Womb Invasion

 

All fans know that science fiction has to do with fantasies about the body,

 especially the reproductive body. Science fiction represents alternative systems of procreation and birth, ranging from the rather child-like image of babies born out of cauliflowers, to monstrous births through unmentionable orifices.- Rosi Braidotti

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Invasion of the Womb: Alien Impregnation in Science Fiction Film

Elizabeth Dubert

“How do they reproduce?” It seems like every time there’s an alien invasion, the first question asked is “how do they reproduce” … followed by “how do we kill them?” Even before inquiring about the alien species’ eating habits (do they eat people?), we want to know about breeding. Our fear of being outnumbered, of being invaded, is greater than our fear of being devoured. Why is reproduction such a prevalent theme in science fiction film? While we are surrounded by images of sex and reproduction in all forms of media and all types of film, the science fiction genre centers around procreation in particular. More than other genres the science fiction film deals with the understanding of life as a scientific concept. In alien movies specifically, we encounter foreign creatures that often defy or test what humans understand about life. The creators of fictional aliens have tremendous freedom in designing new beings; they may look, think, function, and behave practically any way one can imagine. And while the means and execution can vary in almost limitless ways, reproduction remains a constant principle in life. In fact, because science fiction does present us with strange and unknown creatures, the exploration of novel reproductive means is fundamental to the genre. The emphasis on alien reproduction reflects human fear in general and male anxiety about reproduction specifically. Alien reproduction represents the most primitive in all living things. As terrifying as the differences between alien and human can be, it is the similarities we can find most unsettling. In the face of an alien invasion, humans confront the most basic principles of life that connect us all: survival and procreation. Alien invasion embodies those principles. No matter how advanced the technology is that brings the two species together, the motivation for the technology is the same: survival and perpetuation of the species. Reproduction represents expansion, the only real reason for travel between worlds.


The impregnation of women by aliens in science fiction film is the manifestation of the deepest anxieties of men and women. Invasion of the womb represents the masculine fear of losing control by invasion, and the feminine fear of being victimized and violated.

Two films, Horror Planet and Progeny, deal with the issue of womb invasion in different ways. I chose these films because of their focus on the phenomena of womb invasion as a central theme and because they each present the concept with an emphasis on gender-specific perspective. The first film, Horror Planet, is female -centered, and Progeny is male-centered. This does not imply the value judgment of one movie being more feminist or pro-feminist than the other. Neither film could really be called feminist. Instead, the distinction of male-or-female-centered describes the how much emphasis the film places on the male or female characters.

Horror Planet (1981) focuses largely on the experience of the woman while still reflecting masculine anxieties. When a twelve-person crew (six women, six men) land on a seemingly abandoned planet, a member of the crew is impregnated by the planet’s last inhabitant.

The two scenes where the conception is shown take place while Judy lies on an examination table in the ship’s infirmary, reliving the experience. It is a disturbingly explicit image of rape. Sandy, played by Judy Geeson, lies naked on a table. Her nudity is completely un-sexy, and she resembles a corpse until she begins to scream and struggle against the alien looming over her. The scene is dream-like and fragmented.

What is interesting about the conception scenes is Sandy’s perception of the rapist. When the camera angle shifts to Sandy’s point of view, we see that her perception of the attacker alternates between the alien and Carl, the ship’s doctor. In her semi-conscious state, Sandy cannot distinguish between the violation of the rape and the act of a doctor injecting a sedative to calm a hysterical patient. From Sandy’s point of view, we see how threatening Carl appears, standing over her with a large syringe and a frightening expression on his face.

Although Carl is a positive and even likeable figure in all other aspects of the film, his character represents the human side of the rape. He is the patriarch of the ship and has a great deal of power over the women in particular.

His source of power is his syringe (phallus), which he uses to control the women by injecting them. He controls Sandy’s sanity because the only way to keep her from losing her mind is to sedate her, a power which is exclusively his. After Sandy is attacked, Carl meets Holly (another crew member) in a room to discuss Sandy’s situation. There we learn that Carl is in control of the reproductive future of all the women on the ship, that in his capacity as the doctor he administers injections to prevent pregnancy. During the rape itself, Carl’s phallic symbol mirrors that of the alien. The alien’s tool of insemination is very similar to a syringe, and is actually more repulsive than the alien itself. The film’s small budget reveals itself as the alien appears as a vague dark figure looming over Sandy, which looks more like a giant insect child in its pajamas than a menacing alien rapist. Still, the cheap alien costume does little to diminish the horror of the scene. There is something distinctly unsettling about the tube itself beyond its function as a hostile penis. There is something distinctly unsettling about the contents of the tube, which appear to be small spherical eggs in a thick green liquid. The actual insemination is very inhuman beyond the mechanics of a long phallic object being inserted into the vagina. The sexual metaphor of Carl’s phallic object is injection, which is much closer to human intercourse than the alien version of insemination. The insemination is not climactic, there is no hint at any sort of ejaculation as we expect in sexually reproducing mammals, the seminal fluid moves with a nauseating languidness that looks like it is being poured into Sandy’s body.

