tures is that their monsters turn out to be not so foreign after all,but rather poorly disguised surrogates of our rage against women and immigrants. You'd think RushLimbaugh had written the scripts. In the "Alien" trilogy Sigourney Weaver finds herself battling againsta matriarchal colony of insect-like beasts, whose eggs she is always destroying. Indeed, in the secondfilm "Aliens," Weaver's major confrontation is with the queen bee of this monstrous breed, while theadvertisements for "Alien 3" excitedly proclaims that "The Bitch is Back!" Likewise, Marina Warner points out that the dinosaurs in "Jurassic Park" are dangerous femaleswho outflank their keepers by figuring out how to propagate without males. In "Species" the alien is aJackie the Ripper from outer space, a praying mantis who is looking for a good mate. The mostdangerous monster in the universe, according to these films, is a woman having a child withoutpermission. It's hard to miss the underlying rage against welfare moms and pregnant teens in thesemovies. Meanwhile, in "Predator," Arnold Schwarzenegger faces off against a murderous extraterrestrialwho inhabits the jungles of Central America, and when Danny Glover confronts the alien'sreplacement in "Predator 2," the monster has decided to visit Los Angeles, of all places. One wondersjust which aliens these movies are talking about. In a time when so much political rage is directed atillegal aliens, it can't be all that surprising that films like "Independence Day" would be such a hit. Finally, there is the little matter of the bomb, or bombs. Explosives are, by far and away, the mostpopular special effect in these video-arcade movies. It would be impossible to imagine acontemporary action film or creature feature that isn't littered with the detritus of demolitions,preferably nuclear. Not only do these toys give us the biggest bang for the buck, they are also theperfect tool for obliterating an enemy for...
