Since its release in cinemas in 1979, the science fiction film Alien (directed by Ridley Scott) immediately achieved "cult"-movie status – the development followed by the film's inclusion in the list of the 100 best films ever made. Although film critics tend to offer different explanations for the sheer popularity of Scott's masterpiece, there is no doubt that Alien deserves to have a cult following. There are a number of reasons why this appears to be the case. First, the film's themes and motifs appeal to viewers on a subconscious level, which presupposes that Alien will continue to remain discursively relevant in the future. Secondly, there is a strongly defined humanist sound to the film's plot, which means there is also an educational value in Alien. Third, the film in question promotes what can be considered the “post-feminist” vision of women's empowerment, consistent with the realities of 21st century life. As Kavanaugh has pointed out: “Alien operates as a feminist statement on a symbolic level that avoids both the trivializing, empiricist condemnation of men and the puritanical condemnation of sexuality and sexual attraction” (95). To understand the range of potential in interpreting the film, this article will thoroughly evaluate the validity of all three suggestions by arguing that, despite the film's affiliation with the science fiction genre, it resonates quite well with ways of interpreting the film. modernity. In the process, I will aim to outline the commonly overlooked ideological messages conveyed by Alien. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay "Disturbing Themes/Motifs" As was implied in the introduction, the phenomenon of the popularity of the film Alien reflects the fact that its themes and motifs originate in the repressed workings of one's unconscious psyche. To illustrate the validity of this suggestion, we can refer to the nightmarish appearance of the alien creature, which nevertheless has a clearly recognizable phallic quality. In this regard Blackmore made the insightful observation: "Through grotesquely emphasized erectile imagery, the alien (in Scott's film) insistently registers on a psychosexual level as a menacing phallus: it transforms from a seemingly inert mass into a towering threat" ( 213). . This gives us an important clue as to why Alien has become a classic of the science fiction genre: the film's subject matter appeals to people's primal instincts. While exposed to it, viewers experience what Freud described as the “sensation of the uncanny”: “An uncanny experience occurs either when infantile complexes which have been repressed are revived again by some impression, or when primitive beliefs which are been overcome seem once again confirmed” (Woodward 63). In this regard we can refer to the disturbing motifs of pregnancy, birth, death and phallic penetration, featured prominently in Scott's film. These reasons trigger reactive responses in the limbic part of the brain, responsible for controlling the person's instinctive drives. This is precisely why there can hardly be any neutral/indifferent reactions to Alien from the public. Whatever your personal opinion of the film, you will still find it absolutely memorable. What helps to strengthen the "disturbing" charm of Alien is both the simplicity of the plot: "the narrative premise of Alien is eminently simple: the attack of monsters" (Lev 32) and the fact that the film exploits the deeply rooted fear ofpeople against parasites. As the author himself observed: “The alien creature in Alien does not simply kill humans, but uses them as hosts for a reproduction process” (Lev 32). Thus, an interesting peculiarity of Alien, even those viewers shocked by the graphically violent scenes of the film, cannot help but feel a strong desire to continue watching the film. This in turn has to do with the aforementioned functioning of the limbic part of the human brain: despite the fact that viewers are perfectly aware (consciously) that the alien monster seen in Scott's film is anything but real, their Primal instincts tell them that this monstrous creature is perfectly real and that it could be hiding in the room where you are watching the movie. After all, the aforementioned “primordial” part of the brain is unable to distinguish between factual and cinematic reality. When a person watches Alien, their unconscious psyche transcribes the action on the screen as one that conveys the message of “danger.” This helps explain why, although many viewers find Alien quite disturbing, they nevertheless remain strangely drawn to Scott's film: by continuing to follow the development of the plot, people learn more about the monster, which in turn should make it more interesting. they are likely to survive the possible encounter with the one. Apparently, while directing Alien Scott never stopped being completely aware of the psychological mechanisms of how people perceive the surrounding reality. There is, however, even more to the film in terms of its “unsettling” power: the fact that the film's main motifs correlate well with viewers' survivalist anxieties. After all, despite its hideous appearance, the film's alien monster is there to illustrate what the concept of “evolutionary perfection” represents: “Ash (character) admires the alien exactly as we would expect him to, because he is 'untarnished by a conscience, remorse or moral delusions” (225). Although Ash is the film's antagonist, his admiration for the parasitic monster touches viewers' latent desires. After all, almost every organic life form has only one purpose: to replicate its genome. In this context, considerations of morality/ethics have absolutely no place. Hence the horror of the film: as the plot unfolds, viewers realize that there is much more in common between representatives of the Homo Sapiens species and the depicted alien creature than they would be willing to admit. It is understood, of course, that this adds further to the “eerie” sound of the film – something clearly to the director's credit. Social HumanismIt is a common misconception that “cult films” have a certain absurdist quality. For example, formally the film Star Wars belongs to the science fiction genre. However, it will make much more sense to discuss the meaning of the main themes of this film (love, betrayal, courage, loyalty, spirituality) within the discursive context of a typical Nordic saga. The film Alien is another illustrative example in this regard. The logic behind this suggestion is as follows. One of the film's key features is that its settings bring to mind the concept of social withdrawal/alienation, all because most of the action in Alien takes place aboard the spaceship Nostromo, whose confined interior resembles that of a submarine . As Lev rightly pointed out: “Alien… deals with a small space. The main set is the human spaceship, with a few minutes spent on an uninhabited planet and in the alien ship” (32). For this reason, one would be tempted to assume that the director's main goal was to ensure the psychological plausibility of the relationshipsamong the characters represented. However, although Scott