Alien: Deep Thoughts About Space Feminism, Ash as an Allegory for the Anti-Abortion Movement, and Cats

Deep Thoughts About Stupid Sh*t: A Pop-Culture Podcast

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I admire its purity. A survivor…unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality.

After many references in previous episodes, on this week’s show, the Guy Girls finally tackle the iconic 1979 film Alien. Ridley Scott’s masterpiece gave Tracie and Emily a role model in Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver to be smart, tough, vulnerable, and right. While many commentators have explored the ways this film works as an allegory for rape and loss of bodily autonomy, Emily’s analysis takes it a little deeper, comparing the words and actions of the villainous science officer Ash to the modern anti-abortion movement. Both focus on protecting potential life–while treating the very real humans who will be harmed as entirely expendable.

Throw on your headphones, save the cat, and take a listen…

CW: Discussions of rape, forced birth, and loss of bodily autonomy

Mentioned in this episode
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473709/trivia/?ref_=tt_dyk_trv
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantage_Point_(film)#:~:text=In%20the%20original%20script%2C%20Rex,the%20film%20a%20strong%20female.

Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Learn more about Tracie and Emily (including our other projects), join the Guy Girls' family, secure exclusive access to bonus episodes, video versions, and early access to Deep Thou​​ghts by visiting us on Patreon or find us on ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/guygirls

We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our family as the Guy Girls.

We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com

We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find.

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1. Deep Thoughts About Alien Film (00:00:00)

2. Discovery of Alien Lifeforms (00:09:54)

3. Final Showdown With Alien (00:21:23)

4. The Alien Film as Allegory (00:32:38)

5. Exploring Legacy and Gender in Alien (00:46:15)

6. Themes and Symbolism in Alien (00:55:15)