Aliens

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of good and evil, with the female body as the site of their conflict. In constructing 'good' maternal desire as essential to humanity, the film offers a comparison with an opposing human trait, presented as potentially as destructive as the threat of the alien itself. This is the ideologyr epresented by the Company, a profit-motivated, exploitative enterprise whose disregard for human life, and the values that maternal desire encompasses pose a comparable threat to human survival in this film.
The female body is introduced in the opening sequence as Ripley, resting peacefully inside her autosleep chamber. It is a 'sleeping beauty' image, complete with male salvagers/rescuers who must break down the barrier of the pod's sealed entrance to discover her. The autosleep chamber, an artificial womb-like structure within which life is supported, presents a continuing theme in the film: the nature of the relationship between living and artificial, especially the possibilities of interaction ...

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a nude woman; the camera then pans to rack upon rack of guns, and a cargo bay stocked with weaponry. The female body as an agent of combat is a focus of anxiety for the marines; a factor that Ripley must overcome to be accepted. There are females within the corps, but they seem to have conformed into the male stereotype as well, the most obvious being Vasquez: "Hey Vasquez, have you ever been mistaken for a man?"
"No, have you?"
This dialogue shows the play on gender insecurities, and is fitting because it is Hudson, to whom Vasquez retorts, who through his own weakness becomes the films main object of emasculation. He comes to embody the feminine stereotype of irrational ...

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