Clockwise from top left: Alien, Born in Flames, Wonder Women!, Teknolust
a signii cant part in its mainstream manifestations. Think of all those underdressed alien abductees and stacked spacewomen from 1950s and 60s B-movies, or the various bikini-clad lifeforms who had their strange new worlds explored by Captain James T Kirk. But the serious side of sci-i – or ‘speculative i ction’, as some prefer to call it – has also dealt signii cantly with sexuality, gender identity, gender relationships and parenthood; and some of its most important creators have been female, arguably starting with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in 1818. Ursula K Le Guin’s 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness, Marge Piercy’s Woman on the Edge of Time (1976) and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) are among the most famous and groundbreaking examples of ‘feminist’ science-i ction. Those works used future worlds as the basis for exploration of how gender roles, sex and reproduction interact with power. Male icons of sci-i literature such as Brian Aldiss, Ray Bradbury and Philip K Dick, worked through sexual fantasies and sexual fears alike in their i ction.
Similar patterns can be found in the canon of science i ction i lms, where sex kittens, future matriarchs and post-gender warriors co-exist. The Teknowomen season emphasises the centrality of women to the genre by kicking off with Fritz Lang’s Women in the Moon (1929), arguably the
i rst sci-i feature, and one with a very empowered heroine indeed. Then there’s Alien (1979), whose frontwoman, Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley, is either a feminist icon or an emblem of problematic and provocative feminine qualities, depending on your position; what’s sure is that she’s one of the genre’s most enduring and memorable heroines. More explicitly feminist is Lizzie Borden’s dystopian sex and race allegory, Born in Flames (1983). Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Teknolust (2002), starring Tilda Swinton, explores sex and reproduction in an age when both can be technologically manipulated, while the fun documentary Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines looks at the concept of on-screen heroic females. Each i lm will be followed by a discussion: I’ll be part of the Alien one, along with the novelist Kirsty Logan and feminist studies Professor Karen Boyle. Opinions from all reaches of the solar system will be welcome, though death threats are positively discouraged.
Teknowomen, Glasgow Film Theatre and Glasgow Women’s Library, Sun 23 Nov–Sat 6 Dec. Hannah McGill, Prof Karen Boyle and Kirsty Logan will lead a post-screening discussion following Alien on Sat 6 Dec. For more details, see scii inscotland.com
13 Nov–11 Dec 2014 THE LIST 19