The Representation of Women in Some Like It Hot and Alien 3

The Representation of Women in Some Like It Hot and Alien 3

This essay will be about how women are and have been represented in

films in the past and how they are represented nowadays. I will be

looking at the roles and representations of women in 'Some Like It

Hot' and 'Alien 3'.

'Some Like It Hot' was made in 1958. Marilyn Monroe starts in the

comedy as Sugar Cane who is a very feminine musician. 'Alien 3' on the

other hand was made 40 years after and is a sci-fi horror. Sigourney

Weaver is the star of the film and plays the character Lt. Ripley.

Unlike Sugar Cane, Lt. Ripley is a very tough and manly character.

'Some Like It Hot' is about two musicians. They witness a massacre and

try to find a way out of the city before they are found and killed by

the mob. The only job they can find is an all girl band so the two

dress up as women. In addition to hiding, they both have their own

problems. One falls for another band member but can't tell her his

gender, and the other has a rich admirer.

'Alien 3' is about Lt. Ripley. She escapes from an alien planet but

the ship then crashes onto a remote and inhabited ore refinery. She

must stay there until she is rescued by her employers. While she is

there, she discovers that her chip crashed because of an alien

stowaway. As the alien kills off the men at the refinery, she begins

to see the true enemy.

'Some Like It Hot' stars Marilyn Monroe as Sugar Cane. Sugar Cane is a

very typical blonde and is the stereotypical image of a blonde woman.

She is represented to be very weak and helpless. It makes her seem

almost as though she has the mind of a child. She is represented as

being...

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...arless and is not squeamish in the slightest. Sugar Cane on the

other hand is a very vulnerable character. She is very dependant on

everyone else and has a mind of a child.

The fact that both these characters are very different physically and

mentally doesn't change that they are both women. It is because they

are women that makes them less of a person in both films. Sugar Cane

because she is a replica of the stereotypical image of a 'dumb

blonde', and Ellen Ripley because of the fact she is able to be a

mother.

I think that the roles of women in films have changed over the past.

The representation of them also changed over the years. However, I

believe that they are still discriminated; just in different ways. The

fact that a person is a woman is still shown to be a disadvantage when

comparing these two films.