Monstrous Children in the Films of Ridley Scott
Colin Yeo
Published anonymously in 1818, Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus is a landmark text that addresses the possibility of creating artificial life and the repercussions of these actions. Since its publication in the nineteenth century, Shelley’s text has continued to garner critical attention. Studies have often read the character of the Monster as the “son” of Victor Frankenstein. This “father-son” relationship between Frankenstein and his Monster, along with the subject of creating artificial life, are themes that also persist in Ridley Scott’s science fiction film oeuvre. From Alien (1979) to Blade Runner (1983) and Prometheus (2012), Scott’s films feature patriarchal characters who are analogues of Victor Frankenstein: masculine, technologically savvy individuals, who, like Frankenstein, are responsible for the creation of artificial offspring. Like Shelley’s Monster, the artificial children represented in these films have one thing in common. These children cause their creators’ deaths. In destroying their fathers, these children can be aligned with an evil moral positioning, allowing for a reading of these children as “monstrous.” In this essay, I propose a different reading of these children’s patricidal traits. While the act of destroying their creators might be construed as heinous, from the point of view of the audience, these monstrous children can be read as morally ambivalent. In destroying their fathers, they end the oppressive patriarchal order depicted in these films, an order that is synonymous with technological power. Unlike the tragic Victor Frankenstein, the creators of these monstrous children are cast as tyrannical characters possessed by hubris. By destroying their creators, these children serve as a rectifying force, counterbalancing their creators’ hubris. These monstrous children can be read as “monstrous” as they destroy their paternal figures, but their actions resist classification as evil by virtue of the fact that they act as a retributive force. These children are cast as neither evil nor good, but rather as occupying a liminal space between these two moral positions.
Before engaging in my analysis of these three film texts, I want to first outline the parameters of what the concepts of “child” and “monster” entail in the context of this essay. As outlined in the introduction to this volume, the concept of “childness” has many definitions and interpretations. The character of Shelley’s Monster offers a template for my reading of the child in light of “childness.” The characters Roy Batty, the Xenomorph and David from these films can be regarded as children in the same way that the Monster is regarded as a child of Victor Frankenstein. Harold Bloom remarks, for example, that the Monster’s exclusion from the world of man gives it the characteristic of an “abandoned child.” 1 Similarly, Elisabeth Bronfen remarks that Victor Frankenstein’s downfall stems from the fact that he fails to accept the Monster as his child. 2 The relationship that exists between Frankenstein and his creation can be extrapolated in an analysis of the representation of the child in Alien , Blade Runner and Prometheus . These children are artificial creations that are produced by their fathers. Like the Monster, David and Batty are artificial human beings, androids, who, unlike Frankenstein, are acknowledged by their respective creators as sons. The android David is said to be the “closest thing to a son” that his creator Peter Weyland has, and similarly, Batty’s creator Tyrell calls him a “prodigal son.” As the creators of the Xenomorph’s eggs, the masculine looking Engineers seen in Prometheus can be equated as the Xenomorphs’s father figure(s). The eggs are the artificial products of the Engineers’ experiments in creating life, much like Weyland and Tyrell’s attempts to create artificial human beings. These children are created , rather than birthed . In this respect, my essay displays a departure from the paradigms established in the two essays in this volume by Brooke Edge and Kristine Larsen. While their essays utilize primarily maternal figures as a starting point for their inquiries, mine addresses the role of the paternal in the creation of artificial life in the creation of children in these films.
The definition of “monstrous” for these children can be broken into two separate categories. The first is that of unnaturalness. A common defining trait of the monstrous is the alignment of monstrosity with the unnatural. In the simplest sense, as artificial creations, these children can be classified as “unnatural” and hence as monsters. The “natural,” in this regard, can be read in two ways. The first is in terms of the “natural” process of childbirth , a process that is subverted in the creation of these children. The Xenomorph from Alien is birthed from a host regardless of its host’s gender. The androids in Prometheus and Blade Runner are artificial creations that are likened to items in a production line by their creators. The second way in which the concept of “natural” can be read is the utilization of the human condition as a baseline for what is “natural.” In other words, these children are unnatural because they are not human . Recognizing the Xenomorph’s abilities, the character Ash lauds the Xenomorph as epitomizing perfection. For Ash, the Xenomorph’s only flaw is that it has a hostile streak. The Xenomorph is a primal force that has no knowledge or awareness of the concepts of good or evil, and as the Android Ash states, it is an organism that is unclouded by “delusions of morality.” The Xenomorph is possessed of pure instinct, rendering a moralizing conscience as void. 3 This is what defines the Xenomorph as unnatural and thus monstrous. The absence of a capacity for reason and morality are characteristics that define what it means to be human and, lacking these, allows it to be read as monstrous. The character David from Prometheus is regarded as not human by his creator, and his unnaturalness is acknowledged by Weyland:
His name is David, and he is the closest thing to a son I will ever have. Unfortunately, he is, he is not human. He will never grow old, and he will never die. And yet he is unable to appreciate these remarkable gifts, for that will require the one thing that David will never have—a soul.
