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and he is killed. So the idealised image, based on Lacan's theory, is with the female and not the male. This therefore suggests that contrary to classical Hollywood cinema (Mulvey's main focus was pre-1960), modern horror films, such as Alien, offer both visual and narcissistic pleasure based primarily on the female character rather than the male character.

Mulvey also argues that in Classical Hollywood narrative the concept of the 'woman' is an idea which is fundamentally ambiguous in that 'it combines attraction and seduction with the evocation of castration anxiety'. (Mulvey, 1975/1989, pg 354) This idea, based firmly in Freudian theory, sees the female character being a source of much deeper fears for the male due to her appearance reminding him of the lack of a penis, hence castration anxiety. She argues that this is solved both in the narrative and in what she terms 'fetishism'. In the narrative Mulvey cites Hitchcock's films as prime examples, notably Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958) and Rebecca (Hitchcock, 1940) where the woman is punished for creating the fear of castration for the male, and her guilt is either sealed through that punishment or there occurs a salvation. Two typical endings would include death (punishment) or marriage to the main male protagonist (salvation). Alien defies this as the woman is not punished or saved, as she saves herself without male assistance. Her salvation is brought about by her own doing, and it could be argued that both elements of the film that could have brought her death are asexual, or as Barbara Creed would claim, they are the 'monstrous feminine'. The alien is unspecific in gender by appearance, and Ripley must fight a computer going by the name of 'mother', that suggests she is actually battling another female. Mulvey goes onto argue that through 'fetishism' the woman deflects attention away from castration anxiety by changing 'from a dangerous figure into a reassuring object of flawless beauty.' (Mulvey, 9175/1989, pg 354) Yet both female characters in Alien are presented as dishevelled and tired throughout. Their astronaut's uniforms don't display their female figure, and their lack of make-up positions them further from what Mulvey says is 'flawless beauty'. Therefore Alien acts almost as a pro-feminist film because it defies many of the very characteristics that Mulvey claims make classic Hollywood cinema anti-'woman'.

Yet, even more so, because castration anxiety is not lost in the film, and as Barbara Creed

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