Diversity in Aliens (1986) and Its Impact

We all know Hollywood has a diversity problem. #OscarsSoWhite has been trending on and off since the nominations were announced and after the ceremony aired, due to the lack of any people of color in the top four categories for the second year in a row. Several actors and actresses even boycotted the awards show, refusing to go and speaking out about the issue whene given the opportunity. I could write a whole other blog post about the absence of women in positions of power in Hollywood. When discussing Aliens, it is important to remember this is a movie made in 1986. With that being said, there is about as much diversity as to be expected. Sigourney Weaver’s character, Ellen Ripley, a strong leading woman, has plenty of screen time. The movie passes the Bechdel test by which two, named female characters talk to each other about something other than a man. 

In fact, when the rules for the Bechdel test were first introduced by Allison Bechdel in her comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For, a character in the strip references the first installment in the Alien series that premiered in 1979 as being the last movie she was able to see that adhered to the rules of the test. The majority of the characters are white and male, but the only other woman with significant lines is a tough Latina. Half of the time she’s spoken to, it’s to insult her. She has good comebacks though. She also shows bravery in key moments of the movie, when lesser men are too scared to fight the aliens.

There are no representations of the LGBT community, something that Hollywood still has a lot of progress to make on, 30 years later. The benefit of having a diverse cast is that the audience will see themselves represented in film. Another benefit of having storylines from diverse experiences is having more perspectives for the audience to relate to. When it comes to representation, the more the merrier. The two black characters are men, both in positions of power. Ridley’s interactions with the men in the movie largely consist of her ideas being discredited or outright ignored, a frustrating situation given she’s the only one with experience dealing with this alien lifeform.

 In the end, of four cast members left, she’s the only one who ventures to go in and save the little girl, Newt, they encountered on the desolate planet. I think this is a fitting last act for Ripley.