I do not want to begin by quoting.

It is inevitable.

Any subversive act, ("Our attitudes toward our superiors should always include an element of dread") [Davenport-Hines 7] must contain some knowledge of its relationship with mimesis rather than subversion. In other words, I am fully aware that my response to the readings and the Alien series will have less to do with my ability to respond authentically and more to do with my ability to mimic Post/In human pundits. In any case...

"The hyper visibility of the similar leads only to the hollow aesthetic of "the look" in a kind of postmodern pornography where the undifferentiated other is objectified by the universal global gaze, as we check out the other's factitious image in a parody of desire [Flieger 94]."

This quote was referring to a narcissistic double, but I believe it can be interpreted here to illustrate Call’s “desire” to be human. Call assesses and makes apparent in her discussion with Ripley, that both she and Ripley are other.



Talk about a global gaze. Look at where that clip freezes. Ripley is part post-human clone and part Alien. Call is an inhuman robot. This scene is the great conversation between the posthuman, the inhuman, and the human. Call would like to be human and her suggestion to Ripley to "look at her" is one of self-loathing, but it is also one of longing. A longing to be seen, to be an image and to be self-aware. In this sense she may perceive herself pre-human, as if the possibility for technology to allow her to be self-aware might someday exist (It seems she'd have to be self-aware to recognize her inability to be self-aware, but that seems to lead us down the yellow brick road of "you had a heart this whole time," a truly unproductive path). She is jealous of Ripley's humanness, (even if it is only partial) and her ability to be seen, and at the same time she is repulsed by Ripley’s post-humanness. This notion of needing to be seen harkens back to the Garden of Eden and is consistent with Baudrillard’s concept of not existing, rather being visible. "I am an image-Look! Look [25]!" Call does not actually have the ability to be jealous. Her jealousy is as factitious as her intelligence.

"Artificial intelligence is devoid of intelligence because it is devoid of artifice. True artifice is the artifice of the body in the throes of passion; but since all machines are celibate, they do not suffer that ironical surplus [Flieger 94]."

Perhaps in the movies they can appear to suffer that ironical surplus. Within the context of the movie, it is suggested that you can have sex with a robot. Call might be capable of mimicking the act of lovemaking and perhaps "performing" the feelings involved with sex, but these too would be factitious. One calls to mind the sex scene between Deckard and Rachael in Blade Runner. Their performance is absurd because it is potentially mimetic. It is a hodge-podge of scenes and lines recited from movies in a type of asemsexblage.

The scene preceding Call and Ripley's "heart to heart" should not be overlooked. It parallels the crucifixion, which incontrovertibly precedes the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ's last words, "Father why hast thou forsaken me," are nearly spelled out on the screen. Wren yells a command to Father and then questions Father and his new found disobedience toward man. Call answers on the loud speakers that, "Father, (i.e. the Creator) is dead...asshole," and with his death, the need for a creator also dies. Clearly, she invests her longing for self-awareness entirely in the hope of technology. Clearly? Hardly. If her hope were truly in technology then perhaps she would be supportive of Wren's goals, which are for the good of all humanity, through the guise of science.. This illustrates perfectly the paradoxical nature of the film and could provide a reason, other than the obvious, for the Alien's inhuman behavior.

Slavoj Zizek writes...

"This is also what makes it so unbearable to witness the last moments of people who know they are shortly going to die and are in this sense already living-dead - again, imagine that we would have discovered, among the ruins of the Twin Towers, a video camera which magically survived the crash intact and is full of shots of what went on among the passengers of the plane in the minutes before it crashed into one of the Towers. In all these cases, it is that, effectively, we would have seen things as they are "in themselves", outside human coordinates, outside our human reality - we would have seen the world with inhuman eyes. (Maybe the US authorities do possess such shots and, for understandable reasons, are keeping them secret.)" [lacan.com]

The alien is arguably in a no win situation. If the company has its way, the alien will become a paid soldier, waging war on others for the benefit of certain humans (and by certain humans I think it is safe to assume Western culture, in fact whenever the words, "for the good of humanity" are uttered, it is most likely referring to the United States). If Call and the Real Slim Ripley or the non-cloned Ripley were to have their way, then the Alien would be destroyed. If we apply Zizeks’s idea of the inhuman to the Alien as if it were a human, we would have an explanation for the Aliens desperate "inhuman" violence. The Aliens undeniable destruction (similar to the people's recognition of their own fate in Zizek’s hidden Twin Towers camera) would allow it to see with inhuman eyes. It would see things as they are "in themselves" seemingly outside of its human coordinates and outside its human reality (Again, this is applying the idea to the Alien as if it were a human in an attempt to gain perspective. This could also be said to be looking at Zizek's idea through through the "She" perspective presented in Lyotard's "Can a Thought Go on Without a Body?," in the sense that our vision is limited to our human sphere). This might be an explanation for the Alien's erratic and 'eradicat' behavior toward humans and dogs. Cats seem to be OK. If the Alien acts strictly by instinct, than it can be said that from the very first introduction of the human to the Alien field, (Alien 1) the Alien's behavior is predicated upon its acknowledgment of its own impending doom. It knows immediately that its introduction to humans will not prove positive. Later we see that the addition of a female reproductive system does enhance its power, but this is short lived. Its improvements only increase its necessary destruction.