Weyland regards David’s creation as unnatural since to him, David is bereft of a soul. To be human, for Weyland, is to age and to die. Therefore, because David cannot age and die, he is classified as unnatural and non-human by his creator. Tyrell’s androids from Blade Runner , however, are built with a life span. Their unnaturalness stems from the fact that they possess physical attributes that surpass ordinary humans. For example, Roy Batty is seen to have a resistance to extreme cold, and has the strength to punch through a brick wall. To recap, the “children” featured in these three films are thus not children in the strictest sense, but share a symbolic son to father relationship with their creators. These children are created in ways that are independent of natural birth processes. They are monstrous because they are unnatural creations. These children resemble human beings but have traits that designate them as different from humans.
Despite resembling ordinary humans, the characters of the Xenomorph, Roy Batty and David have attributes that surpass the ordinary. The second definition of “monstrous” has to do with behavior. In addition to their unnaturalness, these children can be regarded as monstrous because of their patricidal inclinations. Like Frankenstein’s monster, the Oedipal impulses displayed by these children allow them to be coded as monstrous. In her essay “The Queer Ethics of Monstrosity,” Patricia MacCormack suggests that “[t]hus monstrosity, in its final definition as the simple turbulence that collides or harmonizes with the fluidity of our own selves, is nothing more than a wondrous possible in all things that requires not the monster as entity, but monstrous encounter ” 4 (italics added for emphasis).
MacCormack raises the idea of an encounter, or an occurrence that contributes towards the definition of the monstrous. The “occurrence” in these texts, I suggest, is the act of patricide. The first of these children, the Xenomorph, is birthed by bursting out of its host’s chest, a process that destroys its host. Similarly, the androids in Blade Runner and Prometheus destroy their fathers in an act of violence. Like the Xenomorph, Blade Runner ’s Roy Batty kills his father in a show of physical violence. Batty confronts his creator Eldon Tyrell and asks that Tyrell extend his lifespan. After realizing that Tyrell cannot help him, he gouges Tyrell’s eyes out in a symbolic, Oedipal gesture. Batty’s act is horrifying. A shot of Tyrell screaming in pain is visible, with blood streaming down Tyrell’s face. This graphic display of violence characterizes Batty as a monster, one who brings death, specifically to the one who created him. While Batty’s killing of Tyrell is undertaken in a direct manner, the android David from Prometheus is responsible for the death of his creator in an indirect manner. David is initially characterized as completely subservient to his creator Weyland, but an exchange between David and the character Shaw reveals a darker side to his character:
Shaw: What happens when Weyland isn’t around to program you anymore?
David: I suppose I’d be free.
Shaw: You want that?
David: Want. Not a concept I’m familiar with. That being said, doesn’t everybody want their parents dead?
This conversation between Shaw and David hints at a darker side to the android’s personality. His casual, matter-of-fact tone betrays his patricidal impulse. This exchange is carried out behind Weyland’s back with an element of subtlety as wanting Weyland dead would not be something David would openly admit in front of his father. David, in addition to the Xenomorph and Roy Batty, is therefore another one of the “children” depicted in Scott’s films who causes the death of his father. This patricidal impulse, I propose, allows these characters to be classified as monstrous. By destroying their parents, these children violate a fundamental moral positioning, allowing them to be read as monstrous. By destroying their creators, and in several instances other individuals as well, these children become monsters, patricidal creations who, in the words of the character David, “want their parents dead.” The phrase “want” designates a sense of culpability, and as the characters David and Batty are directly responsible for the deaths of their creators, the notion of intent makes their actions morally objectionable, and therefore evil. Batty, for example, has been outlined by critics as resembling Satan, a reading that underscores Batty’s revolt against his maker and the morally objectionable act of patricide. For Desser, Batty’s designation as an analogue with Satan has precedents in Shelley’s Frankenstein , and earlier in Milton’s Paradise Lost . 5 Patricidal intent is also a characteristic of Prometheus ’s David, and his actions in bringing about the death of his creator are suggestive of a characteristic of ambiguous morality. From the point of view of the audience, these characters are read as the “villains” of each text, monstrous children who cause their creators’ deaths. But as the characterization of David hints at, the relationship between creator and child is not a straightforward one. While these children might be denigrated for their patricidal streaks, their fathers are not portrayed as one-dimensional victims. This is because these father figures are often associated with oppression and tyranny. Patricide, in these cases, can be seen as a necessary evil that serves to disrupt the overbearing nature of masculine oriented power in these texts.
