You’ll Never Watch Alien (1979) The Same Way Again
The Alien franchise is extremely queer and pro-trans
Jaws in Space.
Truckers in Space.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in Space.
The Gayest Damn Movies You’ll Ever See…in Space!
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There Are Actually TWO Trans Characters In Alien (1979)
Thanks to a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it screen readout in Aliens (1986) of the people who died in Alien (1979), a lot of people are already familiar with the first trans character.
Joan Lambert
The slightly blurry text for Joan Lambert’s bio reads:
Despin Convert at birth (male to female). So far no indication of suppressed traumas related to gender alteration.
Hell yeah.
One trans character alone distinguishes the movie from pretty much any sci-fi movie of that era — and almost as many sci-fi movies of today. But there’s a second trans character, too.
Transphobia threatened to erase the second transgender character from sci-fi history and franchise canon, but unearthed evidence from USENET archives reveals Alien was meant to also include a trans man.
One of the earliest sci-fi victims of transphobia: Arthur Dallas
In a preview of the bonus feature menus for the “Alien Legacy” box set posted to USENET, the bio for Dallas had him as being born female and Lambert as being born male, suggesting gender reassignment before the events in the movie. Negative fan reaction prompted this to be changed before production of the DVDs. Their bios now display their gender with “natural” in brackets behind it. — IMDB
Is the revision to each trans character’s bio equal to trans erasure?
On first glance, the “natural” appears like trans erasure, but some think that though “natural” may have disarmed the transphobes, using the term doesn’t erase Lambert and Dallas as trans characters. Rather, as one internet wizard noted, “[natural implies] that gender reassignment is a fairly common procedure in the future.”
The future is genderfluid
Indeed, audiences don’t need to look any deeper than the writers for the original Alien to see this film franchise always intended for the future to be genderfluid.
Shusett and O’Bannon had intentionally written all the roles generically; they made a note in the script that explicitly states, “The crew is unisex and all parts are interchangeable for men or women.” This freed Scott, Selway, and Goldberg to interpret the characters as they pleased, and to cast accordingly. They wanted the Nostromo’s crew to resemble working astronauts in a realistic environment. — WikiWand: Alien
The Alien franchise continues to burst with more queer love than Care Bears
Alien: Covenant also sees the series’ first openly gay married couple, and Waterston reckons this is in keeping with director Ridley Scott’s attitude in general.
It’s the same attitude with this gay couple. We don’t have to make a meal out of it and highlight it. It’s a nice thing to think, that the future is leading in that direction, and not reversing.” — Covenant star Katherine Waterston on why Alien’s Ripley is such a massive influence on women
Last-minute Alien facts (IMDB)
- We barely avoided Ridley Scott’s ****ing terrible alternate ending to Alien. The alien would have chomped off Ripley’s head, then spoken in her voice to leave a final starlog.
- Alien inspired your favorite video game franchise: Metroid! The female protagonist, Samus Aran, was created as a homage to Sigourney Weaver’s character, and a recurring alien antagonist, Ridley, was named in tribute to Ridley Scott.
- Alien also inspired your baby’s new favorite toy.
Addition reading
| MJC thread on two trans characters (Twitter) | Why ‘Alien’s Gender-Neutral Script Worked So Well For the Horror Classic (Collider) | How ‘Alien’ (1979) Queered the Binaries of Traditional Gender (Flip Screened) | Why Alien’s gender politics run a lot deeper than Ellen Ripley (Little White Lies) | Alien: An Original Crew Member Is Canonically Trans (CBR) | ‘Alien’ Movie Fans Shocked To Discover Iconic Character Was Transgender (Newsweek) | Xenopedia: Joan Lambert and Arthur Dallas (Fandom) | In Aliens, it is revealed that Lambert was transgender (Reddit) | The Return of James Cameron, Box Office King (GQ)| For more on the pleasures of James Cameron: The Pleasures of ‘True Lies’ (Decoding Everything) | Nostromo crew profiles |
More diversity throughout the history of media
Xena Kissed A Trans Girl…And She Liked It | The Craft: Legacy | You’ll Never Watch The Simpsons The Same Way Again | Interview With The Transgender Vampire | Shut The **** Up…Jason Voorhees Is Gay?! | She-Hulk Stunt Woman Comes Out Swinging For Trans Women | You’ll Never Watch The Rocky Horror Picture Show The Same Way Again | Wait…The Little Mermaid Was Trans? (The Full Collection) | You’ll Never Watch Spider-Man The Same Way Again
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