XENOMORPH

XENOMORPH


The human psyche, however, is not simply a product of zeitgeist, but is a thing of far greater constancy and immutability….

The spirit in man, art, and literature / JUNG[1]

Xenomorph is a de-facto terminology for Alien, a hypothetical etymology bilateral specific conjoin of certain Greek words, Xenos (stranger, alien) and Morphe (form) thus,” alien form”.
Alien is extremely self-conscious about representations of gender roles and as paradoxical as it is ambiguous about such a rich text. Aliens draws from tree different genres: science fiction, horror and war .We can see clearly all elements of horror, war and science –fiction genres. The film draws from different type of genre. Aliens are an instructive mirror as coded profound and confound of Motherhood’s dual linked sets of control and archaic role of feminine chaos and film acting as a temenos or frame which makes transformative psychological complex. The film constructed sets itself in a high technological environment, and the concerns of technology arise from fantasies, desires, promises, dreams, hazards and fears. Complex, emotionally charged associations cluster about every tool, gadget, or future technological scenarios.


Aliens is preoccupied with birth and the concept of motherhood and in a broader sense with the nature of human origin. Naturally, this points to a sexual-psychological interpretation rather than one focusing on the findings of biological sciences. But the horror film - and the science fiction horror film at that - is meant to exploit the human fears and fascinations rather than reflect a naturalistic reality.
Aliens is a useful example of a horror science fiction film within which the concept of the female, and more specifically motherhood, is highlighted and explored. By discussing the film I will seek to show how theorists have interpreted the position of women in society and the concept of motherhood and differentiation through their representation in the film. Ultimately, it is my belief that Aliens demonstrates how the fertile female, capable of reproducing, and by extension the female body, are regarded as potentially hostile, consuming, threatening the male with castration and annihilation and finally, the ultimate definition of differentiation and otherness. In a sense, Aliens highlights what theorists have posited: that motherhood is so alien to the male that it is seen the epitome of otherness.

The theme is central to Alien as is the existential theme of whether man is created from a symbolic other, an - alien - woman, or by same - man and woman. There is a fascination with the creation of life. The woman is herself so different that she is alien. She can be the pure sole parent but also awe-inspiring and terrifying. And in the case of insemination an even greater horror is presented and the woman who can create is seen as also likely to destroy. Motherhood and otherness therefore are the same.


The opening sequence of film is set in a spaceship adrift in space , the computer beeping and coming alive and protagonist Ripley sleeping inside the a capsule, Ripley is coded immediately as some kind of outsider. The other, she comes from different time and different space, she has been in space for 57 years. She is literally anachronistic and the woman from no where. When she wakes up, she can’t recognize the place where she is. Almost immediately the world of dream disrupts the real and she dreams of giving birth to an alien. The birth, more representative of a natural one is brutal and bestial according to Freud. What is less naturalistic and closer to primal fears is the violent insemination of human being, through the mouth, by a phallic-like alien projection of a mass representing a vagina. This scene highlights all the male fears in their approach to the reproducing female: the teeth-full vagina that can castrate and the phallic symbol violating the unsuspecting male. Male figure is punished for exploring the primal scene reflected in the dark ship infested with the alien pulsating mass - a taboo in it - and is consequently punished. This also highlights another childhood fear - that n which insemination can occur through the mouth and can result in a very painful and bloody delivery of a barely formed human that has grown in the stomach. Birth is also represented in the scenes where objects are ejected into outer space or held in a hostile environment by a representation of the umbilical cord thus insinuating that birth itself is a cruel act. In Aliens, however, the birth scene is a delivery from a hostile mother when Ripley is ejected from the infested ship.


This last example is reminiscent of nature in the example of baby sharks that will attack and eat their siblings within the mother's womb. So, although there is the fantasy of safety in a desired return to the womb that provides protection form a hostile world, the otherness and differentiation of the womb itself is seen to be hostile in it. The mother is at best not participating, leaving her children - friendly and alien - to battle it out in a competitive world.
She is a sole survivor traumatised by the past, by memories by her dreams. The idea of return of the repressed is made literal as she is persuaded to return to the planet that is the location of her trauma and she accepts this new mission to go to back the colony planet to battle the alien menace with platoon of soldier.


