rape culture/victim culture

wasn't this the board that went apeshit when i said something anti-feminist a few months ago?http://EvC Forum: Resident Evil Apocalypse is better than women -->EvC Forum: Resident Evil Apocalypse is better than women and
EvC Forum: what is feminism?

actually, the entirety of the feminist argument is that there is a social contruct and bias that dictates specific gender roles, ie: the men work and the women stay home. the are not working to put women in the workforce primarily, but to shatter the gender roles that say they cannot be.it is certainly not to say that all women should work. or all men, for that matter. that is one of the gender roles feminism is working on redefining, because up until recently the expectation HAS been that every man must a hold a job outside the home, with every woman must be dependent on a man. you can't have the dependent clause there without the independent. while i agree that women were pressured to stay home for a long time, mostly because men were afraid of competition, this is a bad example."Bewitched" and "I Dream of Jeanie" were NOT 50's television shows, they were mid 60's shows. both started in 65, actually, which is right around the time modern feminism startedto take off. both took a woman who was CLEARLY more powerful than the man of the house, and put her in the "subjugated" position of housewife. now, that's something called irony. these may not have been blatantly feminist shows, but they did seem to be basing their humor on the observation that something was wrong.pop-culture putting women in subservient roles does not neccessarily make it anti-feminist, as you should well know. sometimes, it's designed very obviously to expose or comment on society. see: "the stepford wives" (the book or the old movie, not the new one) she's the only female misogynist i know. This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 03-28-2005 10:04 AM

interesting, and quite possible. but either way, the shows demonstrate the increasing power of feminism in the society, whether they are influenced by it, or a response to it.this page: DiSPELLing the Myths - Bewitched @ Harpies Bizarre has some bits from bewitched that do seem to be portraying a little feminist attitude.added by edit: now, if we wanted to talk "leave it beaver" or "the honeymooners" or even "lassie" i'm sure contracycle would have a point...This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 03-28-2005 10:36 AM

since alien, yes.i actually had a text book in my women's studies course on gender roles in science fiction. it devoted the better part of a chapter to "alien." it posed the film as a battle of the genders: a strong woman against a monster with a giant phallic head.now, i'm a big fan or alien, and anything hr giger really. the chapter grossly disgusted me in regards to the feminist re-interpretation of the facts. the most glaring of which was assigning a gender to the alien.the alien is, as stated by just about everyone involved with the creation of the film, androgynous. no gender. their reproduction was designed as asexual (until james cameron anyways). so assigning it a gender role is incorrect and reading too much into it.and secondly, if one were to look at giger's concept art, it becomes immediately apparent that if we ARE to assign a gender to the alien, it should be female. it was not drawn with a masculine figure at all, and one of the original pieces from "the necronomicon" which the producers requested that he reference has breasts.third, ripley's dominance at the end was not originally intended at all. captain dallas was supposed to be the sole survivor, but they thought they'd suprise the audience by making the last remaining crew member a woman. the idea has since caught on.

i was actually going to comment on this earlier, but i cut it out of the thread. ripley is a strong character throughout. she's often the voice of reason and stability. it's NOT just when the position is thrust upon her.however, she not exactly portrayed in a positive light. she's is not meant to be a likeable or even sympathetic character in the beginning. simply stated, she's a bitch. it just happens that she's right about the quarantine, and would have saved all their asses. no, it spent more time talking about how the portholes on the alien ship looked like vaginas. actually, i don't recall. i'd look it up, but i got rid of that book as quickly as possible.

that's why i said "until james cameron." he needed something bigger and badder for the sequel, and thus reinterpretted the aliens as a HIVE structure with a queen. the drones are still neutral gender, and there are presumably males somewhere. whoever, this is NOT the model in the first movie.but yes, it did make for good conflict in the movie, and her role is maternal later in the movies. a cut scene in the secone movie talks about her daughter, and explains partly why newt comes to fill that role.

are you kidding? it doesn't IMPREGNATE the hosts. it lays eggs in them. the alien is parly based on the pompilidae wasp. and i assure, the gender of the wasp that lays the egg in the spider is FEMALE.this is what we call societal gender bias. you're reading something that just isn't there. this is what feminism should be fighting. i mean, i could be wrong. what came before it?

i do have some knowledge of the intentions of the producers. let's look at them.these are the two pictures from "necronomicon" that o'bannon and co requested giger reference: notice the breasts on the first one? and no, that's not a penis on the second one, it's a baby.here's one of giger's early designs: those curves look masculine to you?i'll try and work on finding some good quotes too. i'm reasonably sure the lack of specific gender was important to the producers themselves. giger wanted to be damned sure it didn't just seem like a guy in a suit, and removing obvious gender was a good way to do it.giger, however, is prone to female forms. a lot of his work is about female subjugation, interestingly enough.