The father figures featured in these films are cast as hubristic individuals who wield a considerable amount of power. The characters Tyrell and Peter Weyland are aligned with the divine, evoking their hubristic strive for power. Power, in their case, is associated with patriarchy. Their destruction at the hands of their children allows for another reading of these monstrous children, a departure from the negative reading I have posited earlier. Because of the fact that their fathers are portrayed as hubristic, these children’s revolt against the patriarchal forces that created them allows them to be read as a retributive force. In a world that is dominated by patriarchy, these children balance out their fathers’ hubris by destroying them. In doing this, these children occupy a liminal space between good and evil. They are “evil” in that they destroy their fathers, but are also “good” in that they counteract their fathers’ acts of hubris.
While the paternal characters featured in these films are synonymous with the act of creation, they do not conform to the one dimensional, stereotypical filmic convention of the “mad scientist” a la Colin Clive’s Henry Frankenstein. Instead, these characters’ mastery of technology is regarded as being analogous with the divine. Rather than the biological conception of the child via the mother, or Eve figure, the father figure in these texts attempts to invoke the generative power associated with gods. The Engineers, the creators of the Xenomorphs, are equated with the divine. A series of cave paintings on Earth discovered by the protagonists of Prometheus indicates that the Engineers are believed to have visited primitive civilizations in Earth’s past, and were worshipped as gods. The Engineers’ human counterparts are the characters Peter Weyland and Eldon Tyrell, characters who are also aligned with the divine. Weyland’s success in creating artificial life that is “indistinguishable” from ordinary humans leads him to develop a god complex, equating himself with the mythological Titan Prometheus. The viral campaign of Prometheus features a faux TED talk by the character of Weyland, who delivers the following address as part of his TED speech: “At this moment in our civilization, we can create cybernetic individuals who, in just a few short years, will be completely indistinguishable from us. Which leads to an obvious conclusion: We are the gods now.” 6 Despite using the plural form in his address, the characterization of Weyland indicates that the equation of technology with godhood is an analogy that Weyland applies to himself. His self-assigned association with godhood underscores his arrogance. His haughty declarations and their hubristic implications exemplify the transgressive nature of his technological dominance. Like the Engineers and Peter Weyland, Blade Runner ’s Tyrell is portrayed as a godlike figure. When we first meet Tyrell in his office, his deification is symbolized by the bright color scheme used in this sequence. Batty’s remark about the “god of biomechanics” letting Tyrell into heaven is another marker of how Tyrell’s power is associated with the divine. As a wielder of divine power, Tyrell acknowledges Batty by calling him the “prodigal son.” 7 These father figures’ ability to create artificial life thus aligns their power with the divine. In associating these father figures with divinity, Scott sets them up as patriarchs who display a streak of hubris. The consequence of this extension of power into the realm of the divine is the breaking of an unspoken taboo. These actions thus warrant a retributive force that acts against their transgressions, a force that results in their demise.
As another form of hubris, the technologically determined patriarchal order in Scott’s science fiction narratives asserts its control over a natural process that cannot be accorded to the male gender. In these texts, the process of creating artificial life displaces the role of the mother. Ian Barnes addresses the appropriation and subversion of the feminine in the role of reproduction in his article on cinematic iterations of the Frankenstein story. Barnes outlines that this uprooting of the female in the act of reproduction is rooted in Victor Frankenstein’s “psychosexual” ambition:
A related feminist variant of this reading of the Frankenstein narrative interprets Victor’s monstrous creation as a metaphor for his (and modern science’s) unacknowledged psychosexual ambition to establish a masculinist domination over nature through technology which displaces both females from reproduction and subjectivity and femininity from nature through the reconstruction of nature in mechanistic and objectivist terms. 8
Like Victor Frankenstein, the scientists Eldon Tyrel and Peter Weyland and the alien Engineers symbolize the persistence of this masculinist domination over natural reproductive processes. In their hubris, in their attempts to attain godhood, these fathers commit the ultimate transgression. This is an attempt to subvert death itself. As Gena Corea addresses in her essay on cloning, patriarchy’s control over life and death can be realized via reproductive technologies:
The cycle of birth, growth, and death in nature, a cycle venerated in the Goddess religion and epitomized by a woman bearing a child is one against which patriarchal man has long railed. He does not want to die…. His desire to control birth through the reproductive technologies, then, is also a desire to control death. 9
These texts question patriarchy and foreground the implications of the control of life and death by a male dominated order. If there is an underlying message that is consistent in these three films, it is the severe ramifications of this element of masculine control over a process that is naturally allocated to the female gender. On the part of these father figures, this critical oversight results in a false sense of security that is a consequence of the compelling ramifications of bypassing the role of the feminine in the act of reproduction.