There is no question that Sandy is a victim of rape. But she quickly changes from a sympathetic character to the villain of the film. She is the picture of the monstrous feminine, Barbara Creed’s phrase for the female monster (Creed, 4). Sandy becomes homicidal, but not maniacal. Her blood lust is purposeful, the archaic mother who will do anything to protect her offspring. Sandy’s shift from victim to monster reflects the male fear of the primal reproductive power of woman. Still, this film is largely focused on the female: the female experience of rape, womb invasion, and violation.

Progeny (1999) focuses on the masculine experience of womb invasion. Although it is his wife who has been impregnated, Craig Burton (Arnold Vasloo) is the one who senses something wrong form the beginning. The film opens with a shot of a bedside clock which clearly reads 10:04. Craig and his wife Sherry (Jillian McWhirter) are making love. We hear Craig’s voice over the scene, describing a typical account of alien abduction: flash of light, jolt of electricity, and the passage of two hours in what felt like two minutes. The camera returns to the clock, which now reads ten minutes after midnight. The setting changes to a dim room with two people facing each other on opposite sofas: Craig and his therapist. Craig traces a series of problems back to that night, September 20th. Although Craig is obsessed with whatever happened, his wife Sherry does not seem bothered by it. Immediately, this is peculiar. After the incident Sherry is distraught but seems to forget about it in the days and months following. When Sherry announces her pregnancy, she is excited but Craig senses something is wrong.

The film simultaneously violates and perpetuates traditional notions of gender roles. In ways, Craig, a doctor, views the situation as a scientist. The couple has been trying to have a baby, with no success, and conception occurred on September 20th. Craig is the rational male, citing his low sperm count and the date of conception as evidence of outside intervention. At the same time, the idea of alien abduction is irrational.

Sherry is the irrational mother, too preoccupied with her need to fulfill her biological destiny of motherhood to consider Craig’s protests. In the face of motherhood, she rejects what we know to be legitimate concerns about the origin of the fetus. That it is Craig and not Sherry who is most concerned with the pregnancy violates logic as well as conventional notions of gender specific characteristics.

Sherry is less disturbed by the incident than Craig, even though she went through a more invasive and traumatizing ordeal than Craig. His memory is clearer (either because he is a doctor or because he is a man) than hers, and his need to recover the memory is greater (again, either because of his sex or his scientific mind). Also, it is her body that is violated, and the evidence of that is within her womb. She should feel the physical results of that unnaturalness earlier than she does. Her failure to recall the incident makes some sense because it was more traumatic and her mind represents the memory more deeply than Craig’s.

But the fact that Craig senses a problem when Sherry doesn’t violate one of the most common beliefs our society holds true about women and feminine intuition. Women are thought to be far more intuitive than men, especially where their children are concerned. Maternal instinct should tell Sherry there is something wrong. However, maternal instinct could be the very reason why she doesn’t. Again, her need to produce a child is too great to be dissuaded by the thought of what that child could be.

In many ways, Sherry is a secondary character in the film. The movie focuses on a father's fears. Craig is not a misogynist, but his concerns about the pregnancy are largely selfish. His fear is less about how his wife’s body was violated and more about his wife being pregnant by someone who is not him. His role as father and master of his wife’s body is violated. When an obnoxious coworker makes jokes about an office pool on who really fathered Sherry’s child, Craig explodes, pushing him across the room. He explains to a hospital administrator, “I didn’t like the way he said it.” But as much as the interaction with Duke (the obnoxious coworker) triggers Craig’s emotional stress about the pregnancy, it offends his male ego. Before Duke’s “postman joke”, he calls Craig’s masculinity into question. “I know why it took you so long to conceive”, he says, “You don’t eat enough red meat, hmm…?” Good macho food, put lead in your pencil. You know, people around here are wondering how you finally did the deed?” Sherry’s pregnancy is a badge of Craig’s failure as a man. An alien monster succeeds at something he was desperate to do, to fulfill his duty as a husband.