no. you're wrong. it's neutral gendered with some feminine qualities. nevermind that the eggs visual incorprate an interpretation of vulva (by the artist's design, mind you), and that the facehuggers have labial flaps on their undersides. in fact, this imagery is apparent to just about everyone who's seen the movies. since avp is kind of popular now, there's a scene or two with one flying in slo-mo. on the commentary track on the dvd, they refer to them as "flying vaginas."really.the whole "fucking you and leaving you" bit is entirely presumptious. the first stage, the one that lays the egg, doesn't "leave." it dies. it's served it's purpose. so presuming this stage to male muddles up your point: it's entire purpose for living is to be a walking (or rather jumping) egg lay-er. it's a reproduction machine, a role typically assigned to women in femist idiology.second, it really is based on the practices of real animals, namely wasps. the description of the alien as "insectoid" is no mistake, this quality was borrowed from the wasps i mentioned earlier. and the ones that "impregnate" the spiders are decided FEMALE.to assign human gender roles to something that is not human is a mistake. are we going to change the definition of gender in this particular wasp because it "fucks and leaves" the spider?i'm acusing YOU of cultural gender bias, not the movie. actually, we are. the pompilidae wasp really lays it's egg in spider, which it paralyzes as a means for incubating and feeding its young. that part of reproductive pattern on the alien was patterned after a real animal.and the one that does the laying is still female. no, it's ENTIRELY relevant. it's the animal it was patterned after. reading gender assumptions is invaled. they did not make it up to comment on men's sex drives, nor were they influenced by it. the people who wrote the movie were borrowing a device from nature, because they thought the idea would be scary. and it is. excuse me?tell me where i can find some research on the culture of the pompilidae wasp, and why we should term the female "male." it's biologically female. it lays the eggs. the spider contributes nothing genetically to mix, and it is not sexually reproducing with the spider. you're entire argument is simply reading YOUR prescribed gender roles into something that does not fit it. it is your bias, and your prejudice.that's like saying the male seahorse is really female because it carries the babies around. yes. and i HAVE. several dozen times, actually, without exageration. i own a book on its production by the art designer of the film, hr giger, who is one my favourite artists. i've read just about everything there is on the subject, from comic books to film histories. it was one of my interest as a child, i would spend hours doodling aliens in class instead of paying attention.chances are i know what i'm talking about in this area. and i can tell you with every degree of certainty that this is a mistaken interpretation of the film.now, i once had a similar argument with my women's studies professor. we had watched another giger-influenced movie in class, species 2. one of the worst movies ever made (3 was the worst). in that movie, the alien is decidedly and obviously male. it goes around impregnating women with it's unholy seed, which ends up killing them. blatantly using women as sex objects. now, you can image what my prof said about that. it's basically what you've said here.but i ran her in circles for an hour nonetheless, because she'd forgotten one very important point. in the first movie, the alien was definitally female, and used men as sex objects for procreation. well yes, she said, but that's different. there the woman is a wild force of nature, foriegn to male understanding, and has to be tamed or killed. that's nice, said i, but in this movie, it was a male doing the same thing. and you can't have it both ways. the two movies are the same plot, use the same thematic elements, but reverse gender. having both be misogynistic is a complete double standard, and clearly shows that it is the interpreter reading their own gender bias in, and seeing what they want to see.and with that second species movie, she had more of a point than you do, because there the creature IS male. and in alien, we know it is not.

quite. notice the baby in the end? also, the other one, which should be above, is very clearly female. it's breasts are being used as a weapon to kill the phallic creature.the heads are similar, not exact, to images such as this one and this one where a FEMALE figure is transformed on the whole into one giant phallus.also posted an image above of one of the second concept art for the adult alien, which is clearly based on the female form.

precisely.interesting anecdote about the design for alien. the eggs were originally supposed to have some kind of hatch on them, which would pop off. o'bannon and scott told giger they wanted more of a vaginal opening. so giger trotted out the first production model of the egg with an anatomically correct human-type vagina put on the top. pink and everything.they agreed it wouldn't get past the censors, and changed the idea to cross seen in the movies. which was called by giger in his memoirs, repeatedly, a "cross vagina"although having giger do only HALF the design work was a good idea. they had another artist do the human elements, the nostromo, etc. his name was ron cobb. he originally did the alien too, but it sucked. having two artists really brought the two worlds into contrast.but here's what the alien COULD have looked like, had they went with cobb's designs: then we wouldn't be arguing about phallic heads and whatnot.

no, i'm not, because your argument is invalid and contrary to the intentions of the art designer, producers, writers, and director of the movie. and by your own admission you haven't even seen the movie.now, i've responded by producing evidence to the contrary of your argument, discussing the life cycle of the insect it's based on (nevermind the 2-part asexual cycle of certain mosses...). it's invalid to "engender" an asexual creature. i've provided evidence of multiple feminine qualities and influences.it's not a matter of diagreement; you're just wrong. you're reading your own gender bias into something you've apparently only heard about, where it cannot apply.and i don't have to respect your argument. it's sexist, and portrays men as evil creatures who run around impregnating women victims and leaving them to take care of the babies.