Soon after the crew is told that there are no less than 12 Aliens aboard the ship with the ability to reproduce quickly, Johner suggests they "get rid of the cripple." It is possible that this type of inhuman behavior does not develop further in the movie for the very same reasons that Zizek suggests. It would be seeing too much and that viewing could set us all into a type of inhuman mayhem, like a pie eating contest in Stand By Me. AHHHHH!

These distinctions between the inhuman, the post-human, the pre-human, and the human seem already to lose their relevance. But what will relevance have to do with it in the near future? Donna Haraway's utopia of an undifferentiated society would lead one to assume that the need to make or discuss distinctions would be superfluous. That is not completely the case as we see in Blade Runner, and Alien Resurrection. There is much attention given to the difference between what is human and what is inhuman. Interestingly, there is little to no attention given to whether or not one is a clone. The clone, the genetically modified human is, after all, human. Making this distinction in the movies as well as in real life seems nearly futile and with the increasing futility of such a distinction comes the increasing discussion.

The futility of making distinctions is fully exploited throughout Alien Resurrection. As soon as you believe you’ve made a distinction, the tides turn. As soon as you’ve brought the story to closure, and Ripley has killed herself as well as the queen Alien, the Alien series resurrects itself. It is a situation that is in flux, not unlike our supposed transformation from the human to the post human. Visually, the Alien seems to be made of metallic parts, yet it drools profusely all over itself, suggesting that its life consists of growing machine parts. Technology is highly advanced, but the guns that are used throughout the movie are gigantic and phallic, like the noses of a Chapman Brothers sculpture.

"An erect penis is animated, it implies a certain vibrancy or stimulation - ready to be consumed by the viewer but also pleased to see the viewer" [Rosenblum 148].

The phallic gun’s indispensability is dispensed with by Johner's suggestion (in the special release version anyway) that the guns are disposable. The Aliens have phalluses that are deadly, yet they reproduce and seem to have both male and female parts, (which by the way, make great souvenirs). Vriess, the dwarf-like wheelchair bound character whistles the theme song to Popeye, "I am what I am," a lyric that begs the question, "and exactly what is that?" Men give birth to Aliens, (if I remember correctly, Ripley is the only female to give birth to an Alien) and the female robot Call, oozes some sort of milky sperm like substance from her side (an allusion to Christ's punctured side, or a vagina?). The biblical allusions abound. Ripley's pose when the queen Alien encapsulates her could be an allusion to Grunewald's altarpiece. Grunewald, the first painter to show Christ in his true, bloody pained, skin diseased self. A painter that provokes the type of inhuman eye that Zizek refers to. Chloe Piene's performance, based on Grunewald's altarpiece looks almost identical to the movie scene.





The Alien form itself is in constant flux, always changing in a type of metamorphic growth cycle. The distinctions that we are used to making easily are confused and crossed throughout the movie leaving us undecided as to who is other and who is not, who is male and who is female, who is human and who is inhuman. Are those relevant questions? Does it matter? AHHHH!

"This is how we became transsexuals...in other words, indifferent and undifferentiated beings, androgynous and hermaphroditic - for by this time we had embraced, digested and rejected the most contradictory ideologies, and were left wearing only their masks [Baudrillard 25]."

Snap back to reality, oh, there goes gravity...

"Feminist women love Eminem [10]." It could almost be a line from a Gertrude Stein poem. The video for Eminem's song is telling and not simply for its obvious allusion to cloning. With the introduction of the cloned and admittedly "white" rapper, (a contradiction in terms with very few exceptions) we have a modified version of rap. On the conveyer belt, a long line of Eminem’s (or are they Slim Shady’s, or are they Marshall Mathers?) are produced. The lyric directs the chorus to sing along with him, yet compliance with such a demand is an admission of mimesis, or the admission of imitating the real thing.

"So will the real Shady, please stand up
and put one of those fingers on each hand up
and to be proud to be outta your mind and outta control
and one more time, loud as you can, how does it go?"

In the video, Eminem is both male and female, attracted and repulsed by himself. Whether he is more attracted to the female version of himself or the male version of him is unclear. This theme of undifferentiating between male and female is a consistent theme in Eminem's, work.

"Now I'm gonna make you dance
It's your chance
Yeah boy shake that ass
Oops I mean girl,
Girl, girl, girl
Girl you know you're my world
Alright now lose it"

This is from the rap "Just Lose It," the video where prepubescent children gyrate to the music seconds before Michael Jackson's nose falls off and Eminem begins doing the "robot" dance. (Worth watching in the context of this discussion as well as for a good laugh)

Lose the distinction, lose the ability to make a distinction, lose your own distinction or just lose yourself in the music? A relationship of attraction and repulsion is at the center of the video and helps illustrate the similar way Ripley feels, and in kind the viewer feels in the final scene of Alien Resurrection.

