Alien’s Ellen Ripley and the Female Action-Hero Archetype
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The 1970s saw the birth of a different kind of action hero than one familiar to movie audiences: women. Before that, male action heroes such as Zorro, James Bond, and Dirty Harry dominated large and small screens. Female characters largely occupied the roles of either damsel in distress or the femme fatale. In the last fifty years, however, female action heroes have gained footholds in the movie and TV industries. One of the characters who spearheaded this change was Ellen Ripley from Ridley Scott’s Alien.
In 1974, Pam Grier broke ground in Jack Hill’s Foxy Brown, a blaxploitation action movie that delved into social and political issues while also highlighting women’s and black power movements. Three years later, Princess Leia turned audience and critic expectations on their heads when, rather than the predicted damsel in distress, she emerged as a strong and decisive diplomat and a determined fighter with the Rebel Alliance. These two characters set the scene for the third great female protagonist of the decade: Ellen Ripley.
Released in 1979, Alien remains a sci-fi horror classic. The confined, claustrophobic setting of the Nostromo and the menace of the Xenomorph, Chestbursters, and Facehuggers still keep audiences on the edges of their seats, no matter how many times you’ve seen the movie. Alien thrives on quiet, breath-holding terror and shocking, gory brutality. No crew member is safe in this movie; even knowing how it ends, you’ll still find yourself tense and breathless as the crew is picked off one by one.
When the Nostromo picks up the “distress” signal from an orbiting moon, LV-426, it’s Ripley (with the help of MU/TH/UR) who decodes it to identify it as a warning. After the investigating crew returns to the ship, it’s Ripley who insists that they must quarantine for twenty-four hours before boarding. And when the Xenomorph begins its murderous rampage through the Nostromo, it is Ripley who takes charge of the situation. Thanks to Sigourney Weaver’s masterful performance, the audience is with her for every heart-pounding moment. Ripley’s fear is real and present, but she pushes it aside to do what needs to be done. Armed with a flamethrower and a determination to survive, Ripley faces the horror of her crewmembers’ deaths, the inescapable confines of the ship, and the deadly and relentless Xenomorph.
In James Cameron’s 1986 sequel, Aliens, Ripley’s transformation from survivor to warrior continues. One critic describes it as the change from being the “de facto sole survivor” of the Nostromo to immediately taking control of her own survival. With her account of the events on the Nostromo now doubted and dismissed, and fifty-seven years of her life lost in cryosleep, Aliens sees Ripley thrown back into the horrifying world of Xenomorphs. Alongside a grim determination to kill before she is killed, the audience also sees Ripley’s emotional turmoil; her deep-rooted trauma after the horrors on the Nostromo, the loss of her career, and her attachment to the child, Newt, that she and a crew of colonial marines encounter in Hadley’s Hope.
Whatever you feel about David Fincher’s Alien 3 (1992), the movie completes Ripley’s evolution to an out-and-out warrior. It strips Ripley of everything she knows and loves. Isolated and facing impossible odds, she fights with the knowledge that she will not survive this encounter with the Xenomorph – but if she’s going to die, she’s taking it with her.
In 1979, no one could have predicted how pivotal Ripley would be in defining the female action-hero archetype. As the hero in a male-dominated genre, she shattered traditional gender roles and strengthened the emerging trend of female protagonists begun by Foxy Brown and Princess Leia. The fact that Ripley is a woman doesn’t affect the story of the original Alien movie in any significant way. She is highlighted as one of the first female characters “who isn’t defined by the men around her, or her relationship to them.” In this way, she demonstrates how gender shouldn’t dictate a person’s role in any genre. It all comes down to character and Ripley was never going to go without a fight.
Ellen Ripley became a sort of blueprint for female protagonists. Instead of emphasizing physical size and strength, characters are built around intelligence, resilience, and resourcefulness. In the 1980s and 1990s, characters such as Sarah Connor from the Terminator series, Trinity from The Matrix, and Jordan O’Neill from Ridley Scott’s G.I. Jane explored women’s roles in the male-dominated genre. Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) and Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill (2003) introduced female characters whose single-mindedness and skill made them forces to be reckoned with.
Slowly, female action heroes began to claim their roles as main characters. Lara Croft, Elektra, Katniss Everdeen, and Wonder Woman have all led their own movies. Imperator Furiosa, originally portrayed by Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road (2014), received her own movie earlier this year with Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga starring Anya Taylor-Joy – an important acknowledgment in the movie industry of the popularity and appeal of female action heroes in leading roles.
James Cameron’s Aliens (1986) offers a different side to Ripley when she takes on the more traditional role of a mother figure. Whereas Ripley’s focus in the first Alien movie was her own (and her cat Jonesy’s) survival, in Aliens she finds herself responsible for a child. Her relationship with Newt becomes central to the story, adding fresh layers of fear and danger to her struggle for survival. Sarah Connor from the Terminator movies and Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games are obvious examples of characters motivated by a similar maternal instinct. The emotional weight and responsibility of these relationships can add complexity to the character, contrasting their strength and vulnerability.
It’s easy to see why Ripley remains one of the most celebrated female characters in movie history. She broke through many gender boundaries that had been so long established in the industry, and in the action movie genre in particular. As a resilient and intelligent character who used all her strength and resources to survive, she showed that when it comes to determination and agency, men and women are equal. She paved the way for the many brilliant female protagonists who have followed her. In many ways, she spearheaded the female action-hero archetype and showed how it should be done.
Are there any other characters you think epitomize the female action-hero archetype? Let us know in the comments section. And don’t forget to sign up to our email list to get Finds of the Week and our free newsletter, PopPulse Digest, delivered straight to your inbox each and every week.
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