Gender and Parenting in the Worlds of Alien and Blade Runner: A Feminist Analysis

Description

Gender and Parenting in the Worlds of Alien and Blade Runner is a comparative, gendered analysis study of Ridley Scott’s contributions to the genre of science fiction and horror cinema. Observing that while Ridley Scott’s science fiction classics Blade Runner and Alien each feature future worlds in which space travel and off-earth colonies are commonplace, the author showcases how patriarchal and gendered expectations regarding women, usually associated with the past, still run rampant. Amanda DiGioia argues in this book that Scott has shifted from focusing on the future, and what humanity may be able to obtain from it, to a focus on facing mortality: what occurs after death and the futility of human existence. The opening chapter provides the necessary theoretical framework and background for the rest of the book, defining the Blade Runner films as science fiction works with elements of horror, from the corporeal to the existential, and the Alien universe as a collection of horror texts. The following chapters go on to discuss the idea of gender, across the works, ruminating on how humanity is in some instances nothing but a social construct that reinforces patriarchal myths about gender and power. Cover GENDER AND PARENTING IN THE WORLDS OF ALIEN AND BLADE RUNNER EMERALD STUDIES IN POPULAR CULTURE AND GENDER GENDER AND PARENTING IN THE WORLDS OF ALIEN AND BLADE RUNNER Copyright Dedication CONTENTS PREFACE ABOUT THE AUTHOR 1. Gender, Childbirth and Parenting in Science Fiction Films and Gender in Horror Films 2. More Human than Human: Blade Runner 2049 Gender in Cyberpunk Sex Robots Gender in Blade Runner 2049 Ode to Joi Women's Rejection of Blade Runner 2049 3. ‘We Were So Wrong’: The Perversion of Male Creation. Motherhood, Fatherhood and Birth in Recent Incarnations of the Alie ... The Pursuit of Motherhood Fatherhood Maternal Impressions and Pregnancy Birth and Death Patriarchy and ‘Other’ Mothers Absent and Avenging Mothers 4. ‘You've Never Seen a Miracle’: Birth and Parenthood in Blade Runner 2049 ‘This Breaks the World’ Miracle Workers, Deadly as Sin: Motherhood in Blade Runner 2049 Allfathers and Bad Fathers: Fatherhood in Blade Runner 2049 Conclusion 5. ‘I Can't Lie To You About Your Chances, But… You Have My Sympathies.’ I remember some… horrible dream about… smothering? I don't know… Anyway, where are we? (Scott, 1979) ‘It has to go back. All sorts of tests have to be made.’ (Scott, 1979) Nobody would know about the embryos we're carrying (Cameron, 1986): The Infertility Clinic ‘Right. Well, let's talk about killing it.’ (Scott, 1979) ‘You've been in my life so long, I can't remember anything else.’ (Fincher, 1992) 6. Conclusion BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX