In Part I of her exploration of Ellen Ripley from the Alien movies, Katie Button shares with us why Ellen kicks so much Alien ass...
Action films are usually for the guys - and before any of you karate-chopping ladies take offence, I said usually. But there are occasions when women are invited to Hollywood’s all boys club of kicking ass, and there is no finer example than that of Ellen Ripley in the Alien films. Played by Sigourney Weaver, Ripley was the central character in each of the 4 sci-fi adventures and since her debut in Ridley Scott’s Alien in 1979 has proved so popular with audiences that she has defied apparent death to maintain the franchise.
In 2003, the American Film Institute assembled it’s definitive list of great celluloid heroes and villains with Ripley selected at number 8 (incidentally, the second highest female.) But what makes her so special, special enough to launch this new look at female role models in the movies? Let me introduce you to Warrant Officer Ripley…
My favourite nugget of information regarding the creation of Ripley is her non-gender origins. One of the early scripts for 'Alien' noted each of the characters as unisex, meaning that men or women could be cast in the roles. Writers Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett have since admitted that they had never conceived that Ripley could be played by a female.
Yes, they were open-minded and inclusive, but had failed to appreciate the lengths this could go to. A female protagonist in a sci-fi film – really? Such gender squabbles became redundant when Weaver screen tested for the role with the oft-quoted closing off speech at the end of the film. This moment of acting excellence earned Weaver the female role of a lifetime.
In 'Alien', Ripley is employed by the Weyland-Yutani corporation working on the USCSS Nostromo as a Warrant Officer and is one of two women in the ship’s crew of seven. But as we all know, not all seven make it home safely. Just one. Ripley. After gradually picking off Ripley’s ship-mates, the alien of the title encounters her in the film’s climax. The imagery of the lone figure with a flame-thrower has become iconic, burned into our psyche, accepted and celebrated as pure cinematic magic. In round one of Ripley versus the monster, our heroine triumphs.
But to be a worthwhile victory there has to have been suffering along the way. Often when I have watched Ripley fighting for survival, alone, desperate and terrified I wonder that she doesn’t just quit. She can’t really know or understand what she is up against, sure the year is 2122 but that doesn’t mean she’s been doing her alien homework. Having endured what she has, how can she find the energy, drive and focus to keep going? Even if she were to survive (which we all know she does), won’t she be traumatised, reduced to a gibbering wreck, unable to properly function? But Ripley is a smart woman. She knows her life can never be the same again, but she fights for it all the same.
This steely determination comes in pretty useful during the second instalment of the mega bucks franchise, Aliens (1986). Back on Earth, Ripley copes with graphic nightmares, colleagues that refuse to believe her account of the Nostromo’s demise and the terrifying knowledge that we are not alone. So what does she do? Yep, go through it all again. Of course, that’s the whole point of a sequel – give the audience everything they loved about the original with (if we’re lucky) a few new tricks, but where some would run and hide, our Ripley stands up and is counted.