"To name a sensibility, to draw its contours and to recount its history, requires a deep sympathy modified by revulsion." -Susan Sontag.

In the final scene we see the Alien child grasping the throat of Call with one hand and fondling Calls open wound with the other. Ripley’s investigation of Call’s wet wound earlier in the film is not dissimilar. Unlike the robots from the past, Call's ooze does not spurt, spray or ejaculate. Just before the Alien retires Call, Ripley orders it to put Call down. Ripley then embraces the Alien child the way a Mother and child hold close directly after birth. I believe this embrace is genuine on the part of Ripley. It seems as if their moment is interrupted by the black hole of space, the screen of the window that negotiates the outside with the inside once and for all. Surely by now, we know better than to understand anything in this series as “once and for all." Had this window not been in Ripley’s view and this had not been a movie, perhaps Ripley’s embrace would be everlasting. But, the sighting of the window snaps Ripley "back to reality" and back to the very natural element that will destroy the Alien…Gravity or the lack thereof. She cuts herself on the Alien child’s tooth, where the scars of her last stigmata have healed. There are three scenes in the movie where Ripley faces death, and in each scene the blood of the center of her palm plays an integral role. One can assume that upon her return to earth, her scars will provide partial evidence of her supernatural resurrection. This alien/human blood cracks the screen between “in here” and “out there” and the sucking begins. I am here reminded of a quote from "In the Shadow of the Vampire," which refers to the place that Dracula will be staying during the shooting of the film.

"A dark hole that has been untouched and unexplored for a very long time."

The space of space in this context can be said to preexist, in which case its last exploration was its creation and its creation is the place that the Alien will meet its final destruction. Slowly the Alien is sucked out, piece be piece in a truly agonizing scene. It would seem that the Alien was still capable of harming Ripley had it wanted to. We saw its family members spit acid and we've seen constant evidence of their inhuman strength. The Alien's true death seems to be its recognition of its Mother’s rejection. The Alien child actually seems too hurt to try to harm it’s own Mother, as if the two seconds of loving embrace that Ripley afforded it, was enough to make its life worth living. Ripley whispers, "I'm sorry." Ripley wept. Her human reaction has to do with her inhuman loss. Previously, her inhuman response to Call's question, "How could you kill one of them, they're one of your own?" seems to have more to do with our inhuman tendency toward humanity. We kill and murder each other because we are “in the way,” specifically in this movie, in the way of progress or science. Ripley is partially human and partially other and these two responses to her murderous actions seem to be coming from opposite halves.

From its birth, the viewer has had a strange sort of relationship with the Alien child. It is simply looking for a Mother, but it is extremely violent. It seems to be the most dangerous Alien we've seen so far, capable of killing even the Queen with one blow. Yet with the Alien's final expulsion, we hardly exhale [14]. Rather, we feel remorse for both the Alien child and Ripley. We suffer at the apparent and potential humanity of such an inhuman creature. The somehow sad look in its eyes is the lasting image of the final scene. As the Alien is sucked out of the screen, it stares with a global gaze back at Ripley. Its eyes scream, "Mother, why hast thou forsaken me?" It is at this moment, this moment when the Alien acknowledges its imminent death, that it stops acting inhuman, and begins to act human. By applying Zizek’s idea of the inhuman here, to an inhuman subject rather than within a human context, we lose all differentiation between the Alien and ourselves. We become equal. The Alien begins to see with human eyes, outside of its inhuman coordinates and outside of its inhuman reality. It is the equivalent of the Twin Towers video in Zizek's example and allows the Alien to see things "in themselves." This scene mirrors the unbearable nature of witnessing a human being just before their certain death, and in the television screen's reflection, the final screen that now determines "in here" and "out there," we see reflected our rosy selves. The Alien child, for the split second before its death looks back at us with human eyes...and it is a truly horrific sight.




Works Cited
Baudrillard, Jean. The Transparency of Evil: Essays on
Extreme Phenomena. New York: Verso, 1993: 20-25.

Davenport-Hines, Richard. Gothic: Four Hundred Years of Excess, Horror,
Evil and Ruin. (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998): 1- 11.
Introduction page of quotes. Susan Sontag.

Eminem. "The Real Slim Shady." The Marshall Mathers LP. Aftermath, 2000.

Flieger, Jerry. "Review: The Listening Eye: Postmodernism, Paranoia, and the Hypervisible." JSTOR
Diacritics- Vol. 26, No. 1 (Spring, 1996), pp. 90-107 [Baudrillard 53]

Lacan.com. "Badiou: Notes from an Ongoing Debate" Slavoj Zizek
http://www.lacan.com/zizou.htm

Merhige, E. Elias. In the Shadow of the Vampire. 2000

Rosenblum, Robert. “Interview with the Chapman Brothers” in Unholy Libel: Six Feet Under.
New York: Gagosian Gallery, 1997: 147-153.

joshuabienko.com