i don't really think masculine and feminine are valid it all. it reproduces asexually. the eggs it produces (from used hosts) are essentially genetic duplicate of itself, and do not seem to require fertilization. there is some talk the embryos it implants "samples" some of the host's dna to better adapt to the environment it will live in, and thus fixing the problem of no variation. but that doesn't really equate to sexuality in any way. but i don't think there's any hermaphroditic stuff going on (like in slugs). the moss analogy isn't perfect either, because they do have genders and reproduce sexually in the second stage.i don't neccessarily think being implanted "emasculated" the men, either. it didn't turn them into women. it made them dead. granted, they were made to carry the baby of another creature, but that doesn't make them female. the first two stages of the alien's life cycle are simply parasitic. now ash on the otherhand certainly looked male to me. there's a cut scene where ripley and lambert are talking about who they've had sex with, and the question of ash came up. but apparently neither of them had, so you might be right. the book i have has repeated statement from giger what he didn't want the alien to look like. "a man in rubber suit" was first and foremost on his list, followed by apes and dinosaurs. i think they did a pretty good job of making it not look like a guy in a suit, while still having a guy in a suit. i like some of the later design changes in the comics, like the way killian plunkett (labyrinth, berserker) drew them, with cat-like long feet. voyage, yes. it's on my reading list. i'll get around to it shortly. oddly enough, alien is rumored to be ripped off of van vogt's "discord in scarlet" which later became part of space beagle. i think it was the subject of a lawsuit, if i recall. that's a hard one to find. i don't remember if i've seen it or not.

i think this is really the key of this whole debate. people are interpetting this, and quite often the wrong way. both stages lay eggs for the next stage, though. the adult produces an egg from a (used) host. that egg hatches a facehugger, which lays another egg in a host. that egg hatches into small alien, which then grows to the adult, and turns it's old host in an egg.neither stage sticks around though, because they basically just bugger off and die. the original intention was for the alien to have a VERY short lifespan. the blackness of its carapace in the adult form was supposed to be because it was dying. so basically, each stage lays its egg and dies. both stages use another species in a symbiotic way, while eradicating it. neither stage is really female in any way, nor is it really male either.there's some speculation they were actually a weapon on first alien you see in the movie (the one with the ship) designed to clean off an colonize planets. i think that would be consistent with the company's reaction, and the reason they wanted it.but then again, i'm a huge geek. are all ant-eaters male, since they penetrate the ant colony? like i said, the alien was patterned after a real wasp, that is indeed quite female. you can read that as masculine if you want, but that's just societal gender bias speaking. well, yes i guess it is. but i don't see the carrying bit any more emasculating than having, say, a tapeworm. and, like i mentioned before, the thing that does the assulting and laying does have decidedly female characteristics. flying vaginas and whatnot. it's on the new dvd. i don't know if they put it back in the extended cut or not, but it's certainly in the deleted scenes. but yes, i think they may have been trying to establish ash's asexuality, as a way to make him a little mroe inhuman -- and give him something in common with the alien. i don't like what cameron did to the aliens. the one in the first movie was sleek and elegant. slow, but graceful in way that made it seem like it could move fast but didn't think it needed to. creepy as hell. the aliens in the second one were floppy, poorly made costumes, en masse and often came off as dumb animals. it was creepy in regard to the way they worked together, but it wasn't quite the same.but i will say this. the queen is a beautiful piece of design work. well, like i mentioned above, this all probably comes from the derelict ship. there's talk that were a designed species, made to clear off planets and die. which would make them a damned effective weapon.

no, it's not an inability. i reject the idea of gender as a social construct. i think it's bs. i've studied the subject, and found it be especially prone to subjectivity and observer bias.i'll use the example of that discussion again, because it clearly illuminates the double standard.a male using females as sex objects, killing them for reproduction is a representation of man's agression towards and use of women as breeding devices.a female using males as sex objects, killing them for reproduction is a representation of man's agression towards women, and the need to control women as a foreign species.do you not see how this is a double standard? it's reading the model of "men oppress women" into both situations, even when the two are direct opposites of each other. that is invalid, and biased, and people who claim it are hypocrites. plain and simple. no. you're missing the point. it's sexist. that so-called feminist interpretation, gender-biased model is sexist. it claims that role of the man is to impregnate and leave the woman to care for the result. it portrays men as evil, animalistic, just sexual devices. it is, at it's heart, everything that feminism claims to be fighting against.if you're going to be anti-man, that's ok. just call a spade a spade. but continually portraying one gender as preying on the other is simply inaccurate and morally wrong, and displays a certain prejudice about the way society actually works.