ALF (bachelorhood) (Fenzel)
On the streets of Iraq, the faces of insurgents targeting U.S. soldiers and Iraqi policemen are young and male. From Haiti to the scattered hideouts of Al Qaeda, from Afghanistan to the occupied Palestinian territories, the age demographic of rebellion and terror is remarkably similar. Young men – out of school, out of work and charged with hatred – are the lifeblood of deadly conflict.
- Richard P. Cincotta and Robert Engelman, “Conflict thrives where young men are many: Demographics of Discord,” International Herald Tribune, March 2, 2004
Meanwhile, three or four decades from now, after they’re done sifting grist and are good and drunk, ALF will give those film students plenty more to talk about. For ALF stood in for an entirely different alien threat to American suburban bourgeoise life: in a world of nuclear families, perfect marriages, and spunky kids with bowl and/or hockey cuts, squat, furry Gordon Shumway was the dangerous, the unpredictable, the foreign, the “other” – the bachelor.
In the 80s, the Boomers were just getting into their heyday of raising kids. In my corner of suburbia, let me tell you, married and unmarried people did not mix. Partly it was because unmarried people couldn’t or wouldn’t get themselves mortgages. Partly it was, in the reactionary era of Reagan, Americans leaving behind the ERA, rapidly resegregating their urban areas, and hunkering back down against the Communists, rediscovering wholesome values was once more presented as our only hope against instant annihilation. Obsessing about protecting children from unlikely threats became, and remains, the national sport. (Who doubts that, were Alf alive today, PBUH, the frothing parental masses would insist he ended up, entirely without cause, on some sort of draconian national sex offender registry? IT ISN’T DYSTOPIAN WHEN IT’S FOR THE CHILDREN!)
It was the era that brought you the childproof medicine bottle, firmly shifting the balance of power away from those with headaches to those irrationally terrified by their toddlers’ imagined ability to climb to the top shelves of cabinet. It was the decade when the 60s generation gave up fighting the status quo, traveled to the West and took the Grey Ships to J.C. Penny. It’s an era that is not yet entirely over. And why? Because the biggest segment in the U.S. population got married, and they got families.
Most revolution comes at times of demographic change, and that one of the most common correlations with revolution is a surge in the population of people without their own homes and families (either because of population distribution or the inability to support them). In a world where corporations are struggling to replace “Give Peace a Chance” with “Try Lemon Fresh Pine-Sol,” someone who doesn’t have a floor to mop is dangerous. No one is freer to upend the social order than someone with nothing to lose . . .
In suburbia, unmarried men are aliens. Sometimes society tries to band together and find him a wife, but if no such option is on the table, the bachelor quickly becomes “the other,” much like the ostracized woman who doesn’t want a husband, or, God forbid, those who have to deal with the great mass of people’s delusional madness with regards to persecuting the LGBT contingent.
And of course, by way of marginalization, when “the other” isn’t being a threat to everything you hold sacred, he’s busy with zany antics showing how unfit he is to be a father (but is this clip entirely without a political message? Alf showing the flimsy powerlessness of the Missile Man? You be the judge):
Dyed-in-the-cloth bachelors are not welcome in suburbia, and when unmarried men show up, they are either totally immasculated, quickly married off, or locked in the basement.
And Alf is the quintessential representation of indefinite bachelorhood. The stereotypes are all there. He’s not a homeowner. He’s hairy, sloppy and underemployed. He eats what he likes, and, unlike “human” males, he makes his own meals. He’s nice to kids, but you get a vague sense he shouldn’t be around them. He’s smarmy, affable and never quite understands why people like him, but won’t accept him. And he’s always chasing pussy.
“were Alf alive today”
Did I miss something? Like a heartbreaking series finale perhaps?
Awesome post.
“Overthinking it” is right.
I hope this is a put-on, but i’m terribly afraid it isn’t.
Of all of these exigeses, the most ludicrous is the one of “Alien”.
Ripley was originally male in the script.
Sigourney Weaver was just so good that they cast her as Ripley, with no real changes in script. (Likelou Gossett in “An Officer and a Gentleman”, a part written assuming the actor would be white.)
A small mistake: Ripley does have sex with the prison’s doctor in Alien 3…
Star Trek: First Contact
The Borg as AIDS (or any virus, for that matter).
Do not forget about Enemy Mine. It may have taken place 100 or so years in the future, but the movie was clearly about racism. Jerry may have been a Drak, but come on, he was really black. Not only are the Draks used as slaves, but Jerry is portrayed by Lou Gossett Jr.
Great movie.
