Adam Barkman and Sabina Tokbergenova
What parent doesn’t want the best for their children? Parents try to get the best clothes, food, toys, education, and other essentials for them. Everyone agrees that it is important to meet children’s needs. However, when it comes to the question of the proper way of raising a child, people often have very different opinions. In particular, it is important to know whether or not children should be exposed to violent media. Nowadays, many parents want to limit their children’s exposure to violence, believing it is harmful to them. As we’ll see, though, violence in video games and movies can be beneficial for children, making them mentally tougher and preparing them for a difficult life with stressful situations.
The Greek philosopher Plato (c.349–c.327 BCE) would have agreed that violent media should not be completely avoided. In the Republic, he depicts Socrates as arguing that men and women should take children to war so that they can observe and act as their apprentices.1 Aliens validates Socrates in its depiction of Newt, a perfect example of how violence can shape a child into a strong and rational person.
Before going into the details of how violence was beneficial to Newt, it’s essential to note that the colony in Aliens, Hadley’s Hope, resembles in some ways Socrates’ ideal state. In Republic, Socrates proposes to sketch out an ideal republic, so he can determine what role justice plays in the lives of people. Socrates divides his just society into three classes: the producers, the auxiliaries, and the guardians. The producing class is the largest class in society; it includes all professions other than warriors and rulers. The auxiliaries are warriors, and they are responsible for defending the city from invaders. The guardians are responsible for ruling the city. They are chosen from among the ranks of the auxiliaries, and raised according to a strict program of education that emphasizes physical fitness, honor, and wisdom.
When Socrates imagines his ideal society, the Republic appears isolated, away from the other people who do not belong in the community. In Aliens, Hadley’s Hope colony is on the lonely planet Acheron, isolated from other civilization. Hadley’s Hope colony was fairly small; it consisted of 158 workers (60–70 families) and focused on research and mining. The colony’s main function was ensuring the continued operation and maintenance of the nearby atmosphere processing plant, which made the planetoid’s atmosphere breathable. By processing the planetoid’s atmosphere, they were trying to create a suitable environment for large‐scale human habitation. Sadly, the planet’s surface was an unpleasant place, racked by savage winds and severe storms. The surrounding atmosphere of Acheron was dreary—no trees or flowers to please the eye, only sharp rocks. Although Socrates’ state is not as dispirited as this planet, it still appears to be an unpleasant place to live due to its strict rules. The colonists’ children do not know any other way of living because they were born in the harsh conditions of the planet, just as Socrates’ citizens only know one way of existence according to their class structures. Similar to the citizens of Socrates’ society, the people of Hadley’s Hope have particular roles to play in order to coexist on the bitter planet. Most importantly, in many ways, Newt might represent a child of the guardian class.
Socrates says that male and female auxiliaries should take sturdy children with them to war. These children will be young apprentice guardians; they have to observe and participate in warfare as much as possible.2 Newt resembles an apprentice guardian and Ripley is like her auxiliary supervisor during the battle with the Xenomorphs. Newt always keeps close to Ripley, even when the aliens attack them, and in this way she observes the war like an apprentice guardian. Newt assists the Colonial Marines in fortifying the administration building where she can, helping them carry equipment and move supplies. Although the little girl does not wield a weapon, she manages to stay alive, unlike many of the armed soldiers. Newt is brave enough to face the Xenomorphs and the violence around her when Ripley and the other soldiers are fighting them.
Additionally, Newt is a kind of combatant in the battle. When Ripley and Newt are sleeping inside the colony’s med lab, Carter Burke releases the live Facehuggers before sealing the door to the room. Burke hopes to impregnate the two females to smuggle live Xenomorphs through quarantine and back to Earth. In this terrifying situation, Newt was capable of protecting herself. She was wise to hide under the bed, and when a Facehugger attacked her she was not helpless. She fought it bravely, keeping it at arm’s length. Newt also participates when observing the challenging map of the colony complex along with Ripley and Corporal Hicks. She does not solely depend on adults the way most children do. Rather, she strives to learn the useful information herself, so she can rely on her own knowledge as well.
Part of what makes Newt an excellent apprentice guardian is that she displays reason and intelligence in all of these situations. For example, when Ripley and the soldiers first find her, Newt understands that she’s not safe with them. Most children would have felt safer if they were in the presence of the adults, but Newt wisely realizes that she should not immediately trust them and their ability to protect her. Indeed, Newt’s smarts enable her to not just keep herself alive, but also to protect others. In the final scenes of the movie, she and Ripley are trying to escape the hive after finding the Xenomorph Queen. During this event, Newt warns Ripley of the Xenomorph behind her, saving Ripley’s life. A courageous—indeed, guardian‐like—act, to be sure.
