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INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY
“Aliens stands as a culturally significant feminist artefact because of the fact that one sex doesn’t triumph over another. Womanhood is not compromised to fit into a man’s world, even in the face of a terrorising alien species. Both genders play an equal role in the fight for survival.” — Lara C Cory (Little White Lies, 2016)
“Let’s rock!” — Jeanette Vasquez (Aliens, 1986)
The case could be made quite convincingly that Aliens is the best science fiction film ever made. And you could also make a very good argument that it is the best horror film ever made. But what isn’t up for debate is that Aliens is the best film about women ever made.
Ripley we all know about. Ripley is the badass that defeated the original alien in Alien, albeit after said alien had “wiped out the entire crew” and Ripley herself had self-destructed a gigantic spaceship.
Her badass credentials had been at least partially secured by the time of Aliens, although it could have been very different had Ash been successful with his (in hindsight) badly-planned murder by magazine inhalation.
She also had a sound working knowledge of the ship’s quarantine protocols, a knowledge which was of course ignored by the…
