![]() ![]() The Alien franchise’s Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is a clone of herself by the third installment ( Alien: Resurrection ), brought back by a group of male research scientists who incubate an alien queen embryo in clone-Ellen’s womb (another instance of rape). For example, in Mad Max: Fury Road, Furiosa (Charlize Theron) steals herself and four prized “breeding wives” away from their rapist, Immortan Joe, who is also a white supremacist fascist leader of the desert-bound people of The Citadel. Whatever the case may be, the women characters in these films levy legitimate critiques against systems of (male) dominance, power, and privilege. These films and their directors/writers may simply be a great mirror held up to this new reality. We also live in a time of an amplification of voices, a proliferation of alternative modes of being in the face of ongoing struggles for liberation and social justice. ![]() This is reflective of a paradigm shift in thinking about gender and society in a time where the pernicious effects of totalitarianism and genocide, of bigotry and oppression, can be closely examined by everyone. It is interesting to note, however, that only one of the aforementioned films/series is directed by a woman, and none are written by women ( Stranger Things is the stand-out here, featuring three women-writers in its crew). Films like Blade Runner, Minority Report, Beyond the Black Rainbow, Tank Girl, Mad Max: Fury Road, Alien and Alien: Resurrection, Pan’s Labyrinth, It Follows, and Melancholia all belong. These films represent a singular genre within the sci-fi/fantasy/horror canon where authentic feminist critique exists, structuring not only the unfolding of the plot but also dialogue and character development around the pursuits, accomplishments, struggles, and abusers of lead women characters. Each of the members of this group provides commentary on abuses dealt by men in power upon their subjects, who most often are women, young girls, and nature, including nonhuman animals. Stranger Things deserves inclusion within the small (but growing) group sci-fi/fantasy/horror films/series that feature heroic, non-stereotypical women leads. Some have already meticulously catalogued the show’s impressive amount of references to both popular culture and cult favorites of the time period, with endless Internet posts on the ghostly presence of Ellen Ripley (of the Alien franchise), Chunk (of Goonies fame), and Lydia Deetz ( Beetlejuice )/Veronica Sawyer ( Heathers ), because WI-NO-NA, why else? Clarke) and, dare I say it, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. ’s Elliott Taylor coming-of-age adventure films like The Goonies, Monster Squad, and Explorers and, in the darkest reaches, sci-fi horror classics like John Carpenter’s The Thing (a poster for the film hangs proudly in Mike and Nancy Wheeler’s family basement, and that famous alien head-detachment scene plays on the home television of the protagonists’ Middle School science teacher, Mr. The Duffer Brothers, who wrote and directed the show, have talked candidly about their influences: the slack-jawed sublimity of Stephen Spielberg’s starstruck children, most notably Close Encounters of the Third Kind ’s Barry Guiler and E.T. At its core, Netflix’s new hit series Stranger Things is a nerdgasmic tribute to all things eighties sci-fi.
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