For her part, Ripley is a good guide and attendant for her little apprentice guardian. In Republic, Socrates admits that it can be dangerous for children to observe and participate in war because something could go wrong and they could be hurt or killed. Consequently, these children need auxiliary supervisors. The auxiliary supervisors, in their responsibility for the safety of their children, should know all that can humanly be known about warfare, and they should be able to distinguish risky military ventures from safe ones.3 Ripley qualifies as a great supervisor for these two reasons. She knows a lot about the war with the Xenomorphs, which is why she was taken to Acheron in the first place. She also knows when the military venture is too risky. When the rest of the colonists are tracked to the atmosphere processing plant, Ripley and Newt accompany the Colonial Marines to investigate, remaining inside their APC while the troops move into the building. Ripley observes the HUDs of the troops on the computer inside the APC, and, anticipating something horrible, asks Newt not to look because she anticipates a horrifying view of the cocooned people impregnated with the Chestbursters. Newt’s father was impregnated with a Chestburster and died because of it, so Newt would have reexperienced agonizing memories of her father’s death if she had not looked away. Thus, Ripley recognizes when Newt can handle the situation and when she might be too traumatized by it.
In these situations and others, Ripley protects her young apprentice guardian, thus demonstrating what Socrates would describe as her responsibility for Newt. Yet in so doing, Ripley never disregards Newt as someone who is too small or insignificant, or someone who simply needs to be protected. Ripley—not to mention Corporal Hicks—is aware of Newt’s great survival skills and strength.
Still, Socrates realizes that auxiliary supervisors might not be enough for children’s safety. He suggests that young apprentice guardians should be equipped with the fastest horses so that they could escape if they had to. Even though Newt did not have a horse, she expertly used the ventilation ducts to quickly hide and run away.
Now it’s time to investigate how violence has made Newt mentally tough. It is clear that Newt has gone through a lot on the planet Acheron. She has lost her family and has surreptitiously observed the Xenomorphs by hiding in the extensive ventilation system, building a den near the operation center. By enduring all this violence, Newt has become less sensitive to frightening situations. In fact, she is much calmer than the soldiers around her, and by remaining calm Newt is capable of using her reason to save herself and the others. She was the only one who remained calm in the APC during the Xenomorph attack. After the creatures ambushed the Marines inside the hive, Newt and the survivors escaped the area and planned to evacuate. However, their dropship was destroyed by the Xenomorphs and its crew was killed, stranding the survivors on the dangerous planet. In the aftermath of the crash, everyone panicked except for the little girl. While the adults were screaming in despair, unsure what to do next, Newt was the only one who remained calm and did not give up, telling the survivors that the Xenomorphs mostly came out at night and that they should return to the relative safety of the operations building.
This scene reveals that Newt was the only rationally‐in‐control person during the dreadful situation. When everyone followed Newt’s advice and came back to the operations building, Ripley asked Corporal Hicks how much time they would have to wait until they would get rescued. Upon finding out that they would have to wait seventeen days on Acheron, Private Hudson starts to panic, complaining that they won’t last that long. While Hudson hysterically wastes his time on useless griping and regret, Newt remains composed. This scene proves that mental instability and inability to calm down can be fatal. It is pathetic to see a strong man instantly giving up and breaking down while a little girl sits calmly and tries to think of possible ways to survive. Indeed, Ripley points out that it’s foolish to think that they cannot survive seventeen hours when little Newt survived for many days alone and unarmed.
In real life, many people behave like Hudson when they are faced with stressful situations. Their inability to remain calm and try to solve the problem at hand shows not merely a moment of weakness, but a character framed by mental weakness. This is why it’s important, Plato stresses, to start preparing people for a challenging life from an early age. There is an old folk saying with which Plato would likely agree: “The same boiling water that softens potatoes, hardens eggs. It is all about what you are made of, not your circumstances.” Parents should help their children become strong, so they can face any circumstance in life, as in Aliens when Newt was able to save Ripley and Corporal Hicks by leading them out through the ventilation ducts during a Xenomorph attack at the operations center. Without Newt’s help, Ripley and Hicks would’ve been killed by the Xenomorphs or lost in the ventilation ducts. If Newt did not have the ability to remain calm in desperate and dangerous situations, she could not have found the correct way in the ventilation system—people are rarely capable of thinking rationally when they panic. Indeed, even when the little girl herself is knocked down a shaft by an explosion into the colony’s sewers, she doesn’t panic, but bravely waits for Ripley to save her.