In her introduction to The Mother Machine , Corea proposes that “Reproductive technology is a product of the male reality. The values expressed in the technology—objectification, domination—are typical of the male culture. The technology is male-generated and buttresses male power over women.” 10 While the masculine is privileged with power in these films, a dual dialectic of masculine power arises. While technologically determined patriarchal power is a display of mastery over the creation of artificial life, it is paradoxically undermined by an inability to reign in these monstrous children and maintain some semblance of control over them. The technological displacement of the maternal in Scott’s films ultimately has the unintended consequence of self-destruction, as these fathers are destroyed by their own creations. Technology has had a tradition of being associated with the male gender. The pervasiveness of male centric power, as depicted in these films, can be described as hegemonic. Connell and Messerschmidt’s essay on “hegemonic masculinities” addresses the complex nature of masculine power, such as the challenges associated with male power and the relationship dynamics of male power with female agency. In the section “The Dynamics of Masculinities,” they propose that hegemonic masculinities involve division and emotional conflict due to their association with gendered power. 11 The child’s relationship with the father, they propose, is a “likely focus of tension” that arises from the inscription of hegemonic masculine power. This conflict between father and son is what arises in these films. Here, the monstrous child’s patricidal streak is framed as a reactionary force to the oppressive nature of patriarchal regimes. In her study on cyberbodies in films, Claudia Springer proposes: “In a world without human bodies, the films tell us, technological things will be gendered and there will still be patriarchal hierarchy. What this reconfiguration of masculinity indicates is that patriarchy is more willing to dispense with human life than with male superiority.” 12
Patriarchal order, especially in the films Alien and Prometheus, epitomizes the gendered nature of technology. This manifests as a willingness to exert power without regard to the costs or repercussions. Peter Weyland’s corporation is responsible for the destruction of Ripley’s crew, all for the sake of acquiring the Xenomorph. The human crew of the Nostromo is regarded as “expendable” to the corporation, exemplifying the willingness of patriarchal forces to sacrifice even human lives in the name of science and technological advancement.
From the landmark Alien in 1979, to Blade Runner in 1982, and Prometheus in 2012, themes of technology, patriarchy, and the monstrous child are powerfully grappled with. Vacillating between hero and villain, perfection and destruction, the monstrous children in the science fiction films of Ridley Scott defy attempts at categorization. In Alien and Prometheus, however, we witness the emergence of a counterpoint to the overbearing patriarchal order represented by the Weyland Corporation. This is the representation of female agency in the characters Ripley (Alien ) and Shaw (Prometheus ). Ripley and Shaw outlive their crews, and symbolize tenacity and rationalism in a world that is governed by hubristic patriarchs. They are characters who literally have the last word in these texts. Their electronic journal logs are recited as voice-overs at the close of Alien and Prometheus . Both characters are made to suffer the consequences of patriarchy’s hubris, but eventually overcome the destruction wrought by the monstrous children present in these texts. The survival of these characters underscores the role of the feminine. Ironically, Ripley and Shaw are mothers themselves, and they are the ones who survive. In the sequel to Alien , we discover that Ripley is a mother. Prometheus’s Shaw is impregnated with a foreign fetus, but successfully extracts it in a caesarean section. These films thus place an onus on feminine oriented reproduction rather than artificial reproductive methods. If there is an underlying moral message that is consistent in these three films, it is the severe ramifications of this element of control over a process that is allocated to the female gender. Man’s technological prowess is always aligned with the masculine, and in particular, male oriented power that oppresses female agency. The creation of monstrous children thus results from the hubristic actions of male power. By destroying their fathers, these monstrous offspring balance out their fathers’ attempts at attaining godhood, highlighting the flaws of masculine technological determinism. In both Alien and Prometheus , these female characters are presented as cautious, placed in direct opposition with the recklessness of male characters. The survival of feminine characters suggests that patriarchy lacks certain traits such as rationality and humility, traits that are essential to the survival of man. If these films envision patriarchy as oppressive and tyrannical, the persistence of patriarchal forces they represent is counterbalanced by their female characters, characters who display the requisite characteristics and traits needed to survive in a technologically advanced world.