Ripley, she is the protagonist of the film. She is a leader, emotional, intuitive, she takes command, she is an intellectual, her role as successful heroine, brave heart, woman in action, and she is a mother without being a biological one. Ripley is a mother figure and she is represented as protective of Newt , but she also emerges as the one able to be concerned as she is aware of future perilous journey and the beginning of origin trauma .She is the other one she is the only person who was not part of military personnel, or , Ripley is a civilian She is a woman, she doesn’t deny her femininity, not desexualise, but a type of Calvin Klein image of femininity, cool but not femme-fatale…And significantly exceptional pattern of male domination of the genre, conventionally woman portraits as part of horror movie victims. In the other respects, Ripley as a female protagonist is controversial portrait of traditional genre and completely isolated figure without cliché notions. Ripley as a mother figure, she is rational, she can handle her situation, certainly conscious and élan sense.

In order to Mythology, we clearly defined, Alien is not unusual or extraterrestrial story. Obviously, most fascinating examples are The Medusa[2] and Oedipus. According to Freud the Medusa, signifies the female genitals with her serpents head, also represents the procreative function of woman. The blood that flowed from the vein on the left was a mortal poison .She gave to birth Pegasus and Chrysaor. Even though she is a parthenogenetic mother .Poseidon had coupled with Medusa and supposed to be the father figure? Oedipus and Perseus myths also refer to archaic maternal figure. Woman figures are as sole parent, woman as the source of life form, woman as archaic mother. The story of Oedipus was completely parallel story of Aliens. Oedipus journey was planning to kill a monster with the face of woman; Sphinx. Aliens is equally rooted in the soil of the complex .All does kind of classical archetypes defined on Alien mother figure which is structured of man’s life and parallel story of incest approach.

From a theoretical point of view, the film also offers references to a generative/mythological mother who gives birth to all things living through parthenogenesis. This figure is present in all primitive narratives: the mother goddess who alone creates heaven and earth thus offering a first attempt at the basic existential questions. The mother goddess is all religions - as well as the monotheisms - parthenogenically gives birth to male supreme deities. This again highlights a male theory of maternal purity - rejecting the thought that they men are created through an act as vile as copulation. This gives the mother - even the supreme mother at that - the sole role of incubator.
All does myths and concepts gave us clue and chance to explore this cinematographic expression. The aliens are ferocious carnivore that gestates inside a living human host and has concentrated acid for blood. The aliens are hostile organism. The Mother Alien; is a monstrous, primitive, procreative machine, protective, productive, amoral, xenomorphic .We have no clue which kind of life form it is, or as stated at the beginning of the essay, the image of the alien is ambiguous, complex and sometimes paradoxical: a kind of insect like ants, or bees, as a metaphor of the other society, and other primitive life form. We perceive species such as ants as primitive (insect) but also socially complex and hierarchical, with a Queen Ant or Queen Bee, workers, soldiers etc… And they reproduce them selves in another form and through several stages; eggs, parasitic gestation, reproduction without any sexual intercourse, unlike human being (though our modern,” futuristic” world now offers this as a possibility. The alien mother is a figure of strong, powerful, monstrous, baby machine drawing from our ideas and fantasies about the insect world also of, insect dinosaurs. Alien has exoskeleton unlike human body, as if alien is also a kind of technology as well as a biological form. The Mother Alien is clearly biological mother capable of producing millions of little aliens.


