Kane's Son. Males and Masculinity in 'Alien'

ISBN-13: 9783638912105 / Angielski / Miękka / 2008 / 60 str.

Rebecca Schuster

Opis

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,0, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg, 8 entries in the bibliography, language: English, comment: Die Arbeit enthalt Bilder (hauptsachlich Screenshots, aber auch Bilder aus dem Internet), die mir nicht gehoren. Ihre Herkunft ist aber in den Funoten und im Abbildungsverzeichnis bezeichnet. Bitte lasst mich wissen, ob das so in Ordnung ist, bevor ich irgendwelche Urheberrechte verletze., abstract: INTRODUCTION Since Alien first appeared on screen in 1979, there have been many studies about it, covering every imaginable interpretation possible. There was a focus especially on gender theory and femininity studies - essays on a lesbian point of view, the abject mother and monstrous femininity. Even about male homoerotic aspects, obviously with special emphasis on Alien3. Astoundingly enough there is far less material about a male heterosexual approach to the movies. Therefore, my task in this essay will be to look at the Alien movies - with a main focus on the original and the second part - from a different point of view. (...) 1.1 ALIEN AND THE UNCANNY Why is it that some things scare us, whereas other things do not bother us at all? One may look and find a possible answer to this question in Sigmund Freud's treatise on the uncanny. One aspect that might help is Freud's assumptions that people always "experience the feeling of the uncanny] in the highest degree in relation to death and dead bodies, to the return of the dead, and to spirits and ghosts." This notion becomes important when one takes a closer look at the Alien's body. H.R. Giger's creation consists to a great part of (humanlike) bones. The Alien's chest looks like an uncovered human ribcage, while the legs look as if they just consist of muscles and veins with the outer skin stripped of (Fig.1). (...) 2. THE MASCULINE ALIEN All of the Alien movies - with a possible excepti