In these films, the heedlessness of Shelley’s Frankenstein resurfaces time and time again, and the patricidal behavior of the monstrous children in these films serves as a warning. This warning is that the potentialities and repercussions of being able to create artificial life should not be taken lightly. Such an act carries with it the notion of transgression, and these fathers’ deaths at the hands of their children can be read as the consequence of their fathers’ hubris. In Ridley Scott’s science fiction universe, the Xenomorph, the David android and Roy Batty are products of a technologically advanced patriarchal order. These texts can be read as Frankensteinian analogs, texts that eschew the perceived arrogance that goes hand in hand with technological prowess. Technological determinism in these films carries with it the notion of transgression, and these fathers’ deaths at the hands of their children can be read as the consequence of their hubris. As such, the act of patricide in these texts is one that is morally ambivalent. These fathers’ hubris results in their deaths at the hands of their offspring. The act of murder, in these cases, can be read as a reaction to the overreaching aspirations of patriarchal power. The children via their acts are monstrous in that they destroy their fathers, but in this, they bring an end to the dominance of oppressive patriarchy in these texts. These children can be regarded as neither good nor evil, but straddling both moral positions, indicative of what this volume terms “monstrous childness.” The character who exemplifies this ambiguity is the Xenomorph. But for the Xenomorph child, the Alien differs from Batty and David in that it is a creature that is devoid of intent. The character Ash describes the creature as one that is “unclouded” by conscience or morality. The primal Xenomorph is incapable of grasping the concept of morality, and unlike Batty and David, acts on pure instinct. Its destruction of its hosts is an imperative, as the body of the Xenomorph’s father is presented as literal confining structures. The Xenomorph can therefore be regarded as a morally ambiguous creature, one that acts in consistency with Karen Renner’s concept of the “Feral Child.” Renner proposes that the feral child’s defining feature is that the child’s “appetites and beliefs” supersede notions of morality and empathy, and the actions of the Xenomorph are in concordance with this. 13 The Xenomorph is possessed of pure instinct, rendering a moralizing conscience void. 14 After developing her concept of the feral and the possessed child, Renner subsequently questions the social factors behind the creation of these children. She proposes that these children can be read as products of a “faulty family or society,” bringing into question the greater picture of whether or not these children be considered evil when placed against the forces that are responsible for their creation. 15 Ultimately, these children are the products of the indiscriminate wielding of technological prowess. Creation, Scott’s films remind us, can be self destructive if it is not tempered with an element of restraint.
1. Martin Tropp “The Monster,” in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein , edited by Harold Bloom (New York: Chelsea House, 2007), 24.
2. Elisabeth Bronfen, “Rewriting the Family: Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” in Frankenstein, Creation and Monstrosity , ed. Steven Bann (London: Reaktion Books, 1994), 33.
3. Sydney Palmer, “Virginity in Alien: The Essence of Ripley’s Survival,” in The Culture and Philosophy of Ridley Scott , eds. Adam Barkman, Ashley Barkman, Nancy Kang (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2013), 270.
4. Patricia MacCormack, “The Queer Ethics of Monstrosity,” in Speaking of Monsters: A Teratological Anthology , eds. Caroline Joan S. Picart and John Edgar Browning (London: Palgrave Macmillian, 2012), 264.
5. David Desser, “The New Eve: The Influence of Paradise Lost and Frankenstein on Blade Runner,” in Retrofitting Blade Runner: Issues in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, ed. Judith Kerman, (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1997).
6. http://www.weylandindustries.com/tedtalk.
7. Sharon Gravett, “The sacred and the profane: Examining the religious subtext of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner,” in Literature/Film Quarterly , vol. 26, no. 1 (1998).
8. Ian Barns, “Monstrous nature or technology?: Cinematic Resolutions of the ‘Frankenstein Problem,’” Science As Culture vol. 9, no. 1 (1990): 16.
9. Gena Corea, The Mother Machine (New York: Perennial Library, 1985), 262–263.
10. Corea, 4.
11. R.W. Cornell and James C. Messerschmidt, “Hegemonic Masculinity: Rethinking the Concept,” Gender Society 19 (2005): 852.
12. Claudia Springer, “The Pleasure Of the Interface,” in Cybersexualities: A Reader On Feminist Theory, Cyborgs and Cyberspace , ed. J. Wolmark (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999), 48–49.
13. Karen J. Renner, “Evil Children in Film and Literature II: Notes Towards a Taxonomy,” Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory 22, no. 3, (2011): 183.
14. Sydney Palmer, “Virginity in Alien: The Essence of Ripley’s Survival,” in The Culture and Philosophy of Ridley Scott , ed. Adam Barkman, Ashley Barkman, Nancy Kang, (Maryland: Lexington Books, 2013), 270.
15. Renner, 188.