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I was seeing “Noah Hawley talking about class in the new show is “woke culture”, “it’s just about an alien” all over the internet, and it is really baffling to me.

I want to reach out and touch that Rubin guy on his shoulder and say “no baby no” and delete the tweet for him.

It doesn’t make sense people could be fans of this universe and miss the subtext or pretty obvious narrative and what it’s trying to say. Did they watch the films? All 6 films and the Alien: Isolation game are EXPLICITLY about the military-industrial complex using human lives as pawns. It’s about greed. It’s about capitalism. It’s about labor exploitation (THE SHARES? Riiiiiiight). It’s about sex and gender politics. It’s right in your face.

What’s more, no one seems to be “shoehorning woke culture” into TV shows vs masterfully telling stories, in what is the greatest era of television production in history. Westworld, The Watchmen, Lovecraft Country, White Lotus are all relating subtext that is commentary on the politics and society around us.

I cannot believe the guy still hasn’t deleted that tweet. It’s the stupidest thing I’ve read in a long time:

An Anti-Woke Tirade About The New ‘Alien’ Show Has Been Refuted By, Uh, The Plot Of ‘Alien’ https://uproxx.com/viral/alien-wokeism-reactions/

The notion people are looking forward to a TV series and saying “it’s just about an alien, don’t inject politics” is like cognitive dissonance super power, so I thought I would relate a couple articles about this, in case you care to understand the subtext better. Also, watch the special features and making of, it explains all this clearly… IE the reviewers or academics didn’t “make this stuff up”, they listened to the creators. There’s 250 hours of “making of” on the Anthology boxset that details all this clearly.

This was fun to write, and I just love the films more and more and more. Also, watch the documentary “Jodorowsky’s Dune”, which is where a LOT of the original film’s ideas and art comes from.

But hopefully this can be helpful to people that are somehow willfully missing the obvious.

Articles:

First, we address the baseline, that almost all science-fiction, in practice, is political by nature, embedded with endless political and social commentary. Think of the ethics of what makes a person a “human” explored in Battlestar Galactica, or the political themes in The Expanse (one of the greatest shows ever if you’ve not seen it, 6th season out late this year, or next year, then time off to represent a 35 year time gap, and they’ll 7-9).

Like the above tweet…. I’m pretty sure I’m just waking up to the idea that people think Robocop is just about good guys vs bad guys, that Starship Troopers we’re the RAH RAH good guys, and Star Trek wasn’t addressing any modern themes at the time. CRAZY.

Then you need to address Joseph Conrad’s influence on everything, and what his themes were: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24634674

This article is pretty astute:

The science fiction film, as a construction somewhat removed from everyday reality, is a privileged vehicle for the presentation of ideology. Because it is less concerned than other genres with the surface structure of social reality, science fiction can pay more attention to the deep structure of what is and what ought to be. In practice, this means that science fiction films vividly embody ideological positions, and that comparing science fiction films of the same era becomes an analysis of conflicting social visions. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Whose-Future-Star-Wars%2C-Alien%2C-and-Blade-Runner-Lev/da3f9dc30d5e6c47a46e508904c65abdac27eb23

This is the best thing I’ve read, worth the 5 minutes or so: “The Corporate Greed of “Alien” https://rhetorikos.blog.fordham.edu/?p=1372
I’m pretty deep into this film’s universe and the commentary, and holy crap I never made the relation to the food in the film… the two times the crew were happily eating, the corporation interrupts them, eventually thinking so little of them, they *become* the food.

“Ridley Scott, the film’s director, meticulously crafted the film to deliver a clear thematic message, making sure that every detail, including the film’s food, carried some significance. Behind its science fiction and horror story, Alien provides a commentary on the evils of corporate capitalism and the effects that it can have on workers. The eponymous antagonist, the Alien, serves as a symbol for the Company and corporate greed. In fact, the Alien’s rampage reflects the bourgeois destruction of the workers’ personal life in the name of profit. Beyond this extraterrestrial symbolism, Scott uses food to show how even the mundane, subtle details of the worker’s life revolve around their relationship to their employer. The food featured in the film, both traditional and unorthodox, help emphasize the parasitic relationship of the bourgeoisie towards the working class.”

 

 

“As a galactic mega-conglomerate, Weyland-Yutani epitomized the worst aspects of corporatism, corrupting the capitalist structure and turning itself into an entity with far too much political power. It had its hooks in nearly everything, but with that power came increased scrutiny, and eventually, problems”.

 

 

  • Also, sorry, another Vice, and a few about gender politics, It’s pretty clear to me, but if you missed it, all this isn’t academic on the back end. It was intentional that O’Bannon wanted to freak men out:

 

 

 

 

“Ash is under strict instructions from the faceless corporation to consider the human lives aboard the ship as disposable in favor of potential economic success. The corporation exploits its workers for profit to the point that most of them die, all in the name of profit. Once again this is an extreme reflection of the downfalls of capitalism, with the workers’ well beings overlooked in favor of money. They are also not seen as individuals in the eyes of the corporation; they are seen as a means to a financial end”.

By Uncle FishbitsCategories: futurism movies philosophy politics television Uncategorized video games