The alien mother is the metaphor of phallic metaphor and in the same time coded as a toothed vagina, as a cannibalistic female creature, a monstrous-mother. The fantasies of mother as other in the film sets up Ripley versus the Alien Queen. Both Ripley and Queen are sole survivors who protecting their own species from the other one: a tale of two mother figures. The colonist human community has been wiped out by the aliens (in order that they can breed) and the alien eggs are incinerators by Ripley. Ripley kills Queen’s off spring, the Queen reactions not by attacking Ripley but going after Newt (her species and Ripley’s non-biological, figurative offspring).Ripley’s most furious moment when wails at mother during an especially fraught moment. She was screaming “…get away from her, you bitch”
Alien the mother as the origin of all kind of life platform. Archaic Mother figure presented by xenomorphic .The Alien also created of the parthenogenesis concept, the figure is actually the background of maternal figure and represents us another dimension to get how patriarchal ideology works in the reality or in the fiction character. The core analyses on Aliens; there is profound sexual significant to the alien creature with it’s phallic-like tongue ant that penetrative allusions.
Ripley has an x-trauma from past, she wakes up from a nightmare in which she sees herself giving birth to alien. The story is the primal fear that keeps following from mother figure and birth syndrome. She is the person self-conscious herself and realizes her situation and not afraid from the archaic coded motherhood. That is bewaring of her status and she faced with the reality, that action it has meaning also otherness. In Aliens, the monstrous creature is constructed as the phallus of mother .Woman is represented monstrous as phallic mother. One of the most interesting structure operating in the mise-en-scene is coded monstrous maternal figure as a phallic mother how constructed with threat of castration and Oedipus complex on science fiction-horror movie. The metaphor of archaic mother figure is representing mostly horror films as existence of death. The occur statement operating the desire for and attraction of death suggest and desire to return to the state of original source with the mother. Death signifies continuity, part of eternal circle, non differentiation.
In the opening sequences of the film there are already three versions of the concept of birth and what is known as the primal scene. On the ship itself, there is an image of the virginal, father free birth - an allusion to the incestuous fantasy and the wish to represent the mother as pure, clean and antiseptic. The crew are in a sense born fully formed, in a bloodless, painless and serene environment. The other craft represents the fantasy of the female body and the moment of conception. It highlights a fantasy of voyeurism at the point of conception and extenuates the incestuous and antagonistic as it presents the inseminating rival.


Throughout, the mother herself is absent. The mother as a figure is of little consequence whereas the focus is on the vagina, the process of birth and the relationship of the offspring to the insides of the mother. Her personality is of no interest and is therefore absent. The only mother actually present is that represented by the computer: a voice, a mechanical device cold and unattached rather than the projection of a warm figure actively present in the lives of her offspring. It is an image of a woman as incubator. This presence is everywhere in imagery: birth scenes, the representation of the primal scene, womb-like scenery, hatching eggs and a computer as a life support system .

In a sense, the mother is both familiar in all her different guises and alien herself. The relationship and attachment with the child poses problems to theorists and even Freud himself. The figure of the mother and the relationship with the child therefore can represent the unfathomable, a mystery so deep that is ultimately terrifying. It is worth noting that this is a completely different interpretation to that offered by the natural sciences where most is explained as a quest for survival and the spreading of genetic material and where both male and female behaviour is instinctive and aims at the protection and survival of the offspring, often at the cost of the parent's life.
Freud attempted to explain this view of motherhood through an example of a primitive society where - as among many species of mammals - male offspring are banished from the group while the alpha male retains sole possession of the females. At some point the young challenge the father figure and kill him. Then guilt of the fratricide makes them put the blame on the women they ought to possess and they take the revenge on them as if they were responsible for the act and are destructive elements to the unity of the group. This theory explaining the nature of patriarchal society and the position and perception of women as dangerous has been challenged by many theorists in different disciplines. The origin of the mother goddess and her position in society - and in consequence the position of all women - poses a problem for theorists. Lacan said in Seminaires XX that the analysis of the female figure will always be lacking as some elements "elude discourse".

All theorists though seem to focus on the relationship of the mother to the males of the group but the focus of the womb sets her free from that framework. Then again, the womb is only one aspect/function of the female and therefore it is hardly restoring the female or putting her on the same level as her male counterpart. This analysis focuses on the difference between the male and the female. The female gives birth and therefore it is the only aspect of her worth discussing. And it is precisely that difference that makes her mysterious, dangerous and hostile.

Birth is the only aspect of the female that is so different and therefore it is the only point of interest. Older/sterile women are not perceived as a threat and are not discussed at all in horror films or theory. There is also a focus on the genitals. The absence of a penis highlights men's fear of castration. Furthermore, women are seen as responsible for giving birth to monstrosities; so different that they cannot have come from a man but only from the different female. And Alien plays on those primal fears. The mother in the film is both oral-sadistic and phallic threatening severance from her and at the same time annihilation and reincorporation thus being alluring and destructive like the sirens of mythology. The film portrays the mother as monstrous and malevolent, or at best detached. Even the Mother of the computer is prepared to sacrifice the crew in the interest of the Company and all the struggle happens within the body of the ship which also signifies the mother. In other words, the mother in the film is body and soul dangerous and threatening. By destroying the mother the child is eliminating the potential challenge of other offspring. The alien that the mother is responsible for giving birth to is also a representation of the phallus and along with the alien child the mother seeks to destroy what she has created. The monster can also be seen as a toothed vagina, again referring to the fear of castration that the mother's actions can bring. This focus on the female genitals highlights the alien nature of the woman's body, her functions and desires and the film shows that she can be just as dangerous as the monster itself that after all she has fostered.