succeeded in presenting the plot development as entirely realistic, in the psychological sense of the term, his directorial goal appears to have been ideologically motivated. Given the film's subject matter, we can surmise that while working on Alien, Scott aimed to do nothing less than expose the unsustainability of capitalism, as a form of sociopolitical government. The reason for this is quite obvious. The film's plot only makes sense within the discursive structure of the capitalist paradigm, which glorifies endowing people with a sense of irrational greed (referring to it as "entrepreneurial industriousness"), as something that enables the continuation of social progress, cultural and scientific. progress. However, as can be deduced from Alien, capitalism is destined to prove counterproductive to the well-being of humanity in the long run – all because its supporters refer to capital (money) as representing an absolutely objective value. Consequently, this creates the objective conditions for capitalist society to increasingly appreciate the value of human life. Hence the meaning of the episode in which Lieutenant Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) reads Special Order 937, issued to the ship's computer by the Company: “Priority one. Ensure return of organism for analysis. All other considerations are secondary. Expendable crew” (Alien 01.13.50). Apparently, the director wanted this episode to serve as a powerful indictment of capitalist "industriousness." Indeed, he aimed to promote the idea that the very functioning of capitalist society encourages the rich and powerful to become completely blinded by their greed for money – something that prevented the Company's officials from realizing that they would not be able to benefit greatly from bringing the alien monster to Earth by definition (the creature would destroy all life on the planet). Therefore, despite being produced in 1979, Alien cannot be called thematically obsolete. It is understood, of course, that this constitutes yet more proof that Scott's film deserves to be considered a cinematic masterpiece. Post-feminism Another indication of the film's pure progress concerns the way Alien deals with the theme of gender interrelationship – something prompts literary critics to call it probably the first post-feminist film (Nesbitt 21). While there is no universally accepted definition of what “post-feminism” means, it would be appropriate to think of the concept as one that opposes the classical feminist assumption that men and women have rather incompatible life plans. . Due to the subtleties of the film's plot, it will also be appropriate to define “post-feminism” by reflecting the idea that women are fully capable of affiliating themselves with traditionally “masculine” values ​​(when circumstances require it), without having to become less feminine . The mentioned character of Ellen Ripley exemplifies the actual connotations of this statement. After all, despite being a fragile woman, Ripley never stopped exuding the authority of a born leader: in the film she is shown capable of giving orders to the other crew members by simply raising an eyebrow. Furthermore, almost all of his decisions turned out to be perfectly logical and detailed. Yet, after assuming her leadership responsibilities, Ripley showed not even the slightest indication of deriving any emotional pleasure from realizing that she was in the position of telling others what to do. In turn, this is better explained if it is linked to the fact that, being a female, she did not aspire to domination as something that has its own value (unlike what happens withmost males). This partly explains why some authors point out that they refer to the character in question in terms of a "feminist heroine": "The Alien/s films seem to show a feminist heroine following the path of a mythical female journey... Ripley she becomes a warrior woman and undertakes a mythical journey into female consciousness” (Mandziuk 156). However, there is nothing truly “mysterious” about Ripley's ability to exercise authority over the other characters in Alien – something that is known. links directly to the previously articulated claim that far from being a “feminist” (in the conventional sense of the word), she is, in fact, a “post-feminist.” The reason why Ripley ended up proving herself to be quite the leader effective is that, unlike the rest of the crew members (including the ship's Captain), he was capable of indulging in systemic (cause-effect) reasoning, which many people continue to support. to be defined exclusively as “male virtue”. And, as can be deduced from the connotative context of the film, Ripley's ability was put into practice by the fact that, being a woman, she naturally tended to consider the ship's crew as a sort of spatially stable entity despite being innately driven to “cultivate” and “protect” it. Thus, Alien opposes both classical feminism, which asserts that all men are intrinsically predisposed to oppress women, and machismo, whose supporters continue to doubt women's ability to rely on own rational sense as they face life's challenges. This once again highlights the overall progressive sound of the film in question: due to the film's strongly defined "post-feminist" undertones, there can be little doubt that Alien contains a series of analytical insights on the formation of one's gender identity. Final considerations What was said in the analytical part of the article can be summarized as follows: The popularity of the 1979 film Alien derives from the director's decision to aim to appeal to instincts. consciously repressed in the spectators. In particular, to people's deep fear of the unknown, especially if the visually observed extrapolations of the latter evoke phallic/snake shapes. Since such fear has a strong unconscious quality, the film's continued popularity/cult status can be seen as yet more evidence that allegorically speaking, representatives of the species Homo Sapiens are, in reality, nothing more than "hairless apes" - something once again confirms the validity of the Darwinian theory of evolution. Although Alien exploits viewers' endowment with a number of different primal anxieties, the film's overall message concerns the director's intention to promote the idea that to be considered fully human, one must make an ongoing effort to prevent these anxieties take control. of its conscious dominion. In particular, Scott's film highlights the highly antisocial essence of the corporate sector's obsession with trying to gain more money/power, even if this can only be achieved at the expense of risking humanity's total extinction. this gives Alien the well-defined anti-capitalist sentiment. The director clearly wanted viewers to think that “corporate sharks” were no better than alien monsters of the worst kind – a theme that would be explored further in the film's 1987 and 1992 sequels (Aliens, Alien 3). Unlike proponents of conventional feminism, Alien provides a biologically sound vision of what women's empowerment means, consistent with basic evolutionary principles (which apply to people as much as, 1991.