@Chris — speaking of AIDS, have you seen our article on Ghostbusters 2 and the HIV Virus?
http://www.overthinkingit.com/2009/06/12/and-the-ghosts-busted-on-ghostbusters-and-the-aids-crisis/
Predator as an ANTI-hunting film. Think about it–many of the animals we hunt for sport lack sufficient color definition, so that we can wear day-glo overalls and yet somehow melt into the background. Its weaponry is vastly superior to our own, yet it pursues those with the biggest ‘guns’, because they might just pose a threat. It even records the sounds the prey makes, and repeats them when it wants to attract other prey (a duck call). Predator 2 reinforces this view, with the alien allowing the pregnant cop to go free–wouldn’t want to screw up future gaming stock. In short, it’s about how fundamentally unfair the current state of game hunting is. At the same time, though–an animal can get in one lucky shot every now and then, and turn the tables.
You mentioned you haven’t seen Alien: Resurrection. Too bad, your breakdown of the sexuality of the aliens would’ve benefitted a lot from that movie, since it’s the most obvious deconstruction of sex and femininity in the series.
Actually, Ripley had a child on earth who was awaiting her return from the voyage of the Nostromo in the first film. In the second movie, she finds out that her daughter has died of complications from old age while she was in hibernation, which is what makes her adoption of Newt at the colony in Aliens so touching, and is what makes her plight in Alien 3 and 4 take on deeper weight.
Seriously, I get the joke you’re trying to make about woman parts, but your research is severely lacking. If you’re going to really be “overthinking it”, you really need to be “minimally researching it” at the same time.
The Jaffa in Stargate as a metaphor for slavery and oppression. While it would be easy to say they represent black slaves only, simply because Teal’c was black, a deeper examination reveals that they work on many different levels: The American Revolution, the Hebrew Exodus from Egypt, the European resistance against the Nazi regime, and most of all the modern struggles of Iraqis against Saddam Hussein/Afghanis against the Taliban. This last possibility is even more intriguing if you consider that the goa’uld are recognizable as middle eastern to a Western audience (deserts, pyramid ships) and that the Jaffa receive aid from the modern US Air Force in their fight against their ancient oppressors.
Hah, the alien one was funny :P Comparing abortion of a sub-sentient alien killing machine that will murder you in the birthing to abortion of a sentient being with rights of its own is a bit iffy, but the rest of the article was pretty funny and yes, I think everyone’s noticed the facehugger’s rather suggestive mouth parts :D
Oh and to Timothy Toner; that could very well be seen as the purpose of predator. If so, however, it (and your own comments) are pretty heavily flawed. First and foremost because we kill animals to survive, and it is undeniably more humane to hunt than to raise livestock. Livestock are seen as a necessity for modern society, but the lives of the animals themselves are horrible and unnatural, and no doubt confusing and distressing for them as well, to whatever degree they experience such emotions. Being hunted down and killed, however, is the fate that practically every herbivore can expect in its old age, if it manages to make it that far first. It is natural; even hunting by humans with weaponry has been going on long enough to easily be called natural. Every deer or pig or whatever you hunt and kill is one less animal that has to be subjected to the highly unpleasant situation of being held as livestock. Hunting and fishing for your own protein is about the most nature friendly thing a person could do. Not to mention the fact that hunters, hunting organizations, and fees upon hunters do more than every single eco-organization on the face of the Earth to protect wildlife and improve or re-habilitate habitats. The day PETA (those dog murdering hypocrites) and their pals manage to ban hunting is the day American wildlife and wildlife habitats start the march for their graves. About the only space your folks haven’t turned into shopping malls and salons is the space my folks have bought and turned into preserves and conservation land.
So please, calm down the whole anti-hunting thing. It is one of the most brazenly uneducated and hypocritical arguments in history. There’s only one humane way to procure meat and it sure isn’t from the grocery store :P
I’m going to go out on a limb and say the Predator films are pretty pro-Predator. The Predator’s chief trait is that he’s totally awesome. His secondary trait is that he’s an alien. Killing people is a distant third, and most of the people who die in Predator movies are pretty annoying and kind of ask for it.
AVP supports this thesis.
As for AVP:R, if you saw it, tell me what it’s like, because I am amazed at your courage and initiative.
I think Predator comments more on colonialism rather than anti-hunting. You’ve got a technologically superior force invading and reaping trophies from a third-world, tropical landscape while massacring the natives, who in spite of their noble efforts to fight back with their primitive weapons just don’t stand a chance. Various nations have appeared as colonial forces throughout history such as the English, French and, oh, Dutch.
Pete- While I know that AVP and and Predator technically share a franchise, don’t you think it’s rather cruel to relate them like that? It’s like garnishing a Christmas ham with Spam and Baco-bits.
I agree with Timothy Toner.
Bob: In this day and age of technology, hunting is an act of cowardice – using advanced weaponry to kill defenseless nonhumans. If you hunters are such heroes, try “hunting” with no weaponry. Yeah, I thought not.