Voss Caltrez said:
Good point.
Also, the character of Ripley could also be accused of “pushing an agenda” since the lone voice of reason is a woman, arguing against a majority of stupid men.
Mocata said:
Yes, also to further the subtext that she is the mother and they are children.
The difference being in the case of Ripley is that the male characters aren’t shown as normal male characters that are dumbed down to make her stand out. Instead there are some actually dumb ones (that are essentially stereotyped grease monkeys) and there are smart and capable ones that work alongside Ripley in Alien to operate the mining vessel and later attempt to contain the alien. There’s a range of character strengths on display and her’s is just logically shown to be one of the strongest and most resourceful (and lucky at times) which earns her the right to be a strong female character amongst strong male characters. This is how gender equality is achieved - through the lack of inequality, not male characters purposefully written to bolster poorly written female characters and in doing so, making it clear an agenda is being pushed through the movie which can very easily take you out of it.
Edit: I think in Aliens it definitely can be seen more as a lone woman arguing against a sea of men that don’t try to understand and take advantage of her. Looking retrospectively at it in that light you can definitely see a topic of gender inequality being pushed in the movie, however in simply absorbing the movie as it rolls on this isn’t apparent, instead just seeming as if the men are the usual big company or military stereotypes that you wouldn’t expect to really give much credence to a lone civilian whether they are female or male.
And it that lays the example of how to do it right. The political issue is left to be discovered afterwards by means of critical analysis and introspection rather than the movie breaking the 4th wall to tell you directly about animal rights, capitalism and gender inequality as TLJ does and is so on the nose about it.
Val