Grimm Pictures by Walter Rankin

Author:Walter Rankin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2013-11-06T00:00:00+00:00

CONFRONTING THE ROYAL RIVAL

Having proven herself the true princess, Cinderella wins the heart of the prince, humiliating and infuriating her stepmother and stepsisters. The protective pigeons land on Cinderella’s shoulders and continue to guard her, even on her wedding day when the stepsisters arrive “to ingratiate themselves and to share in [her] good fortune” (p. 84). As punishment for “their wickedness and malice [emphasis added],” the stepsisters have their eyes pecked out by the pigeons, and they must live the rest of their lives in blindness. Thus, by the tale’s conclusion, the stepmother has lost all hope of continuing her bloodline through her daughters, both of whom are blind and deformed due to their earlier self-mutilation.

The conclusion of “Cinderella” ties strikingly to Shelley’s Frankenstein, which in turn ties even more strikingly to the conclusion of Aliens. Shelley’s monster confronts its creator and demands that Frankenstein make a similarly horrific mate. The fearful Frankenstein reluctantly agrees, but he fears that “a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth, who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror” (204). Thus, he destroys the potential mother, tearing it to pieces, and promising the monster in words that mirror those said of the stepsisters, “[N]ever will I create another like yourself, equal in deformity and wickedness [emphasis added]” (p. 206). In both “Cinderella” and Frankenstein, the competing bloodline is ultimately stopped by a powerful, watchful creator.7

Although she is not seen until the film’s conclusion, the alien queen is more than an impressive, expressive monster. In an interview about the making of Aliens, Cameron is careful to explain that she should be thought of “as a character, rather than as a thing or an animal” (Goldberg, et. al., p. 10). Like Cinderella’s stepmother, she is clearly present, but her offspring tend to create the most obvious danger. And as with both the stepmother and Frankenstein, we cannot determine a paternal relationship regarding their offspring. We do not know anything about the stepdaughters’ father, and we know that Frankenstein can “give birth” without following the laws of human reproduction. Likewise, we do not know what—if anything—impregnated the alien queen. She stands as a solitary, powerful mother. Earlier in the film, the marines try to determine what could be laying the eggs for these creatures, and Hudson (Bill Paxton) correctly predicts, “There’s like one female that runs the whole show.... Yeah, the mama. She’s badass, man. I mean big.” Indeed, she is. After Ripley rescues Newt, she ends up running directly into the queen’s birthing chamber where both she and the audience first view the queen. As Ripley looks up, the queen has laid another egg. Ripley’s eyes follow a filled, glowing egg sack up to the angry queen. She slowly raises her head and faces Ripley. Her black skull has the shape of a royal cowl, and she has a smaller set of mandibles that can jut forward beyond her primary razor-sharp teeth. She hisses a royal command, calling two of her offspring from the shadows.

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