Reproductive and sexual imagery abound in Alien. Seriously, it's everywhere, like the darkest, grimmest sex-ed class ever. So before we get into whys of this imagery, let's list some examples found in the film. We're putting emphasis on the some in that sentence as there are plenty more examples to be had and likely several that we missed.

Freudian Field Trip

Let's start with eggs. Eggs have represented new life since ancient times and are associated with spring, which is in turn associated with reproduction. Brain snack: pagan traditions celebrating spring used the egg as a symbol, giving us today's Easter eggs (source).

While the alien egg certainly lacks the colorful pizzazz and cute stickers of an Easter egg, it no less represents reproduction and new life. Sure, it's the type of life you once dreaded might live under your bed but life nonetheless. What's more, the tube-shaped room where the alien eggs are stored is shaped from walls and tunnels that look as though they were made of flesh and bone rather than metal, suggesting the room is the ovaries of the ship.

But it isn't just the alien ship that contains imagery of eggs. The hypersleep pods are oval-shaped, and the scene where the crew wakes up is all about birth and resurrection. Just listen to that lilting musical cue; is that fluttering sound all about spring or what? The room where the crew interfaces with Mother is also shaped like a mechanical egg/womb. Even the name "Mother" hints at new life, since reproduction is kind of a prerequisite for that title.

Then there is the alien. Its expulsion from Kane's chest is absolutely a birth scene, albeit a bloody, grimy, epidural-free birth scene. The alien's second mouth within its mouth is a phallic symbol. As Sigmund Freud once said, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but that alien mouth is a phallic symbol if I ever saw one."

Er, something like that anyway.

Now that we think about it, most of the alien's qualities are designed to look phallic. Its head has a certain erect and elongated quality to it, and it uses its tail to kill Lambert in a horrific death scene suggesting rape.

The Birds and the Alien

But what does it all mean?

Creator and script writer Dan O'Bannon said the purpose of the imagery was to turn the tables on male viewers. He wanted them to squirm and cross their legs—an act Ximena Gallardo notes is "a gesture of protecting the penis and testicles that, in turn, points to the Alien assault as castration" (source). The guys aren't playing savior to damsels in distress here. Instead, this alien attacks manhood directly, making it fitting that it would ultimately be defeated by Ripley, the strong female protagonist.

Barbara Creed reads the imagery as imbuing "the archaic mother, the reproductive/generative mother," one who "haunts the mise-en-scene of the film's first section, with its emphasis on different representations of the primal scene" (source). In her view, men fear the alien not necessarily because it directly attacks their manhood but because it is different (read: "alien") than maleness, therefore threatening to male dominance.

Still others have the opposite reading. Maybe, rather than representing male fears, the alien represents fear of the male. Adam Roberts wrote that alien is "an aggressive male, attacking and killing, penetrating its victims in a violent coding of rape with a monstrous toothed phallus that protrudes from its mouth. This same 'male' also impregnates some of its victims, placing a baby alien in their bellies" (source).

Of course, none of the readings we paraphrased above are mutually exclusive. They could all be mixed and matched depending on the imagery you choose to focus on. Do you focus on the phallic alien design? The alien ship's association with female-body imagery? The birth scene?

Ultimately, we'll have to leave you with this question, dear Shmooper: What do you think? Do you agree with one of the readings we mentioned above or do you have your own idea?