Not Exactly “of Woman Born”: Procreation and Creation in Recent Science Fiction Films

Abstract

The rhetoric of women as wombs or mere incubators has circulated in Western culture at least as far back as Aristotle (Zeitlin), and it has re-emerged powerfully in recent abortion discourse regarding “fetal and father's rights” (Bordo 72). As we might expect, this discourse has also entered into our narratives, particularly science fiction texts, which have been preoccupied with creation and procreation ever since Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Recent American science fiction films are heavily invested in these concerns because they so spectacularly intersect with the genre's fundamental subject matter, that is, with science and technology, which represent another sort of creative power–one that these texts have traditionally linked to and placed in masculine rather than feminine hands. From I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958) to Alien 4: Alien Resurrection (1997), who controls procreation and creation, how, and for what purposes have been central issues.