This is emphasized by the final scene of the film, in which Ripley finds herself alone on an escape pod, finally able to relax after escaping the vicious alien. To her horror however, the alien is in the enclosed space with her, having made its way onboard before she fled. Ripley springs into action, opening the airlock and killing the alien once and for all. There is an interesting dynamic created in this scene, as Ripley is shown undressing into her underwear, thus portraying her as more vulnerable once the alien is revealed. However, unlike Metropolis, I believe this decision to have her undress is used to subvert expectations and criticize the use of womanly sexuality in film. While the female form is used to dehumanize women in Metropolis, Ripley is different in that she is still able to kill the alien despite her exposed state.
https://skiffyandfanty.com/blogposts/reviews/moviereviews/metropolis-1927-feminism-and-influence/
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