Quote from: SiL on Aug 09, 2022, 12:03:07 AMAlien established itself by raping a male character - and it was always explicitly described and understood as a rape, and the choice of sex for the character was very intentional.
Prey added plenty of substance by having the masculine macho monster not take the woman seriously, and get killed because of it. It wasn't very subtle.
The characters can work for either sex.
Of course they can work for another. I was clear that a woman can kill a Predator, and likewise men have killed Aliens. I don't have a problem with that part.
My problem is: just because they can work
doesn't mean they work as well.Alien may have established itself by raping a man, but it's explicitly a monster related to female fears. If it gets you it kills you or uses your body to reproduce. Scary for me as a man sure, but this is a fear that women actually deal with in real life. It's a sci-fi nightmare of a fear every woman can deeply connect to - much more than any man can. They can carry, and grow life inside them - and in a healthy society get to choose who they do that with. The inverse of that is someone forcing that life inside them, and Alien takes that even further by having said life be the worst thing in the universe. Alien isn't just a female monster, it's the ultimate female monster. Cameron took these female themes and expanded them to warring mothers and motherhood, which isn't as interesting (at least in execution), but still female at its heart. Alien 3 essentially ends in an abortion.
If Alien had finished with a Ripley dead and Dallas facing off against the Alien, then Dallas going back to LV-426 etc ... all of this richness would be lost. The films would work... but they wouldn't work as well.
Likewise, Predator is a monster with ties to masculinity. Men are overrepresented in violence. Men commit war. Men jostle for status. Men are obsessed with dominance and competition and glory. This is all in the Iliad, one of the oldest, greatest, and most intensely male things ever written. The story is drenched in blood and the tragedy of male aggression and pride, as well as the glory that comes with it. Predator should operate in that thematic world. It should explore it and lampoon it and, like the Iliad, draw out the flaws in toxic male behaviour. It's a demon who makes trophies of men - but only because we already make
"trophies" of ourselves through the spectrum of male competition already.