Alien Queens and Monstrous Machines: The Conflagration of the Out-of-Control Female and Robotic Body

摘要

Following on from Barbara Creeds essay Monstrous Femininity this chapter aims to show the ways that female reproduction beyond patriarchal control is viewed not just as dangerous but positively lethal. I will identify this particular trope as it develops within the, not so recent, Alien Quadrilogy of films and the current series of Transformer films. Superficially the two sets of films seem to be completely different as one is based on an organic alien body and one on the technological. However upon closer inspection both are predicated on the destruction of the outof- control female reproductive body. Throughout the narrative of the Alien films, the one consistent character, apart from Ripley, is the abundantly fecund Alien Queen. She epitomizes all that Lynda Buntzen identifies as being monstrous in the female reproductive body, as a 'juicy femaleness, nature gone wild…[which is seen in the body of] the Alien Mama and therefore represented as completely out of bounds, beyond civilisations controlling institutions.' This fact is re-iterated in each subsequent instalment where she re-appears no matter what. Somewhat curiously the same characteristics have now been transferred to the technological body. Traditionally seen as a male reserve, even the cold, rational mechanised body is now infected by an uncontrollable femininity. This is seen in the recent Transformers films and in particular characterized within the uncontrollable reproductive powers of the All Spark. The chaotic nature of its regenerative powers only needs to touch a civilized/male technological device for it to spring into uncontrollable and destructive. Whilst not 'gooey and fluid' its off-spring still embody the anti-human/life force that is manifest in the 'drone' Aliens that the Queen produces ad-infinitum. As such any mode of reproduction beyond hegemonic/patriarchal control is necessarily configured as feminine and dangerous.