Main Character Representation (Ellen Ripley - Alien)

The main character in Alien (1979) is Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney Weaver. During the film, the representation of Ripley tears away from social conventions and stereotypes of the time; she is portrayed as a very strong feminine role, something that hadn’t been seen much, especially in the Sci-Fi / Horror genre. She was not represented as a sexual icon, instead a hardened fighter able to command her crew during a time of panic. The interesting choice of script writing allowed Ripley’s character to be cast in a unisexual way, meaning that the character’s actor/actress could be male or female and the script wouldn’t need to be changed. This means that her role in the film doesn’t hold the normal conventions of a feminine role.

This is shown inside the movie through the usage of costume, oftentimes Ripley is wearing a jumpsuit or overalls but even during scenes with little clothing (when the characters have to enter hyper-sleep) she is almost completely covered up with a tank top and shorts. The colour scheme of her costume is not seductive in any way, it consists of mostly greys and browns. Her hairstyle is simple, not much has been done to it and as a result we can deduce that her character is not one that cares about materialistic things like the way she looks- perhaps allowing us to perceive her as stronger as she doesn’t waste time or energy on other aspects of her life. 

At the start of the movie, Ripley isn’t seen as the commanding icon she is towards the end. The director, Ridley Scott’s, extremely clever usage of a dummy protagonist allowed Ripley to be represented as stronger than the other characters. This is due to the way she acts in the film, instead of rushing into dangerous situations angry or scared, she tries to assess a situation both calmly and collected, which ends up with her surviving the whole film. This portrayal of her actions represents the male cast as more ‘stupid’ than she is, which provides a contrast for the audience into social views on women and men.

Ripley’s role in the film is also very controversial due to the events taking place ‘inside’ the male characters. Ripley, being a female is one of the characters not involved in the impregnation by the Alien. This again posts an extreme contrast to real life sexual roles. A male character is impregnated and has to face the pain and agony of that process as the ‘chest-burster’ breaks free from his body. Ridley Scott later commented on this as a political contrast of gender representation where men had to face female fears whilst Ripley and the other feminine role did not have to.

All of the above can be applied alongside Stuart Hall's Reception Theory. The creators of the movie Alien encoded the representation of Ripley as being a strong female leading character that was not sexualised in any way. When presented to the public, a large majority of the viewers would have been a dominant audience, agreeing with this representation of the character. However some people would have been completely oppositional if their culture//beliefs dictated that this was not an appropriate role for women. As Hall's theory states, people would have interpreted Ripley's character in different ways.