James Cameron has created a futuristic Gothic World. The use of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nacht Musik is a neat counterpoint to where the catastrophic, grungy, wild and primal action and ambience being unleashed. In Cameron’s film, terror is often beautiful, all type of apocalyptic illusions. All horror stories express a fear of return of repressed. Aliens play with repressed emotions and unconscious fears. Aliens, it is here that each character has emerged as the psychological signified; his or her social homogeneity limited only the age, nationality, and presentability. Before the operations on the planet surface and explore we got general informations of members of the crew. Most of the characters lead relatively parallel lives but as soon as they start interfering with one another, action gets entangled and explosive by parallel the story during the exploration on the colonist planet, we were watching to the all discovery and panic moment from the closed circuit camera. The closed circuit TV footage of the each personal eye exploring the circumstance which Ripley watches on operation centre in real time. The manner which is clearly an intellectual speculations about reality, hyper-realist approach, voyeuristic sense, enigmatically coded mirror stage and personal point of view.


The other characters represented in the films are, like Private Vasquez (Jenette Goldstein) who appears rather like an action hero more than the rest of male characters. She is an afeminine, hypermasculine like Amazonian warriors, (variety of speculations, male dominant structure and patriarchal system, a woman must transform herself into a tough, masculine trooper, rape-revenge story, phallus envy, tough girls concerns about the castrating or submission of the male body, plus Electra complex), Hispanic (different race, ethnicity, and nationality to the American marines), lumpen proletariat, macho figure, potentially lesbian and ; completely contrasted figure of Ripley. Vasquez representation does not mess up with Ripley. Her position is tough woman trooper in apocalyptic days. She is kind of phallic mother, because she had also trauma from the past.


Bishop (Lance Henriksen) is clearly male figure but he is not a human being, he is an android, basically synthetic and artificial, another pseudo-life form. Ripley’s last trip, artificial person was malfunctioned and she was disappointed about android she was saying to it never occurred to me! Ripley’s antagonism towards him is based on the malfunctioning android on her last traumatic trip but she clearly also hates him as an “other” creature, automatically not be trusted, like the alien themselves. He has a strange metabolism with white blood. (kind of sperm, symbolism that is made explicit when he is ripped apart by the alien mother.) He is not human being, he is created by Human Being, and he is the other like Aliens. In order to psychological expression: Ripley’s behaviour to Bishop, as a motherhood instinct she is thinking he is threat for her species, that reflects explore to us her distrustable and unsecured manners. He is the alternative method which is not biological procedure. Bishop like Ash is a male-gendered third sex and Ripley’s manners based on archaic and stereotype point of view and fears of Homosexuality. By the other angle the third sex can be aggressive like Ash’s case. The other major anecdote is about Bishop’s knife demonstration reflects the face-huggers attact.His finger acting as penis, white fluid that serves him as a blood(sperm) from his finger refers a narcissist way(sucking fellatio) connected by Auto-eroticism and again very aggressive way.
Bishop does not have any mother or father; he is obviously against to dialectic circle. Actually he is completely from the other planet. Bishop as an android act more intelligently and empathically than humans. It was hard to deal and negotiations between Ripley and Bishop are made more difficult by mutual distrust. Where her background keep goes the old reference.


There are three conflicting if not complementary representations of the mother in the film. Ripley portrays the mother that is reassuring and protective. The relatively androgynous that can b relied upon. The computer mother is a betrayer that cannot be trusted and the female representation of the monster itself is simply seeking to destroy. All three versions highlight the view that motherhood is alien, different to what man knows and understands and thus equal to otherness.
Aliens show us how important mother figure on Human being life; as an archaic figure and instinctual and biological phenomenon. Aliens is a metaphor of human being primitive conditions and all different dimensions of mother figures on different social circulation. By the other hand mostly primary fears reflect unconsciously our life and giving a direction through life which repressed fears of trauma. Life circle is an eternal-maternal system which creates a crucial psychological background as a paradoxical giving surviving syndrome.


[1] Page 40,The Spirit in Man , Art and Literature / JUNG
[2] Page 164,Gorgons /Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Penguin Reference

May 2006 & LONDON