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Demeter and Persephone in Space

Transformation, Femininity, and Myth in the Alien Films

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Representations of Femininity in American Genre Cinema
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Abstract

Directed by Ridley Scott, the first Alien film (1979) is not about the heroine’s transformation but rather her revelation, as we discover that she is the most resourceful or, at the very least, the luckiest, member of the motley outer-space mining crew who will all be killed by the titular monster, save for her. The endless transformation of the heroine, Lieutenant Ellen Ripley (indelibly played by Sigourney Weaver), however, is the signal concern of the Alien film series as a whole, a feat that takes place over the course of the four films in which she appears: the first; Aliens (1986, directed by James Cameron); Alien 3 (1992, directed by David Fincher); and the fourth, Alien Resurrection (1997, directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet).

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Notes

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© 2011 David Greven

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Greven, D. (2011). Demeter and Persephone in Space. In: Representations of Femininity in American Genre Cinema. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230118836_5

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