Another benefit of Newt’s experience of horror and violence is that she is not ashamed to admit when she feels scared. She expresses her fears to Ripley in the scene where they are trapped in the medical facility with the Facehuggers. She still remains calm and reasonable when she’s scared, for being afraid is one thing and being controlled by fear is another. Plato would have been proud of Newt because he says that courage does not simply mean fearlessness. Rather, courage is a sort of retention of what reason dictates. To put it another way, courage is the ability to “retain under all circumstances a true and lawful notion about what is and is not to be feared.”4 For example, it is better not to fear death as much as one fears being a coward. Courage involves keeping this disposition intact and not losing it whether one is experiencing pain or pleasure. Newt is under the influence of pain (danger) in this particular scene; however, she keeps intact her knowledge of what she must really fear, thus remaining calm and reasonable. She likely understands that she must really be afraid of panicking because panic often causes wildly unthinking behavior, which is never helpful. Consequently, courage helps Newt endure obstacles and not fear death. Newt admits her fear, but she is still courageous because she is confident in the face of fear.
Furthermore, exposure to violence has gifted Newt with quick reactions. When Ripley orders her to run, fight, or hide, Newt is quick to obey. For example, in the scene where the second dropship (with Newt, Ripley, Hicks, and Bishop) lands back aboard the Sulaco, the Xenomorph Queen is revealed to have stowed away in the dropship’s landing gear and moves towards Newt to attack her. Ripley orders Newt to run, and she quickly follows her command by hiding beneath the floor grating in the Sulaco’s hangar bay. Had Newt frozen in horror, she would have died. It is vital for children to have quick reactions like Newt because it is possible that they may find themselves one day in a life‐threatening situation. For example, if there is a fire in the child’s house, or an angry dog gives them chase, it’s important that the child listen to their parents’ orders and act quickly. Otherwise, it could be fatal for them. It is conceivable, then, that violent movies and video games make children less prone to be scared in dangerous circumstances, and, if this is true, they would more likely survive the threat instead of freezing in terror.
Of course, there are many parents who prohibit all forms of violent media for their children. They might claim that they fear their child might imitate cartoon or movie violence and behave aggressively. While it is true that children can learn aggressive behavior from television, many psychologists would agree with Plato that parents (or the child’s guardians) have tremendous power to moderate that influence. Parents should play games and watch movies and the news with their children. For school‐age kids and teenagers, parents should use these times as an opportunity to talk with them about their reactions to what they see on TV, the impact on them, and whether they get scared after playing or watching media. It’s good to start such discussions early in a child’s life and keep an ongoing, open dialogue about these issues. People shouldn’t be afraid of on‐screen violence, but rather of not talking about it with their children. The key to preventing children from imitating a violent behavior is to teach them about the meaning of the messages put out by the media: that is, parents should define the difference between violence in reality and violence in video games or films. As long as children can differentiate the violence portrayed in media from violence in real life, they are less likely to imitate negative, aggressive behavior. Indeed, sooner or later a child will be exposed to violent media anyway, because nearly all contemporary movies and many TV shows depict violence of some sort. Thus, it’s better to talk with children about it from an early age, before they draw poor interpretations of the violence.
In response, however, critics of exposure to violence may argue that violence in movies or video games can be traumatizing for children, who may become fearful of the world around them. The solution to this problem is for parents and guardians to act like the auxiliary supervisors in Plato’s Republic. Just as auxiliary or guardian supervisors are able to distinguish risky military ventures from safe ones, parents should know when the game or movie is too violent or scary for their child’s age. And this leads to our final question, namely, whether or not you should allow your child to watch Aliens.
We think that a reasonable amount of screen violence, including watching Aliens, can cause children to become mentally tougher and so make it easier for them to deal with stressful situations. It is not right to completely shelter a child, even a relatively young child, from media violence. If we live in dangerous situations, then we should want our children to be like the brave and temperate girl Newt. Yes, Newt eventually dies when her ship crashes into the sea and her cryo‐chamber is flooded. Yet Newt, and our children and their children as well, will certainly survive longer and enjoy a more rational life with some training in, and exposure to, violence rather than a policy of total protection. In this way, Plato’s argument from two and a half millennia ago is still valid today.