The invasion of the womb has different consequences for male and female characters, and reflects different fears and anxieties. Alien impregnation is such a common occurrence in science fiction as to be cliché, but the significance of a film lies in its treatment of the concept. These particular films exemplify the way that different perspectives can change the way that we view womb invasion.

 

 

Note on Sources:    Although the concept of artificial and alien impregnation is common throughout science fiction film, there are few resources that deal with it specifically.  Other than locating the origin of the phrase “monstrous feminine”, I did not allocate any outside sources in my analysis of the two films.  However, the following are links to the best resources that I found in doing research for this project.
Bibliography

Braidotti, Rosi. "Cyberfeminism with a Difference". New Formations, no. 29. Fall, 1996, pp. 9-25.
http://www.let.uu.nl/womens_studies/rosi/cyberfem.htm
This article discusses themes of technology, postmodernity, and embodiment. It contains a section about the reproductive women in science fiction and discusses the theme of reproduction in the genre and its significance. It also addresses how alternative reproduction manipulates male anxiety.


Carvalho, Marcos and Conlon, Deirdre. "Spaces of Motherhood". Reconstruction, Winter 2003: Volume 3, Number 1 ISSN: 1547-4348
http://www.reconstruction.ws/031/conlon.htm
Examines the depiction of motherhood in popular media, including science fiction cinema.


Creed, Barbara. The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis.  Routledge, November, 1993. Purchase at: amazon.com


Franklin, Sarah. "Postmodern Procreation: A Cultural Account of Assisted Reproduction". Conceiving the New World Order. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1995. pp. 323-345
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/rt21/globalism/FRANKLIN_Postmodern.html
Article about reproductive politics. Focuses on reproductive technology and what it means for the feminist movement. Only a short (one sentence) mention of science fiction film.


George, Susan A. “Not Exactly "Of Woman Born": Procreation and Creation in Recent Science Fiction Films (Critical Essay)" Journal of Popular Film and Television. Heldref Publications. Winter, 2001. Quarterly ISSN 0195-6051
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0412/4_28/68741271/p1/article.jhtml
This article examines three films with procreation as a theme: Gattaca, Species, and Mimic. The author discusses how each film reflects society's anxiety about reproductive technology and masculine fear of women's reproductive ability.

Graham, Paula. "Warrior Women and the Horror of Feminism". Version of MA Thesis: University of Sussex, 1993 http://home.clara.net/pgraham/camp/warrior01.htm#toc
An analysis of lesbian sub-text in pop culture. Chapters 2 ("The Horror of Feminism") and 3 ("Science-Fiction and Feminism") deal specifically with the female body in science fiction, as well as the concept of monstrous motherhood.


Horror Planet. Dir. Norman J. Warren. Perf. Jennifer Ashley, Judy Geeson, Barry Houghton.1981. VHS, Jupiter Films, 1983.Horror Planet IMBD page


Progeny. Dir. Brian Yuzna. Perf. Lindsay Crouse, Jillian McWhorter, Arnold Vosloo. 1998 VHS Progeny Films, Inc. Progeny IMDB page


Stonewall, Stephen. "A Womb With A View: Women in Science Fiction" Diverse Universe. Geoff and Miriam September 1, 2003. ISSN print version: 1445 - 0003 ISSN online version: 1445 - 0011
http://spacedoutinc.org/DU-17/WomenInSF.html
A short history of women in science fiction, from ancient mythology to film.


Feminist SFF & Utopia Quick Lists Themes, Characters, Genres and if you like... Lists
A list of titles in science fiction literature by theme. Includes titles with themes of alternative reproduction.

LSU Law Library--Women's Rights and Women's Images in Science Fiction An extensive bibliography of scholarly articles about women in the genre (film, television, and print media), review articles, s/f books by women writers, and more.

The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review
A comprehensive index of science fiction films with short descriptions of plots and links to reviews.

Films with Womb Invasion

Village of the Damned
Village of the Damned (1960)Review
Village of the Damned (1960)IMDB page
Village of the Damned (1995)IMDB page
Village of the Damned (1995)Review
Tag-Team Movie Reviews A debate about the two versions of Village of the Damned.

Demon Seed (1977)
Demon Seed IMDB page
Demon Seed Review

Horror Planet/Inseminoid (1981)
Horror PlanetIMDB page
InseminoidReview of British version


The Astronaut's Wife (1999)
The Astronaut's WifeIMDB page


Progeny (1999)
ProgenyIMDB page


Taken ( TV miniseries, 2002)
TakenIMDB page


Alien Series
Review of Alien
Alien IMDB page
Aliens
Alien 3
Alien: Resurrection

Crossmatch
Crossmatch