SOURCE: Greenberg, Harvey R. “Reimagining the Gargoyle: Psychoanalytic Notes on Alien.” Camera Obscura, no. 15 (fall 1986): 86-109.

In the following essay, Greenberg discusses the qualities of the central monster in Alien, rating it among the most frightening in film history, and examines the significance of the monster as a symbol of “capitalism's depredations.”

I admire its purity … a survivor, unclouded by conscience, remorse or delusions of morality. …

Ash, Science Officer, the Nostromo

If Hair proclaimed the Age of Aquarius, Close Encounters of the Third Kind surely celebrated its last gasp. According to Steven Spielberg's vision, our troubles would be resolved by Aquarian consciousness-raising sessions conducted by relentlessly benevolent extraterrestrials. But then a stretto of disasters put paid to the aspirations of Woodstock Nation. Three Mile Island, the plunging dollar, the spectacle of the American imperium held hostage by shabby ideologues—these and sundry other narcissistic injuries refurbished our pessimism...