Sex and Tech in “Alien” by Ridley Scott

The Nostromo is a labyrinthine spaceship, a hulking ore refinery run on a sophisticated computer operating system and manned by a crew of seven. But somehow it’s not the most impressive piece of technology in Ridley Scott’s 1979 film "Alien." That distinction belongs to the title character, an organism with blood of acid and two sets of jaws, highly-evolved, adaptable to any climate. Its scientific mission, if you will, is to fulfill a basic biological imperative: to become a parent. Fitting, then, that it chooses to prey on a ship controlled by its own problematic Mother. Just what kind of existential threat does this techno-sexual organism pose to a man-made and sterile future? And how does one woman manage to defeat it? Wes & Erin discuss. 

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Subtext is a book club podcast for readers interested in what the greatest works of the human imagination say about life’s big questions. Each episode, philosopher Wes Alwan and poet Erin O’Luanaigh conduct a close reading of a text or film and co-write an audio essay about it in real time. It’s literary analysis, but in the best sense: we try not overly stuffy and pedantic, but rather focus on unearthing what’s most compelling about great books and movies, and how it is they can touch our lives in such a significant way.