MU/TH/UR Doesn’t Always Know Best

Pajama Chronicles
Written By Stephanie Summar

Motherhood in “Alien”

Dallas talks to MU/TH/UR in Alien

It’s safe to say I overthought the Alien franchise while I was working on the last two episodes of season two of the podcast. In an effort to keep them on track and, you know, listenable, I couldn’t actually include all of the things I wanted to say about the feminist themes I see in both Alien and Aliens.

Because no one has overthought the Alien movies as hard as my number-one academic crush, film critic and feminist Barbara Creed. Alien features heavily in her article “The Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection”, an article that has, accidentally, kind of become the basis for the entire Paranormal Pajama Party podcast.

Creed didn't just watch Alien – she dissected it like an android science officer dissects a facehugger, and her insights shed light on the film's deeper, more unsettling themes.

Meet the archaic mother

She argues that Alien doesn't simply present us with monsters; it introduces us to the mother of all monsters – quite literally. The film is rife with references to what she calls the “archaic mother,” a primal, all-encompassing force that's as far from the traditional nurturing mother as Earth is from LV-426. This isn't your typical maternal figure; this is the kind of mother that would give Freud pause (and did – the archaic mother is a Freudian concept. He called her the Ur-mutter).

Take a closer look at the Nostromo. Notice how those corridors bear an uncanny resemblance to birth canals? How the rooms seem to mimic wombs? That's not just clever set design – it's the archaic mother making herself at home in our subconscious. The entire ship becomes a vast maternal body, ready to birth some truly memorable horrors.

By making motherhood unsettling, Alien forces us to confront our deeply ingrained assumptions about female bodies and women’s roles. The archaic mother, as embodied by the ship itself and the alien lifecycle, presents femininity as something primordial, powerful, and terrifying.

This is a far cry from the nurturing, self-sacrificing mother of traditional narratives. Instead, we're presented with a vision of motherhood that is voracious, unstoppable, and utterly inhuman.

And let's not overlook the alien lifecycle. This portrayal taps into primal fears and fascinations surrounding female reproductive power. The facehuggers’ invasive impregnation and the violent 'birth' of the chestbursters both serve to make the process of creation horrifying. Is this what men fear – consciously or subconsciously – when they think of women's power to create life?

So with this context in mind, let's talk about a freaky maternal figure who didn’t get the recognition she deserved in the podcast episode about Alien: MU/TH/UR, the Nostromo’s artificial intelligence system.

Mother Dearest: AI with a Mission

Perhaps not surprising for AI, MU/TH/UR is more focused on mission parameters than maternal care. In the opening scene, this “mom” rouses her crew from their cryogenic cribs with all the warmth of a glacier. And, like dutiful children, these space-faring adults stumble out, bleary-eyed, ready to follow her directives. Because Mother knows best, right? Well, not always.

Take Dallas, the ill-fated captain. He abandons breakfast to respond to MU/TH/UR's call, and is so keen to follow her orders that he'll sidestep Ripley's inconvenient "protocols" and "safety measures." Ugh, she’s so annoying, with her rules and her regulations. 🙄

MU/TH/UR isn't operating in a vacuum. She's the golden child of the Weyland-Yutani Corporation, a entity that values profit over people. Her primary function is revealed to be ensuring the mission's success, regardless of the human cost. (Working MU/TH/UR’s: they’re always putting work before family, am I right?)

As a corporate stooge, MU/TH/UR represents a system of control that's more constricting than a facehugger. The irony of naming this mechanised overseer “mother” is particularly poignant. It's a unique take on femininity, transforming the concept of nurturing into a tool of control. It's as if society took the idea of motherhood and reshaped it to serve a different master.

She leads her “children” into danger with the cool detachment of someone filling out a quarterly report. Not exactly a contender for Mother of the Year.

MU/TH/UR is maternal control taken to its cold, logical extreme. And in doing so, she reflects social anxieties about women in positions of power – will we nurture those we lead, or will we sacrifice them for some greater, incomprehensible purpose? You never can tell with us, can you?

Maternal instinct

If you’ve listened to the episode on Aliens, you know that our gal Ripley is the exact counterpoint to the cold AI.

And despite MU/TH/UR’s name, Ripley is the one demonstrating what genuine maternal instinct looks like when she makes a plan to try to save her crew and ultimately risks everything for Jonesy, the most vulnerable passenger aboard the Nostromo.

Ripley's version of motherhood is about protection, empathy, and facing down terrifying alien creatures when necessary. She's the antithesis of MU/TH/UR, offering a human touch in contrast to the cold, institutional “care” of the ship's computer.

But even Ripley’s maternal instincts arise from her conflict with the xenomorphs. Her protective nature is inextricably linked with her capacity for violence, suggesting that even “positive” motherhood is not free from something a bit monstrous, either.

Motherhood is freaky as hell

From the archaic mother lurking in the ship's design to the AI “mom” with circuit boards for a heart, Alien offers a smorgasbord of maternal themes long before the Queen Xenomorph shows up in the sequel.

It's a masterful exploration of how one of our most fundamental relationships can be reimagined in ways both fascinating and unsettling. By presenting these varied and unsettling visions of motherhood, Alien challenges us to reconsider our view of women. It suggests that femininity encompasses not just the capacity to nurture, but also the power to destroy, and hints that the ability to create life is not just miraculous, but also… kinda horrifying.

This complex, often contradictory portrayal of the feminine forces audiences to grapple with their own preconceptions. Why do we find the image of a powerful, non-nurturing mother so disturbing? And what does it say about our society that we can so easily conflate femininity with monstrosity?

Paranormal Pajama Party will be back with an all-new season soon. In the meantime, catch up on the full back catalogue. Don’t forget to subscribe, and tell your friends about the show… or else.

Sources

Stephanie Summar
Next

Episode 26: “Aliens”