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female, because the film's very active 'power' comes from that which is rooted in femininity. She does this by investigating the 'archaic mother' - that which is 'the point of origin and of end', that which represents life and death. This 'mother' is inherently female. Creed calls the alien a 'parthenogenetic mother, the mother of primordial abyss' which relates to the fact of sexual reproduction without the need for fertilisation, and therefore without a male. In Freud's theory this would be a 'fear' for the male, and Creed argues that this therefore empowers femininity as it suggests the female is that which creates life and takes life away, without the necessity of the male. She cites several areas where Alien suggests this.

In the opening sequence the camera travels through the long corridors of the ship which Creed relates to the inner workings of the female body, before settling on a chamber where the seven astronauts are awoken. Creed discusses this room as 'womb-like', and as the astronauts awake and come out of the sleeping pods, she relates this to giving birth and the computer, called 'mother' in the film, which brings them to 'life' represents that 'the father is completely absent, here the mother is sole parent and sole-life support.' (Creed, 1992. pg. 18) Another moment when the 'archaic mother' is represented is when the three astronauts investigate the alien spaceship. Here, Creed discusses the idea that they go through a door in the ship shaped like a 'vagina' and walk through a passage that could again represent the inner body of a woman. They then enter a large room full of eggs, which represents the womb. This underlying notion of the female body and reproductive organs continually signifies the 'archaic mother' and life and death. When Kane is 'raped' by the alien 'the primeval mother does not need the male as 'father', only as a host body, and the alien creature murderously gnaws its way through Kane's body' killing him. (Creed, 1992. pg.28) This is a representation of the 'parthenogenetic mother', the one that does not need the male or father.

Creed's analysis empowers femininity by drawing on the ideas that modern horror films require an underlying context that belittles masculinity and male existence, and suggests that female representations seen by Mulvey were patriarchal defence mechanisms. 'The concept of the parthenogenetic, archaic mother adds another dimension to the maternal figure and presents us with a new way of understanding

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