Gayliens: Gender, Sexuality, and Wetness in the Alien Franchise

Content note: This episode's movies heavily feature themes of sexual assault, and while they are mostly figurative, we do thoroughly discuss those themes.

We're back, and we've got a QUADRUPLE FEATURE for you this time. It's Pride Month, ghouls, and we've been dying to talk about all the queer stuff in the Alien franchise. Come along with us on a journey of gender nonconformity, mommy issues, hypercapitalism, found family, and of course- penis-headed monsters. If you aren't already a Ripley 8 x Call shipper, you will be once we're done here, and you'll be pleased to know there are 91 tagged fanfics on Ao3.

P.S. The Stephen King movie whose name escaped us is Sleepwalkers (1992).

Need more Alien in your life after this? Check out Pod Mortem's episode here, and Nightmare on Fierce Street's here, here, here, and here. Find Gretchen Felker-Martin's excellent essay, "Kane's Son: Sexual Violence and Symbolism in Alien and Aliens" here. And you can read Whitney Anspach's thorough thesis "Study of Gender Representations within the Aliens Series" here.

A proud part of the Morbidly Beautiful Podcast Network. Our drive for intersectionality aligns well with the Morbidly Beautiful ethos. We love that MB is a nonprofit that gives back to the horror community, and are thrilled to be a part of the network! Show now also streaming on morbidlybeautiful.com!

Movies discussed: Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), Alien3 (1992), Alien: Resurrection (1997)

Song used during the series recap: "Hypersleep" by Jerry Goldsmith from Alien: Original Motion Picture Score

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Show music by Ariel Dyer - arieldyer.bandcamp.com

Show art by Brian Demarest: instagram.com/evilflynn